Labour says Hoon's seat needs female touch

The Labour candidate who will fight Geoff Hoon’s Ashfield seat at the election will be chosen from an all women shortlist.

The special selection panel of Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), met last night and made the decision.

There is a Labour majority of 10,000 there so whoever gets the candidacy is likely to be the next MP.

I don’t know whether an all women shortlist (AWS) is what the local party wanted – perhaps one of my Notts readers can inform us?

What I do know is that there are a group of men in Notts who are getting well miffed with the NEC excluding them from the selection process in seats that become available.

There was a right hoo-ha when nearby Sherwood, vacated by Paddy Tipping, went AWS.

None-the-less I’ve heard that the chosen candidate there, Emilie Oldknow, regional director of East Midlands Labour, has been working on all cylinders.

If the candidate (pictured) can capture the voters’ imagination it should be a more interesting battle, as Labour has a smaller 6,500 majority.