A crunch decision

I was a bit surprised the other day to receive an email inviting me to cast my vote in the Labour Party’s deputy leadership contest, bearing in mind that I had resigned my membership over a year ago. It eventually dawned on me that as a member of an affiliated trade union, I still had a say. What to do? Which of the two candidates, who were both cabinet ministers throughout Starmer’s first year in government is the stand out carrier of a left-wing flame? It seems Lucy Powell is the deputy leader Starmer doesn’t want, so I’ll probably vote for her, if I vote at all. Really, there’s so little between them but with a week to go the knives are coming out and the fight over small differences could be revealing.

Meanwhile I’m working my way through Head North, the political testimony of northern mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham. So far I have learnt that only 50 people (positions and names not named) run the country; the Treasury’s ’Green Book’ as a matter of policy disadvantages the North through  its Cost Benefit Analysis of where public money produces the greatest returns and last but not least ’Westminster,’ that thoroughly dysfunctional English portmanteau of sins is to blame in good part for everything. I’m moving into the second part of the book which is about solutions. A ten-point plan, in fact. All will be revealed.