NEW MP - THREE LADIES WOULD IN LADYWOOD

15-02-2007

The Stirrer has a tale of skulduggery and backbiting as the contenders line up to replace Clare Short as Labour's candidate in the Ladywood parliamentary seat.

Firstly, the runners and riders. Our information is that there are at least three main contenders, all female. One is the glamorous Elena Cohen, currently chair of the local ward party, and one-time paramour of Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood.

There are suggestions that the couple are a “couple” again - they were spotted together at last night's mayoral debate at Birmingham Council House - but the really interesting feature about Cohen's past is that she once stood in Rochdale as a Conservative.

Traditionally, this might have been considered a slight hindrance to getting on in the people's party, but in Blair's New Labour, Tory credentials areobviously an advantage.

In any event, Cohen has a number of high-profile supporters, not least Mahmood himself, but she has two serious - and no less glamorous - rivals.

One is Yvonne Mosquito, a well-respected Nechells councillor and vice-chair of the local police authority; the other is Paulette Hamilton, a Handsworth Wood councillor.

This is where the intrigue begins. The Stirrer understands that a grass-roots move to unseat Hamilton before the local council elections in May has been underway for some weeks, but has been snuffed out by local party leader Sir Albert Bore.

All Labour ward parties in Birmingham were asked if they wanted to automatically keep their sitting councillors, or put them up for re-selection. Most opted to stay with their existing representative, but in Handsworth Wood, as many as 80 signatures were gathered against Hamilton.

Normally this would be enough to force a vote to unseat her but, sniffing an organised campaign, the leadership discounted half the names on the basis that they were on a pre-printed sheet.

That still left 40signatures, whichshould still have been enough to force a re-selection battle, but Bore then apparently said that only people who had been in the party for a year or more were eligible to vote - this was enough to keep Hamilton safe in Handsworth Wood, and in contention to become the Ladywood candidate.

If that wasn't enough mischief making, we understand that there has been a surge in membership in the Ladywood party, with entrants hoping to influence the battle to succeed Short.

The newcomers might be disappointed - Labour rules mean that only those who had joined a year before Short quit can vote to elect her successor.