What does Gordon do about Kate Hoey?

Nothing immediately, it would seem. Even though Ken Livingstone was barely able to contain himself after the announcement Kate Hoey would be joining Boris Johnson's first administration as an unpaid sports adviser, should he win. He told LBC that Hoey has been:

A sort of semi-detached member of the Labour Party in recent years. But I'm surprised he's going to take her advice on sport because I think the reason Tony Blair sacked her at the end of his first term was because she'd been involved in all the fiasco over Wembley. But I suppose she knows more about it than Boris does.

Hoey already is short on friends in the PLP: she has participated in revolts against the government over 200 times since 2001, easily putting her in the top 10. There is a strong case for dismissing her - she has allowed the announcement to be used as part of Boris's campaign, which breaks Labour Party rules about supporting another candidate. The move would rally the troops, who will not doubt be seething at the prospect of seeing a London Labour MP appearing to support a rival. And it would be a chance for Gordon to show decisiveness and impose discipline on a rowdy Parliamentary Labour Party.

But at the same time can he risk making Hoey a martyr, who will continue to sit on the backbenches until the next election as an independent? More importantly, Gordon himself set a precendent by creating a "government of all the talents" including backbench Tories and Lib Dem MPs, so wouldn't it be hypocritical for him to punish one of his own for doing the same?

At this stage it looks like Gordon will do nothing, presumably hoping the issue will go away. Is it the right decision?

Comments

[James, London]

He hasn't the bottle. He'll sit there meekly and take it.

[Chuck Unsworth]

Livingstone has always been barely able to contain himself.

Hoey is trying quite hard to tread a difficult path, but most voters will fully understand her (unspoken) message. Is it really the job of an MP to have 'friends' such as those in the PLP? Frankly if I were her - mercifully I am not - I'd sooner observe these apparatchiks across the sights of a loaded machine gun. They are political cannon-fodder, anyway.