Peter Kenyon

Is Brown planning to sacrifice Labour's TU link?

An emergency Labour Party National Executive Committee is planned tomorrow on the margins of the National Policy Committee at a Heathrow hotel. Gordon Brown is considering intends bouncing a proposal to accept Hayden Phillips recommendations on the funding of political parties in the wake of the Donorgate scandal. In the light of his recent success at the 2007 Annual Conference in gagging conference delegates, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to muster support, now the prospect of a General Election has receded. Ironic really, given that no one could reasonably accuse the TU barons of exercising undue influence over the Labour Party for years. Remind me, what is all the current consternation about? Oh, yes - the illegal handling of donations from high value donors by the Labour Party. And what was the issue when the Hayden Phillips Inquiry was first set up? Oh, that was allegations of cash for honours. And who was in the frame? Oh yes. high value donors lenders to the Labour Party. Hang on a minute, what's this got to do with the Trade Unions? Oh, I remember the new Labour Project was to end the federal structure of the Labour Party.  Nice one, Gordon. You will finally be able to say you have succeeded where Tony Blair demonstrably failed.

Let's hope someone remembers there is a Conference policy about Hayden Phillips. Oh, forget it since when has a Labour Leader ever taken notice of a Conference resolution. What I find utterly unbelieveable is that he thinks he can do a deal with the Tories. Why on the basis of his government's current performance would the Tories have the slightest interest in doing a deal based on Hayden Phillips when it involves fleecing the taxpayer. After all the Tories could deal with Trade Union political donations on their own terms after the next General Election. We all know its been a difficult week. Gordon, you have scored one massive own goal by letting snap general election speculation career out of control. Do you really need a second? Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

UPDATE 2250 BBC2 's Newsnight programme carried report on emergency TULO meeting to address Brown plan and confirms issue to be discussed at emergency NEC tomorrow, originally called to decide arrangements for recruiting a new General Secretary.

Labour to face police inquiry - no surprise then

The surprise would have been if the Electoral Commission had not referred the hidden donations affair to the police.

Labour's Harman stands firm in Business Questions

Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman QC MP, survived with aplomb a fitful Tory offensive led by her opposite number, Teresa May MP during the weekly Business Statement. The Speaker, Michael Martin MP helpfully reminded both women not to stray off the Business Statement by going into details of the 'dodgy donations' affair. Efforts to hype up the affair have gone into overdrive elsewhere on the blogosphere with Guido claiming, for example:

Exclusive : Police to Seize Labour Party Software Evidence

Close reading shows he is merely inciting the police to do their job, and do it quickly before records are deleted.  Time to get out the salt cellar. Evidence of anyone other than Peter Watt being party to the unlawful donations arrangement is proving so elusive that I have come to the view that the Prime Minister is right to accept in good faith Harriet Harman and Jon Mendelsohn's accounts of what they knew, when. However, that does not detract from my concern that if any evidence is produced that a minister of the crown did know about Watt's 'dodgy donation' arrangement, then it won't just be the individual concerned whose job will be on the line. It could provoke a constitutional crisis, that might only be resolved by the resignation of the whole government.

Ruling Labour clique meets to dictate policy

In the midst of the multiple crises that have befallen Labour's new Leader it would be easy to forget his plan for the Labour Party 'Extending and renewing party democracy'. There are two days to go before the first meeting of the National Policy Forum since Annual Conference 2007. As a Labour Party member who takes a special interest in governance, I actually know that. But for the vast majority of the Labour Party's dwindling membership - a deafening silence from the powers that be.  Transparency in policy making is as vital for our party democracy, as it is for reporting financial donations to political parties. I have eMailed all seven of my NPF reps in London and had replies from three using a new facility on the Labour Party's own web-based MembersNet - thanks to representations made by Save the Labour Party, a small ginger-group which I chair. But in the absence of notice to all members, and guidance about how to channel views to their NPF representatives, this weekend's one-day meeting should be headlined "Ruling Labour clique meets to dictate policy".

Just as Gordon Brown is being urged to cut out the cancerous culture that led to the resignation of its General Secretary earlier this week see Andy Howell's blog Political Futures here, Brown needs cut out the clique mentality that infects policy-making and is the biggest brake on rebuilding a mass-membership Labour Party. If the NPF wants to prove it has teeth it will elect a new chair. But there no election on the agenda, even though all the constituency section members of the NPF were elected at Annual Conference. Instead there is a succession of ministerial speeches setting out the policies.....dee dah, dee dah, dee dah.

Brown must shun party politics at taxpayers' expense

The Labour Party needs to rebuild from its grassroots. No apologies for being a harpy. Yet Gordon Brown at PMQs today was still trotting out the tired script inherited from his predecessor about the Hayden Phillips inquiry (sic) into party political funding. Admittedly this a fast moving story. His performance at PMQs was otherwise faultless. We have got to avoid being distracted by our political opponents whinging on about the internal Labour Party inquiry by Lord Whitty, the results of which are to be reviewed and worked on by m'Lords Harries and McClusky. This does not in any way detract from inquiries by the Electoral Commission and possibly the Metropolitan Police.

