Labour’s Wakefield candidate Simon Lightwood has hit the ground running for the by-election campaign, knocking on doors and introducing himself to local residents. Lots of work to be done…
Great to be out today speaking with local residents and introducing myself as their Labour candidate.
— Simon Lightwood MP (@simonlightwood) May 16, 2022
I’ve lived, worked, studied, bought my first house, and even met my husband in Wakefield.
I love our area. It deserves the best and I'll fight each day to deliver for it. pic.twitter.com/Hza0C6OJaI
He’ll have to knock on quite a few doors though. While Lightwood is busy telling everyone he’s homegrown talent – making sure Guardian readers know “he’s lived and worked in the city for 10 years” – most of the people who greet him at the doorstep will have no idea who he is, at least if his social media posts are accurate. According to his own tweets, Lightwood has lived in the sleepy constituency of Calder Valley since at least 2014 – one of the four constituencies in which he’s unsuccessfully sought the Labour nomination over the last ten years…
In September 2014, Lightwood moaned about receiving “Tory drivel” from the Halifax constituency despite, in his own words, “liv[ing] in Calder Valley”. Even joking that someone should “sit [the Tory candidate] down with a map”…
Received more @allott4halifax Tory drivel today, even though I live in Calder Valley constituency. Can someone sit him down with a map?
— Simon Lightwood MP (@simonlightwood) September 30, 2014
Years later in October 2020, Lightwood congratulated Susan Hinchcliffe for winning the West Yorkshire mayoral endorsement from “his” CLP of… Calder Valley. Of course, Hinchcliffe ultimately missed out…
Really pleased that my CLP in Calder Valley nominated @SHinchcliffe to be our West Yorkshire Mayor. #Susan4WYorksMayor #CalderValley pic.twitter.com/znQ5z7IHLq
— Simon Lightwood MP (@simonlightwood) October 28, 2020
Given the fallout from Southside’s candidate selection stitch-up, which saw the entire Wakefield CLP executive resign after their local candidates were pushed out, it’s no wonder he’s now trying to shore up his local credentials. No doubt he had to do the same for Bradford, Loughborough, Scarborough and Whitney…
Following yet another rank-and-file enraging candidate selection stitch-up, Labour have finally parachuted in the man of the hour for the people of Wakefield: former staffer to ex-MP Mary Creagh, Simon Lightwood. With Imran Ahmad Khan resigning from the Red Wall seat earlier this month, Wakefield’s constituency Labour party hoped to fill the spot with a local figure – preferably a darling from the left. Jack Hemingway, the Corbynite deputy leader of Wakefield council, seemed like a great fit. LOTO had other plans.
In the final hustings yesterday afternoon, the entire local executive committee stormed out in protest after Southside waded in to force a shortlist of two candidates, neither of whom lives in the constituency, and neither of whom was the preference of the CLP. Every single member of the executive resigned claiming an “unfair and anti-democratic selection process imposed on Wakefield CLP members”… although some reportedly had second thoughts, with one claiming they’d been “bullied into” a walk-out by more belligerent comrades and apologising as they walked out. Unity is strength et cetera…
Lightwood eventually won with just 132 members present at the hustings, or 23% of the local membership. Lightwood himself fits the Starmerite mould: a Remainer from the soft left who hopefully won’t cause any grief for Southside. He’s also been trying to get on the ballot for over ten years. First he was interviewed for shortlisting in Loughborough in 2011, with no luck. Then a year later he gave it a go in Bradford, only to fall short again. For round 3 he tried Scarborough and Whitby, and still got turned down. Now he’s finally hit the jackpot, albeit in a seat which voted 66% for Leave, and swung blue with 43.7% of the vote in 2019…
A Labour insider pushed back against the CLP’s botched walk-out last night, claiming the local executive is “obsess[ed] with internal machinations and niche political issues” and the party is now “setting a high bar for our candidates“. A bar Lightwood failed to meet three times before…
UPDATE: It turns out this isn’t Lightwood’s fourth attempt to get elected, after all. It’s his fifth.
You would think Labour have learnt the lesson about by-election candidate stitch-ups after the roaring success of Dr Paul Williams in Hartlepool – alas not. Now it’s the turn of Wakefield, where the local party’s executive committee has just resigned en masse following Southside’s decision to block a Corbynite candidate, Jack Hemingway, from standing, and draw up a shortlist of two candidate options, neither of whom is from or lives in Wakefield. Starmer continuing with his recent run of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory…
This morning Labour List revealed the party’s North West regional director had accused Labour of breaching their own rules with the stitch-up.
Every member of the constituency Labour Party executive voted to quit in the last few hours, in protest at the selection farce. One said it’s “Safe to say that local members feel completely let down that the rule book has not been followed and we have not been given the opportunity to select our candidate”
“The Labour Party haven’t learnt and they’re not listening. The rule book has just been through the window and I’m furious. People are hitting the ceiling about it.
“That’s everyone gone. Imagine the party will have to come in. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“There is immense anger among the local membership at what they perceive as a stitch-up.”
The issue is angering the left immensely for two reasons; when he was running for leader Keir promised these kind of shenanigans would end and they wanted a left-wing candidate:
The selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 4, 2020
The local executive’s full statement can be read here. Labour never passes up an opportunity to focus on process, rules and internal factional infighting over the actual job at hand…
Porn-loving MP Neil Parish has told the Telegraph that he may try making a comeback in his own replacement by-election. Speaking to Chopper he says his main reason against doing so would be forcing his friends in the local party to pick a side, though he’d have no problem raising the money thanks to his “powerful backers within the farming community”. As powerful as a Claas Dominator 76 combine harvester?
Parish said if he did decide to stand it’d be as a “genuine independent”, though he does admit this decision would be largely driven by no other parties wanting him as their candidate. He’s going to take “local soundings” before making a decision. Ever the optimist, Neil says the current “horrible situation” has “hugely stimulated my brain”. It’s nice for his actual head to be throbbing with stimulation for once…
Neil Parish has told the BBC he’s quitting after being accused of watching porn on two occasions while performing his MP duties in Parliament. With bizarre detail he claims “the first time was accidental after looking at tractors, but the second time was deliberate”.
24,239 majority in his seat of Tiverton and Honiton. If this by-election ends up being remotely interesting, the Tories are in deep trouble…
Labour’s democracy-ambivalent candidate, Paulette Hamilton, won the Birmingham Erdington by-election overnight, albeit with only a slight increase in the Labour vote and on a tiny turnout. Just 27% turned out to voted, 55% of whom backed Labour – an increase of 5.2% on 2019. The Tories fell by 3.8% – a swing to Starmer of 4.5%.
