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Originally Posted by hill walker  The labour partys sole public representative in laois cllr Laurence Kavanagh has announced that he will not be contesting next years local elections. He was co opted on to the council in april of last year following the death of his father Larry who previously held the seat. The main reason he gave for stepping down was that being a councillor was time consuming and at 33 years of age he had more things he wanted to do in life. he will continue to help his party during the election campaign.
To be honest Labour in Laois have lost their left wing status and a lot of the membership are concerned at the emergance of Jim oBrien as their chairman.
The former priest and comedy writer lacks any working class credentials.
Its easy to see why Kavanagh and others are jumping off the sinking ship rather than face embarrasement next year |
I'm not a labour voter but I think you're being very unfair to both Larry K and Jim.
Larry is not 'jumping ship' as you put it; he never wanted the seat and never did anything with it. I imagine he'll be delighted to have the filial albatross off his neck and is probably feeling the relief already. With the best will in the world, he's an ineffectual councillor because his heart just isn't in it.
Jim may lack working class credentials but there are those who would argue that labour in general has departed significantly from its working class roots in all but name and rhetoric. It's disingenuous to blame him for Larry's decision as you have done in your last paragraph. Jim has a very good profile, is vocal and is very active in the community - something which might garner him the kind of votes a labour tag wouldn't.
Will the greens put forward someone? I doubt it. LOG are an enthusiastic but very small group and would have to think very carefully about who among them might have vote pulling power. That said, if they do put someone forward, it will be in Emo, where the majority of the members seem to be congregated, with only a couple in the other areas. And where there might be a seat for the taking anyway. Maire McKay from Tullamore ran in the general election last year and got the predicted poor show but there was no one for the Laois side of the constituency.