But the issue of Labour Party solvency remains. Taxpayers' money is not the answer. There is a shockingly corrosive view at large among "opinion formers". This asserts that the age of mass membership political parties is dead.  My colleagues and I in Save the Labour Party and on the LabOUR Commission disagree profoundly.

A start was made in the late 1980s through to 1997, then stopped. The Electoral Commisson made a valiant, but timid attempt to remind our politicians of the role of members and small donations in its report on the funding of political parties in December 2004. Since then silence from ALL three main political parties. No debate in Parliament. No further consideration by a select committee in either of the Houses of Parliament. No public service broadcasting coverage. No broadsheet analysis. Total silence.

Meanwhile, Labour Party membership continues to fall. A question from Mary Turner, President  of the GMB union, at last week's Labour Party National Executive Committee about membership revealed that the 2007 year end figure to be published in July 2008 would show a further, albeit and thankfully, smaller fall than in the previous 11 years. In an earlier presentation Party officials said recruitment and retention were at the highest levels for a decade. That's welcome. Bit it does not detract from the fact that Labour failed to attract enough members to halt the 11-year decline in membership.

Without a vision of rebuilding Labour Party membership, translating Labour values into Labour policies in government, Gordon Brown's premiership is doomed. Impossible to rebuild membership? Has Labour nothing to learn from mass membership single issue organisations?

Lib-Dems ask police to investigate Labour donors

Liberal Democrat leadership contender Chris Huhne said on today's BBC2 Daily Politics  TV programme that has written to Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police asking for an investigation into the Labour hidden donors affair.

Brown rides out first wave of PMQs

Gordon Brown rode out the first wave of PMQs today with welcome calm. Harriet Harman was at his side and Brown made a robust sounding defence of Jon Mendelsohn, the Labour Party's volunteer Director of General Election Resources. He issued a statement which is here in full. More later.

Is Labour's Harriet going to repay the £5,000? Yes

Following Gordon Brown's statement at his monthly press conference earlier about the return of unlawful donations to the Labour Party, will Labour Party  Deputy Leader Harriet Harman do the same with the £5,000 donated to her election campaign? Or is she holding out? And is that the reason why Gordon Brown was less than fulsome in his support for her at his press conference earlier as chronicled here? Accepting a donation in "good faith" as stated in a statement issued on Harriet's behalf is not an excuse for not following procedures for verification as set out in the Party's Legal and Treasurers' Handbooks. Brown was at pains to point out how his campaign team had adopted a rule not to accept money from anyone whom they did not know. Smart, Gordon. Over to you, Harriet.

Update 1715 BBC News ticker is reporting that she will repay the £5K. Will that be the end of the matter?

Stop it Gordon...Harriet is not the chair of the Labour Party

Has anyone in No 10 got the guts to tell Gordon Brown that there is no such post as Chair of the Labour Party? It's good that he is trying to put the public at its ease about swift action over the dodgy donation by convening an inquiry. Its good that he has stated the donations will be refunded. It demeans him and Harriet to assign a fictitious position to her. Similarly regarding the so-called six vice-chairs. And while I am at it, in answer to questions at the PM's monthly press conference he stated that he only attended NEC meetings to give a Leader's Report, and that he did not have time to stay for other reports affecting the governance of the Labour Party. Excuse me, the Labour Party Rule Book does not proscribe the Leader's role in this way. That smacks of Macavity.
If he is determined to sort this latest calamity out as he is repeatedly stating, then he needs to pay full attention to the proceedings of the Party - ignorance is no excuse. Finally, Hayden Phillips - statefunding. Forget it. The word is out there that any politician that backs the Hayden Phillips formula is trying to rip off the taxpayer. The Electoral Commission recommended in 2004 that political parties need to attract more members and small donations. Brown seems to want to repeat the mistake of his predecessor in exploiting an internal Labour Party  crisis to advance the case for state-funding. Stop it.

Riding roughshod over working people - Labour re-election plan

I read this in the Mirror online. Reflecting on what is happening, I couldn't help thinking that a catastrophic vision for re-election is being unveiled by Gordon Brown to win the next General Election. Forget the warm words, it increasingly involves riding roughshod over working people, whether it is housing, health, education, energy, and hoping the economy holds together. To help keep the political class in power plans for state-funding of political parties - shelved only weeks ago by Hayden Phillips - are being dusted down by Jack Straw MP in the wake of yet another monumental Labour Party blunder over party funding. Last year it was hidden loans. This week it's hidden donations. The answer is a mass membership party representing working people and their interests, not a command party trampling on working people and stealing from the taxpayer to pay for political parties.