This is a cross post by MoreMediaNonsense
Ed Milliband has won the Labour leadership with a majority of the union/affiliate votes but no majority amongst party members and MP’s. Personally I think he’s likely to be a disaster and one of the reasons will be the perception he’s the unions’ man and won in a skewed and bizarre process
The oddest aspect of Labour’s current leadership process is the way some people get multiple votes for being members of affiliates (not just via being in a union but also via membership of the Fabians and other groups).
As was pointed out this morning on the Andrew Marr show this system is absurd. From the Guardian blog :
On the Andrew Marr show, my colleague Polly Toynbee has just said that she knows one Labour MP who had 12 votes in the leadership contest because he belonged to so many organisations affiliated to Labour. She said it might be time to rethink the “dotty” system.
The issue is not of affiliate representation per se but why should some people get multiple votes. Give them one vote yes but not more.
I don’t know if its possible to work out how this nonsense might have affected the election of Ed but if comes out that multiple voters skewed this result in Ed’s favour that is a really big problem.
Even without that something needs to be done about this.