Peter Kenyon

For the avoidance of doubt: a NPF before Easter?

Working on the assumption that Labour needs to mobilise as many members as possible to win back London, what's going to get them motivated? Well, we can take it for granted that crass remarks by Labour Leader Ed Miliband committing Labour to sticking with Coalition public spending cuts, and shadow Chancellor Ed Balls pledging to freezing public sector pay will not get party activists out on the knocker. Let's not forget that the new Leadership, in what can only be described as a very unfortunate oversight, has gagged members directly elected representatives on the National Policy Forum. Nor can the Refounding Labour debacle be readily dismissed as an administrative hiccup. A deadening sense of business of usual, when Ed Miliband promised change, is having a corrosive effect on party confidence and could result in historical precedent being overtaken by events. Labour may have never replaced a leader by staging a coup, though former Leader Tony Blair, might want to disagree with that analysis.

Personally, I have no confidence in any of the alternatives cited as potential leaders by more celebrated commentators than myself. I want Ed Miliband back on track. Not as red Ed, but as democratic Ed - the Leader willing and wanting to listen. He should talk to attendees at the first National Policy Forum meetings in the early 1990s. They remember the former, and sadly late, John Smith sitting at the front and listening to debates.

Just because there are elections in less than 100 days time does not mean elected representatives should not be discussing and debating policy. On the contrary, I would argue the opposite. Given the need to persuade the electorate that Labour values matter, what better way to get key messages to members - you matter, and voters - we understand your needs and have better ways of addressing them, than having open discussion? 

According to Luke Akehurst's account of last Tuesday's National Executive Committee:

[He] asked why there wasn’t going to be an NPF meeting before the reps face re-election in the summer. Peter [Hain] said that if an affordable venue could be found then an NPF meeting would be held in late June or early July.

Rather than remonstrate with Peter, and rail against Ed, now is the time for practical responses. So, the Labour Democratic Network is asking all NPF representatives elected by members, and representatives of the other stakeholders, about their availability on Saturdays between now and Easter. Further it is offering to find and pay for a suitable venue in London to enable them to meet.

The proposed format is deliberative - no set speeches, no campaigning sessions eating into time for discussion, debate and voting. LDN hopes that this will be seen by the Leadership as a genuine offer to help set the seal on the change needed to our politics.

(Apologies in advance to any NPF CLP representative if we haven't got a correct eMail address for you, if you don't receive a Doodle invitation in the next 48 hours, please get in touch.)

 

 

Being Leader of HM Loyal Opposition doesn't mean members have to bow and scrape

Sorry, Ed but it has to be said. I didn't vote for you as Leader of the Labour Party to enable business as usual. I don't believe the vast majority of members and affiliates who voted for you in 2010 did either. Yet that is what you appear to be presiding over. If you want to know why you are not making headway in the polls, you probably need look no further than the National Executive Committee (NEC) agenda and the people sat round the table at today's bi-monthly meeting.

You will no doubt have given your Leader's report. NEC members will have put in a question or two, if they were lucky enough to be called by Chairman Cashman. But there probably wasn't any debate, and as for voting for or against any resolutions - perish the thought. 

That takes me to the root of Labour's mess. The party has been corrupted by a culture of deference and mis-placed loyalties. it would be naive to suppose that other political parties don't suffer from the same afflictions. They do. But we are the Labour Party. Constituted as a federated body of individuals, affiliates and elected representatives, mainly to the increasingly beleagured Westminster Parliament, our values have been suffocated by careerism.

You had a opportunity to stop the rot, to save the Labour Party. Instead you allowed your fratricidal guilt to be eased by the machine operatives, having plucked the crown from your brother with what now seem nothing more than false promises.

We were expecting internal party reform. Submissions were garnered. It was branded: Refounding Labour. Electronic means were provided to enable members to submit contributions. They could have been published for all interested members to see, read and analyse. But no. Those clever scheming control freaks failed to put a check box on the electronic submission form enabling members to authorise internal publication. Earlier this month, I received a letter from Head Office dated 22 December 2011 setting out various deadlines. It includes one concerning the party's policy making process - now that we are in opposition - known as Partnership into Power. It doesn't even include an eMail address for submissions, let alone an option to enable other members to see any other submissions. It is the ultimate insult in a democratic socialist party of which you are Leader.

