Peter Kenyon

Agonizing choice for Stoke Central: to select or not to select?

Stoke Central constituency labour party (CLP) members have more choices tomorrow night, when it comes to selecting their prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC), than they might imagine. After each of the candidates has had their moment and answered questions, there is a small matter of procedure - move to ballot? Normally, it is a foregone conclusion. But the PPC selection in Stoke Central is far from normal. Members are confronted with a shortlist of three candidates engineered to secure the selection of one particular candidate - a technique know as the Ashfield gambit. (Where, incidently, it succeeded for Gloria De Piero.)

The problem with procedural motions is that there is no debate. Prior knowledge of and understanding of the reasons for and against is to be preferred, otherwise it's a massive step in the dark. Indeed that fear is abroad in Stoke, which may work to the disadvantage of those advocating a No vote when the said procedural motion is moved shortly after 8 pm, assuming the meeting proceeds in an orderly and business-like fashion.

I have no intention of campaigning for a particular outcome. But I think in the interests of a future fair for all in Stoke that I can highlight the consequences of either a Yes or No vote as I understand them. For fear of stating the obvious, if the hustings vote to proceed to the vote a ballot of those present with take place, the ballot papers will be counted, a result announced and Stoke Central CLP will have a candidate-elect in place to fight the General Election. The tricky questions arise if the meeting votes NO.

There are no powers for a candidate to be imposed at this stage. This does not mean that there won't be powerful voices on the NEC calling for such a move. But the political risks of such a strategy for the Leadership are now rising despite an election only being weeks away as members are finding their voice and protesting about interference in selections. In the absence of an emergency National Executive Committee meeting, existing powers would suggest that applications could be reopened, and a new panel appointed from the existing members of the Special Selections Panel to longlist/interview/shortlist, or the new panel could do a fresh longlist/interview/shortlist from the first round applicants.

But that would not deal with the covert part of the process involving vetting by third parties, namely No.10, or any other stakeholder group within the Labour Party's federal structure. My own solution includes naming and shaming, but I would really like to see CLP officers empowered to longlist and observe the shortlisting process. That would be the best way to underwrite members' rights even at this very late stage in the process. This certainly need not delay the fast-track selections. Without such reforms, the Labour Party's ability to mobilise and motivate members will remain hampered through until the Election. If the Leadership had any political nous it would know that it is 'game up', if it is to be 'game on'.

Selection in the spotlight: Stoke Central - be grateful peasants

The Labour Party's fasttrack selection process for Stoke Central has produced a shortlist reportedly of three candidates. How the chosen three candidates are received and treated by members of the local constituency labour party at a hustings due to take place on Thursday remains to be seen. I have long since lost confidence in the fasttrack selection process and those administering it. The question for the majority of my colleagues on the National Executive Committee is whether they have too and are prepared to act to challenge this latest shortlisting decision.

For those who have forgotten these are the key words from a National Executive Committee resolution agreed nem con last November:

When the General Election is called the right of members to select their candidates will remain a priority consideration for the panel.

The operative words are 'will remain a priority'. I know we merely entrust the government of the country to the Leader of the Party that won the last General Election. We depends on the words Parliament chooses to enshrine in statute to determine how we are governed, and in the event of dispute those words help guide the judiciary when forming a judgment in any case arising there from.

So the 'right of members to select their candidates' is a priority given that a General Election has not been called? Apparently not. For my part, I would readily support a resolution calling for an emergency meeting of the NEC to overturn the delegated powers of the Special Selections Panel, with a view to removing the undue influence (if any) of the Leader/deputy leader and trade union donors from remaining selections. The concern is that by their actions to date they could be seen as bringing the Labour Party into disrepute, just like the Lobbygate Three/Four/Six. The cause for concern is that s/he/they are undermining trust in our democracy and our elected political representatives. In the case of Stoke, it is alleged that a candidate preferred by an unelected member of the Labour Party leadership, to whom the elected Leader (by default) is possibly beholden, is one of three shortlisted persons.

Members in Stoke Central will no doubt be reflecting very carefully on how their rights have been compromised and asking whether they have any means of registering their concerns.

