Peter Kenyon

A tale of two governments - as seen from Colne Valley

If the election on Thursday is as open as some polling data suggests then compelling stories could save the day for Labour. Here's an account from Colne Valley in West Yorkshire.

The covering letter from Labour's candidate says:

It’s not party-political evidence. I’d expect you to take party-political stuff with a healthy pinch of salt. The first part is from the ‘papers which serve the Colne Valley Constituency. These are word-for-word headlines and extracts from articles in those papers. Names of individuals acting privately have been left out. Only people acting in an official capacity have been named. The second part gives an updated picture. It uses some news articles, and other non-party political evidence, to show what’s changed under Labour.

Could we mobilise to encourage every local newspaper editor / radio station chief to check its cuttings/recording archive and do exactly the same for every constituency in the country?

 

Voters in the spotlight: X-in the box for Labour

Think hard. What do the vast majority of us depend on? Dare I write it? Yes, it's the economy. British Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader (at least until Friday if this story is to believed) is by his own admission neither the best communicator nor looker in political life, but he does know how to run the economy in good times and bad.

Reading the UK press, viewing TV or listening to radio over the past couple of years anyone could be forgiven for thinking that the banking crisis was the fault of a Labour government and nothing to do with the bankers, and that the subsequent recapitalisation of the banks through government borrowing was a monumental political error by Labour. Neither contrary proposition is an easy sell. In the televised prime ministerial debate last Thursday Brown was unable to get his opponents to admit this latest recession was completely different from those in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Nor did he secure an admission that the banks that were unable to recapitalise from the markets (which Barclays was able to do) namely, RBS and Lloyds/HBOS had to be bailed out by government.

That doesn't mean it's time to forget that the right judgement calls were made and the economy is now on the up when putting an X-in the box on Thursday 6 May.

......Step forward capability Brown, make amends and change the landscape

I started writing this just before the Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed himself in a manner that could bring his term in office as well as his leadership of the Labour Party to an abrupt end, therefore, however, laughably, I will finish albeit with an amended intro.

Labour has eight days to restore its electoral standing and win a 4th term. After Brown's 'sort of bigoted' gaff about Mrs Duffy in Rochdale, that task has just become a lot more difficult, unless he gets back out infront of the public again as soon as possible today...and STOPS talking about MY policy(ies)...they are Labour policies.

That said, the main theme of the debate remains the economy. If the wild and extravagent claims of the other two prime ministerial wannabees and their underlings are any guide - the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are rattled by the underlying fundamentals of the British economy. Increasingly strident, their claims that 'the economy is wrecked' and 'society is broken' can readily be shown for what they are - lies untruths.

Responding demands quiet, soft-spoken confidence. There is no doubting Gordon Brown's confidence. But quiet and soft-spoken? There have been occasions during PMQs in the closing months of the last Parliament, when he heeded the need to avoid being strident, and projected a calmer self. The final televised 'prime ministerial debate' will be such a moment. And it will be decisive.

We are all as a society relatively better off - thanks to a higher public deficit. Without bank recapitalisation, the economy would have been a wreck - not just in Britain, but worldwide. Labour market flexibility underpinned by a national minimum wage and targeted government support for businesses has helped keep more people in work, more businesses trading and more people in their own homes than was forecast 18 months ago. Overlay Conservative policies twenty and thirty years ago and the UK economy would be in a deep depression today. As for the Liberal Democrats, their economic spokesman, Vince Cable, today shredded his own reputation as a save pair of hands with a reckless statement comparing the UK to Greece.

None of the parties disagree about the need to cut Britain's fiscal deficit, the argument is about when and how much. Labour has stated unequivocally its commitment to halve the deficit in four years. The critique issued by the Institute of Fiscal Studies yesterday is about the detail, in particular, Labour's decision to defer a three-year public spending review by 12 months until the Autumn 2010. There is an entirely plausible narrative to justify that decision - to date overall borrowing is lower than forecast last year, ditto unemployment and hence benefit payments by the state, and housing repossessions are also lower - keeping people in their own homes. Growth appears to be returning and is forecast even by those cautious economists at the IMF and the OECD to be the strongest in the Eurozone area next year. That will mean higher tax revenues as well as lower welfare payments. In addition, banks bailed out by the British government are returning to profitability and the government's holdings of their shares are showing a near £10 billion repeat billion profit.

Jobs, maintaining frontline public services - health, education and policing, ending wage, pensioner and child poverty, increased investment in telecommunications, and green industries are all part of a future fair for all.