A key internal indicator of your success will be membership trends. I would be very surprised if membership nationally on 31 December 2011 was higher than on the same day a year earlier, and I would be even more surprised if it wasn't starting to fall sharply. Tell me I'm wrong.

The temptations of office have to be rejected. Use of the first person singular about collective business should be banned. Policy is collective business. As leader you can guide and shape. But having gagged our National Policy Forum representatives, all one can presume is that you are frightened of debate and as a result your policies are a mess. The public sense that. The only way back is to start behaving like a democrat. Debate has to be enabled. People have to feel empowered.

 

"Mess left by Labour" - no, not the economy - the party

Even some right-wing commentators think Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, has had a good week, thanks mainly to Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite the Union. I disagree. But it would be easy to get distracted by events. After the supposed repositioning of the Labour Party's economic policy, I blogged last week about the "Mess left by Labour" - Voters need to know ConDem mess is worse, and worsening , with a promise ..to be continued.

While most commentators are focused on the Westminster village, media positioning, individual performances as measured by opinion polls, I'm more interested in the structures and processes that shape modern politics.

Having listened to, and read endless speeches and interviews, I'm fed up of my party being blamed for a mess that never was. But after nearly nine years of looking closely at the Labour Party itself, I'm convinced the real mess plaguing Labour's electability is the party itself. Ed Miliband had an opportunity when elected to start to clear up that mess. Instead, he has been making it worse. 

There is only one piece of serious empirical research about party membership in the last 10 years that I know about. It was conducted by the LabOUR Commission and still available from the Labour Democratic Network website here . The main conclusion was that both current and lapsed members expected a say in Labour Party policy-making. That was back in 2006, and I doubt the expectation is much different today. For the avoidance of doubt, that's a say, not the right to dictate to or tie the hands of the Leadership. Instead, Labour Party members remain effectively gagged as I set out earlier this month here. Their directly elected representatives on the National Policy Forum  for 2010/2012 have not had the courtesy of a single NPF meeting to deliberate policy. Worse, there are sitting members of the National Executive Committee and hopeful candidates bombarding members with election materials, without so much as an apology for having failed to secure a date for an NPF meeting before the ballot papers are issued for the 2012/14 NPF term of office which starts later this year. 

This reflects misplaced loyalty to party colleagues. We are members of a democratic socialist party, not a glee club. Think on it. (to be continued.)

 

"Mess left by Labour" - Voters need to know ConDem mess is worse, and worsening

Everytime I hear those words: "we've got  to (insert cut, slash, burn proposal) we are clearing up the mess left by Labour", I shiver. As a member of the 'keep it simple, stupid' school of political thinking,, what could be simpler? There is no point anyone in the Labour Party pretending otherwise, the majority of the country including a fair proportion of Labour Party voters thought we had created a mess. Election defeat followed inevitably in May 2010. Worse, a Labour Cabinet minister, Liam Byrne, left a note on his desk for his successor proclaiming there was no more money.

The idea of that mess gelled, just as it did in the run up to and aftermath of Labour's defeat in 1979. In the months following the last General Election, it was a difficult idea to argue against. I was struck over 12 months ago how BBC1 Question Time and BBC Radio 4 Any Questions audiences were not easily swayed by Coalition spokespersons blaming Labour for their actions. But as a political 'given' holding back Labour's rating in the polls, and who could deny that, it is a lie that must be countered.

With a keynote speech from Labour leader, Ed Miliband to London Citizens, trailed last week, and another from shadow chancellor, Ed Balls at the Fabian Society's Annual Policy event yesterday, I couldn't help thinking - what better time than now to start putting the record straight? But no we were treated to more of the same neo-liberal economic dependence with a sprinkling of regulator exhortation that has characterised Labour economic mismanagement for the last twenty years.

The electorate deserves a lay person's narrative. 'You think Labour left the economy in a mess in 2010? OK, let's accept you are right. Growth today - lower. Inflation today - higher. Unemployment today - higher. So the economy's in a bigger mess under the ConDems, than when Labour left office. And tomorrow it will be worse.' (To be continued.)

