Peter Kenyon

Has Tribune lost the plot over the next GS?

Inside the latest edition of Tribune, the Comment column focusses on the future of the Party and three tests for Gordon Brown. One is the forthcoming appointment of a replacement for Peter Watt as General Secretary. I shall be writing about this after this weekend's Spring Conference. But I'm worried that Tribune has retreated into a trade-union sponsored comfort zone. That is not the future of the Labour Party.

I appreciate some people will misinterpret this as an attack on the TU link. It is no such thing. It reflects a balanced assessment about the Party's current state and future options.

As the work of the LabOUR Commission hightlights, there has to be a fundamental change in the relationship between the leadership and members, whether individuals and affiliates. A money-savvy long-standing Labour Party member is more likely to be able to achieve that than a long-standing trade union fixer, as outlined here.   

How flowers for Mother's Day boost Labour funds

Sorry, Jack the proceeds will not be going into central Labour funds. Instead they will be going into my Constituency Labour Party coffers.

How? A local member spotted a facility available to anyone interested in fundraising for a cause of their choice, thanks to the Labour Party Membersnet.

A shopping portal has been set up so I was able to purchase flowers for my Mum knowing that 8% of the purchase price will go Cities of London and Westminster Labour Party.

Personally, I think the Party needs a fundraising strategy starting at branch level. But knowing the rigorous governance, accounting and audit regime now in place in my CLP, I am very confident the proceeds will be well spent. We need to replicate that discipline at the branch level to help fund reconnecting the Labour Party to every local community in the country.

A hint from Brown on agency/temporary workers

Gordon Brown gave a clear indication at Prime Minister's Question time today about how he will deliver on agency and temporary workers' rights, voted for overwhelmingly last Friday.

But it will be in a European, rather than domestic context.

Here's the extract from the No. 10 website transcript of PMQs:

Kelvin Hopkins: Last week the parliamentary Labour party was united in voting enthusiastically to nationalise a bank. On Friday two thirds of the parliamentary Labour party stayed in Westminster to vote for the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill, so ably promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller). After that vote we gathered in New Palace Yard for a team photograph and sang “The Red Flag”. Does my right hon. Friend accept that with more of the same, he will lead us to a famous victory at the next election?

The Prime Minister: I believe that the whole country believes that we were right to take the decisions that we took on Northern Rock. I also believe that the whole of the European Union, all 27 countries, want to see an agreement on agency workers. We are working throughout Europe to get such an agreement...

Not before time it could be argued.

If my hunch is right, this offers the Labour Party a chance of reinforcing the idea of Social Europe, which is inexplicably being put at risk by TU demands for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Should Labour MPs be supporting unreceipted exs?

Simple question. Which Labour MP will lead the defence of unreceipted expenses?

There is a risk of this issue getting lost by Labour MPs in defence of the Speaker who are attacking the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson.

I doubt it will be David Winnick MP. He got slapped down by the Speaker in the House yesterday for having the temerity to suggest that the Speaker's review should be speeded up. (Can't find link in Hansard - maybe classed as 'Private Business' and unrecorded.)

In any event, I think he deserves an apology from the Speaker in the wake of today's news that the Speaker's review is being....speeded up. Among the suggestions for reform being given prominence ...yes, you have guessed...unreceipted exs, at least according to the BBC report:

The Commons Members Estimate Committee said it would publish its findings before Parliament rises for the summer....

The committee also said the £250 limit for MPs submitting expenses claims without a receipt would be cut.

This will happen from the start of the next financial year in April, with the new maximum expected to be about £50.

Why not £0?

Labour - all member ballot for NPF - 2009, 2011, ever?

At 10 am next Saturday morning, I hope to be in Birmingham to hear Gordon Brown set out further his vision for Labour in government at the Party's Spring Conference. My hope, although I'm not holding my breath, is that he will take the opportunity to praise active members - the people on whose support many elected representatives depend.

Wouldn't it be marvellous if he talked up the importance of members in the modern Labour Party having a say? It will involve ensuring transparent policy making (just like the total transparency now sought for MPs allowances and expenses). The final round of key policy proposals for any election to be fought by Labour candidates needs to go to an all-member ballot with clear political choices. That approach would offer the prospect of genuine unity ahead of the next British General Election, and pave the way for winning back voters now.

Political cynics would be stunned. Opposition parties would flounder. Labour Party morale would enjoy a big boost.

As a forward-thinking Leader, he will have done his sums. To give members a say means enabling an OMOV ballot for National Policy Forum representatives at the next available opportunity in 2009. As Leader of the Party he is uniquely placed to enable that to happen. It requires a Rule change to be agreed at the 2008 Annual Conference. Only the NEC has the power to table Rule changes at such short notice.

Brown may not be aware. But there is a growing consensus about this reform among members. last Saturday it was debated at the AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD). A resolution proposing that all national constituency representatives to the Party's National Policy Forum should be elected by a One-Member-One-Vote ballot was passed unanimously.

STLP has been actively campaigning about this for nearly five years. It is one of the recommendations of the LabOUR Commission, chaired by Angela Eagle MP, now a Treasury minister, that published its interim report last May.

We had hoped that early discussions with the NEC would have led to a consultation in time for Rule changes to be proposed to the 2008 Annual Conference in Manchester next September. Then the next round of NPF elections in 2009 could have conducted in accordance with members' wishes, which I and others hope would mean ALL members. That path was blocked by Mike Griffiths, now a candidate for the post of General Secretary, who to the best of my knowledge as Clerk to the Commission never even replied to Angela's letter setting out the scope for further evidenced based work to enable members to have a say. If Brown and the NEC, of which he is a very important member, continue to sit on their hands members, will have to wait until 2011 at the earliest to have say.

