Thread by @shaunjlawson

THREAD: Ian Lavery. Well well well, what do we have here? This is the first significant development in the fledgling leadership contest. As Rebecca Long-Bailey struggles to get going, the left already seem to have found a new favoured candidate.

Let me be clear about this. Ian Lavery is a good man with generally admirable politics. I'm not sure if any MP has highlighted the pernicious impact of benefit sanctions more than he has; he's been proven right on Brexit too.

But there are a number of quite serious problems: which I'm going to outline here. Problems if he becomes leader: as it's increasingly clear, he might very well do.

Earlier, I shared a link about the allegations surrounding his NUM redundancy payments and his mortgage.

These allegations have NOT been disproved. They're NOT 'bollocks' or 'smears'. It's unclear to me if those insisting that they are have even bothered to read the findings of the Certification Officer. Which are here:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

The reason why the Certification Officer doesn't go any further - and hence, why Lavery's supporters insist he was cleared - is they are historical allegations. That's it. They're essentially beyond the remit of the Officer.

The Officer does, however, note the following:

Re: the redundancy payments: "As a result of our investigations, the Union established that they had overpaid Mr Lavery". Why did it take this investigation to establish that? What happens to ordinary people when they are overpaid?

"Both the Union and Mr Lavery were given the opportunity to provide documentary evidence to show a process or decision by which Mr Lavery was made redundant. Neither were able to do so and stated that no such documentary evidence existed".

As an bare minimum, that is odd.

Does it suggest impropriety? Not really, no. I think it's indicative of a quite remarkably cosy relationship between the Union and Ian Lavery. A relationship so cosy that:

"A loan of £72,500 was made to Mr Lavery by the Provident and Benevolent Fund to enable him to purchase a property, “property A”... The loan was written off by the Fund in 2007... Mr Lavery appears to have been a beneficiary of this arrangement".

"An endowment policy was set up to cover the capital sum of the mortgage...

In April 2007 the Executive Committee of the Union decided the Union would accept full liability for the below-expected performance of the endowment policy when it became clear that..."

... this under performance meant the policy would fall below its expected value that should have covered the sum of the
mortgage, £72,500..."

The Union would accept full liability for an under-performing endowment policy for one individual and his wife?!

"This was the basis for the Union negotiating with the
Provident and Benevolent Fund to get the Fund to write off the entirety of the £72,500 loan to Mr Lavery in return for the Union writing off the Fund’s debt to the Union... of £109,911".

"The endowment policy was subsequently cashed in for approximately £18,000 which was received by the policy holders, Mr and Mrs Lavery...

The following are the thoughts of the Certification Officer on all this.

"The Union was not adequately able to explain why they should have taken full responsibility for the under-performance of the endowment policy taken out by Mr and Mrs Lavery. They were unable to explain why no attempts were made to seek compensation from the endowment provider"

"It is far from clear why the Union should have made an arrangement with the Provident and Benevolent Fund to write off the whole of Mr and Mrs Lavery’s £72,500 debt to them. This despite the fact that the endowment policy did have a value... of around £18,000".

"It would appear that Mr and Mrs Lavery may have
been over-compensated for the underperformance of the endowment policy".

Just as, if you recall, Mr Lavery was overpaid his redundancy payments too.

So why am I highlighting this? Is it because I'm some evil centrist who wants to smear Ian Lavery? No. Do I think he's some terrible man? Not that either.

It's because this background is absolute meat and bloody drink to our opponents. Remember:

DON'T GIVE THEM THE AMMUNITION

So Ian Lavery becomes leader. He starts talking about Britain's appalling housing crisis, how difficult it is to get on the property ladder... before the Tories remind us how his loan to buy his property was just written off because of his mates in high places.

He goes on to talk about how poorly paid and insecure work is in Britain... before the Tories remind us of the size of his redundancy package, which wasn't even properly documented.

He complains, with huge justification, of the cronyism and corruption surrounding Boris Johnson's government... only for the Tories to highlight the obvious cronyism of an entire Union taking on liability for Lavery's endowment, or nepotism employing his wife as his Secretary.

Under a leader with a such a background, what would we be? We'd be the same old hypocritical left: pointing fingers at others, dictating to them what to do while our own leader has benefited in such a way. A way which 90% of the public couldn't dream of doing.

And when I see many of my followers not acknowledging the details above, but just trying to bury them instead, I really start to worry. That's not facts or evidence-based behaviour, folks. It's blinkered tribalism. "He's left wing, so he must be supported no matter what".

Now - do I think he's committed some awful crime in all this? Nah. I think he's an essentially good man who benefited from an arrangement in the manner of certain other union leaders, most of whom have always meant well.

I also think, and have highlighted many times, that the cost of someone becoming an MP is absurd, and requires a source of independent wealth. That's the number one reason why our Parliament looks so little like Britain itself; why it has so few working class MPs.

Dig in to many MPs' sources of wealth and you're likely to either find stories like this or, in most cases, inherited wealth and property. All part of the same monstrously unequal society which is Britain at the start of the 2020s.

But I'm sorry: with the broader public, once the press fixate on it, this background WILL compromise Lavery's ability to attack the pernicious cruelty of the Tories. Of course it will. Any Labour leader needs to be whiter than white. He's just not. At all.

Incidentally: I've seen the thread going around about Starmer's record as DPP, and it begs plenty of important questions too. No doubt. No perfect candidates in this race; not at all.

But I would appeal to all members and all supporters: stop fixating on what you personally want, on your personal politics... and start thinking about who's best placed to actually win.

It's not Lavery, It absolutely isn't. Not just because of the issues I've mentioned above either. Watch this video of him and Johnson in 2017 - but much more, read the comments below:

Those comments perfectly indicate:

1. How Teflon-coated Johnson truly is, no matter how he behaves

2. How much of a hypocrite Lavery appears to so many

And we can't just dismiss all those comments. Not when we've just been routed by 12% and lost 60 seats.

That video doing the rounds of Lavery ridiculing Johnson's name? If people think that's gonna play well with huge numbers of voters, they're nuts. It's neither dignified nor statesmanlike nor prime ministerial to mock someone's name like that. How is it Johnson's fault?!?!

And yes, it's funny - and yes, what he's really mocking is Johnson's appalling record and immense privilege. But it looks like reverse snobbery; it looks like the politics of envy. Which never gets the left anywhere... and never will either.

There is another reason why Lavery's the wrong choice. A reason which makes me sad - and says infinitely more about the UK than him.

What happened to the Welsh firebrand, Neil Kinnock? He was caricatured and ridiculed. What would happen to Geordie firebrand Ian Lavery? The same

The record of British political leaders not from the home counties is awful. I find it appalling; all part of the same London-centricism which has got us into this mess.

But an angry, left wing firebrand isn't the answer at a time like this. Corbynism - but just an angrier version? And people think that's gonna magically add millions more voters? You have got to be kidding.

It's a comfort zone we're in. Lavery's a comfort blanket.

And if he wins, we'll be in no better a position and look no less clueless to the electorate than when the Tories chose William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith over Ken Clarke and Michael Portillo. They looked like a joke when they did that... and so would we.

It took them years and years to move on. We can't afford for it to take the same period of time in our case.

The British people NEED a Labour government, desperately. Every one of us needs to focus on how we get that government. Not on internal battles which don't help anyone.