Peter Kenyon

Aung San Suu Kyi opening Labour HQ doesn't mask party's democratic failings

News this morning that Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has opened the new Labour Party HQ in Brewer's Green left me gasping. Has she any inking of the anti-democratic practices operated by the nomenklatura of this great movement of ours?

Only last week, the results of internal elections were published without any details of the numbers of ballot papers issued, returned, valid, or spoiled.

Need I say more?

Don't be fooled: there has been NO opening up of Labour policy-making yet

Some issues are worth pursuing. I would urge all Labour Party members who regard having a say in policy making as an inalienable right to be cautious about declarations of hope following last weekend's National Policy Forum.

The latest glowing report was published earlier today on Labour List authored by Stephen Twigg MP, former chair and now honorary president of Progress. Twigg proclaimed:

I left Birmingham with a feeling that the NPF has a renewed sense of purpose.

This is to the credit of the representatives and Party members across the country who responded to the Partnership into Power consultation documents published in May. I co-chair the Education and Skills Commission with Mary Turner of the GMB and was particularly impressed by the number of responses received to our consultation document from individuals, CLPs and affiliates. 

So, Stephen, how many responses were there? How many from individual members or affiliates? How many from party units? How many from outside bodies? And when will you publish them?

He went on:

Those responses informed constructive discussions in our five workshops over the course of the weekend. It is also to the credit of Party staff who are working tirelessly to open up the process as widely as possible as we build towards our next manifesto.

Well, I'm all in favour of giving credit where it is due. But we know the former Deputy General Secretary Alicia Kennedy expressly refused to open up the process. Former NPF chair Peter Hain lacked the ego-strength to challenge her. Judging by the message sent out in the name of the new National Policy Forum chair, Angela Eagle, earlier this week party staff are still administering a 'black hole' stategy for submissions.

I have been asked personally to have faith. And I will. But only when the method of inviting submissions is open and transparent to members. Those processes have to be linked to practical schedules of meetings for the NPF, and its policy commissions. The work of the top-down appointee as policy coordinator, Jon Cruddas has to be incorporated into that framework and accountable to the NPF.

Then there might be reason for supposing something has been learned.

 

Still no turnout figures a day after Labour Party declares NEC/NPF results

Why has the Labour Party failed (at the time of writing) to publish turnout figures for its 2012 internal elections? I hope there is an innocent explanation, like an administrative oversight or something similar.

Or is it that the Labour Party high command knows that they will be used as a proxy for current fully paid up membership? After all there have been some rather extravagant claims made by the nomenklatura about the net increase in membership since the 2010 General Election. My last posting on this subject was nine months ago here.

I yearn for a mass membership Labour Party. I don't think that cause is helped by a dogged determination on the part of the Leadership to be less than forthright about what current membership is, and what the latest trends are together with a clear analysis of what is shaping current recruitment methods.

Instead the Leadership needs to be up front and encouraging paid membership, and dropping the ludicrous Labour Supporters scheme, in its present form, which leaves too many people wondering what is the point of being a member in the first place.

'Names' out poll lesser mortals on Labour's National Executive Committee

Ken Livingstone's top vote in the 2012 Labour Party National Executive Committee election highlights the importance of name recognition, as much as political leanings in determining the outcome. The tragedy is that he has little commitment to accountability to the membership as a whole. The extent to which his total has fallen back from 2010 suggests some awareness of this short-coming on his part.

I have little to celebrate other than the re-election of two of my Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance colleagues, Ann Black and Christine Shawcroft. True the Grassroots Alliance slate outpolled the Labour First/Progress. But the winners were 'names' - Ken polled 31,682, Ann Black, who came a close second to Ken, has a richly deserved reputation keeping members informed for over a decade about the proceedings of the Party's ruling body. Next was the right's Ellie Reeves with 23,417 followed by the Left's Christine Shawcroft with 22,236. Fifth was marathon CLP talker and self-proclaimed independent, Johanna Baxter - 20,146, and last but no means least was the right's Peter Wheeler with 17,721 - probably helped by high name recognition in the North West, the region with the second highest concentration of Labour Party members. 

The material changes in NEC members' representation are a right-wing switch of Wheeler for Luke Akehurst, the only sitting member to lose his seat, coming eighth with 17,475; and a slight widening of regional representation as set out above.

Hopes of stimulating strategic thinking among this group remain as distant as ever. BAME representation remains nil, and regional representation concentrated in London and the South-East.

