Peter Kenyon

Activist's occupational hazard - angry 'former' supporter

One remarkable experience of nearly 40-year's political activism has been the infrequency with which either I or my family have been subject to nuisance, abuse or threats. Today was an exception. Someone telephoned having seen my contacts on a copy of the latest City Rose to protest about Israel's attack on Palestine. A request to the caller for name and contact details unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse, repeat telephone calls and verbally abusive messages onour ansaphone. This was probably to be expected after I provocatively suggested that the caller refusing to give his name might be a conservative prankster. 

Best advice I can recall, is "Don't let the buggers get you down". However, it would be useful if the Labour Party provided a central facility for angry 'former' members or current members for that matter to register their views on current events and the government's response.

I wondered how other Labour Party activists deal with such callers, and how many members were put off holding any form of office by the mere thought of the public knowing that s/he is a Labour Party member?

New Year preparations - Labour Party branch AGMs

One way of working off the mince pies post-Christmas for me has been preparing for local Labour Party branch Annual General Meetings. My predecessor as secretary for the Cities of London and Westminster Constituency Labour Party, Jason Thomas Williams left an excellent set of ideas in his files to assist his counterparts at the branch level. It includes times, deadlines, posts to be filled to share out the work,'job descriptions' and a set of the standing orders to help ensure the business is conducted systematically - or at least that's the theory. I have just amended them for 2009 and despatched them to my counterparts and the chairs of branches, including a reminder to branches to prepare audited accounts if they are raising/spending and holding money.

It became fashionable under our previous Labour Party leader to scorn these routines. Checks and balances are a vital part of our society, not just our democracy. Having seen the banking system come close to collapse worldwide, my wish for 2009 is that our new Labour Party leader will make clear his appreciation of the role of branch officers, including those who account for the money. We need lots more people in local communities who understand the importance of these functions. Many used to gain their apprenticeships as chairs, secretaries, organisers and treasurers in trade union and Labour Party branches.

Let's consign sofa government to the dustbin of history in 2009.

Labour values back on track - living wage

Comrades in Tower Hamlets Labour Group last night showed real local leadership last night by tabling a resolution at full Council, which won near unanimous support, to implement the London Living Wage. (The London Labour Party backed the idea, actively promoted by former Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone, at its biennial conference in 2006.)

Labour-controlled Tower Hamlets Council recently elected leader Cllr Lutfur Rahman proposed the motion telling himself to get on with it. The resolution reads:

This Council:

• supports the establishment of the London Living Wage, set at a level calculated

by the Living Wage Unit to avoid poverty wages being paid in the capital;

• abhors the fact that around 400,000 Londoners continue to fall into a ‘working

poverty trap’ because their families are paid less than required to fund the basic

costs of living in London;

• calls on the Leader to review Tower Hamlets Council’s procurement, contract and

best value policies to ensure that, as far as possible within UK and EU law, the

London Living Wage, at the level set by the GLA’s Living Wage Unit, is the

minimum paid by Tower Hamlets Council and by its contractors and that all

temporary workers employed by the council are paid at least £7.45 an hour by

their agency;

• calls on the Leader to seek commitments from Tower Hamlets’ partners in the

Local Strategic Partnership to pay no less than the London Living Wage; and

• calls on the Leader to ensure that the Council’s commitment to the London Living

Wage is clearly displayed on Council headed paper, the Council website and

other appropriate locations

To the best on my knowledge Tower Hamlets is the first Labour-controlled Council to implement the London Living Wage not just for its own staff, but agency and temporary workers as well as commit to seek contract compliance as Best Value contracts come up for renewal. I believe that this latest development in promoting the 'living income' concept is the next step in Labour's commitment to end poverty in the UK. It could be used by Labour Groups in every local authority in the country to mobilise members and supporters. 

 

I live in the City of London. It is a scandal that the Corporation has refused to become a London Living Wage Employer. If Tower Hamlets can afford to, the City has no excuse. 

Royal Mail: what is one to believe?

Earlier today an eMail was sent to me and anyone else registered with the Labour Party concerning the Royal Mail. It proported to come from Labour Party Leader, Gordon Brown. It reads:

Dear Peter
 
I am writing to you about today's announcement of the Hooper Report on the future of the Royal Mail.

