Peter Kenyon

Publish or be damned

My blog post on the whereabouts of the Labour Party accounts for 2007 seems to have irked 'tory boys never grow up' - whoever s/he is. I would like to propose a solution. If the Electoral Commission confirms that there is no provision in its regulations preventing a political party publishing its audited accounts for the benefit of its members BEFORE publication for the benefit of the wider public, then the Labour Party GS should arrange for immediate publication on the Labour Party website with an eMail to all CLP secretaries encouraging placing on branch and CLP agendas asap.

What would be your objection to that 'tory boys never grow up'?

A litmus test for political scoundrels

If a politician in Britain doesn't do membership or structures, what are we to think?

If have just been asked to pen about 100 words on changing the way we do politics. This was my response:

Doing politics

Political parties are the mainstay of our representative democracy. Without their structures and members, no politician in Britain can reasonably hope to get selected as a candidate for public office and get elected (except in very exceptional circumstances). Save the Labour Party members do not expect that to change. Any politician that stands on a public platform complaining about rigid structures and membership is simply seeking to avoid accountability.

The challenge is cross-party – the rehabilitation of the political party for the 21^st century. Labour as a democratic socialist party should be leading the way.

 Peter Kenyon - Chair, Save the Labour Party www.savethelabourparty.org

What do you think?

Inside that envelope

Oooo..raffle tickets, Labour Today, covering letter and a 2nd class pre-paid envelope  err...where's the ballot paper? Aagh....err covering letter is headed "Our opportunity to shape the Labour Party's future 4th para ..The NEC....no, no no..has just appointed a new General Secretary ......NEC ballot paper enclosed? Nope, raffle tickets, Labour Today, covering letter and 2nd class pre-paid envelope.

Aagh, sooo silly.....turn over the covering letter the ballot paper is attached.

Should I use a cross or a tick?  Doesn't say!

What about the candidates? Covering letter pointers? Err, no. Ballot ballot paper references? Err, no. 

Aagh..Labour Today cover - no, its not a TV set in Gordon's living room - it says NEC Ballot 08 use your vote candidate details inside (8pt, maybe)

Page 2 - nope, Page 3 - welcome signed Harriet Harman, Page 4...Page 5...Page 15...NEC Candidate information

First task if elected get agreed format for future postal ballots that meets minimum standards for the conduct of such elections - ballot paper(s), candidate book, sae.

If the Treasurer has failed to factor in enough money to pay for OMOV ballots, then we can all draw our own conclusions.

Postal ballots and hidden intentions

The first comrade I bumped into after getting back from holiday late Saturday told me very apologetically he had junked the Labour Party mailout, which included the NEC ballot paper. The envelope design is telling. By coincidence another set of ballot papers arrived this morning from Unite. Which body really wants its member to vote? Shouldn't there be a code to govern the conduct of postal ballots by political parties? A new role for the Electoral Commission, perhaps. 

Every Labour cloud has a silver lining

Well, well, well - let's have an election and hands off No. 10. Just listen to a former Scottish Labour Party Leader on the fall-out from Wendygate. According to the BBC:

Former first minister Jack McConnell said a leadership contest would ensure the person chosen had the confidence of the party and the Scottish people.

Jack McConnell said the leader should be chosen without interference

He also warned that there should not interference from Downing Street or elsewhere.

Mr McConnell said: "One of the key factors here is that members of the Scottish Parliament and party members in Scotland make a choice without any influence from people such as me or from senior figures in the party leadership elsewhere.

"I think we need to have the candidates set out their stall, give them the chance to show the leadership qualities they think they have but also have a real debate about the Scottish Labour Party and how we put our values and principles into practice for the 21st century."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Where are Labour's accounts?

Today is the official deadline for the filing of an annual Statement of Accounts by larger political parties with the Electoral Commission.

Parties whose total income or gross expenditure is £250,000 or less are required to submit a statement of accounts within three months of their year end. Those parties that exceed this limit are required to submit their statement of accounts within six months of their year end.

As a member of the Labour Party, I want to see a copy too - now.

All that the new General Secretary-designate Ray Collins has to do before he goes on holiday is authorise their publication on the Labour Party website - a virtual 'cost-less' exercise. It's what I would have done if appointed to the post.

Why? The future of the Labour Party depends on rebuilding trust not just with the electorate, but with the its dwindling membership - currently the source of 40% of annual income and activists to knock on doors and deliver leaflets.

Unlike, Sir Gerry Robinson, I am not demanding the head of the Leader, before I put my hand in my pocket. On the contrary, we have democratic procedures to elect Leader/Deputy. They could be improved. But blackmail should not feature in a so-called democratic society.

Personally, I will not donate another penny to central party funds until the accounts are published in a timely fashion and I have the right to question the NEC in general and the Party Treasurer in particular about their stewardship of the Party between Annual Conferences. Oh, before I forget, another pre-holiday action that the GS-designate could take would be to circulate those nomination papers for Leader/Deputy to CLPs pdq. Personally, I would be recommending no change. My hunch is that the majority of CLPs and affiliated trades unions and socialist societies would do the same. That would put the celebrity donors in their place.

