Congratulations to Sam Tarry

New Chair of Young Labour. Not only is Sam the first ever elected chair (something for which we all owe huge thanks to Steph Peacock and Richard Angel), he is also, to my mind, the first non-leadership person to gain a prominent position in Labour's youth movement for about 20 years. In a very esoteric/parochial way, his election is a little bit of Labour Party history.

That's not to say that Sam is a trot, he's definitely pretty 'centre-left' on the whole, but he's also done a lot of work with the Stop the War Coalition and in anti-fascism. His politics are broadly Compassite.

On the Young Labour exec as a whole, Compass or left of Compass candidates now constitute between a third to a half. Not bad with no paid organisers, and in a first year campaign. Sam's campaign itself was an absolute bulldozer. All of us who have been involved with it have been a little disappointed not to come up against any opposition (I helped Sam to write his speech, it was full of references to ballots which ended up never happening). But no opposition is something that we'll quite happily take.

The centre of gravity in the party may be changing It might not. But the fact that it is gradually democratising is something that Young Labourites from all traditions have a lot to be thankful for.

Elsewhere, my congratulations go to Steph Peacock, whose priorities I largely agree with, and all of the others who won elections.

Let's begin the work of representing our members.

Update: Sam is not in SYN, I am informed. Post amended!