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Candidate Selection in the Labour Party: What the Selectors Seek

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Extract

Elections in democratic societies are open, well-publicized events. But preceding the glamour of modern election campaigns and the drama of election-night broadcasts there is a process which usually receives little attention or publicity. Political parties, which dominate elections, choose their candidates.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 See, for example, Kogan, D. and Kogan, M., The Battle for the Labour Party (London: Fontana, 1982).Google Scholar

2 Ranney, A., Pathways to Parliament (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 11.Google Scholar

3 Berrington, H., ‘The Labour Left in Parliament’ in Kavanagh, D., ed., The Politics of the Labour Party (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982), p. 91.Google Scholar

4 Eden, D., ‘Union Leaders should stop creeping Marxism in the Labour Party’, The Times, 1 12 1976.Google Scholar

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6 See Kogan, and Kogan, , The Battle for the Labour Party, pp. 1720.Google Scholar

7 Ranney, , Pathways to Parliament, p. 278.Google Scholar

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9 These include Paterson, P., The Selectorate (London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1967)Google Scholar; McKitterick, T. E., ‘The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates’, Political Quarterly, XXX (1959), 219–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Critchley, J., ‘Candidates: how they pick them’, New Statesman, 5 02 1965Google Scholar; Watt, D., ‘Picking and choosing’; Spectator, 1 05 1965Google Scholar; Fairlie, L. D., ‘Candidate Selection Role Perceptions of Conservative and Labour Party Secretary/Agents’, Political Studies, XXIV (1976), 281–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dickson, A. D. R., ‘MPs' Readoption Conflicts: Their Causes and Consequences’, Political Studies, XXIII (1975), 6270CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Vallance, E., ‘Women Candidates and Elector Preferences’, Politics, 1 (1981), 2731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Berrington finds regional variations in the propensity of CLPs to choose left-wing candidates (Berrington, ‘The Labour Left in Parliament’, pp. 86–7).Google Scholar

11 See, for example, Steed, M., ‘The Results Analysed’ in Butler, D. and Kavanagh, D., ed., The British General Election of February 1974 (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 335.Google Scholar

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13 See, for example, Kavanagh, D., ‘Still the Workers' Party? Changing Social Trends in Elite Recruitment and Electoral Support’Google Scholar in Kavanagh, , The Politics of the Labour Party, pp. 95110.Google Scholar

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15 Gallup Political Index, Report No. 225 (05 1979).Google Scholar There are no figures for race.

16 Vallance, , ‘Women Candidates and Electoral Preference’Google Scholar, passim.

17 See Steed, , ‘The Results Analysed’, p. 335.Google Scholar

18 Kavanagh, , ‘Still the Workers' Party?’, p. 95Google Scholar; and Rose, R., ‘Social Structure and Party Differences’ in Rose, R., ed., Studies in British Politics, 3rd edn (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 230–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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23 See Kogan, and Kogan, , The Battle for the Labour PartyGoogle Scholar, Chap. 3.

24 See, for example, the discussion of Mr Hooley's failure to be re-selected in Sheffield, Heeley in the Guardian, 13 02 1982.Google Scholar