Of course. A private equity boss is the perfect person to exploit legal loopholes and avoid any pesky demands for financial accountability. Perfect appointee.

Dear Alex

Agreed, he should be judged on what he does in the job. Talking of which I can recommend an upsummer here:

http://savethelabourparty.org/080307_Tribune.pdf

BTW he was elected by the NEC, prior to appointment. Though my sources tell me that the result of the NEC ballot was withheld after the count.

Perhaps, D P-W's first action could be to ensure transparency and release the results forthwith. Ditto for any other election in the Labour Party - David Rowntree, please take note.

Good riddance to that arrogant, vile numpty Peter Watt.
Long live, Watt, the Watt is dead!  I am thrilled David Pitt-Watons's taking over. Best of luck to him.

Met David P-W in 1999 when he was a AGS of Labour Party. Had really positive first impressions of him then. Felt he was a good Labour person who was in this for the right reasons. Don't be too hasty to judge him on his private sector background. Instincts tell me this is a good appointment.

Who is this pillock????

How on earth did he get the job!!!

What is the party coming too?  Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. 

Is it not obvious that the man is so wealthy because of speculation and exploitation.  Not doing the hard graft on the shopfloor that his workers do.  When is the party going to be on the side of labour instead of capital.  That is, and will, always remain the key difference in any economy or society.

To top it all, many of these fund managers and the like are also the tax avoiding classes.  Not that he is personally but many of his contemporaries will be.  With an estimated 75 to 125 billion avoided in tax by large corporations and the mega wealthy we will shortly get into a situation when the working and middle classes themsevles will start tax avoiding because of this unfairneress and one can't blame them for that in some ways.

What does the party of 'labour' do in this context.  Appoint a venture capitalist to be general secretary.  Come on let's have Rupert Murdoch next time.

Kevin Maguire says the Co-Op Bank wanted David Pitt-Watson as a financially competent pair of hands. That probably heavily influenced the NEC with the party in hock to £20 million, including an overdue £3.5 million Co-operative Bank secured credit facility. Especially if NEC members might be personally liable for these debts!

Dear rwendland

Far be it from me to quarrel with Kevin Maguire's prose.

But the Co-op Bank is likely to be firmly focussed on how Labour is going to repay that debt and whether the Party's 2007 accounts are going to be qualified.

A credible financial restructuring plan is vital both for the auditors and the banks.

The surprise (at least for me) is that the inescapable logic of these requirements appears to have weighed finally in the recruitment, election and appointment of David Pitt-Watson.

Alternatively, it may be that the swing voters on the NEC are so out of touch with their management responsiblities/personal liabilities that Alex's version carried the day.

Tribune seems to have some inside info/gossip on the NEC selection in an article, the comment section, and the Diary. Extracting the facts claimed (which admittedly could be spin) we have:

• Both David Pitt-Watson and Mike Griffiths went into the NEC interview convinced they already had the votes lined-up, only problem was between the two of them they had 45 cast-iron promised votes and there are only 32 NEC members.
  
• Dianne Hayter objected to party scrutineers overseeing the vote and the NEC voted for Rockpools, the recruitment consultants for the GenSec post, to oversee and count the vote.
• CWU member on NEC arrived late due to bad weather, and was barred from voting. Local government member Sally Powell arrived from her sickbed. Gordon Brown was there for the entire 4.5 hours. All 32 NEC members there.
  
• It is believed Pitt-Watson won by just one or two votes.
• A restructuring of most of the party's £20 million debt has already been agreed, but the formal signing has been delayed to allow the new GenSec to take the credit for it to create a good start for him

Seems like the usual arm-twisting and deals took place. 

I'm appalled that the NEC allowed the counting of votes to be carried out by an external commercial company, other than voting specialists like Electoral Reform Society etc, where there might be a conflict of interest (eg MP Nick Raynsford is a director of Rockpools). To me this stinks. A system like clipped cards into a ballot box should have been used, so the whole NEC could have verified the 32 cards afterwards without being able to see identifiable pen marks.

For those like me that don't know what David Pitt-Watson looks like, here's the press piccie: