Thinking Paper #117 - Harriet Harperson's great idea

By Tim Massingberd James

Abstract

Whilst Boring Ed is failing to come up with any ideas for his latest re-re-re-re-relaunch this week, Crazy Harry Harman is full of silly ideas. Born with a lack of understanding which means she fails to see that some people might not want to lead or deputy-lead the Labour Party, she's implementing changes which will see any woman who can be bothered to fill in a form taking on her current job when she decides to step down.

Harriet Harperson's great idea

The latest of Crazy Harry's crazy plans will see a new rule that, following leadership elections, Labour must always have a woman in the top team, as leader or as deputy. She is very excited about this, and has only allowed one amendment which means that the rule will not apply if her husband, Jack 'Britain's only nice man' Dromey, runs for the leadership.

Harriet Harman has lots of crazy ideas, but the Labour troops like her. Unlike their leader Ed, she actually has ideas, which they think must be a start. As well as this, they were actually allowed to elect her when Gordon refused to let anyone vote on his leadership, and that produced an unusual affinity for her in the troops.

The IIPBA speculates that this change in the rules will mean that, in the future, a woman who comes seventh or eighth in the race for Labour Deputy Leader will still be appointed, and this will definitely not lead to any resentment, or any plotting if they turn out to be shit.

It also strikes the IIPBA that, in the event that only men run, the winner of the ballot for Deputy Leader will be declared void and a woman will have to be appointed from amongst the new Leaders friends and/or wives. Again, this will definitely not lead to any resentment, or any plotting if they turn out to be shit.

Finally this new system does not ensure that a man is part of the top team. Crazy Harry seems to honestly believe that a man cannot understand some issues from a woman's point of view, but be unable to concede that - if this is true - a woman might not be able to understand issues from a man's point of view. We find this sort of old school feminism very amusing.

Conclusion

The Labour troops love Crazy Harri, and her crazy ideas, and apart from the obvious lack of post-bureaucracy in the new system, the IIPBA kind of does too. We love everything which will bring about stupid results and give us things to write about. Thankfully, the new system also