The universal service helps to bind us together as a country. It guarantees 28 million homes and businesses across the country mail deliveries six days a week, with one price goes anywhere. The Hooper report warns that the universal service is now under threat. The status quo is untenable. The choice we face is either downgrading the service as we manage decline or acting now to turn things round and secure the Royal Mail's future.

The threat to the Royal Mail and the universal service comes from the impact of changes in technology and consumer choice. In this country 60 billion text messages were sent last year, while we posted five million fewer letters than two years ago. This shift has cost Royal Mail an estimated £500 million in profits. That is five times the impact of business lost to other postal companies in the liberalised market . Making these other companies go away is not the answer to the Royal Mail succeeding.

We will fufil our manifesto commitment to "a publicly owned Royal Mail fully restored to good health, providing customers with an excellent service and its employees with rewarding employment". Bringing in a partner through a minority stake in the Royal Mail's postal business will help us to deliver that goal. It will bring the Royal Mail fresh investment, new opportunities to grow in Europe and internationally, and to offer new services. It will provide a fresh impetus to modernising the Royal Mail and securing the universal service.

Alongside a strategic partnership for the Royal Mail we will reform regulation to more effectively support the universal service. And we will help the Royal Mail tackle its ballooning pension fund deficit. This will not impact on Post Office counters in anyway.
 
I hope you will agree with me that this is the best way to save the Royal Mail and its universal service guarantee.
 
Yours

Gordon

What can I say as a mere rank and file member of the Labour Party? There was no reply facility in the eMail. But I know that a Labour government is paying obscene salaries to Royal Mail executives. At the same time there are loyal staff who collect and deliver my post who earn a fraction of those salaries.

So, sorry Gordon, since you asked, I don't agree on the basis of the information set out that part-privatisation is the best way to save the Royal Mail. Given the obscene amounts of money you have offered to the banking sector, I suspect there is nothing that a public service provider run by public service entrepreneurs needs to learn from the private sector to deliver a universal service guarantee.

Labour Party consultation about its Membersnet

Did you know that Membersnet is running a consultation? Y/N

If yes, have you responded?

If yes, did you keep a copy?

If yes, would you be willing to send me a copy or publish it?

If you did not know, click here

Background: as a newly-elected member of the NEC I have yet to track down any business-like information about how this service is run. I think as members you have a right to know whether Membersnet really is value for money, or whether there are better value web-based solutions available to help mobilise members elsewhere.

Peter Kenyon

Labour Party NEC member - constituency section

chair, Save the Labour Party

blogger

Saving the world banking system - Hansard's version

Yesterday Conservative members of parliament mocked Gordon Brown, the British ruling Labour Party's leader, for answering a question at Prime Minister's question time. Their normal tactic is to accuse him of not answering at all.

As promised in my post yesterday  here's the Hansard account: 

The Prime Minister: The first point of recapitalisation was to save banks that would otherwise have collapsed. We not only saved the world— [Laughter . ]—saved the banks and led the way— [ Interruption. ] We not only saved the banks— [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

The Prime Minister: Not only did we work with other countries to save the world’s banking— [ Interruption. ] Not only did we work with other countries to save the world’s banking system, but not one depositor actually lost any money in Britain. That is the first thing. The second thing is to get the banks into a position in which they can resume lending, and that is why interest rates have come down by 3.5 per cent.—something that the Opposition said was not possible, but which actually happened. The third thing to do is to work to remove all the barriers to interest rates and to the lending of money by the banks, and that is what we are doing in discussion with the banks now. The Opposition may not like the fact that we led the world in saving the banking system, but we did.

Quite so.

In defence of saving the world...banking system?

Apparently Labour's Gordon Brown is alleged to have made a gaffe in prime minister's questions today. Conservative members of parliament rolled about laughing. In the light of what we know from the Governor of the Bank of England, the state of the world banking system was extremely fragile despite US efforts to buy up toxic assets until GB stepped in with a bank recapitalisation plan. So I have no problem with his remarks. The Tories should be ashamed of themselves. Schoolboy antics in the House of Commons should not mask the deadly seriousness of the situation the world banking system was/is in, nor the Labour Party's commitment in government to do whatever is necessary to held the economy through. And yes, Mr Cameron that will involve borrowing now and paying money back later. Grow up.

