JohnBM:Liberal

Yesterday the Yorkshire Post  reported that the Calder Valley’s newly selected Labour parliamentary candidate Steph Booth coerced employees into writing anonymous comments about her Labour opponent on local websites.

With friends like these, who need enemies.

Coming just a few weeks after the McBride email debacle, it looks like the Cherie Blair’s wicked stepmother has been reading The Little Labour Book of Dirty Tricks.

Following accusations of selection voting irregularities, this latest story will do the Labour Party no favours in the Calder Valley.

Update:

Just read the comments concerned on the Halifax Courier website:

anjustarks, calder valley 15/01/2009 16:46:47

Lucas B. It’s exactly this kind of stubborn insistence that only you and people that think like you are right that puts the ordinary voter off. Why on Earth would anyone in this consituency bother to vote at all let alone vote Labour? Think I’ll just stay at home on voting day

Questions are being asked by some members of the Calder Valley Labour Party over the selection of Cherie Blair’s stepmother, Stephanie Booth, as their parliamentary candidate.

In an article in the Yorkshire Post members of the Calder branch of the Labour Party are alleging postal voting irregularities including that Mrs. Booth’s supporters directly helped party members to fill in their postal voting papers.

Of the votes 95 cast for Mrs. Booth in the selection, 73 were postal votes.

Of the 52 votes cast for Cllr. Susan Press, 17 were postal votes.

The other votes were made in person at the hustings on April 9th.

Effectively; the selection of Steph Booth was a done deal before the hustings began.

It could be that Mrs. Booth fought a better all-round campaign or, as suggested by some local Labour Party members, it could be a little more sinister.

This latest episode comes on the back of the Labour Party NEC’s ousting of the previous Labour candidate, Janet Oosthuysen, for receiving a police caution for scratching an ex-partner’s car. Janet narrowly beat Steph Booth by a handful of votes last July.

This could well be a space that needs to be watched.