Grantham and Stamford go Labour - 6 comments

Quentin Davies MP's defection to Labour is a great publicity coup for what we should now be calling the new Brown/Harman team. If they can continue to appear fresh, dynamic, cunning, and also lucky, then the sooner the vacuous Cameron effect will be neutralised, and perhaps the sooner the media will convince us that policy differences are worth the public's while again.

But amidst the celebrations on our side, not all bloggers are sure the new recruit is worthy of our wholehearted support. Owen at Labour's Fightback is quite right to remind us that Davies is not a social liberal in the manner we have come to expect of Labour MPs since the elimination of the old Right in the 1970s and 80s (Tory Alan Duncan says so much himself). Davies' record on homosexual rights can be seen here - green (on the right-hand side) is good, and there isn't any. And yet he would not be alone amongst Labour MPs, so it would hardly be consistent to disbar him and not others, who have a mandate both from the electorate and their own party members.

Davies is unlikely to change his views at this stage in his life/career, and can't live down a lifetime of opposition to the reasonable left; as his switching party neither helps nor harms the social liberal consensus, it can only really be enjoyed for its pretty devastating criticism of the Cameronite Conservative party, extracts of which can be found here, here, and everywhere else beside. There's very little to disagree with, apart perhaps from the tone. Sure, there's some evidence that the Tories were making progress, but thinking back to last year, when I feared they might make a pitch that could sweep up wavering Blairites en masse, I can't help but feel now that the strategy has completely failed. The battered red squares hold; the slowed, demoralised, blue cavalry forced to skirt around the edges.

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I'm curious: do MPs switching to Labour face mandatory re-selection for the next General Election? I don't know. There must be a tremendously strong case for having such a rule if it doesn't already exist.