Breaching the redoubt

The Labour Party and the Unite union are in the middle of a damaging spat over the selection of candidates in the Falkirk by-election.  It's the sort of thing that plays right into the hands of the Tories and could, if not contained, cost Labour the next election.

The accusation is that Unite used tied to stack the candidate list with its 'placemen', and Dan Hodges was on the Today Programme this morning making the point that it's known Unite policy to do this.  In his opinion, Unite are out of control.

Assuming the accusations of rigging are true, I'm not for a minute condoning Unite's approach which has all the hallmarks of nefarious union behaviour from the 1970s and before: dirty tricks, rigged elections, manipulation of strike votes and the rest.  These are the behaviours of the bad old days that brought the world, and Maggie crashing down on union heads.

But setting aside the methods, there is an underlying problem here that is failing to be addressed and its one that runs to the heart of the current disillusionment with politics and politicians: the lack of diversity in the political establishment and, in particular, the lack of routes for people outside of the mainstream of Oxbridge and think tanks or local government, to get into national politics. 

Now this problem is pervasive and not restricted to any particular political party, although I suspect it applies rather less to those on the fringes such as the Greens and UKIP, and maybe that is another reason for their relative success.

But this is also related to the issue of unpaid internships acting as a mechanism for a wealthy, connected elite to ensure their children have a fast track route into lucrative and powerful careers.  It's all part of a landscape where the odds are stacked hugely in favour of a privileged few.

You can see that in this context of gross unfairness and disenfranchisement, it doesn't take much for someone with less than a cast-iron sense of morality and honesty to justify a few dirty tricks to push forward their agenda; the ends of breaching the bourgeoisie political  redoubt justify the means.