Having inherited a £20 million debt mountain from his predecessors, Brown needs to lead a renaissance of Labour as a mass-membership party representing the many not the few to consolidate his position as Leader and PM. Rebuilding the party will take a generation or more to achieve. But with key electoral tests in London, and English and Welsh local government on 1 May, what better opportunity to start the process than Spring in the centre of England?

Labour needs a financial planner as its next GS?

The latest donations and borrowing data from the Electoral Commission revealed Labour's net indebtedness in Q4 2007 was slightly higher while donations were sharply lower. The Party's dependence on its traditional financial supporters - the trade unions has increased, while TU members' readiness to fund Labour is facing increasing opposition from rank-and-file members. They are questioning the value of the link faced by a Labour government seen as too close to big business and the rich. In the meantime, the Party's membership base has shrunk by more than half, though income from membership has been maintained to a degree through increased subscriptions. The gap between mainstream 'professional' political party cost inflation was filled by relying more and more on donations and loans from rich individuals and corporate sponsorship.

As recent events have made crystal clear, as a financial model - it's unsustainable. Hopes still lingering in Whitehall of tapping into the public purse by increasing state-funding of political parties are doomed to failure. I'm wondering how much these matters are going to weigh in the minds of the 33-member National Executive Committee when they interview the five candidates short-listed for the job of General Secretary on 10 March and appoint.

My hunch is that it's going to take much more than a trusted pair of TU hands to guide the Party from the state of indebtedness left behind by Tony Blair. The first political test of the Party Leadership's understanding of just how fragile a state the Party may be in comes later today with the 2nd Reading of the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill. If Gordon get's the politics right, it will still need a rigorous financial planner to ensure the Party is solvent ahead of the next General Election. Ideally, one who understands that politics is a people business too. There is no magic wand.

UPDATE: 0800 Tribune has an update on the real politik

Labour Party policy making - demand a say now!

February Labour Party meetings will be the last chance for many members to demand a say in policy making for the next General Election. That may seem a tad alarmist. But consider the timetable. All party units with elections imminent will be expected to stop business meetings from around mid-March (in London its the 17 March) until 2 May. That's the date Party HQ expects to distribute the next set of draft policy documents. The deadline for comments/amendments and redrafting is 20 June.

What's missing are any tools to enable Labour Party members to see what is being fed back to Party HQ. It is not as though they don't exist. They do. The NEC officers just don't want members to be informed about what other members think. (And these are the people who are tasked with shortlisting the next General Secretary to replace Peter Watt.)

I raised this at the City of London Labour Party's branch meeting last week. The following resolution was agreed:

This branch supports the proposal for transparent policy making in the run up to Warwick 2 made to the NEC chair by Save the Labour Party on 30 January, and calls for the same commitment to transparency from the Party Leadership in the drafting of the next British General Election manifesto to help unify members around policies for a 4th term in government.

The proposal was set out in a letter to Dianne Hayter and posted on the Save the Labour Party website. The alternative is a manifesto written by the Party Leadership culminating in an all-member ballot when most sane party members in the interests of party unity will not want to voice dissent, even thought they may profoundly disagree with aspects of policy.

Partnership in Power was meant to deal with all that. It didn't.

If the majority of branches and CLPs supported the STLP proposal, the Party Leadership might take notice and act. This is our opportunity to demand a say. If you have a branch or CLP meeting shortly, please seek support for the STLP proposal. It is not too late to make our voices heard.

Torygraph columnist pelts Tories over Rock

Reading the 'Opposition' newspapers is such a pleasure when they publish gems that conclude like this:

The complacency, the smugness, the old clichés look empty now. How many people believe the Tories would have made a better fist of Northern Rock than the hapless Alistair Darling? How many believe they would tackle the real problems facing our bloated economy and our nation any more effectively than Labour does? Not nearly enough to win them an election, I fear.

We, in the Labour Party, have just got to capitalise on the opportunity, as I suggested after news of the nationalisation (albeit temporarily) of Northern Rock.

Labour NEC nominations deadline sooner for some

London CLP Secretaries have just been instructed to tell members that all formal party meetings are to be suspended from 17 March 2008 to focus on the Mayoral/Greater London Assembly elections. That means the last opportunity for nominations to be made for candidates to the National Executive Committee, National Constitutional Committee and Treasurer for most CLPs will be February meetings. The official deadline is 1 April.

I presume similar instructions have been issue to all CLP secretaries with elections in May 2008.

As a candidate for the National Executive Committee, I declare an interest along with the rest of my colleagues on the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance. So, please don't delay get those nominations in this month.

Northern Rock - private sector failure, Labour opportunity

Gordon Brown's justification at his Press Conference tomorrow (Monday) will be conciliatory. But let's not mince words here or on the doorstep - Northern Rock was, is and will remain a private sector failure. Private sector greed and negligence broke it, private sector greed couldn't put it together again even though a Labour government mortgaged its reputation to encourage a private sector bailout.

To his credit Brown has responded promptly to the Goldman Sachs' evaluation of the options (deadline for submissions - two weeks ago) and, more importantly from a political standpoint, refused to bow to Virgin's demands for further taxpayer handouts.

Tory opportunism has to be unmasked. Personally, I'm grateful the Brown government didn't flinch from propping up the banking system and is seeking powers now to nationalise promptly in the event of any further threat to financial stability.