Cycling UK Forum

I nearly missed this story about Tristram Hunt resigning his seat to take a better opportuned job at the V&A, didnt think twice about it until I saw this Guardian article. seems like what Hunt has done is very unusual indeed. Good riddens it seems, what do you expect from some one with an arty farty name like "Tristram"?


"But to wait until you have a better job offer is odd – and when I say “odd”, I mean as close as we get, without having a constitution, to being unconstitutional. This effectively takes membership of parliament as just another job, dispensable upon receipt of a better offer, a contract no deeper than its terms and conditions, a waypoint on a career to which it will hopefully prove beneficial."

"Try running a campaign with the top line, “I will fight for my constituents while there’s breath in my body, or until I get some number with better pay and less hassle, whichever is the sooner.” "


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/15/mps-tristram-hunt-quit-better-job-careerism?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=208612&subid=7646217&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Maybe the CTC could tempt Mr Grayling out of parliament with a well-paid advisory role. Often people from outside who do not know the business can offer good insights, better than we who are too close to see properly.

mercalia wrote:I nearly missed this story about Tristram Hunt resigning his seat to take a better opportuned job at the V&A, didnt think twice about it until I saw this Guardian article. seems like what Hunt has done is very unusual indeed. Good riddens it seems, what do you expect from some one with a name like arty farty name like "Tristram"?


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/15/mps-tristram-hunt-quit-better-job-careerism?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=208612&subid=7646217&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

Tristram is a perfectly good name, I imagine he did not choose it himself.

Mind, I was a bit shocked when a Justin became head of the Anglican communion.

The battle had been lost in his party. He is the occupant of a marginal seat. He is a distinguished Victorian scholar. The job of jobs comes up. He takes it. What's to debate?

What a shock it must have been for him to find himself in a socialist party.
The people of stoke deserve better, I hope they get it.

Socialism used to be a broader church IIRC

It used to be, then it was absent for a while, now it's back to being a broad church.

Nah, not biting

It happens regularly. Even people called David do it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... as-MP.html

Better an MP leaves than keeps the seat, salary, and perks but more or less stops voting.

It was no secret he was not a Corbyn fanatic and the Corbyn fanatics knew that and there is this thing that is bound to be happening (or being pushed for) called "re-selection". Add to that a marginal seat with significant elements of his own party fighting against him as well as other candidates ...

So he had a choice to either fight Corbyn/fight the Conservatives/fight the Lib Dems/etc. or stand down and best time to stand down is when you have a good job offer to go to. I guess some MPs support the general aims of their party and when you get a leader who is splitting the party, arguing your own view could do further damage to the party you believe in so you could end-up in a Catch-22 situation.

So, in his position I guess I would probably make the same choice.

And I can't see what relevance his christian name has to what he has done!

Ian

Always more art orientated than politics.... his interview with Charles Moore about his Thatcher book was interesting .... A man not comfortable with Stoke to be sure ...... Happier at Hay-on Wye I'm sure .... good for him .... top chap...
I'm sure he will be missed in Narnia ....

Best thing he could do IMHO. He's in a constituency where there's going to be boundary changes which will remove one constituency from the wider area IIRC. This means 3 Labour candidates fighting for 2 seats.

He's an outspoken MP in his criticism of Corbyn. He's been a good communicator of the centre left section of Labour. That's made him a target for momentum. It's no secret that he'd be targeted if they went for the reselection process. Although with the anticipated boundary changes he's in a constituency where he could be removed by Corbyn cronies without the whiff of a dodgy reselection process.

So with that in mind, what has he really done? He's jumped before being pushed. Fair play to him. It must be intolerable for your bosses to implicitly support you being forced out of your job. In the private sector you'd possibly end up in a tribunal but not politics. Plus he'll not be claiming a golden parachute like other kicked out MPs.

Of course for leftie Corbynista types it could just be sour grapes that it's not you who've forced him out but he's gone to a better place (for him).

Tangled Metal wrote:Best thing he could do IMHO. He's in a constituency where there's going to be boundary changes which will remove one constituency from the wider area IIRC. This means 3 Labour candidates fighting for 2 seats.

He's an outspoken MP in his criticism of Corbyn. He's been a good communicator of the centre left section of Labour. That's made him a target for momentum. It's no secret that he'd be targeted if they went for the reselection process. Although with the anticipated boundary changes he's in a constituency where he could be removed by Corbyn cronies without the whiff of a dodgy reselection process.

So with that in mind, what has he really done? He's jumped before being pushed. Fair play to him. It must be intolerable for your bosses to implicitly support you being forced out of your job. In the private sector you'd possibly end up in a tribunal but not politics. Plus he'll not be claiming a golden parachute like other kicked out MPs.

Of course for leftie Corbynista types it could just be sour grapes that it's not you who've forced him out but he's gone to a better place (for him).

In doing so he’ll cost the taxpayer around £130,000, money that could be better spent in Stoke. Whatever his political leanings, he was elected as a representative of the people and has failed to do that. His bosses are and should always have been his constituents as such he was always free to leave the Labour Party and remain an MP. That you see him as centre left shows how far to the right British politics have moved, he’d have been more at home in an old one nation Conservative Party than in any Labour Party before the New. Momentum is a centre left movement, the policies it promotes fit in well with those of centre left parties throughout the world. Disagree with that? Lets see some real examples rather than scaremongering.. You talk of reselection as a bad thing, why shouldn’t a party choose it’s candidates? The Labour party would do so in a far more democratic way than the Tories ever have. You talk of leftie Corbynista types, they’re otherwise known as the membership as they’ve clearly and democratically demonstrated twice.

Not too far from me is Copeland. They've got a byelection coming up too. Selection of the candidate is going to happen soon. All talk is of the momentum and unite supported activist who has been pushed as the Labour candidate of choice by the central Labour party. The local Labour party has been expressing concern over this but it is expected that the local party will have no choice in this. Imposed by head office if you like.

Corbynista candidates don't have tee support of local members everywhere but are still going to get the nod over local's opinions. Still with luck that will backfire due to 2500 majority and the very strong nuclear power support in Copeland. Corbyn is against nuclear power but Copeland, in the majority, is for it and indeed supports a new station being built nearby.

Personally Corbyn's views are left-wing not centre left. That is my opinion. Whether you look at the trident position or nuclear power. It a whole lot of other views. It's not centre left IMHO.

The Stoke by-election should be interesting. Labour won with UKIP a not too distant second last time (correct?) and both parties have had their troubles since. Some question whether UKIP has a point after the Brexit vote. But some see UKIP as a possible replacement for Labour. I'd expect support for both to fall, but I could easily be wrong. I wonder if the real victor will be apathy and disenchantment.

I expect Labour to flat line right up to the next General Election, lose very badly and then possibly get rid of Corbyn and replace him with something just as unlikely to succeed. Because by then there will be few middle ground Labour Party members left. Westminster politics has gone the way of Scottish football, with one team super-dominant and the traditional opposition in the wilderness.