Peter Kenyon

Labour NEC agenda: missing items - membership

In addition to the scandal of not providing regular management accounts to all Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) members is the small matter of no membership reports either. I was reminded of this yesterday reading reports of Labour benefactor and former minister Lord Sainsbury's new venture, the Institute of Government.

Sainsbury interviewed by the Times newspaper recalls the daily monitoring of trading figures in retailing:

“In the family supermarket business, every morning you had the previous day’s trade figures, how well you were doing compared with the previous week and the same week last year. Everyone knew exactly what they had to deliver."

There is no reason why the NEC should not have regular membership figures, except that the powers that be do not think membership is critical to the Labour Party's core business. This may help explain why Labour is now languishing at pitifully low levels in the opinion polls after a battering in the Euro/council elections in June. Membership recruitment and retention, together with ensuring members have a say in policy are essential to any Labour electoral recovery plan. That's what I shall be proposing when the NEC next meets on Tuesday 21 July.

Pesky Labour Party expectations: accounts with an auditor

Unaccustomed as I am to causing public mischief, the treatment of the Labour Party accounts needs closer examination. In my experience, albeit only after 63 years on the planet mainly under English law, the members of any organisation, incorporated or unincorporated are entitled to a copy of the Annual Accounts. Often unincorporated bodies present their accounts to members with the auditor present. (I wouldn't claim this happens universally. But I would insist it is good practice.)

There is a notorious example of audited accounts being presented without the auditor present when the 'clean bill of health' was forged. Hence the practice of having an auditor present to 'account' for the veracity of the ....accounts.

And when does this happen in the proceedings of the Labour Party? Well, it's a relevant question. At least it is in my mind. Whether it is a good one depends on whether you are a pupil of good governance or ...beholden to an expectation too far.

Labour Party accounts - members will have to wait

City of London Labour Party met last night for its monthly meeting of debate and campaign planning. As usual there was an item on the Agenda for National Labour Party business. My comrades were shocked to hear me report that the General Secretary, Ray Collins had effectively rejected our request for earlier publication of the Statement of Accounts. There is no obligation on the GS to arrange early publication. The Rule Book Chapter 1, Clause VIII. G says one of the jobs of the NEC is::

to present to the regular annual meeting of party conference a report covering the work and progress of the party during its period of office, together with a report on the work of the NEC committees, a financial statement and duly audited accounts. This report, financial statement and accounts shall be sent to CLPs and affiliated organisations at least two clear weeks before the opening of party conference

That means forget about them until mid-September. But a Labour law to clean up British politics, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act passed in 2000, yes that's nine years ago, requires political parties with a turnover in excess of £250k/annum to file a Statement of Accounts within 7 days of 30 June in the year following the accounting period in question.

I think members should get them at the same time, so does my branch and so does my CLP which has a Rule change resolution down for the 2009 Conference. Devotees of this blog will perhaps recall comments at around this time last year from 'tory boys never grow up' questioning whether my assertion that there was no reason why members could not receive them at the same time as the Electoral Commission, ie now. I thought (mistakenly) that  a little quiet diplomacy on the NEC with the GS might result in my wish being fulfilled despite 'tory boys never grow up' strident assertions. It will come as no surprise that my optimism was (as is often the case) premature. But I have not given up, I have gone back to the GS querying whom he took advice from in coming to his decision not to publish immediately.

Openness and accountability underpins how most of us decide to spend our time and money, often in ways we are not even conscious of at any particular moment. Labour Party membership, commercial income and donation trends, whether small, high value, corporate or trade union will all be affected by how well the NEC is seen managing the Party's affairs. I'm not suggesting anything material is being hidden in the 2008 Accounts. Though, bearing in mind it is only just over 18 months since over £20 million of hidden unsecured loans were discovered dating back to the Blair era as Leader, one can't be too careful.

That pesky 10p tax issue

I hope that Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown will finally see sense over this issue. There are too many people on low incomes paying tax, just as there are too many people without living incomes who are either in work, on entitlements or retired. Every Labour MP should be demanding reforms to deal with this, starting with taking more people out of tax altogether. On Thursday the Labour Party's Joint Policy Committee meets. Among other things it should set the scene for reducing income and wealth inequalities ahead of the next General Election and removing the stain of increased inequality under Labour.

Labour's NEC - a broken reed?

Today, the Guardian published a letter I wrote last week in response to a Comment piece on the Labour Party by Simon Jenkins in which among other things Jenkins described its National Executive Committee as 'a broken reed'. 

I challenged his analysis, writing:

The Labour party's shortcomings are governance failures. Just like those that took Britain to war in Iraq, and led to the near collapse of the banking system and the MPs' allowances scandal. The result has been alien policies, membership and local council representation cut by over 50%, and massive debts.

Save the Labour Party's call for an extra NEC meeting has been rejected by the powers that the on the grounds that it was not possible to arrange. That's a problem with a body that only meets every two months and is never given any meaningful management information either about its finances, membership or organisational capacity. What's the point?

I'm still waiting for confirmation that the Statement of Accounts for 2008 has been sent to the Electoral Commission, and that it will also be sent to members this month for consideration at July meetings. I hope that our Auditors have given an unqualified opinion as to the state of the Party's finances. But it can only be a hope, as I have never seen any information as a member of the NEC that would assure me that they will. With affiliated trade unions, the Party's financial mainstay, threatening to reduce funding or in extreme cases, such as the Communications Workers' Union, disaffiliate, there must be questions about going-concern. Yesterday's announcement by m'Lord Mandleson cancelling the part-privatisation of the Post Office at least removes one potential threat to the Labour Party's finances, for the time being. In any normal organisation, the NEC would have had an opportunity to consider the draft accounts with the Auditor present. My request for such a meeting before 30 June has been ignored.

