Why we should appreciate the deputy leadership contest

I would like the contest for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party to go on for ever. Really, I would.

I don't care who wins and I don't think the Labour Party needs a deputy leader. So I don't need the contest to produce a result. An end point isn't necessary.

And while the contest goes on, at least a few senior members of the cabinet are free to say what they actually think. This means we can have some semblance of a proper debate.

Listen to Patricia Hewitt being interviewed on the Today programme this morning (10 minutes into this clip) and you will see what I mean. She was pressed to respond to Cabinet criticism of the Government's NHS policy and could not simply blandly dismiss the points. She had to engage with the argument or look entirely foolish (she chose option b).

Allowing greater freedom for Cabinet Ministers to speak their mind and reducing the tyranny of "the line to take" was the missing element in Ken Clarke's generally good Democracy Taskforce proposals (admirably summarised by conservativehome here and here).

Comments

[John Allen]

Hewitt is extraordinarily irritating, yet clearly tries very hard to be emollient. No wonder she drives doctors spare.

When she was waffling in this interview about the 'difficult decisions of the last 12 months' I was hoping John Humphries would interject to ask if she thought those months had been the NHS' 'best ever', after all. But alas.

An easy 'quick win' for Brown: sack her from government altogether.