Reaffirming a commitment to openness and accountability is the only forward for Gordon Brown. Don't you think?

Sleepwalking - Labour Party NEC style

Yesterday's Labour Party NEC took a perfunctory moment to consider the events leading up to the coronation of Ray Collins as General Secretary. How many candidates applied? Answer: five, and one withdrew. Supplementaries: None. Not even a smidgeon of curiosity about the identity of the person who withdrew. According to my sources he was one of the short-listed candidates in Round One, believed to be Michael Parker. So why did he withdraw? Was it a dawn-chorus moment courtesy of beleaguered Labour Party Leader, Gordon Brown. Ooooo, nooooo, we don't doooo deals.

Then there's the question of relations between members of the shortlisting panel comprising Labour Party Officers and the candidates. According to my sources the minutes of Labour Officers' meeting don't even list who was present. So that's alright then. No need to declare possible conflicts of interest if you don't bother to record who was present in the first place.

Oh, I nearly forget, the proceedings started with Obituaries - tributes were paid to the late Gwyneth Dunwoody and Tom (latterly) Lord Burlison, former professional footballer, deputy general secretary of the GMB union and Labour Party treasurer. Tom was remembered particularly fondly by NEC chair, Dianne Hayter as a 'fixer'. I kid you not, you couldn't make this up.

I'm still up for challenging this way of doing politics. If you are a Labour Party member, a ballot paper for the NEC constituency section election 2008 is due to be sent to you at the end of next week. Vote - Kenyon, Azam, Black, Reeves, Shawcroft and Willsman.

A TU bailout is not the answer to Labour's financial woes

Hat tip to Labour Outlook for spotting this story in the Daily Mail on Saturday. However, I strongly disagree with the author's conclusion, namely; only the unions can bail Labour out.

Modern union barons might, with immense reluctance, bail out Gordon Brown's Labour Party, but only if the Prime Minister makes commitments that carry a very heavy political cost.

The Labour Party's National Executive Committee appears to have failed to exercise control of the Party's finances since David Pitt-Watson was director of finance in the late 1990s. One obvious source of finance that has been consistently ignored since are its individual members, regional, constituency and branch labour party structures - at least as far as systematic fundraising is concerned. It is neither in the interests of the Leadership, the affiliated trades unions or individual members that Labour in government become dependent exclusively on trade union donations and affiliation fees for solvency.

But before that process could be triggered there has to be a radical overhaul of the Party's financial management arrangements and a clear commitment from the former Leader Tony Blair to commit to repay a substantial proportion if not all of the reckless loans taken out while he was in charge. Most people think it is quite unseemly, if not obscene, for him to be accepting highly lucrative directorships and other paid positions after authorising Labour Party fundraising to be undertaken in circumstances, which ordinary members might be forgiven for thinking were ultra vires.  

Labour Party members demand early sight of Accounts/Agenda

Last night delegates at my Constituency Labour Party (CLP) General Committee agreed a proposed national Party Rule Change to give members the right to a provisional Conference Agenda and the Annual Accounts by the end of June. This would allow enough time for due consideration to be given by members at their local meetings to the business of Annual Conference. It's an opportunity for the Labour Party National Executive Committee to rebuild bridges with its dwindling membership. By making itself accountable, the NEC would be showing the electorate that Labour practices what it preaches. It would sit well in the context of the Governance of Britain agenda laid out by our Leader, Gordon Brown shortly after his election unopposed to replace Tony Blair and appointment as Prime Minister by HM the Queen.

In the normal course of events, Rule changes proposed by CLPs or affiliates lie on the table for a year before consideration at an Annual Conference. But we live in unusual times. The Annual Accounts have to be lodged with the Electoral Commission by 30 June each year. So there is no additional administrative burden imposed on Head Office by making them available to members via the Party's Intranet. It just requires the political vision to want to be accountable. If the Conference Arrangements Committee has not got a Provisional Agenda ready by now, it ought to have, surely?

Why is Labour's NEC blind to its liabilities?

This is pure speculation on my part. But I've been wrestling with why someone applies for a job, gets an offer, then turns it down. Not any old job, but the general secretaryship of the political party to which you would have to feel a deep-rooted affinity to apply in the first place.

The Labour Party's precarious financial predicament is evident. But what of the past debts? Who is liable? My hunch has been that it is the NEC, which, of course, includes the General Secretary. Now that the hare about contractual difficulties concerning previous employer has been run to ground according to today's FT, that only leaves one explanation. The Labour Party is unable to offer indemnity to any future General Secretary for liability for past debts.

As a candidate for the NEC in the elections due to take place between mid-June and mid-July, I intend to make make it my business to request advice from the Party and report back. Ditto as a prospective candidate for the GS vacancy - deadline 23 May.

The current NEC may think this matter is best brushed under the carpet. I don't see how the Party can put its affairs in order unless the NEC owns up to the enormity of the Blair/Levy legacy.