Underlying these concerns, which I will readily admit are a minority interest, are worries that 'the powers that be' in the Labour Party think they are law unto themselves, just like Members of Parliament, and bankers. It is time this view was challenged more loudly, and very publicly, if 'the powers that be' hope to win back the trust of party members and the electorate.

Gordon still needs a Willie

Just before the PM's announcement of the terms of Second Iraq War Inquiry I blogged asserting among other things:

Any attempt to save his predecessor's blushes, his own or those of the opposition Conservative Party are unlikely to endear him to the electorate, or the vast majority of Labour Party members.

So it proved. Worse, the Sunday papers have outed the First Secretary of State m'Lord Mandelson and former Prime Minister Tony Blair as the main influences on what has proved to be another unmitigated PR disaster for Gordon Brown.

This has prompted me to think about how former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher coped when she was isolated. Step forward Willie Whitelaw. There is a rather good account of his role in a review of his official biography by Malcolm Rifkind published in the Staggers. Brown is of urgent need of a counterbalance inside the Cabinet to m'Lord Mandelson to reconnect with his Party, core vote and electoral coalition on whom his acclaimed place in history will depend. If the events of this week haven't persuaded him, we on the Left should all be worried. As if we weren't worried enough already.

Labour to win next election: G Brown

The Guardian newspaper is carrying an interview by Katharine Viner, deputy editor with Prime Minister Gordon Brown. I have just read it. Key angles for me are:

"To be honest, you could walk away from all of this tomorrow," he said. "I'm not interested in what accompanies being in power. I wouldn't worry if I never returned to all those places – Downing Street, Chequers … And it would probably be good for my children."

Note the use of the second person 'you'. So I take this as a warning - don't push me too far. Well, I'm sorry Prime Minister, but I think you are going to continue to be sorely tried between now and the next General Election. This leads me to the section of the interview in which he thinks Labour is going to win that election. The Guardian reports:

He thinks under his leadership Labour can win the next election, and perhaps because he's seen the tide turn so quickly, he thinks it can turn again. He is sure that, in time, his measures will turn the economy around. And he really believes that the age we're living in is a progressive one.

Mmmm...I think the electorate is going to need a little more persuading. A reference to the foot-soldiers would have been nice too.

Iraq war II inquiry: will it be open and wide-ranging?

I'm just hoping that the Prime Minister Gordon Brown is going to take everyone by surprise and announce an open and wide-ranging inquiry into the second Iraq War at 3.30pm this afternoon. Any attempt to save his predecessor's blushes, his own or those of the opposition Conservative Party are unlikely to endear him to the electorate, or the vast majority of Labour Party members.

UPDATE: 1600 - Open - NO, wide-ranging - POSSIBLY, timetable - too long, subject to parliamentary debate - NO. Personally, this is not a statement I could defend in public, given repeated statements from the PM about openness and accountability. Another lost opportunity.

Conflicts of loyalty?: the Salford case study

On Thursday it is reported the Right Honourable Hazel Blears MP former secretary of state for Communities and Local Government will face a motion of no-confidence at her Constituency Labour Party in Salford. This latest report in the Manchester Evening News states that she will win. Much more is at stake, I suspect, than local, tribal sentiment.

The outcome will be seismic whether she wins, loses or the debate is adjourned. The Labour Party's contribution to cleaning up British politics is in the spotlight. As a member of the Party's National Executive Committee, I wrote to the General Secretary expressing concern about the ramifications, in particular, for members of government arising from the NEC's unanimous decision on 19 May about how it would deal with the impact on them of the MPs' Parliamentary Allowances scandal. The contents of my letter were published on Labour's Membersnet. I have not had a reply as yet. In short, I thought that the Labour Party NEC Endorsements Panel could not consider any case concerning a member of the government until after the expected Cabinet reshuffle. Whatever it is, the NEC is not a politburo, and could not been seen to be dictating to the Prime Minister whom s/he should or shouldn't have in her/his government. That was over a week ago. Since when there has been an eerie silence.

Party members have been left with the uncomfortable knowledge that one backbencher, Dr Ian Gibson, has controversially been banned from standing as a Labour Party candidate at the next election, prompting his immediate resignation from the House of Commons and forcing a by-election. By all accounts if it had been left to his CLP, he might have got their backing. In the meantime, it appears that anyone in government who is believed to have questions to answer remains untouched by the powers that be, and in Blears' case the matter is being left to local members.

That was not the outcome I expected when I voted for the amended resolution setting up the NEC Endorsement Panel on 19 May. Nor do I believe it was what was expected by the electorate, whose support we wish to attract.

So I await news from up north later this week with exceptionally keen interest.

More prefer Labour government to Tory: Conservativehome

Buried at the bottom of this posting on Conservativehome is the following statement:

The only serious caution for David Cameron comes with a question that forces voters to choose between Labour or the Conservatives: "44 per cent would still prefer a Labour government and 42 per cent a Conservative one. This is despite 72 per cent dissatisfaction with Labour."

Everything still to work for, which is why Save the Labour Party is calling for an emergency Labour Party NEC.