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BY ALL accounts, Georgia Gould is bright, determined and personable. She cannot help it that her dad, Lord Gould, also fathered New Labour. It seems clear, too, that she has been the target of a Damian McBride-style briefing campaign.
But at 22, with no connection to the constituency she seeks to represent, no experience of public office, no party office outside student politics that I can trace, and little previous employment of any kind, Ms Gould is quite preposterously unqualified to be the next MP for Erith and Thamesmead.
The tale of how she has nonetheless emerged, over councillors and a former minister, as the apparent frontrunner for the Labour candidacy in this outer-London Labour seat is being taken as another sign of the party's moral decay. It is, but it symbolises something even more damaging - sheer political ineptitude, both Gould's and Labour's.
Gould has reportedly enlisted a professional PR company. Her campaign materials have been glossy, abundant and sumptuous. Alastair Campbell and Tessa Jowell have been lobbying on her behalf.
Even for an ordinary candidate, such overkill would be ill-advised. For the daughter of a New Labour peer and millionaire publisher, it is worse. Campbell, moreover, is toxic; nobody with any political nous would touch him.
Because even if Gould gets the candidacy, there's the small matter of the actual election to follow. Local Tories are sure to make an issue of how she was selected. The press calls Erith and Thamesmead a "safe Labour seat". But very few seats are safe for Labour any more, and this one certainly isn't.
Last year, Boris Johnson won 9,994 votes in Erith and Thamesmead. Ken Livingstone won 7,846. Parliamentary elections are different from local, of course - but this is precisely the kind of seat that symbolises Labour's deep, growing and fatal alienation of its former support base.
E&T is largely white working class (though with an ethnic-minority presence in Thamesmead). And perhaps London's key recent political trend is the mass stampede of the white working class from Labour to the Tories.
I visited Alastair Campbell's own ward, Gospel Oak in Camden, in the 2006 council elections. It's substantially council estates (not Alastair's bit, obviously). The Tory candidate lived on one of them; Labour fielded a lawyer. The Tories took the estates, Gospel Oak, other working-class wards, and the council.
Last year, Ken Livingstone supporters sneeringly blamed the suburbs for his defeat. But in 2004, Ken strongly won the suburbs: 10 of the 18 outer-London boroughs (including Croydon, Merton and Redbridge, very nearly even Enfield and Harrow), 208 of the 364 outer-London wards.
By 2008, that support had collapsed: Boris took 14 of the 18 outer boroughs, a majority of wards even in places such as Barking, and City Hall. The white working class had come to believe that Labour did not like them, was not interested in them and that Ken, especially, saw them as no more than another minority in London's great ethnic patchwork. In fact, they are still the majority. And at least in registered electors, London is more like the rest of England than Ken's metropolitan Lefty fan club believed.
That's partly why cunning old Boris is celebrating St George's Day this week (yes, Ken did, too, but in a lower-key, just-another-minority way). It's got a big response from Londoners, of all skin colours, because they are mostly English - and so is London.
To keep power, Labour must reconnect with the white working class. That's the real reason why choosing someone metropolitan, privileged, and undeserving, via a slick campaign by lobbyists, would be bad politics over an area far wider than Erith and Thamesmead.
What's eating Wossy now?
WHAT the hell is happening with Jonathan Ross? On his Saturday show, a BBC announcer read out an apology for the great entertainer's ghastly behaviour in the Andrew Sachs affair. Ross then openly mocked it and played The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum. Asked about the incident, the BBC said: “We are satisfied that Jonathan's light-hearted comments did not detract from the seriousness of the statement.”
I think they did, actually. The lunatics may not have taken over the asylum. But Ross's renewed arrogance and his bosses' weary acquiescence in it, shows that — to the despair of many in the Corporation, and as if the past six months had never happened — Jonathan Ross has once again taken over the BBC.
Let's hear it from the Mayor
IT'S not just Sir Paul Stephenson who's proving elusive in the current G20 police crisis. There's been a quite uncharacteristic bashfulness from our Mayor. The day after the first assault video emerged, Boris pronounced himself “disturbed”. A further nine action-packed days of small and medium-sized City Hall announcements (450 new cycle parking spaces in Richmond, etc) elapsed before Mr Johnson became “deeply disturbed”.
And that, so far, is it. It would be a shame if the synthetic row created by Boris's political opponents over his earlier comments on Damian Green is having the desired effect — to stop the man elected by Londoners to sort out the police from exercising leadership on our behalf.
Reader views (22)
Actually the Liberal Democrats are the largest party on Camden Council. The Tories are the third party and are in coalition with the Lib Dems. Labour are in opposition, hopefully for a long time to come
- Pratt St Prat, camden
I AM THE ONLY PERSON WITH A TRIANGLE HAIRCUT!
- Wildey, Carlisle
I completely agree with the article's take on Georgia Gould. Parachuting a young, inexperienced candidate into a job on the basis of her having the "right" connections stinks of the Third-World.
