'We know best..' |
'get us in power, stuff the policies' |
What do Brown and Mandelson have in common? They were never elected to any position in the Labour Party. Brown became leader without a Labour party election He became Prime Minister without ever winning a General Election. Mandelson was appointed to positions by Blair and Kinnock, as was Brown.
Mandelson
1985 Appointed Labour Party director of communications by Neil Kinnock.
1994 Secretly appointed by Blair to run Bliar's leadership campaign under the nom-de-guerre 'Bobby'.
1996 Appointed election campaign director by Blair.
1997 Appointed as a Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office by Blair.
1998 Appointed Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by Blair.
1998 Resigned after found haven received a secret interest-free loan of £373,000 from millionaire Geoffrey Robinson.
1999 Appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by Bliar.
2001 Resigned after using his position to influence a passport application for millionaire Indian businessman Srichand Hinduja
2001 Appointed United Kingdom's European Commissioner by Blair.
2008 Appointed Business Secretary by Brown.
2009 Appointed to the new made-up post of 'Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills' by Brown.
2010 Appointed appointed President of the international think tank 'Policy Network' by its Chair , one Tony Bliar.
2012 Appointed paid advisor to the illegal logging company 'Asia Pulp & Paper' by billionaire Eka Widjaja.
2103 Appointed to the post of 'High Steward of Hull', a post specially re-created for him by the Queen.
2103 Appointed to the post of 'High Steward of Hull', a post specially re-created for him by the Queen.
Gordon Brown
1985 Appointed spokesman on Trade and Industry by Kinnock.
1987 Appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Kinnock. 1989 Appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry by Kinnock.
1992 Appointed Shadow Chancellor in 1992 by Blair.
1997 Appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Blair.
2007 Appointed Leader of the Labour Party by default (the only other candidate John McDonnell being denied 16 of the the required 45 nominations from MPs).
2007 Appointed without election Prime Minister. Waited until 2010 to call a General Election (which he lost, badly).
Jez we can |
Jeremy Corbyn promises to restore the election rather than appointment of Shadow Cabinet ministers in the Labour Party - the return of a bit of democracy back into the Party, rather than the secret patronage of the corrupt Blair era...
One big plus of internal democracy is that people whom the public would never, ever vote for, like Mandelson, Brown, Kinnock and E Milliband, would no longer get far within the party either.
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