(Today's Hansard when published tomorrow will no doubt be read very closely to see how a broken sentence has been recorded for posterity.)

BTW I was sorry I missed the live broadcast, but I was lobbying trade unions about the London Living Wage ahead of a Corporation of London Joint Consultative Committee. The Corporation has declined to apply to be a London Living Wage employer, which has some of us wondering, when City firms are signing up.

Progress lost: reflections on Milton's 400th birthday

John Milton was born 400 years ago in Bread Street close to where my wife and I live today. Last night, we went to a lecture about his life and the influence of the City of London on his religion, politics and poetic writings. Half the people in the audience were A-level students for whom Milton's work has been reinstated in the curriculum after an absence of at least a generation (or so I'm told and if incorrect, please let me know). Anna Beer's lecture, based on her recent biography of Milton, conjured images of the City as the centre of feverish exchanges of information, debate, gossip, intrigue and ideas at a time of approaching civil war, the beheading of a king, the establishment of a republic, then the restoration of the monarchy..and debauchery. Our modern political tragedy it seems to me is that elected politicians nearly 400 years ago were able to rid the country of absolute monarchy, whereas today our elected politicians seem only too happy to bestow many of those powers on the leaders of their parties. It was true of the Conservatives and its certainly has been of the Labour Party. Progress lost.

Charlton - active Labour Party fundraising

Congratulations to comrades in Charlton Labour Party, in the Greenwich and Woolwich parliamentary constituency who attracted 40 people to a fundraiser last night for their election campaign fund, no ......wait for it......annual pensioners' Christmas Party. Guest of honour was neighbouring MP for  Lewisham Deptford Joan Ruddock, now Parliamentary under-secretary at the newly created Department for Energy and Climate Change. Instead of the conventional after dinner speech, Joan spent the evening sitting listening, answering questions and debating at each of the five tables around which we were huddled. We were in the Cattleya Chu & Cho in Charlton Church Lane. The restaurant was packed. The windows were steaming. She was on our level. We levelled with her. Before leaving she did a quick resume reminding us of how Labour in government was leading the way globally on climate change (lest we had forgotten) - a small pointer possibly to an absence of deference in the round table Q&As.

The Charlton Labour Party pensioners' party is today in a local church. The event has been going for some 15 years. Next Tuesday, there is another branch fundraiser at the home of the CLP chair who is also the branch social secretary...overall a really cheering reminder of what ultimately can underpin electoral success as was proved in a recent council by-election in Greenwich.

Tories guilty of treason for debasing currency?

I'm grateful to a dinner guest on Saturday who is not a member of the Labour Party for raising this issue. We were discussing the cost of the economy of Conservative opposition to the government's plans to rescue the banking system and try and ensure the recession is as shallow and short as possible. By carping on about debt levels, the Tories are both increasing the risk of higher import prices and hence domestic price levels by talking the currency down, and adding to the debt by increasing the level of interest rates and risk premia to be paid to lenders.

Let's be clear, as the reluctance of private investors to finance increased capitalisation of the banks is illustrating - no government knows with certainty how much money will have to be borrowed to ensure the viability of the banking system. CHX Alistair Darling set out how prudence can be sustained in his Pre Budget Report a week ago. Faced with the very real threat of a collapse of the banks, what on earth was a Labour government going to do, other than what was necessary?

Any politician that continues to whinge about debt levels is debasing the currency. Rather than focussing on Conservative shadow home affairs spokesman Damian Green and the hamfisted way in which the police handled their investigation into a possible serial leaker of government documents, I'm much more concerned to see Conservatives in the dock charged with treason for undermining sterling.

Wikipedia helpfully states:

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of disloyalty to one's sovereign or nation.... A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.

Quite so. It is about time all those media outlets that claim to be so concerned about the pound in our pocket named and shamed the Conservative leadership as such. Public money is allocated to support Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, if any one can think of a better way of bring the Tories to their senses, I'm all ears.