I have been invited to a selection meting tomorrow morning. Nothing to get too excited about. The ward already has a sitting councillor who they are perfectly happy with so he will be re-selected. As a sitting councillor for that area, who lives in that area, he would stand more chance of being elected as well.

So why did they invite me, and why am I going?

In short, they invited me because they are old-fashioned about the democratic process and manners, and I will go for the same reasons. They always invite everyone.

For the same reason of democratic process I voted last year that we should re-select our MP by having a choice of candidates instead of just automatically keeping the same candidate – even though I would have voted for the sitting MP.

On top of this, I would prefer not to stand in this ward. Obviously I would put everything into campaigning and then put everything into representing the place after the election. Its just that there are other places I would rather be. In theory they could (and probably did) invite councillors who already represent somewhere else and want reselection in their current seats, and if so they should turn up, and if selected they should accept. But I accept that is a very old-fashioned attitude.

But even so, they should decide who they want so that they get the best candidate, and they can’t do that if everyone turns them down. So I will go along and give the other chap the satisfaction of being elected instead of going through by default. I would much rather be having a lie-in though.