This is not news to avid followers of the internal machinations of the Labour Party. But for me and those like me, who cherish party democracy and accountability, we need to make public that Jon Cruddas's role as policy co-ordinator inside the Party is by appointment of the Leader. As yet I have to hear any coherent account of how this job fits in to the agreed, albeit deeply flawed, Partnership into Power policy making structure.
Today, the Observer newspaper has published an interview with Cruddas here. Such is the quality of Guardian group journalism that none of the questions arising for the likes of me about about the provenance of the role was asked by the interviewers: Toby Helm and Julian Coman. Or if they were, they weren't reported. Legitimacy is presumed.
But at least we read some interesting news.
After just a month in his new post Cruddas has already "changed gear". He has torn up Labour's previous policy-making machinery of the past two years, replacing 29 separate policy groups with just three – on the economy, society and politics. He says what the Labour party has lacked since the last election is an "over-arching story".
Labour Party policy making for nearly two decades has been the preserve of the nomenklatura, not the members.
What this latest news means is that the work started in late 2010 by Liam Byrne MP after Ed Miliband's election as Leader has been binned. To put it into context requires some appreciation of the ongoing tension between Labour's elected representatives in the Westminster Parliament and the rest of the Party's sadly diminished membership.
I shall be following news from the National Policy Forum in Birmingham for enlightment about how that exercise fits into its properly constituted Policy Commissions and their work undertaken by directly elected representatives of the wider membership. Will there ever be a meeting of minds about how the Party makes policy, let alone the policies with which to win the next election?
BTW Ed , the ends do not justify the means.
