Chris Lennie, who has extensive experience of the party machinery and is a former acting general secretary but is currently responsible for party fund-raising, emerged as Mr Miliband’s preferred candidate.The post is expected to be for two years with Mr Lennie’s brief described as primarily sorting out party finances and staffing at party headquarters ahead of the next general election.
Prior to the news of Mr Miliband’s preference for Mr Lennie being made public GMB official Iain McNicol had been widely discussed as the most likely candidate (see Tribune May 27) while another name discussed in some quarters had been that of Joe Irvine, a former political officer to Gordon Brown.Mr Miliband, who last week said he wanted to break away from the tradition of an elected shadow cabinet in favour of his own best choices for the portfolios, has been canvassing support for Mr Lennie among members of Labour’s National Executive Committe.
Mr Lennie is not regarded within Labour as carrying any particular ideological baggage although he was instrumental in securing a safe seat for self-styled arch-Blairite David Miliband and has worked closely with Alastair Campbell.If successful, Mr Lennie will replace Ray Collins, who was appointed in 2008 following the withdrawal of city fund manager David Pitt-Watson. The NEC will decide on July 19.
Meanwhile, Mr Miliband will be weighing the political consequences of his 11th hour call to teachers’ and public service unions not to go ahead with nationwide industrial action. He said the strikes were a “sign of failure” and “a mistake” and unions should exhaust the negotiating process.
