Crackpot Coup

I guess there's no choice but to comment on this story today. According to the Mule senior Labour figures are getting very concerned about the lack of quality candidates for Rhodri's job once he retires. According to one such source:

They all have fundamental weaknesses and would probably not be considered for major promotion if they were members of the UK Parliament.

So what do these unnamed mystery but oh so important figure want to do about it. Apparently their plan is to either give Neath AM Gwenda Thomas a peerage to vacate her seat or convince ill Clwyd South AM Karen Sinclair to retire. They would then parachute in disgraced ex-Secretary of State Peter Hain or MEP Eluned Morgan to those seats so that they can take control of the party.

Hmm...Hands up who thinks this is a cunning plan of Baldrick proportions?

Firstly there's no guarantee that Neath nor Clwyd South would be retained in a by-election. In both seats Labour's majority is less than 2,000 with Plaid Cymru knocking on Neath's door and the Tories on Clwyd South's. While you could argue that having Peter Hain as a candidate would boost their majority (he has 12,000 majority for the parliamentary seat) he would struggle being in the limelight of a by-election so soon after his resignation from the Cabinet. As the Mule's source rightly points out:

In the case of Neath the national press and bloggers would have a field day with Peter Hain.

You bet we would!

Secondly it seems that these so -called "senior sources" assume that if Peter Hain or Eluned Morgan entered the Assembly Labour's AM's would warmly accept them as new leaders. How naive an assumption is that? Do they not see that inserting a "London man/woman" because of an apparent "fundamental weakness" in the current AM's would piss off those AM's enough that they chose their own leader anyway? Do these people not remember Alun Michael's fate? (I'm sure they do, wouldn't be surprised if the ex-First Minister himself was one of the people thinking these thoughts)

Let's be honest though, this is a far-fetched plan probably thought up by one or two deluded fools over in London. It will never happen and the Mule knows that. Why do they even bother printing this stuff?