...But there again, perhaps that's fair enough in today's Britain?
- Croyboy, Croydon
Interesting, the Benn's most recent progeny has been shortlisted to stand in Worthing. You can fool some of the people some of time..............
- Auld School, Brighton and England
William Pitt was PM at 21!!
Melvyn Windebank.
Rubbish. Pitt was elected to Parliament when he was 21.
He was, however, PM at 25 after 4 years experience in Parliament.
- Minnie, London, UK
When has lack of experience and ability ever been a bar to becoming a Labour MP? Now the only skill now required is an ability to claim expenses and vote for Gordon Brown.
- Overtaxed, Farnham UK
another up and coming leech
- Vin, gateshead england
Surely Ewan "drunken vomit in the street" Blair would be a better candidtate to parachute into E&T?.
How could he fail to connect with the locals?
innit.
- Danny, London
Bright and personable. Daughter of a millionaire publisher and peer. Hands off Boris!
- Fresh, London
The pigs are having to pull back from the trough, and the piglets have seen an opening.
- Psuedoconfucius, London UK
Just how low are Ms Gould's supporters willing to stoop to get her installed?
And what has a 22 year old girl down from Oxford in common with working class estates?. Perhaps her weeks with the Blair "faith foundation" has made her working class?
Shades of Shaun Woodward here, but also yet more signs that the Blairites think they can come back. How delusioned are they?
- Graham, Ilford Essex
My life has improved enormously since Jonathan Ross was suspended because I no longer watch his miserable show. I suggest the remainder of his viewers improve their lives in the same way.
- Bloke, London
Election hopefull with little or no apparent previous interest in their prospective constitituency but plenty of media spin and hype (and no doubt bucket-loads of celebrity exposure) seeks election.- What are the chances, eh?
Come on Andrew, since when was "sheer political ineptitude" a barrier to elected office?
- Fresh, London
A good article that makes very clear how 'The Political Class' becomes the new aristocracy!
Rather than the traditional Labour Party concepts like democracy, experience, 'what you are', it seems that the strongest element about Gould is inherited, the 'who you are', in this case the daughter of a Labour Party grandee.
While there is a place for children to follow their parents in the Labour Party, for example Tony and Hilary Benn, the child has always had to prove themselves on merit, not be parachuted into a role.
Andrew Gilligan reveals that she has done absolutely nothing, hardly a surprise as she is only twenty-two, that would make her a credible candidate, a fact that would not pass unnoticed by the other political parties!
It is sheer arrogance to expect the voters of this constituency to accept a young woman with a fortunate background, but no qualifications or experience, political or otherwise, to best represent their interests in Parliament!
- Manny Goldstein, London, UK
Have Lord Gould and the other acolytes promoting his daughter given thought to the harm they are doing this young woman by enmeshing her in Tammany Hall politics, Labour style?
- Pro Bono, London
William Pitt was PM at 21!! Its about time we got rid of some of the old fogeies in parliament.
As for the silence of Boris well he forced out Sir Ian Blair so why is it a case of "Silence of the Lambs" on recent events.
As for Damien Green that was not synthetic it was a case of mis-using inside information gained in his officail role as Chair of the MPA to help his own party. Time this was made an offence before someone gets away with something more serious!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Let's face it Andrew, in some constituencies, if Labour put up a Cheshire cat as their official candidate, it would get elected.
- Peter Haldane, London
At what point will new labour and the new labour project-still limping on,- get it into their thick heads its not 1997 and the dawn of a brave new world..a 22 year old 'child' who might be gifted,articulate,or any other spin the labour machine put on it,is not needed or wanted if we are to have MP's with gravitas and dare I say..integrity..so many people are turned off by politics because of the narrow minded views elected officials in sw1 adopt.but this farce is stretching it and the arrogance of Campbell and Jowell giving their views,just shows how out of touch they still are,no doubt the people of Erith and Thamesmead should be grateful and keep quiet,because their betters have said so..will wonder woman continue if she does not get the nod or will 'friends' get her another gig,its time I entered politics,I have lived a full life,travelled..oops...I wont go on message..career over before it started..
- Jonnie Of Brixton, brixton,london,england
Great. Another career politician. MP at 22. Hopes to get on the front bench by early 30s. Major ministerial position by mid 30s. Run the country before 40. George Osbourne is 37. Anybody else think he's too young to be chancellor? Ken Clarke and Vince Cable seem to be the only people talking sense on the econmy and they are 30 years older than him.
- Alex C, London
Good luck to her, she's exactly what Labour needs, some new blood.
- Doreen, Bexley
Poor Erith & Thamesmead! Looks as they will have to swallow either an Alistair Campbell candidate or a Charlie Whelan one. Devil and deep blue sea springs to mind.
- Catherine Lombard, London, UK
Very interesting and informative piece on voter trends in London, if I may say so.
- Eduardo, N London
