Just read Jon Trickett’s piece in the Guardian today telling us that Ed Miliband is his choice to lead Labour. Ed’s brother is too much of a Blairite.

My old friend Jon knows a thing or two about leaders having observed Broon at close quarters for a couple of years as his PPS.

For myself, I think we make way too much of leaders. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.

Yet so often we are dazzled by them. Or, worse still, we lionise them.

It seems to me that if they turn out to be less than they promise we should be able to get rid of them and move on.

Easier said than done.

So, even before the ballot papers go out for the leadership election I find myself thinking, rather prematurely, about how to dispense with their services when they are no longer required.

Once they are in the job you need a crowbar to get them out.

Term limits could be the answer but that would be a very radical step. (Although the Speaker has pledged he will only serve two full terms.)

After Broon’s short honeymoon, the mutterings of discontent began. He was struggling to be the kind of person he isn’t. And it showed. He promised the PLP a number of times that he would change. He would involve people and consult more. He never did.

Next month the PLP votes on revisions to its Standing Orders.

Instead of being led by the nose into giving up what little influence they have, Labour MPs should be demanding more responsibility and a greater say in the direction of the Party. And they should be pressing for real checks and balances on the leader’s powers.

Two years ago, when the writing was on the wall, I told my constituency party that Labour’s internal democracy had completely rusted up and that change was needed.

After the suffocating control freakery of the Blair Broon years, it feels liberating to be getting a new leader and that’s good.

But let’s not pin all our hopes on one person.

Even if he turns out to be Ed.

Attachments:

The Labour Leadership.pdf

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