That Labour leader speech: I am not enthused

Take one step outside the Westminster village and what have we got? An understatement of the obvious is as much enthusiasm as I can muster. The public was in a tax and spend mode ahead of the 1997 General Election after 18 years of Tory misrule. New Labour was way behind the curve. Today 15 years on, a Labour Leader is playing catchup. Unfortunately, events have got in the way, and complicated the narrative.

But the idea that the big difference between Labour and Tory is that Labour is the only party of fairness when money is tight is risible. Is there a single Labour Party member opposed to the idea of fairness per se?

As for the absence of a single word about fair taxes, shame on you Mr Miliband. Labour's political narrative remains to be set out.

Labour Party members' policy reps: 'gagged' for 2-years, now facing elections

For those of you braced for a late night tomorrow glued to CNN and the GOP New Hampshire primary spare a thought for Labour Party national policy forum (NPF) consitutency labour party(CLP) representatives facing an election next summer.

Since taking up office in the autumn of 2010, these hapless individuals (55 in total - five per Labour Party region) have been in effect 'gagged'. Unless something radical changes in the next two weeks, there will have been no NPF meeting at which Labour Party policy was discussed and voted on before ballot papers are issued for the 2012 NPF elections. Don't take my word for: Luke Akehurst, leading right-wing member of Labour's national executive committee and secretary of Labour First, in a recent Twitter exchange with me described the format for the last two NPFs as:

content free networking rallies for the nomenklatura

There was only one NPF in the preceding two years on my watch as an NEC member (2008-10), and nothing appears to have changed, despite fine words from Leader, Ed Miliband and more recently appointed general secretary (GS), Iain McNicol.

It is not too late for action. The Labour Democratic Network is willing to help pay for, arrange and staff an event to give our elected policy representatives an opportunity to meet, discuss and decide future policy direction. A proposal was circulated to sympathetic NPF members and select key decision-makers before the festive season to help gauge interest. Even among some so-called rabid lefties there was an understandable reluctance to make life more difficult for the new Leader.

But there appears to be solid support for the proposed format:

1030 Plenary start 

1100 - 1245 Policy Workshops 

1245 - 1330 Lunch 

1330 - 1515 Policy Workshops 

1530 - 1700 Plenary - debate, votes and wrap

Note: no provision for speeches or campaigning sessions - just concentrated policy discussion.

Of course, the directly elected 55-CLP reps account for barely a third of the total 180 plus NPF members. So there a a lot of other representatives to take into consideration. In particular, there is an elected Leader. He was interviewed at the weekend by the Guardian newspaper.

"I gather there has been some stuff in the newspapers"

he is reported to have opined laconically.

Acknowledgement of the role of members in Labour Party policy-making was there none. This is going to continue to haunt Ed Miliband until he gets it. With the wind of change blowing through Labour Party Head Office, and a new staffing structure in prospect, now is the time for both Miliband and his new GS, Iain McNicol to restore members' rights to have a say. Membership has stalled again, and unless people sense their opinions matter, they are not going to bother to stay in membership, let alone join the Labour Party afresh.

According to some well-informed sources the Labour Party does not have sufficient paid staff to service an NPF. That is why LDN is offering to assist pay for a venue and recruit volunteers to record, transcribe, and steward.

In the meantime nominations for NPF candidates have been invited in a Head Office circular to CLP representatives over the Christmas period. The deadline is 30 March 2012. The election will take place after the May elections. Incumbents could be forgiven for asking what is the point, if the Leadership isn't interested in your views - even if you have been elected to represent members?

Your call, Ed.

An indelicate question: Labour Party membership - stalled locally, nationally?

Overheard on the Westminster grapevine are encouraging figures about the growth of Labour Party membership since the 2010 General Election. It might suit some to buff-up the leadership of Ed Miliband with a shiny five-figure number. But viewed from the grassroots, that figure (65,000 according to an internal document 'leaked' to The Times and reproduced here http://bit.ly/wM8RJw), should be treated with caution. My best guess is that it is a gross figure (sic) and does not take account of resignations or lapses.

What is lamentable is that Labour Party senior officials know what total membership is nationally, by parliamentary constituency and administrative regional or branch in real time. That information is then used for internal political purposes, but rarely, if ever, as a legitimate performance indicator.

