As the prosont constitution of the Labour Party stands, the Parliamon ary Labour Party is one of the decisive seats of powor in the Labour Party. The P.L.P. clocts thu Party 'Leader' and the deputy leadur also has a placo on the N.4u.C. and, in practico, it is t:iis body which decides policy on day to day issues betweon conferences. For this reason the rightwing has concentrated upon getting its cand~ idatss adopted as prospective candidates. They havo had some success in recent months and this has been facilitated by the fact that, gonerally speaking, 'safe seats? tond to have more right wing C.L.P.s than the average C.L.P. It is no secret that tho left wing is now hitting back on this front ans organising its forces for this ond. It is, therefore, very pleasing to report the adoption of three left wing candidat.ss in the last week or so.
Two of the seats can be described as marginal — Orkney and Zotland, and Glas;ow Voodside — and the other is a'tsafe seat! - Poplar (Labour majority 15,871 ‘in the 1959 General lection). Orkney and Zetland, adopted Ian iicInnes who is cheirman of the Orkney branch of C.N.D.. In Woodside, a keen fight rosulted in the adoption of Neil Jarmichael, a town councillor and a momber of U.N.D.. This seat, wiich is now vacant and will be filled in a pending by-election, looks like going to Lebour, the Tory majority in 1959 being only 2,084. The right wing in Glasgow have over a period of time devoloped a technique of packing selection meetings with people who have novor been seon before, and arc never socn againe It was this practice which led a number of constituencies to unsuccessfully propose amendients to Party consiitution to prevent this (for example,making it impossibdé. to vote unloss one had 3 months memborship, or had been to a specified number of mostings) This timo however, the right wing did not succeed and thoir candidate, Arthur Houston of the Iunicipal and General “orkers, came fourth. Poplar has adopted Ian liikardo whoss activities aro well known, although it is not generally known that he was of two mombers of the N.1:.C. who abstained on the resolution adopted by that body on tho Cuba crisis. His grounds for doing this, along with Barbara Castle, were that it wasn't strong snough in its condemnation of the action of Kennedy.