According to a local Labour source this fundraising event was only planned after Stockport’s former Labour MP defected to TIG last week. Owen’s from Stockport so rumours are that he is using this to help him get the nomination are circulating. Owen used to disclaim an ambition to become an MP “I’ve been asked to stand time and time again but I’ve said no.” More recently he has become less disinclined “There might come a time when I think, well actually getting elected as an MP, that’s a better way of doing it, fight for your beliefs, but to be honest with you, I wouldn’t end up as a minister, I’d end up as a back-bencher lobbying for things I believe in. I wouldn’t toe a party line because I get too frustrated, I’d want to stand up for my beliefs whatever I did. As long as I can do that, I’m happy you know.” Could it be that the grandson of a communist and son of Trotskyists could now find a home in Corbyn’s ideologically purified parliamentary Labour Party?

Stockport is a Labour safe-seat, the party won 63.3% of the vote at the last election. Owen has been tweeting about how “I shoved leaflets through doors to support Stockport’s MP Ann Coffey when I was 8. Now she’s abandoned her party – and with local elections coming up – Stockport Labour need support and solidarity.” They also need a candidate. Even if Ann Coffey stood again for TIG and split the vote in half, Labour would still beat the second placed Tories. That has got to be tempting for a local boy who openly says he is now bored of journalism…

UPDATE 28 February, 2019: Owen says the local source is wrong, that the event was planned before Ann Coffey defected and he is definitely ruling himself out of standing for the seat. How disappointing for the locals…