Past experience has been that the Labour Party will not publish that data. The best we can hope for is a national figure for 31 December 2011 in late July as part of the Statement of Accounts required by the Electoral Commission. That will be followed by CLP membership data for the same date as part of the Annual Conference Decision Book after the event in October/November ie 10 to 11 months later.

My own consituency had no new members in the last month. Nearly 10% are in arrears, therefore in the absence of fresh recruits or rejoiners, net membership already falling locally will continue to do so. This is not a surprise to me in view of the so-called Refounding Labour fiasco. Worse, the Party's so-called policy making process, Partnership into Power, has been shut to ordinary members for over 15 years. But the powers that be blunder on blindly, unwilling to look at the evidence staring them in the face that the Party on the ground is still too small and inadequately organised to ensure victory at the next Westminster elections.

Consolations, if that is what they are, come from fellow members who understand without prompting, for example, that annual accounts need to be prepared for forthcoming annual general meetings. My own branch treasurer delivered his draft for audit on the first working day after the end of the financial year. I think I should propose him for a Merit Award. Another branch chair, who is emigrating at the end of the month, has been ringing round members encouraging attendence at his 'retirement' AGM and as a result has two candidates to take his place requiring an election. Imagine! 

Now that I have got papers away to branch secretaries for our CLP AGM on 28 February (yes, two months away) and my own branch members for our AGM next week, it is time to check on those branches in need of rebuilding. In one instance it will be the third year running. But that's what goes with the job of CLP officer if you believe in rebuilding from the electoral ward up. In 2010 we failed to run candidates in every ward for every seat, we don't want that to happen again in 2014. 

To succeed we not only need more members willing to campaign, raise funds, contribute their skills and experience, we need wider recognition and support from the leadership for locally-based organisational capacity, collaboration and above all mutual respect and civility. 

Happy New Year.

Labour's NEC needs to get a grip on IT

Who is responsible for the Labour Party spend on IT? Any NEC member claiming to put members first can not get to grips with representing members without an overview of who does what currently, or how money is being spent and accounted for. 

As a member of the NEC representing members for two years from October 2008 until September 2010, I failed to get the General Secretary to send me a copy of the staff organogram, budget or management accounts, let alone make an impression on its IT offering. With one exception. I suggested a link on Membersnet to elected representatives. That might appear a small matter when the party's finances are so strained. 

Earlier this week I had another look at the Labour Party's public presence on the Internet, and its offerings for members - Membersnet and MemberCentre with a view to provoking a reaction in high quarters. Remarkably little thought or effort appears to have been put into a radical overhaul of these facilities to enable the member friendly, inclusive, outward looking party some of use have aspired to for decades, and now set out in the Labour Democratic Network's Manchester Declaration.

Symptomatic of problems on the NEC are the reactions I got from two CLP representatives (who shall remain nameless) about the Messaging facility in Membersnet:

I find membersnet a complete pain and never use it unless I have to. 

The other said on Twitter:

I didn't get it! And you have my e-mail...

to which I replied

<NEC has governance oversight 4 mmbrs?

Which leads me back to my opening question: Who is responsible for the Labour Party spend on IT? As a result of my interventions earlier this week, I think the lists of National Policy Forum (NPF) representatives by region are now up to date. But I suspect there are no links to our elected representatives from membersnet. If there are, they may be being filtered by region ie. a member in London region can not communicate with an NPF representative in Scotland. 

In the forthcoming NEC elections, I will be casting my vote for anyone who (among other strategic issues) can get a grip on the IT and drive a process to make Labour's public/member web-presence an engine for electoral success in May 2012 and beyond.

For the record: Below are extracts from my Sent and In boxes in Messaging -

Sent Messages

	Sent to:	Subject
	Jack Falkingham	Test @ 3 days ago
	Joanne Milligan	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 4 days ago
	Callum Munro	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 4 days ago
	Callum Munro	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Ken Livingstone	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Johanna Baxter	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Luke Akehurst	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Christine Shawcroft	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Eleanor Reeves	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Ann Black	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago
	Joanne Milligan	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 5 days ago

Message inbox

Page 1234567 of 7 | next »

	Last message	Subject
	Joanne Milligan	A better future for Britain @ 16 weeks and 4 days ago
	Peter Kenyon	A better future for Britain @ 18 weeks and 4 days ago
	Joanne Milligan	Test @ 22 weeks and 2 days ago

 

Wrestling with Refounding Labour rule changes, contempt and obligation

It's that time of the month when invitations to forthcoming local Labour Party collective gatherings for political debate and organisational matters (aka agendas) need to be crafted and despatched. Technically, I'm in breach of Standing Orders as they should have been despatched two days ago. But hey ho, we are where we are. Neither the chair nor myself as secretary will actually be at the meeting next week. He's found a volunteer to chair, and I'm still hoping to find one to do the minutes.

