Now the Glasgow by election is finished, it’s time to move onto the next set of elections – and this time, they’re internal!
The Parliamentary Labour Party has now proposed the timetable for the election for chair of the parliamentary party, which will be finalised by the whole PLP next week.
Nominations will open on the 18th November and close on the 23rd. The election itself will be on Thursday the 26th, the same day as the vote on the Queen’s speech, with the result in the early evening.
There’s been a lot of speculation about this election over the summer as Barry Sheerman has said he’s considering standing against incumbent Tony Lloyd.
Sheerman has varied his reasons for his possible challenge, sometimes saying it would be a direct challenge to Gordon Brown and at other times saying he wanted to stand because he felt the PLP hadn’t been agressive enough in his defence of MPs over the expenses scandal.
So two interesting issues – will Sheerman stand, and on what basis?
I’d put the line on Sheerman at about 100 votes if he stood on his own, but probably less if it was an explicit challenge to the PM, especially after this week.