It is the rebuttal that is crucial to turning the economic debate so that when it comes to casting a vote, we all - well enough of us - refocus on what matters - policies, and our future as a society and not on the flawed personalities who currently lead our political parties. If we remember the General Election is not about electing a prime minister, but an MP representing a political party with a set of distinctive policies, then Labour should win on 6 May. .

Never let it be said, I am not loyal!

Labour's winning combination: policies, passion, processes and party democracy

Admittedly, current opinion polling data is not encouraging for the Labour Party. At least not for the faint hearted. But then think about who's paying for those polls and publishing - a largely hostile media. Meanwhile, in the real world, there are the markets, places of work, leisure and home. And for political party activists, a relentless work programme from an electoral ward in a local authority to capturing the attention of electorate nationally.

This is an election when contrary to the siren calls of those who claim that most votes don't count in a first-past-the post election, every single vote will count in 2010 - wherever it is cast.

Living in a Conservative held parliamentary seat (Cities of London and Westminster), and a place where local council elections took place last year (City of London), I've still been mobilising members in my own Labour Party branch. Some are keeping our Labour candidate for the General Election in the limelight by delivering leaflets, others like me are also canvassing in a neighbouring electoral ward Bunhill Ward in Islington South. Membership alone is not the driver. Nor dreams about possible outcomes. Organisation and policies are key within a framework of party democracy. Having rebuild a local branch, we have members who understand the importance of a political narrative, regular voter identification, messages for postal voters, canvassing of PVers, members to take polling numbers on election day, others to knock to Get Out The Vote. With polling stations open from 7 am to 10 pm breaking up the day into one-hour shifts - a small army is required in every branch, not just constituency to optimise the vote.

Bunhill Ward, like most electoral wards in London has three polling stations. That is 13 - one-hour shifts times three making 39 shifts just to collect numbers,. Then there are runners to pick up, committee room staff to enter and produce 'Knocking-up' sheets for those additional members with the most stamina to walk/jog/run  round reminding 'promises' to actually vote. (There is scope for efficiencies using electronic devices, but that's another story.) It should be done with 20 people/ branch, ideally more. So across a densely populated urban constituency that would be some 200 volunteers - and that's just on polling day. 

So tiring it might be, but 'tired old politics' - oh no. This is the stuff of real politics that reflects our policies, passion, process and party democracy. Parliamentary democracy is not just about a vote when a General Election is called. It's about on-going debate reflecting values - the bedrock of tackling events. If anyone wants to clean up British politics, then their plans have to encompass accountability, party AND parliamentary democracy. All three main political party leaders have shown themselves wanting in that regard. None of them readily embraces party democracy. If Brown really wants to win he will show he understands he owes his career to the Labour Party. It is the Labour Party that has brought fairness to the many. it is the Labour Party that thanks to its members and supporters has a manifesto to offer 'A future fair for all'. 

The economy is on the mend. Today's International Herald Tribune carries some very encouraging words:

Policy Exchange, a British research organization, has written: “Though many people find it hard to believe, the United Kingdom is still a major manufacturing economy — the sixth in the world,” whose output is about equal to Italy’s and a bit bigger than that of France. Although Britain’s deficit, according to the E.U.’s statistical agency, is troublingly high at 11.5 percent compared with Germany’s 3.3 percent, its debt as a percentage of G.D.P. is smaller, 68 percent versus 73.2 percent. And so was its March unemployment rate, 8 percent in Britain against 8.5 percent in Germany, where Rainer Bruderle, the German economics minister, branded “our little Job Miracle” the envy of the world. The International Monetary Fund even projects growth in Britain as out-doing the euro-zone average this year and next. 

Not bad. 

I'd say. So Labour Party Leader, Gordon Brown's job in the remaining 9 days of the campaign is to empathise with the electorate seeking reassurance. He needs to focus on the benefits of public sector investment, the banks back in profit, recapitalised able and more willing to lend, and look forward to rising tax revenues from growth to help reduce the fiscal deficit without draconian public spending cuts or massive tax hikes. 

He should also take some credit for helping stimulate interest in our politics by agreeing to the TV debates. But that will only be credible if he sets himself and his party firmly on the side of ongoing political engagement and collegiate policy making, rather than concentrating more power in the hands of the party leaders and their power brokers (m'lord Mandelson, take note).

Can/will the electorate 'conspire' to dump Labour's Brown?

