Peter Kenyon

Labour Party union power - what goes round, comes round

'News' of trade union policy demands tabled for next weekend's National Policy Forum merely highlights how poorly organised the Labour Party's members are to mobilise opinion around policy. Though that's not all that came to mind. I thought of former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson who, nearly 40 years ago, in 1969 at a meeting in Chequers, told a leading trade unionist: "Get your tanks off my lawn." Local branch and constituency organisation for individual members was as varied then as it is now. Instead of worrying about the unions, the current Leader of the Labour might be better advised focussing on what he set out to do when elected unopposed - expanding and renewing party democracy. Very few members have had any opportunity to have a say in the current policy review. The Joint Policy Commission meeting on Monday could usefully reflect on that fact before binning too many challenges to current Labour Party policy. While affiliated trade unionist get to meet the ministerial chair of the National Policy Forum, Pat McFadden, and manifesto supremo, Ed Miliband, no such invitations will be extended to the leaders of membership pressure groups that are campaiging against Trident, privatisation, 42-day detention and in favour of council housing, higher taxes on the rich or renewable energy. it's classic divide and rule and our party democracy is the poorer for it.

Why aren't we taking the Tory toffs on?

The latest missive from Labour Party Head Office invites members to submit questions to ministers over the next few days (makes a change from rattling the can, without reassuring me I can have a say). My question to Ed Balls online on Membersnet tonight is: Dear Ed - Why aren't we taking on the Tory toffs over private education? (let's see if it's published.)

Cartoon credit: Andy Davey

Anger management - Labour Party style: knives

When I joined Save the Labour Party and helped set up the Labour Commission, I learned that anger management was vital. It almost seemed worthwhile 12 months ago in the run up to the resignation of Tony Blair. Now it is becoming increasingly difficult to turn on the radio/television news bulletin/current affairs programme, or open a newspaper/political magazine without screaming. Knife crime and our Labour government's response over the weekend is the latest lunacy unfortune error. That's not my opinion but that of my wife, and fellow party member who happens to be one of the country's leading clincial experts on post traumatic stress disorders. A considered note from her is in the works.  If you had only picked up the phone, Jacqui.

Perhaps the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (meeting tomorrow) will spend a moment considering how to harness the expertise of its dwindling membership to help turn round public opinion between now and the next British General Election. In the absence of any leadership on the use of that resource, my branch is drawing up a couple of sides of A4 across the major policy issues that need addressing now, not in the next manifesto, if we are to have any hope of winning a 4th term.

Labour's tipping point - no return?

Irwin Stelzer writing in today's Daily Telegraph concludes:

So when Gordon Brown's advisers grope for ways of using the two years left before a general election to extricate the Government from its difficulties, they have to ask the right question. What were the tipping points that brought us low, and how can we retreat from them in a significant way? As the £2.7 billion tax fix, class warfare in Crewe and the PM's pledges to get on with the job demonstrate, tinkering won't matter.

Only a drastic rollback of the frontiers of the state - on taxes, spending and intrusive regulation - can set in motion a pull-back from the tipping points that Labour has arrived at.

It is not a U-turn of which this Prime Minister is capable.

I beg to differ. In two recent speeches Brown has spoken about the power of communication and the wisdom of the crowd. Late 20th century British politics was dominated by spin. The latest developments in communication technology have condemned that approach to influence public opinion to the dustbin of history. Labour Party members have already shown the way with policy-making. It's very early days. But it is the future.

Brown's destiny and that of the Labour Party are not dependent on a U-turn. They depend on unleashing our capacity to think for ourselves and organise collectively to win electoral support, and shape policy through established institutions; namely, political parties.

Brown has everything to play for. Personally, I just wish he would stop making political life so difficult both for himself, his ministers, his MPs and party members and supporters with delusions of populism, which Rupert Murdoch's own guru recognises are past the point of no return.

Sort it

Billy Hayes sent me a personal message this morning, as he probably did to everyone in his mobile phone.

A very good and well informed article today Guardian page 39

 

 

 

Wisdom of crowds (I jest not) - G Brown

Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Gordon Brown gave a speech yesterday to Google executives that is exciting WWW interest. Writing on the Spectator's Coffee house blog yesterday, Matthew d'Ancona concluded:

So - believe it or not - the great practitioner of Treasury command-and-control finally declared: 'I believe in the wisdom of crowds'. We'll see if words are matched by action, especially in public service reform and the true devolution of power to neighbourhoods rather than simply to town halls.

To which, we should, add the Labour Party. That link is the route to Labour Party Wiki-politics, providing you are a paid up member; courtesy of Save the Labour Party, Compass Youth and CommentonThis (linked to My Society). Let's release the wisdom of crowds, especially our crowd.

Have your say - Labour Party policy - open to members

If you are a member of the Labour Party and want to have a say in shaping the next Manifesto click here.

PM's credibility - will a social care consultation help?

Is Prime Minister Gordon Brown's credibility going to be enhanced by launching another consultation when Labour's own policy consultation implies Labour in Government is already on the job? Take concern about social care provisions leading the headlines this morning. I have just been proof-reading a CommentonThis version of the Labour Party's Partnership in Power Final consultation round Health document.

Page 17, lines 31 to 42 read:

Unlike the care provided by the NHS which is free at the point of delivery to everyone, the cost of social care has always been shared between the individual and local authorities, based on assessments of the person’s need for care and the person’s financial resources. There is a wide consensus that a means-tested element to social care will continue to be needed. But the eligibility criteria used by social services, which were introduced in order to ensure that resources were targeted towards the people who need them most, have too often been used to deny people help. As well as reviewing the way social care is funded, we are reviewing the eligibility criteria to look at ways of making them fairer. We will also ensure that local authorities provide universal information, advice and advocacy services about social care, so that even where people have the financial resources to pay for their own care, they are not left to arrange that care alone.

Why didn't he just remind everyone of how mindful Labour is already about this issue and what it is doing?

Instead the BBC reported this morning:

His speech kicks off a six-month public consultation focused on making care services fairer and affordable.

Aagh! Is the government consulting on something different? How does this related to the Labour Party Policy Review and claims of what Labour in Government is already doing? As for the statement in the Labour Party document statement Page 17, line 34 about:

....a wide consensus that a means-tested element to social care will continue to be needed.

I wonder if that will stand up to detailed scrutiny by Labour's depleted membership, let alone the media and ultimately, the electorate? There might have been were it not for differences between social care provisions in Scotland. Oughtn't we to be talking about testing whether there should be a national (read Union, not England) consensus about what we could and should afford for social care provision? Perhaps someone following this more closely could explain.

Opening up Labour Party policy making - update

STLP's volunteer team is working over the weekend with the CommentonThis team to convert all the documents into a format where all comments, amendments and rewrites made by Labour Party members can be seen by any other member with access to the Labour Party intranet, Membersnet. STLP will be inviting all Labour Party linked bodies to post their recommendations here as well, creating a central depository for this third and final year of Partnership in Power policy consultations before the next British General Election.

This week's Tribune carries a letter about the process. The latest edition of Chartist has a feature article.

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.