I hope Ken will do the decent thing and retire allowing the Left's Kate Osamor to take his seat, as she would having achieved a massive 17,598 votes - coming seventh in the 2012 NEC poll.

The other challenge concerns Christine Shawcroft, whom the fixers have prevented taking her rightful role as NEC deputy chair and subsequently chair based on time in office. The Labour Party is sufficiently robust to withstand a media whinge of a shift to the left is she were to chair the NEC in 2014.

 

 

Kenyon's picks for Labour Party NEC/NPF - report coming soon

Not long to wait now to discover who got elected by members to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee and National Policy Forum. I can then reveal how many of the candidates I voted for got elected.

Their term of office will not start until the final full day of Conference 2012 in early October. In the meantime it will be interesting to see how many of our representatives, who failed to have their mandate renewed, will be still taking part in the governance of the Party for the next three months.

Labour's NPF: a paradigm shift? How can we be sure?

Delegate reports from this weekend's Labour Party National Policy Forum are eagerly awaited by those of us who worry as much about how policy is made as the outcomes to win the next Westminster election. My twitter feed is littered with plaudits for both Cruddas and 'newly-elected' NPF chair Angela Eagle. Alon Or-bach a London Region members' directly elected representative tweeted on Sunday:

Alon Or-bach ‏@alonorbach Now being addressed by @JonCruddasMP - a real paradigm shift! :-)#NPF

Martin Rathfelder ‏@rathfelder @angelaeagle Excellent job this weekend. You've got a lot of support behind you.

My own take on Cruddas's appointment is here. I doubt that Or-bach was lauding the method of that appointment either. So what has changed?

Or-bach revealed late Sunday there was a real buzz on opening up Labour policy making and shaping an alternative vision for our next Labour government. That needs explaining, so I asked him to elaborate. He recalled there had been widespread calls for accountable tracking of submissions, adding: "Very hopeful it will actually happen." That prompted Fabian Society Deputy General Secretary, Marcus Roberts to observe: 

Marcus A. Roberts ‏@marcusaroberts @alonorbach @peterkenyon transparency key to legitimacy in Lab policy making. But we've been burned by this before so bar set high now! #npf

So that is one indicator we can look for - tools for open and transparent policy making.

Now is not the time to cast doubt, but show how easily and cheaply it can be achieved. The rewards of showing that as a Labour Party member you can have a say, and your contribution doesn't get lost will be there for all to see in increased membership, activism, and electoral success at all levels of government.

Jon Cruddas - another Labour Party top down appointment

This is not news to avid followers of the internal machinations of the Labour Party. But for me and those like me, who cherish party democracy and accountability, we need to make public that Jon Cruddas's role as policy co-ordinator inside the Party is by appointment of the Leader. As yet I have to hear any coherent account of how this job fits in to the agreed, albeit deeply flawed, Partnership into Power policy making structure.

Today, the Observer newspaper has published an interview with Cruddas here. Such is the quality of Guardian group journalism that none of the questions arising for the likes of me about about the provenance of the role was asked by the interviewers: Toby Helm and Julian Coman. Or if they were, they weren't reported. Legitimacy is presumed.

But at least we read some interesting news.

After just a month in his new post Cruddas has already "changed gear". He has torn up Labour's previous policy-making machinery of the past two years, replacing 29 separate policy groups with just three – on the economy, society and politics. He says what the Labour party has lacked since the last election is an "over-arching story".

Labour Party policy making for nearly two decades has been the preserve of the nomenklatura, not the members.

What this latest news means is that the work started in late 2010 by Liam Byrne MP after Ed Miliband's election as Leader has been binned. To put it into context requires some appreciation of the ongoing tension between Labour's elected representatives in the Westminster Parliament and the rest of the Party's sadly diminished membership. 

I shall be following news from the National Policy Forum in Birmingham for enlightment about how that exercise fits into its properly constituted Policy Commissions and their work undertaken by directly elected representatives of the wider membership. Will there ever be a meeting of minds about how the Party makes policy, let alone the policies with which to win the next election?

BTW Ed , the ends do not justify the means.

 

 

Out of the pending tray into the proverbial fire - the NEC ballot

Judging by my twitter feed I shall be in a minority of one in not voting for Johanna Baxter. Will it be a matter of debate? I hope so when I have finished my research into the candidate statements and other supporting literature. Then there are those questions arising out of having been a member of the NEC. The answers may be of some value to those of you that have yet to exercise your democratic rights as a paid up Labour Party member.