With 12-days to go British Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown is facing a pincer movement by the other two competing egos seeking to govern Britain. Brown's legitimacy as party leader was compromised in 2007 when he assumed the leadership of his party in what many commentators described as a 'coronation'. That was the inevitable outcome of a process that resulted in no other member of the parliamentary labour party being able to secure the 44 backers needed to force an election. Labour Party members and affiliates that form the other two parts of Labour's leadership electoral college consequently had no say. This will all come into play if Labour fails to secure the largest share of the popular vote and a majority of seats in the new House of Commons when the counting is finished after 6 May 2010.

Labour election strategy hangs on its ability to get across a simple message. "It's the economy, stupid." "We saved you from the abyss" is not as compelling as "You've never had it so good". Brown reduced the campaigning slogan to : 'Jobs, jobs, jobs' immediately after the second televised prime ministerial debate. The bedrock of Britain's parliamentary democracy - political party mass membership has crumbled in the post war period. The country faces a 'game change' moment when the professional political class stages another coup to further distance the electorate from the elected.

Contraditions abound. The advocates of proportional representation (PR) for elections to the House of Commons have been claiming of decades that votes don't count. There is even a campaign for PR called 'Make votes count' run by a Liberal Democrat. Yet here we are on the eve of a General Election under first past the post (FPTP) when the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are positioning themselves in the post-electoral scene in which the proportion of votes cast for each party WILL COUNT. Brown's claim to remain prime minister will depend on how many votes are cast for Labour Party candidates, IRRESPECTIVE of whether the seat has traditionally been Conservative, Liberal (Democrat), and more recently Scottish Nationalist or Plaid Cymru. Ever fleet of electoral foot m'Lord Mandelson has spotted that too, and opined accordingly. 2010 is not the year for tactical voting.

To win Labour has a mountain to climb. Whilst I'm glad Mandelson has spotted the blindingly obvious in that regard, he has been exceptionally slow and ridiculously stubborn in acknowledging the catastrophic blunders made by New Labour under former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Brown's only chance of remaining prime minister, and Labour winning a fresh mandate is if he and his allies are candid with the electorate.

As Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband conceded in a foreign affairs debate with the Conservatives' William Hague and Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokemen when asked if he would still have supported the invasion of Iraq if he had known then what was known now, he said:

“Obviously there would have been no such decision.

“Because if we had known then what we know now, if we'd have known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, there would have been no UN resolutions and no vote in the House of Commons.

Brown needs to be similarly forthright about his handling of the economy. Major errors were made by New Labour which relied too heavily on the private sector, especially the financial sector. A major shortage of affordable housing was another blunder of the New Labour ideologists. Remarkably Britain is still a major world manufacturer, despite having no strategic industrial policy for 10 years under New Labour. All that has been changed on Brown's watch. Britain is out of Iraq. (No one questions the legitimacy of the was in Afghanistan, just the tactics.) Brown steered not just Britain, but the world out of the 2008 banking crisis, and subsequent recession. No question. Yes, recovery is fragile. But the adverse consequences in terms of jobs and repossessions were far less than forecast 18 months ago. The banking system did not collapse. We were able to continue drawing cash from the ATMs.

Yes, the cost of recovery has been increased public borrowing. But that is what government's are for. That's the lesson of the last century. At last in Brown and the Labour Party, Britain has a prime minister and political party that understands what government is for. The public finances are not in meltdown. The only real risks to jobs, homes, schools and the NHS arise arguably from a Conservative government, or the uncertainty arising from a possible Tory/Lib-Dem administration. (Even a scant knowledge of their respective positions on the economy and electoral reform screams - polls apart!)

What Labour election strategists have to grapple with is who are the best advocates of these messages. We are stuck with another televised debate. But for some of the electorate election day has already come and gone, some postal votes have already been delivered, filled in and returned. Labour supporters are going to have to use crowd techniques to get easily understood messages across in the final few days. Brown has got to be contrite and collegiate. Lord Mandelson ditto. Team Labour has to be allowed to speak.

Memo to Labour Party PR advocates: Every vote WILL count in 2010

In the event of no political party winning an outright majority of seats in the General Election on 6 May 2010, the party with the highest number of votes cast rather than seats won will, according to innumerable commentators, have the greatest democratic legitimacy.

I hope all my Labour Party colleagues advocating tactical voting, active in the mislabled campaign 'Make Votes not Count' and flirting with proportional representation will reflect on the implications of their actions for Labour in government come 7 May 2010.

I'm voting Labour whatever.

#askthePPCs for Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Sheffield Hallam and Witney

Amid all the ceremony for tonight's TV debates, I'll wager than none of the participants will be introduced for what they are - prospective parliamentary candidates for their respective political parties, (in a constituency comprising less than 100,000 electors). Those lucky few are the only people who will get to vote for one of these three people on 6 May 2010 - not the UK's 40 million plus electorate.