Hanging over the proceedings like a large black cloud in my mind is Refounding Labour. The new Labour Party 2011 Rule Book requires our branch and constituency annual general meetings to be postposed until after the May 2012 elections. As the official guidance was inconveniently received well after the November monthly branch meetings, the membership as a whole has yet to be notified. Most branches if they meet at all do not hold business meetings in December. The first branch meetings in 2012 would normally be AGMs, with the CLP AGM at the end of February. 

There is an impeccable logic to that cycle. Nominations made at January branch meetings can be circulated as widely as possible to members for February meetings, prior to elections at the end of February. In addition, financial years like the national party run January to December. Given the nature of branch and CLP finances in Cities of London and Westminster, it is straightforward closing the books in time for AGMs. So why change? Ah, now the Rules say so. 

It is that sort of level of detail that passed Peter Hain, the architect of Refounding Labour, by.

Following our July branch meeting, I wrote to him with a copy of an emergency resolution calling for a Special Conference to give members time to consider the proposals, rather than have them bounced through the 2011 Annual Conference.

He wrote back: 

Sorry we simply don't agree because I thought you like me want reforms to empower grass roots members and turn Labour from an obsolete Party like our rivals into a popular movement relevant to today's politics. That's what RF aims to do and you can help make it happen.

Well, I'm sorry Peter, we live on difference planets. If we can't have an AGM at a time convenient to local members - that's disempowerment.

As a branch and CLP secretary it is my duty to encourage and promote adherence to the Rule Book. As a senient being, I view the whole Refounding Labour process as ultra vires - an abuse of power by the leadership and the National Executive Committee, especially the trade union section. But I'm disinclined to encourage open defiance. It would just be a drain on what little emotional energy I have left for the Labour Party.

A simple remedy occurs to me which would be for all branch and CLP officers and delegates to tender their resignations in time for elections to be notified to January branch meetings, with a parallel call for nominations. Mine's in the post to myself. In the meantime, I'm also struggling with what the City of London Labour Party response ought to be the threatened eviction of OccuplyLSX. That will have to wait til the constituency papers are done.

 

Iain McNicol's first 100 days - will he herald cultural change?

While some mourn the passing of New Labour co-architect Philip Gould, I have been wrestling with the practical problems of organising a branch meeting outside St. Paul's Cathedral, and a faulty national membership database.

Membership services are not a central feature of the current Labour Party apparatus. After an exchange with Johanna Baxter on Twitter earlier today, it occurred to me that the clock is ticking for our new general secretary, Iain McNicol.

My colleagues in the Labour Democratic Network share a vision of the Labour Party, which is set out in our Manchester Declaration. Iain McNicol was served up Refounding Labour by the old New Labour guard. They were desperate to consolidate anti-democractic centralist practices as the prevailing force inside the party, and the majority of the national executive committee fell for it.

Contradictions between the stated ambitions of the leadership to attempt to run a Labour candidate for every public office anywhere in the country - the so called 'No no-go areas' policy has to be matched with an organisational/fundraising strategy (short/medium/long-term) to enable Labour vote maximisation.

That is one of the many challenges facing our new GS, and his first 100 days are up on 9 January or thereabouts (assuming his official start date was 1 October). Fixing the IT system to support local organisation is critical to enabling that shift in culture to being member friendly, and improve retention and recruitment. Of course, there is a lot more to the job than that, but it would help.

Which reminds me, I must get the ward notices out to members still relying on the post. None of them currently attend meetings, but it's their right to know what's going on in their branch, even if they don't trust Head Office with their eMail address. (That's something us branch secretaries just have to live with, for the moment.)

Bring on the future, Mr McNicol.