Like Ed and Nick I wasn't elected.
It wasn't the unfairness of the electoral system because the election used the single transferable vote but the boundaries were redrawn to the disadvantage of anyone living in the constituency for which I was standing.
Cumbria doesn't fit neatly into anyone's constituency.
The south of the county looks to Manchester, the North of the county looks to Newcastle.
So in the previous dispensation the Co-op had South Cumbria firmly in the North West and North Cumbria in the North East.
In local government terms this makes sense, just, but in terms of where our TV comes from and where our NHS is located Cumbria splits, unevenly and raggedly, into North West and North East.
The Co-op in its infinite wisdom has decided that Cumbria is in the North West so immediately those standing for election to the new Membership Council were disadvantaged as both unknown and far away and with a total unbalance in terms of population spread.
So like Ed and Nick (and Nigel) I wasn't elected.
So far so sad.
But there are bigger issues lurking in these muddy waters.
I had always thought that Lord Myners was right in his analysis. The democracy of the Co-op was flawed, although I suspect his view that one member one vote was critical to his analysis was somewhat biased.
But the deed is done and the newly elected membership council will have its work cut out even if it was elected by members with one single transferable vote they did not elect the board and it is the board that has the power and the membership council will find itself constantly playing catch up as the board moves not only the goal posts, but the rules of engagement and what it means to be a co-operative.
I was told by one observer that the new chairman was an excellent choice because his father was a co-op store manager.
I pointed out that my father was a Manchester Corporation Bus Driver but that didn't qualify me for the role of chairman of Stagecoach.
The co-op already feels diminished, much of the business has been disposed of, 'pharms' and 'farmacies' have gone and it seems to me that the big American Funeral businesses are watching closely to see whether the funeral business is also offered 'to the market'.
The new Chair made his reputation with Asda, he made it a more valuable business and then sold it Walmart, his chairmanship of the Post Office had the same result with the business privatised.
One can only hope that the Co-op which is in fact owned by its members now has the robustness to resist what I can only see as inevitable drift to market privatisation, if you want to weaken something, to make it malleable, the thing to do is hack away at the flawed democratic structure and then replace it with an unwieldy group a hundred strong trying to make sense of and understand change and control a board that has been hand chosen and may well appear even more self selecting in a few years.
What is happening to the Co-op seems to me to be symptomatic of what is happening to our current social and political settlement.
The tectonic plates of our social polity are drifting right wards just as the great stones in Carlisle's Rickerby Park carry the legend of when Carlisle was on the equator and the sediment was laid down and compressed, limestone, gritstone and granite slowly shifting over time to where they now rest.
So the post war settlement with its homes for heroes, its education reform and welfare reform a product of both liberal and labour aspiration for men like Attlee, Beveridge and Keynes is slowly slipping away from us as the market is invoked as the only true arbiter of value.
The vision of the Co-op's founders known as the pioneers after the title they chose for their co-op society, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, was the creation of a store in, in response to the poverty created by the industrial revolution, to allow members to buy unadulterated food that they otherwise could no afford.
The store opened in 1844 with a meagre stock of butter, flour, oatmeal and a few candles, within three months they had added tea and tobacco and established a reputation for price and quality.
As the last election demonstrated and as the Electoral Reform Society has reported the rightward drift of our politics is sanctioned by a voting system that is essentially unbalanced, my only hope is that under its new governance, which despite assurances to the contrary is every bit as flawed as the system it replaces, the new Membership council even with its hands tied, will be able to channel the spirit of the Rochdale Pioneers and keep the Co-op, co-operative under the ownership of its members.
It wasn't the unfairness of the electoral system because the election used the single transferable vote but the boundaries were redrawn to the disadvantage of anyone living in the constituency for which I was standing.
Cumbria doesn't fit neatly into anyone's constituency.
The south of the county looks to Manchester, the North of the county looks to Newcastle.
So in the previous dispensation the Co-op had South Cumbria firmly in the North West and North Cumbria in the North East.
In local government terms this makes sense, just, but in terms of where our TV comes from and where our NHS is located Cumbria splits, unevenly and raggedly, into North West and North East.
The Co-op in its infinite wisdom has decided that Cumbria is in the North West so immediately those standing for election to the new Membership Council were disadvantaged as both unknown and far away and with a total unbalance in terms of population spread.
So like Ed and Nick (and Nigel) I wasn't elected.
So far so sad.
But there are bigger issues lurking in these muddy waters.
I had always thought that Lord Myners was right in his analysis. The democracy of the Co-op was flawed, although I suspect his view that one member one vote was critical to his analysis was somewhat biased.
But the deed is done and the newly elected membership council will have its work cut out even if it was elected by members with one single transferable vote they did not elect the board and it is the board that has the power and the membership council will find itself constantly playing catch up as the board moves not only the goal posts, but the rules of engagement and what it means to be a co-operative.
I was told by one observer that the new chairman was an excellent choice because his father was a co-op store manager.
I pointed out that my father was a Manchester Corporation Bus Driver but that didn't qualify me for the role of chairman of Stagecoach.
The co-op already feels diminished, much of the business has been disposed of, 'pharms' and 'farmacies' have gone and it seems to me that the big American Funeral businesses are watching closely to see whether the funeral business is also offered 'to the market'.
The new Chair made his reputation with Asda, he made it a more valuable business and then sold it Walmart, his chairmanship of the Post Office had the same result with the business privatised.
One can only hope that the Co-op which is in fact owned by its members now has the robustness to resist what I can only see as inevitable drift to market privatisation, if you want to weaken something, to make it malleable, the thing to do is hack away at the flawed democratic structure and then replace it with an unwieldy group a hundred strong trying to make sense of and understand change and control a board that has been hand chosen and may well appear even more self selecting in a few years.
What is happening to the Co-op seems to me to be symptomatic of what is happening to our current social and political settlement.
The tectonic plates of our social polity are drifting right wards just as the great stones in Carlisle's Rickerby Park carry the legend of when Carlisle was on the equator and the sediment was laid down and compressed, limestone, gritstone and granite slowly shifting over time to where they now rest.
So the post war settlement with its homes for heroes, its education reform and welfare reform a product of both liberal and labour aspiration for men like Attlee, Beveridge and Keynes is slowly slipping away from us as the market is invoked as the only true arbiter of value.
The vision of the Co-op's founders known as the pioneers after the title they chose for their co-op society, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, was the creation of a store in, in response to the poverty created by the industrial revolution, to allow members to buy unadulterated food that they otherwise could no afford.
The store opened in 1844 with a meagre stock of butter, flour, oatmeal and a few candles, within three months they had added tea and tobacco and established a reputation for price and quality.
As the last election demonstrated and as the Electoral Reform Society has reported the rightward drift of our politics is sanctioned by a voting system that is essentially unbalanced, my only hope is that under its new governance, which despite assurances to the contrary is every bit as flawed as the system it replaces, the new Membership council even with its hands tied, will be able to channel the spirit of the Rochdale Pioneers and keep the Co-op, co-operative under the ownership of its members.
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