Peter Kenyon

Labour Party NEC meeting - once more into the breach

Today was one of the bi-monthly Labour Party National Executive Committee meetings - my third. I was hoping that someone would have had the foresight to prepare an NEC statement supporting the government in its effort to stabilise the banking system and ease the pain of recession arising from the excesses of the fat-cats.There were some powerful contributions. But the idea of the NEC sending messages to the faithful seems to belong to another era.

Dennis Skinner MP summed it up: Labour is making loans to banks (to be paid back) and giving rpt giving real money to real people. Listen to PMQs tomorrow to find out if it becomes part of the message.

More later.

Miliband E: manifesto process to reopen

Watch Labour Space - a feature of the Labour Party website. I'm told this is where ideas for the next election manifesto can be posted. An official announcement may come Tuesday or Wednesday. As a member of the Party's National Executive Committee, I'm curious about the process leading up to this development. As soon as I find out, I'll let you all know. In the meantime you can check out Ed's thoughts on Next Left - the Fabian Society blog. http://www.nextleft.org

Labour's policy-making body 'outmoded' - Fabian ex-chair says

I couldn't possibly argue. This is no doubt not the stuff for Dolly's Place. But here in treachery-land, this is music to my ears. Former Labour MP for Cambridge, and last year's chair of the Fabian Society, Anne Campbell has blogged about the Labour Party's National Policy Forum here.

No-one doubts that the National Policy Forum (NPF) is infinitely preferable to the policy-making processes that went before. At the time it was proposed it was an innovative and forward-looking idea and involved Party members to an extent that had never happened before. However, it remains opaque and impenetrable to the great majority. Unless it is reformed and modernized a great opportunity to reach out to parts of the Party that other methods cannot reach will be lost forever.

The NPF is a very odd out-moded beast with no effective means of communicating. Obama’s very successful election campaign and his use of electronic communication led the way in showing what is possible. We could start by having an interactive website on the Labour Party membersnet.

My sentiments entirely. In fact I recall writing to the then chair of the Labour Party National Executive Committee about that very subject last year. She like Anne has served her term as chair, but continues to represent.....the socialist societies on the Labour Party National Executive Committee, of which the Fabian Society is the most prominent. So perhaps, Anne, you could have a quiet word in Dianne Hayter's ear. I hope you have more luck than nine party luminaries or I did last year.

References:

Interactive policy making (2008)

Letter offering service to Labour Party

Letter rejecting service from the Labour Party.

Airplot - genius: I've joined, will you?

Congratulations to Greenpeace for thinking this one through.

My first Labour Party NEC sub-committee this week.....mmmm

Even though I was elected to the Labour Party National Executive Committee along with three other members of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance slate in July last year, I will only be attending my first sub-committee this week - a wait of more than six months!

All NEC members get papers from other sub-committees except (so far) the Business Board and Audit Committee, so in addition to an agenda for the Joint Local Government Committee(of which I am a member), I have also received agendas and some papers for the Women, Race and Equalities, and Organisation sub-committees. Those that I have looked at are all marked 'Private and Confidential'. This is problematic as they relate to issues that ought to have been the subject of consultation with both party units (i.e. constituency labour parties, Young Labour regional executives, local government committees and so on). It would obviously be stupid to publish them as the recommendations might be changed. However, I have sought advice and been told discrete soundings are OK.

So if there are any Labour Party CLP/Young Labour Executive/LGC secretaries out there interested in what is going to be discussed who are not sure whether recommendations reflect opinion in their section of the party, please let me know - discretely.

Tories demand support for bank lending, silent on risk rewards

Telling isn't it. Conservative Home is whinging about just how many times they have demanded loan guarantees for bank lending from the Labour government, but is completely silent on the issue of executive pay for bankers.

I'm not opposed to the state guaranteeing bank loans or even setting up a state-bank (though I would prefer a people's bank as it's the people's money that would be used to capitalise such an institution). But surely there has got to be a fundamental reassessment of rewards/remuneration and their relation to risk-taking.

No banker requiring government guarantees for its loan book can be worth more in income terms than say the Prime Minister. Pay cuts for bankers would help their banks recapitalise more quickly too.

Tribune reports 'corrupt and scary regime' in Labour Party

This week's Tribune magazine reports efforts to expose actions by paid Labour Party staff in contravention of their employment contracts and the Party's Rule Book.

A DOSSIER of widespread, rule-breaking interventions by Labour officials in the party’s internal elections and policy-making process is to be published this weekend in a campaign to expose “a corrupt and scary regime”.

The move follows an official complaint to Cath Speight, chair of the National Executive Committee, which calls for urgent action to ban the party’s “civil service” from acting as a political machine for rounding up loyalist votes at annual conference and the National Policy Forum.

As a member of the NEC, I would welcome appropriate action to ensure staff act at all times to enable members present and future to participate fully in the activities of our democratic socialist party. 

During the past decade over a quarter of a million people have either resigned or let their membership of the Labour Party lapse. We will never know how many have been affected by the behaviour of staff alleged in the Tribune report. But a considered reflection by the NEC on how staff should behave to encourage all those who share Labour values back would be very timely, as well as encouraging remaining members to renew their subscriptions and new members to join.

Nudge, nudge - PM said thinking about £10k tax threshold

The ruling Labour Party's NEC (as a whole) may be in the dark about the state of its own finances, its National Policy Forum may have been banned from discussing tax policy last July, so it's a relief to read courtesy of headline skimmers, fellow bloggers traced back to an exclusive in the Daily Mirror that Labour leader Gordon Brown is thinking about taking those paid less than £10k a year out of tax.

A healthy open debate in the Labour Party would have come to a similar conclusion a long time ago as a policy goal, as it did about the minimum national wage. The Conservatives shroud waving over that issue - unafffordable, loss of jobs, end-of-world - was shown to be ....just that....shroud waving. Now is the time to get a national debate going over what is a living income after tax - £10/annum tax-free seems an excellent headline catching starting point.

Recent banking developments are a vivid reminder of why it's ok for a political party in government to be able to maintain a degree of independence from the toil of ministers when it comes to shaping policy ideas. The party on the ground (as we rank-and-file members like to think of ourselves) are not there to be trodden into..the ground..but to help shape groundswells of opinion around Labour policies inspired by Labour values. When everyone in the country is either earning, receiving or being encouraged to aspire to a living income, then we will have a Labour Party worth voting back into government.  I can't think of anything more likely to mobilise people back into membership of the Labour Party and them wanting to be active.....appeals to vote Labour to stop the Tories or the BNP are not enough. We need a positive message too - a living income fits the bill. 

What's the difference between bankers and Labour's NEC?

Listening to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown being interviewed on the BBC 1 TV's Andrew Marr Show, I now know.

The PM acknowledges that bank boards were kept in the dark about the risks to their businesses. I have yet to to be convinced that the Labour Party's National Executive Committee Terms of Reference are fit for purpose in that regard.

Labour Party membership - no say, no pay

Catching up with friends and family over the festive season included lots of pointed reminders about why so many have either resigned or let their Labour Party membership lapse. Everyone has their own particular reason..too much interference in health and education, failure to take on the fat cats, obsession with private sector, nuclear power, nuclear weapons..I could go on. But one particular remark from a former Labour Party branch secretary whom I asked what would encourage him to rejoin struck me as likely to resonant. That was a commitment to a public inquiry into the second Iraq War.

The rest fit into a generalised category which will come as no surprise: no say, no pay. I see changing that perception of the Labour Party and rehabilitating the idea of party political membership as active citizenship as the challenge which our National Executive Committee must address in 2009 if it is to have a future.