Pound to a penny, there will be no 'health' warning for the hapless viewing public stating: Polite Notice - UK Prime Ministers are appointed NOT elected. The sub-text could elaborate: Unless you are registered to vote in a UK general election in Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Sheffield Hallam or Witney - you will NOT be able to vote for or against any one of these three individuals. 

None of them are MPs at the moment. The Prime Minister remains the Prime Minister. I'm not sure about the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. As for the Liberal-Democrats, they must be laughing all the way to the ballot box.

It's all part of the onward march of the political class. The TV debates, are seductively billed as prime ministerial debates. All three participants, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are lining up to deceive the public. Unless one of them has the courage to tear up the script and confess. "Viewers - you will not be electing a new prime minister on 6 May, you will be electing a new member of parliament."

"Just so there is no confusion, my party members elected me as their Leader, tonight we are debating the policies my party is proposing .......I'm one of a team - not a team of one.....I'm asking you to vote for the candidate my party has selected to stand in your constituency. If you, the electorate vote my party a majority in the House, we will be able to form the next government. If I succeed in that task, I hope my party will endorse me as its Leader. I will be submitting myself to annual re-election as Leader during the course of the next Parliament. So if you want to keep me on my toes, join my party now and take part in our annual leadership election."

For all the regulation of broadcasting, political parties, advertising, plus the public money poured into citizenship education, that simple proposition - "we don't elect prime ministers" will not even get a mention. As for the use of 'I' , if I can bear to stay the course, I'll be counting.

Selection in the spotlight: Nottingham East - Jolly good show or crying shame?

Tomorrow, the Labour Party will interview nine candidates and select one to represent it in the Nottingham East parliamentary constituency. Controversially, its Special Selection Panel (SSP) voted 8 to 7 last week to impose a candidate on the constituency.

CLP officers, Nottingham City Council Labour Group members and the outgoing MP, John Heppell met yesterday in Birmingham on the margins of the Labour Party 2010 Manifesto launch to help shortlist for interview from some 100 applicants. Congratulations to local CLP members for successfully lobbying for 1) an OPEN selection, and 2) getting a say at least for their CLP officers and local councillors. They have definitely got local candidates short-listed for interview. They include Councillors Jon Collins, Brian Parbutt and Jane Urquhart. In addition, four black asian and minority ethnic candidates have made the cut, plus two rival 'national' names, former MP Chris Leslie and the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison national secretary, Byron Taylor.

Tomorrow, the interviewing panel of five NEC members have an opportunity to make partial amends for local members being denied a say. They can ensure an open and fair selection on merit. It's a choice between the new and old politics. A narrowing of opinion inside the Labour's NEC was demonstrated by the closeness of the vote to impose a candidate last Thursday. It was only carried by the votes of Leader Gordon Brown and Deputy Leader Harriet Harman. Had either one of them voted in favour of, retaining members' rights to a say then there would have been no need for this blog.

They and their advisers all have a chance to rethink their positions.

Their difficulties with regard to Nottingham East arise from persistent rumours that No 10 (ie. Gordon Brown) wants former MP Chris Leslie to be the next MP for the seat, That line was blogged again yesterday by BBC Newsnight political editor Michael Crick. The interview panel could wrest back some of its tarnished reputation by not bothering to consult with No. 10 about whom they are minded to impose select. According to the Nottingham Evening Post:

A spokesman for the Prime Minister told the Evening Post that Mr Brown had no preferred candidate.

As Gordon Brown himself reminded everyone at the Manifesto launch yesterday:

- And which is the party of political reform, offering more democratic change than at any time in 100 years and more? .... the party with the plan for the future. And I say to you today: the future will be progressive or conservative, but it will not be both.

Quite so. The age of deference is over. What better place to demonstrate precisely what that means than the selection of candidates to fight the general election.

So its up to Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, USDAW's Paddy Lillis, Keith Vaz MP, NEC chair Ann Black and her vice chair, Norma Stephenson to do the decent thing. We know that both Ann and Norma voted last week AGAINST imposing a candidate. Of the three imposers on the NEC panel, Keith Vaz represents the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic section.  He has aroused considerable controversy by his role in selections to date, and faces allegations after the election from that constituency of not ensuring a robust equalities approach. Tomorrow is his chance to show he embraces the new politics, and that the age of prime ministerial patronage is over. Quite what unionised shopworkers will make of Paddy Lillis, their deputy general secretary's forelock tugging to No. 10 beats me. As for Harriet, she has much to answer for concerning these fast track selections chronicled here and elsewhere. 

