Here we go again. Harriet Harman has stepped up to remind us why Labour is in such dire straits. On BBC Radio 4, she declared… not suggested, not proposed, but declared, that Labour’s next deputy leader MUST be a woman.
“Definitely a woman,” she insisted, as if the Almighty Himself had chiseled this decree into Westminster stone tablets.
One has to wonder: how on earth is this woman Chair of the Committee on Standards? How was she ever trusted as the chief judge in Boris Johnson’s so-called “trial”? And how, exactly, has she managed to climb the greasy pole of politics with quotas and identity politics running through her veins like lifeblood?
The mask has slipped again. Impartiality? Neutrality? Don’t make me laugh. What we’re seeing is the same relentless bias that has defined her entire career: stack the deck, bend the rules, and then dress it all up as “progress.”
Because, let’s be blunt, if you’re saying that half the people are disqualified from a job before the contest even begins, you shouldn’t be anywhere near politics. You’re not fair. You’re not championing equality. You’re burning meritocracy on the altar of ideology.
It’s the same twisted thinking that applauds when white working-class kids are told they can’t apply for MI6 internships. The same smug, self-congratulatory politics that dresses up discrimination as “diversity.” Racist when it suits them, sexist when it suits them… always framed as “justice.”
Imagine if someone went on Radio 4 and declared: “The next deputy must be a man.” The outrage would blow the roof off Broadcasting House. Twitter mobs would froth, Guardian columnists would weep, and Harriet herself would be back in the studio calling for resignations. Yet when it’s anti-male? When it’s anti-white? Perfectly fine. Applauded, even.
This is the disease at the heart of Britain’s political left: an obsession with optics over outcomes. They don’t want the best person for the job. They want the correct person in their eyes. A tick-box identity hire who can be paraded about as proof of Labour’s virtue. Never mind competence. Never mind whether the candidate can actually do the job.
And look where this kind of thinking gets us: Angela Rayner out on her ear for not paying taxes and a Chancellor who lied on her CV and doesn’t understand the Laffer Curve. And now they are touting Louise Haigh as a contender, despite a fraud conviction. Oh and let’s not forget Emily Thornberry, forever exiled for sneering at “white van man.” It’s less a talent pool than a talent puddle.
Britain deserves better. The Labour Party deserves better (though it may not realise it). Political parties and this country should not be run on Harriet Harman’s personal wish list of quotas. It should be run on one simple principle: may the best person win.
Meritocracy or bust. Labour’s chosen its path… and it isn’t merit. The bust is baked in. Roll on 2029.
Main Photo: Harriet Harman. Credit: House of Lords / UK Parliament. Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence.