Labour Party enforcer overrules local branch vote in Stoke

I know a General Election imminent. I know local elections are imminent. But we live in a democracy. I belong to a political party that put a Freedom of Information Act on the Statute Book. These simple but profound facts are routinely ignored by most of my colleagues on the Labour Party national executive committee.

It is no secret that the Labour Party's local branch structure has been seriously weakened by Blairite design over the past 13 years. No systematic development plan to rebuild is in place. That is despite all the evidence concerning the outcome of the 2010 General Election campaign pointing to the need for members and supporters willing to talk to voters on the doorstep. Will Straw writing on his Left Foot Forward blog noted:

Professors Alan Gerber and Don Green of Yale University have shown that face-to-face contact has a far greater impact on voter turnout than either phone calls or mail. Leaflets increase turnout by 1.2 per cent; volunteer phone calls increase turnout by 3.8 per cent; and door-to-door canvassing increases turnout by between 7 and 11 per cent. 

Labour Party election strategy coordinator, Douglas Alexander says:

"At the end of the day, it's people not posters that win elections."

Meanwhile, in Stoke on Trent, there seems to be no limit to the Labour Party NEC's determination to destroy its organisational capacity on the ground. A meeting of Hartshill and Penkhull branch labour party was convened on Friday 19 March 2010 by the Labour Party's senior constitutional officer to select a candidate for the one seat in the ward up for election on 6 May 2010.  After the formalities, the procedural motion to move to the vote was moved and DEFEATED. So quite rightly no selection took place. It was the latest twist in a running battle between local members and the Labour Party 'powers that be' firmly rooted in the detested electoral mayoral fiasco.

Imagine the surprise and consternation in the land of Pits'n'Pots, when last week ballot papers were despatched by post to Hartshill and Penkhull members. They were offered two candidates, neither of whom had been selected by branch members. Asked for an explanation, party officials said they had been instructed by the NEC's Organisation Committee chair Cath Speight to ignore the branch vote.

Is there any wonder that it is still proving difficult to motivate members?

Labour Party ends postal ballots for fast-track candidate selections

All remaining Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) selections will be decided by those constituency labour party members able to attend a hustings meeting. There will be no postal ballots from now on, and this decision includes the selections already underway in Stoke Central, and Halesown and Rowley Regis.

Quite why this membership entitlement to participate has been stripped away is a bit of a mystery. An official note is awaited.

There is no guarantee that even a vote at a hustings will be continued after the General Election is called, even though it was agreed at this week's national executive committee that no candidates should be imposed whatever the circumstances of a vacancy.

How Speaker Bercow helped fund NW Labour candidates

It is not often that a little piece of history makes an auction being conducted by Stephen Pound MP. His breathless professional technique is awesome. After romping through whisky signed by the late Michael Foot and other lesser Labour luminaries - a snip at £340 or was it £360, hitting £500 for a first edition of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Alan Johnson's Raybans - silly money, tea for two with Neil Kinnock - no comment, we came to an unlisted item that caught my ear and fired my sense of history.

It was a copy of Hansard for 22 June 2009 - the day the House of Commons chose a new Speaker to replace the ill-fated Michael Martin. The face is signed by all the candidates, including Speaker Bercow. Bidding started briskly. The hammer fell. It is mine.

The proceeds have gone to help Kate Green, Labour's PPC in Stretford and Urmston, and Lisa Nandy in Wigan.

So thank you, Mr Speaker, what am I bid?

Selection in the spotlight: Nottingham East

It's official. There is another vacancy for a parliamentary seat in Nottinghamshire. This time it is Nottingham East according to this report in the local paper. This confirms local speculation reported here last Saturday that such an eventuality might occur though for entirely different reasons from those cited by me.

John Heppell MP is standing down according to the online service This is Nottingham as his wife has breast cancer.

I wish her a speedy recovery, him a comfortable retirement and the members of Nottingham East CLP an open and transparent process to select a new prospective pariamentary candidate with no repeat of the Ashfield gambit.

Parliamentary seat engineering: Hunt for Stoke Central - update 2

Longlisting for Stoke Central to decide who will replace sitting MP Mark Fisher as Labour's candidate is expected to take place today.