This 2010 election is, as we were reminded repeatedly yesterday, about 'people not posters'. Well, where better to start than with the people who are signed up as members of the Labour Party in Nottingham East, and those whose votes they seek to ensure a Labour MP in the next Parliament?

As the interviews will be taking place in the Jolly St Ermins Hotel in London, it will either be a jolly good show, or a crying shame. A decision is expected mid-afternoon.

Labour Party: winning strategy - forget the sofa, take to the streets

Labour's prospects of clutching victory from the jaws of defeat appear to be diminishing according to most recent opinion polls, just when the latest economic indicators suggest the country has been saved from the worst ravages of recession thanks to Labour policies.

Whether a slide from 'sofa government' to 'sofa electioneering' as reported in today's Guardian is going to help reinforce Labour's message of 'A future fair for all' depends on how important personality is with the electorate, as opposed to its policies - past, present and future.

Next week's budget is much more likely to seal the campaign in the minds of voters. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has an opportunity to set out Labour's strategy to deliver that future. To be successful, he has to deliver a means of achieving fairer income distribution and income tax collection, and affordable housing - on a far greater scale than currently planned. Given the fragile state of recovery, but effectiveness of policy to protect jobs and homes, there is wriggle room in the public finances as today's public borrowing figures for February illustrate. He also faces a difficult judgement call re the fuel tax escalator, Labour's green credentials and the electoral impact of a £1.20 litre of fuel at the pumps.

The dividing lines between Labour and Tory couldn't be clearer. The banking crisis would have been cataclysmic under the Tories. Forget recession, we would be in deep depression by now if Messers (sic) Cameron and Osborne had had their way. But that is very much a minority message. Most of us prefer not to think about how bad it could have been. Reassurance can be found in what has happened in the last 18 months, and in particular what is emerging now from official data.

In the meantime, Labour's programme for the next five years is still being shaped by manifesto coordinator, Ed Miliband. Online endeavours have failed to achieve levels of participation, openness and transparency needed to change the zeitgeist. Though there are signs of increased interest in volunteering and membership, David Blunkett's dream of raising an additional £10 million for Labour through small donations still, sadly, appears just that, a dream.

Labour could have managed its affairs differently in the campaign to date. The refusual of the Party's National Executive Committee to protect members' selection rights whilst speeding up the process has left a trail of suspicion leading to either No 10, Unite the union, the unions in general or any combination of those involved.  We will never know whether some Labour PPCs won their nomination fairly. Not very clever for a Party promoting 'A future fair for all'.

Those shenanigans have sadly further impeded the prospects of restoring trust in either the Labour Party or our parliamentary democracy. That sense of business as usual is being compounded by Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself proclaiming his determination to remain in office whatever the outcome of the General Election. Such reminders that the Labour Party is 'institutionally undemocractic' are particularly unwelcome just when all the party election strategists want to maximise mobilisation on the streets. With the media having had its way luring the main political party leaders into televised debates the electorate could be forgiven for thinking they are going to be voting for a prime minister.

The party leader that stamps on quietly rebuts that idea repeatedly throughout the campaign will deserve the trust of the electorate for understanding the British constitution. Brown has already rehearsed lines reminding voters that 'this election is about their future, not his', and MPs that he is 'one of a team, not a team of one'.  If he uses 'sofa electioneering'  to cement that idea in the public's mind, he will do himself and the Labour Party credit. But it would only be credible, if he insisted on reinstating members' right to nominate Labour's leader and deputy leader every year from now on as set out in the Party's Rule Book.

I have already pledged to lead a write-in campaign for him if he wins the 2010 General Election. But the idea that he has a divine right to dictate whether he remains leader or not is ludicrous in a democratic socialist party. All he is doing is fuelling the Conservative idea 'Vote for Change'.

Something for next week's Labour Party National Executive Committee to resolve, the day before the Budget?

Labour Party: calling all PPCs to support members' rights now

The Labour Party is on the brink of a historic general election victory. To consolidate this unlikely (as seen by our political opponents), but readily achievable goal (as seen by those of us with a finger on the pulse of 21st century politics), I hereby invite all Labour prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) to join Labour PPCs for members' rights.

Daily reports being supplied to election coordinator Douglas Alexander MP are highlighting how volunteers (members and supporters) knocking on doors in key seats are going to determine which party wins the forthcoming General Election.

The Party leadership needs to be reminded very publicly that members and supporters matter. Members and supporters want a say in policy and in selections. Who better to reinforce that message than the people who want to win - Labour's PPCs? So who will lead the charge?

What have you got to lose, apart from the 2010 General Election?