Though Cowards Flinch

Sunny, Sunder, Jon and others  have posts up about what may or not be some murky going on in relation to the appointment of the Labour Party General Secretary post. 

This reminds me of a blogpost I had in mind, but then forgot about, when I looked at the job information with a view to applying for the post myself.

I didn’t apply in the end as, though I meet the person specification well enough and could do the job very well, it’s based in somewhere called London, not Bickerstaffe.  However, what also put me off was this aspect of the role, which stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the other perfectly sensible requirements:

The identification of potential political leaders of the party from the 250000 membership.

This seems a very odd, highly political task for what is essentially a   head of adminstration, compliance and business/organisational development role. 

What, if anything – I felt bound to ask myelf- would I as General Secretary do once I had identified these potential political leaders? I mean, I certainly wouldn’t be expected to agree secret parliamentary parachute lists and that kind of thing, would I, under the new regime?  Surely not.

And what measures would I use to decide such people are in fact potential political leaders?  Generic leadership? Intellect?  Political organisation skills?  Subservience and capacity to toe the line? Capacity to buy me beer at strategically important points?

And why, I thought, is this a new aspect of the overall role, which wasn’t in the job description last time the post was advertised, in 2008?

Who drew the job description up, and what is their thinking behind it? Who signed it off in this form?

Anyone know?