Word has is that Tom Watson MP (who mysteriously sits on the Labour Party's ruling (sic) national executive committee as a government representative even though he's been out of government since July last year) has been stopped from chairing any more of the three-member selection panels. 

The baton to ensure a particular outcome may have been passed to Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, it is alleged, who, since husband Jack Dromey won the All Male Shortlisted ballot in Birmingham, Erdington, is free once again to take part in parliamentary seat engineering, as I call it. Her name is being linked to a private understanding with m'lord Mandelson in a bid to secure seats for favoured candidates.

I can't attest to the voracity of these suggestions. But knowing those who are making them, I consider they must be aired in the hope that sanity will prevail. An open and transparent process could have avoided these suspicions, which are extremely damaging to member morale, and to Labour's electoral prospects.

A shortlist for Stoke Central that offers local members genuine choice in the ballot that will take place shortly will be a real test for the Labour leadership. Is it focussed on winning the election or more concerned about positioning ahead of a leadership contest that would follow defeat?

UPDATE: 0903 Friday 26 March - Harriet Harman is not on the three-member panel that will be interviewing and shortlisting candidates on Monday afternoon, which I understand will comprise Keith Vaz MP, Cllr Ann Lucas and USDAW's Paddy Lillis.

Choice for local members has already been compromised by the omission of Mark Seddon, former editor of Tribune and NEC member from the long-list. Given their full right's would Seddon have got some nominations from members? But in the faux democracy deeply engrained in the upper echelons of the Labour Party, those members' rights now count for little, if anything at all. Shameful.

Selections in the spotlight: E Lothian and Mboro S

According to the latest posting on the National Parliamentary Panel page on Membersnet, the Labour Party intranet service, East Lothian will be an All Women Shortlist and Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland will be Open.

Applications have to be received by the Special Selections Panel by midday on 29 March, with shortlisting in both cases two days later on 31 March.

Freezing personal allowances shows Darling unwilling to risk public finances

Twittering about the Budget yesterday I expressed my disappointment about the absence of any further move towards fairer taxation. I failed to pick up on Chancellor of the Exchequer (CHX) Alistair Darling's not referring to personal allowances explicitly.

Inevitably, the Tories and the right-wing press have seized on this omission quite cynically as another example of a 'stealth tax'. Personally, and with the benefit of hindsight, Darling missed a trick by failing to pre-empt that line of attack. This account , for example, in his interview with Sky News helps put the record straight.

But Mr Darling told Sky News he had not changed his income tax policies since announcements he made months ago.In December, he froze the personal allowances limit because inflation - which it normally follows - was negative. The retail price inflation rate is now 3.7%, which the Tories say hits workers in the pocket. Mr Darling said it would cost the taxpayer £2bn to increase the personal allowance limit again."It is a nice political device (by the Conservatives) but it is frankly a piece of nonsense," he said."If that really is the Tories' policy ask them how they intend to pay for it."

So the facts are that under the usual rules, personal allowances for the financial year 2010/11 would have been CUT. Instead, Darling decided to leave them unchanged. Rather than a tax giveaway with what wriggle room was available, Darling chose to cut debt and concentrate tax changes in ways that will aid growth in the real economy.

What has not been picked up by the opposition parties or the right-wing press were the measures targeted at small and medium sized businesses, and the entrepreneurs that run them. These are  aspirational people on whom we depend for wealth and hence job creation in the private sector. But that's Tory stealth politics. They wouldn't want to reinforce Darling's message to business - you are better off sticking with/switching to Labour. Would they? Reviewing the content of his speech there was far more for them than Labour's core vote. Which suggests to my that my instantaneous assessment was not too wide of the mark:

No doubt this is budget for growth, employment opportunity with debt under control.

Time to get out on the doorstep.

Labour: greater than the sum of its parts

Budget Day today is the Labour Party's opportunity to show convincingly how it is different from the other two mainstream political parties. That's not just me writing but the message of the second editoral in today's Guardian newspaper.

The buzzword inside Labour's ruling circle is renewal, but it is hard to see what this means, other than a hoped-for election win. The party is not renewing in any visible way. Its manifesto seems cloudy and unoriginal and its political base narrowing.....

Today's budget, and the election campaign that follows, are a chance to show it is still greater than any of the factions that form its parts.

Hear, hear!