• MARTIN Plaut’s defence of Labour’s selection process (Labour selection was fair, December 30) was shockingly dishonest and brings further shame on the way the hard right inside the Camden Labour parties are abusing the selection process.

Historically admission onto the panel of candidates is only prevented on technical grounds.

For example, if the person has not been in the party long enough, lives outside the borough, or has a financial / employment interest.

The aptness of the candidates is a matter on which the local wards make a judgment.

What’s happened in Camden – because the right control the panel – is that anyone who fails to meet their narrow sectarian distinctions is being blocked from going forward for possible selection.

Councillors with years of experience, deep roots in the community, and specific skills, have been summarily removed because they don’t fit the right’s political template.

The depressing element of this flagrant abuse is that Sir Keir Starmer and Tulip Siddiq – Camden’s MPs – are totally silent.

They are apparently content that Camden is under the control of an unrepresentative cabal who care nothing for local government or services, and everything for crude political manipulation.

It shames the borough, the Labour Party, and the wider labour movement.

STEVEN TAYLOR
Hampstead & Kilburn Constituency Labour Party
NW6