Labour’s By-Election Choice Has Created A Huge Problem

Right, so it's been announced that the Labour Party has selected Sagal Abdi-Wali to replace Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras, and the campaign slogans are being laid on thick and fast. She's local. She's a community champion. She says her priorities are tackling homelessness, improving housing, supporting families and giving local people a stronger voice. She came to Camden as a child refugee, and, in the best tradition of political fairytales, wants to give back to the borough that took her in-in the form of more stagnant Labour Party continuity. It's all fine and good if you're aiming at the top of a ratings chart for a documentary film on Netflix that no one ends up watching. But it says nothing at all about whether she should be allowed anywhere near the legislature, unless now the job description reads: "Must cut ribbons, smile at the camera, and scatter leaflets like wedding confetti." But then, a few days after the commencement of her campaign, the council she has only led since May closed a session with as much elegance as a circus elephant stepping on a clown. That banner says "GENOCIDE". Camden Council arranged the meeting, a three-hour session in which a resolution against investing pensions in companies involved in grave human rights violations somehow went unmentioned. They had three hours to pass, enough to deliberate and ponder, and also for a few naps. But the motion was at the tail end of the agenda - naturally, so the clock was running out, the councillors had begun to leave, and those who had sat through hours of municipal twaddle were left with nothing to do but to shout down at Sagal Abdi-Wali. Democracy in action, if your idea of action is watching tumbleweeds.