You think there is divisiveness and division in Westminster?  Well, the internal politics of politics is often worse.

To activists, there is nothing as important as choosing a Parliamentary candidate to represent them and their values in campaigns on the local and national stage.

The journalist, Michael Crick, is doing a great service in exposing the anger and vitriol that often comes with internal party politics and the factionalism that comes with it.  Bolton’s Labour selection processes have been some of the worst in the country.

The Bolton North East constituency Labour Party selection panel resigned en masse when a hardworking campaigner was excluded from the process because he was not a Keir Starmer loyalist which leads to the question of what a Starmer loyalist is.

I would emphasis the loyalty an MP should have to his own political integrity and to the needs of his constituents rather than the blind loyalty to the leader which also just happens to perfectly overlap with a personal loyalty to career.

Are Starmer loyalists loyal to his values when he first became leader or to the much vaguer agenda he has now?  Initially, he was a Corbyn loyalist who could deliver the same message but, how should I phrase it, without some of the quirks Mr Corbyn brought.  With Tony Blair’s emissary, Peter Mandelson, taking centre stage at their Liverpool conference, we can only speculate on the values taking root in the heart of Labour.

The runner up in the Bolton West selection, who joined Labour as a teenager, is an elected Lancashire councillor and was endorsed by a local Labour councillor has since resigned in disgust at the values of her Party.

Another potential Bolton West candidate even had a headline in The Bolton News decrying the Labour Party “Stitch up”.

Makes you think.