Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Labour politics this coming Monday looks like being a battle of the Straws, Jack and his up-and-coming political son, Will (whom Jack shopped to the police in the days when he was Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Secretary, for selling cannabis).

Around 4.30pm on Monday, the Justice Secretary Jack Straw is due to unveil his long-expected to the House of Commons.

And then two hours later in Westminster, young Will Straw is due to launch his much-trailled .

So will Jack Straw be upset about this family conflict of diaries?

"Not at all," says my source. "He'll be delighted. He totally dotes on his son."

Something strange is afoot.

In the last fortnight two senior Conservative behind-the-scenes figures have effectively defected.

First Sir Paul Judge, a former chief executive of the Conservative Party under John Major, announced he was setting up an organisation called to help independent candidates run for Parliament.

Yet only last summer I was among dozens of journalists invited to a reception at Sir Paul's lavish flat overlooking the Thames as a get-to-know-you exercise for the Shadow Cabinet member Chris Grayling. And Judge was giving money to Conservative Party as late as last October.

And today Jonathan Isaby on the has reported that Lynton Crosby, the Australian election wizard who helped Boris Johnson get elected as London mayor last year, and ran the Conservative campaign for Michael Howard in 2005, is now . That's the who ran the successful No campaign in last year's Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

I can't imagine that either The Jury Team or Libertas will be a roaring political success, but the moves by Judge and Crosby can't be welcome at Conservative HQ. Both men will be helping candidates run against official Conservative nominees.

Surely, with the Conservatives riding high in the polls and set to form the next government, David Cameron should be attracting big defectors, not losing them?

I regard both men as being on the right of the Conservative Party. Do their moves reflect some underlying philosophical disquiet?

Or are the two developments just coincidence?

A juicy Labour punch-up is looming in the Lanarkshire seat of Airdrie and Shotts, where the is standing down at the next election. His party chairman Brian Brady warned me today that the seat could become "Scotland's Blaenau Gwent" if the Labour high command in London insists the party should pick its next candidate from an all-women shortlist.

Blaenau Gwent, you may recall, was the rock-solid Labour seat in South Wales, where local Labour activists rebelled against the imposition of an all-women shortlist before the 2005 election. Many of them ended up leaving the party to support an independent Labour candidate Peter Law, who was duly elected to Parliament. He was succeeded after his death in 2006 by another independent MP - also ex-Labour - Dai Davies.

Airdrie and Shotts is a safe Labour seat. The majority last time as 14,084.

It's effectively the same constituency which was once represented by the former Labour John Smith. He was succeeded as MP by the former , and then by Reid, and it seems that local activists are a bit fed up having to accommodate top-level candidates who have been wished upon them by the party high command. And, Brian Brady says, there was an understanding that after John Reid the local party would be allowed a "free hand" to choose its own candidate.

And the seat has had a turbulent political history, and I first came across Brian Brady fifteen years ago when he was a local rebel Labour councillor arguing that the local council was run by a semi-corrupt Labour oligarchy which had a habit of fixing jobs for the friends and families of local Labour councillors.

What makes this story all the more juicy is that activists in Airdrie and Shotts fear they are being set up to accept a close associate from London of the Labour deputy leader, and possible leadership contender Harriet Harman.

"There's no doubt that this is a Harriet Harman thing to help strengthen her position," Brady has said. "She would like having acolytes in a safe seat."

Local branches in Airdrie and Shotts start the selection process next week. But Brian Brady warns that if the process ends up with a candidate who has been "parachuted" in, then Labour could lose the seat.

"On paper," he told me, "Airdie and Shotts looks very safe labour constituency. But at the last Scottish Parliament election we were run close by the SNP. We are aware that the wider electorate is not prepared to be taken for granted. This could turn out to be Scotland's Bleanau Gwent."

But would that mean Labour activists putting up an independent candidate as happened in the south Wales seat in 2005?

"Without doubt," says Brady, "there are a large number of local members who would go out and help in other constituencies. But at the present moment people are not thinking about running an independent local candidate."

"At the present moment?"

The threat is obvious.

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UPDATE - Thursday 19 March, 2009

A spokeswoman for Harriet Harman has told me today: "There is no substance in these allegations. The decision was taken about a year ago. Harriet supports all-women shortlists which have been long-standing party policy. The policy for an all-women shortlist in this constituency was approved by the full NEC [National Executive Committee], not by any one person or politician."

Caroline Spelman, the Shadow Communities Secretary, has been ordered by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee to pay back Β£9,600 to the Parliamentary authorities.

This is for claims for money from her secretarial allowance in the period 1997-99 which she "inadvertently" used to pay her nanny.

The commissioner concludes that there was no evidence that it was a calculated breach.