Poor Little Georgia!

Again I have to admit my interest in the Labour Party going-ons in the Erith and Thamesmead constituency is because for most of the time I lived in the UK my home was there. Yesterday's Evening Standard interview with Georgia Gould must give you a chuckle. Guessing that most things she does follow Daddy and his friends advice, the Blairite spin doctors got it wrong yet again.

The Standard allows Georgia to whinge about how she was smeared during the selection process without any questions from the Standard's 'reporters'. In fact it looks like a celebrity press release from Max Clifford rather than an interview. Were reporters David Cohen and Joe Murphy actually there.

Let's read a paragraph in her 'own' words as she does her poor little rich girl act. "I was the victim of a well orchestrated and vicious smear campaign," she said. "Every day, I'd wake to articles in the media, and they came from both the Left and the Right, assailing me for being too rich, too young, too inexperienced, but mostly — too well connected. There were days the flak got so bad that I became quite depressed, which is really quite unlike me, and I never wanted to get out of bed."

What she doesn't mention is that in order to help her the local constituency party chairman was removed and her helpers started a campaign to misuse postal votes so she could win without having to get the majority of those who actually turn up for the party selection meeting. (The rules on postal voting at this stage are they should only be used when there are good reasons for not being able to attend the meeting.)

I love this bit. "It's not about Old Labour or New Labour, or Blairites or Brownites any more," she said. "These are old divides, a false split, a dead language, and they speak of a moribund politics that totally misses the point." So I guess Georgia doesn't work for the Blair Faith Foundation then and the papers got it wrong. Who was it that got her on the shortlist one wonders?

Whatever the aims of this piece of New Labour spin, and whether it was done by Alistair Campbell or not, the outcome was it didn't work. Just look at the comments under the article. It seems to be running at 90% against poor Georgia. (A note to the spin doctors - it just doesn't work any more. With the MP expenses scandal people just don't believe in you. They won't clap their hands to bring back Tinkerbelle, or Campbell, or Mandelson.)

Sadly where the article is correct is that Georgia Gould will probably turn up again as a candidate for a Labour seat at the next election and it will probably be through a women only shortlist in a 'safe' Labour seat.