Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has called on the Labour leadership to “come clean” about the “seriously dodgy” process for selecting its parliamentary candidate in Falkirk.
Mr Clegg said the Labour leadership appeared to be “puppets on a string” for the trade union bosses who provide the bulk of the party’s funding, and described the controversy over the choice of a successor to MP Eric Joyce who quit the party after a Commons bar brawl as a “Monty Python parody of the Soviet Union”.
Earlier this week, Labour leader Ed Miliband rejected calls to reopen the party’s inquiry into the Falkirk selection battle, in the wake of the publication of emails from constituency chairman Stephen Deans which opponents claimed raised fresh questions about alleged attempts to rig the vote in favour of a candidate backed by the Unite union.
Mr Clegg told LBC 97.3 radio listeners: “The whole thing is so mysterious, that the Labour Party is run like this.”
