2010 Party Leadership Campaign
On 18 May 2010, news broke that McDonnell wanted to stand in the Labour Party leadership election, to be held following the resignation of Gordon Brown, and would announce it the following day at the Public and Commercial Services Union conference in Brighton. McDonnell noted that it would be difficult to get the 33 nominations needed from the parliamentary Labour Party required to stand in the election. He stated during a speech at the GMB Union Congress on 7 June that he wished he could "go back to the 1980s and assassinate Thatcher" He later apologised for the remark which was described as distasteful and sickening. On 9 June 2010, the deadline for nominations, he had secured 16 nominations and withdrew from the election.
Read more about this topic: John McDonnell (politician)
Famous quotes containing the words party, leadership and/or campaign:
“... the idea of a classless society is ... a disastrous mirage which cannot be maintained without tyranny of the few over the many. It is even more pernicious culturally than politically, not because the monolithic state forces the party line upon its intellectuals and artists, but because it has no social patterns to reflect.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“A woman who occupies the same realm of thought with man, who can explore with him the depths of science, comprehend the steps of progress through the long past and prophesy those of the momentous future, must ever be surprised and aggravated with his assumptions of leadership and superiority, a superiority she never concedes, an authority she utterly repudiates.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“The fact that a man is to vote forces him to think. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)