Peter Kenyon

An alternative to state funding - electoral ward political party branch budgeting

This is as stoggy as a hot cross bun. Read no further. Debate about how political parties should be funded has been rekindled by yet another scandal. The latest involves cash for access and co-treasurer of the Conservative Party, Peter Cruddas, who promptly resigned. Attempts by Labour to score political points are unlikely to impress the vast majority of the electorate. Most of the debate focuses on the motives of donors and the base practices of party fund-raisers. Few if any commentators, let alone voters, give a moment's thought to when, where and how often political parties need money.

Democratic societies need political parties. They are generally the only institutions capable of forming governing bodies at whatever level - national, regional or local government. (There are some worrying departures in the European Union following the Eurozone crisis, but that should not detract from the norm.) If you want power, or a handle on power, or to enable others to exercise power on your behalf, then joining a political party is the way to go. There was a time in the UK when money played a direct part in securing a seat in Parliament. The notorious "Spendthrift election" came in Northamptonshire in 1768, when three earls spent over ₤100,000 each to win a seat. These blessed isles saw the light about politics with the introduction of rules to limit spending on elections at a local ward/constituency level. Though it took over 200 years to introduce limits on national spending in General Elections. Such rules are now bundled with a regulatory body, the Electoral Commission (EC), into law. People at the centre of party politics came to see the legislation enact by Labour in 2000 as the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act as a curse. That includes Labour. It is worth dwelling for a moment on why. The EC took a rather silly view about the role of treasurers in political parties, placing what seemed to be overly onerous requirements even on constituencies accounts. The absence of anyone with any experience of active party membership on the Commission itself didn't help. But it did have some sound ideas, which really irked the professional political class. In its requirements for annual reporting by registered political parties, the EC suggested membership should be included in the annual Statement of Accounts. As one if its first decisions, the Commission embarked on an Inquiry into the funding of political parties. In its recommendations published in December 2004, the EC concluded there was no case for state-funding, but that there were issues for political parties concerning membership and small donations. Given the presumptions of the political class, and that includes Labour's upper echelons, the EC recommendatons were buried. The then Leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain failed to make parliamentary time available. Yes, the same Peter Hain who presided over the bungled exercise to Refound Labour last year, adn who is still in an influential party position as chair of the National Policy Forum.

This is unfinished business. Labour doesn't have to wait for the other political parties. It has an opportunity to reconnect with its core vote and build the Party on the Ground.

This is not a hopeless cause, or one lacking possible traction either with the new general secretary or members of the parliamentary labour party. There is a strong case for looking at the issue of political party funding through the other end of the telescope. You just have to ask: how many Labour members of parliament elected in 2010 won their seats thanks to above average levels of local campaigning activity undertaken by volunteers, with or without professional organisational support? In which seats did Labour win a higher percentage of the vote than the national average? 

What the 2010 general election campaign highighted for Labour were different models of local political organisation -  an often cited example was Birmingham, Edgbaston where the sitting MP Gisela Stuart secured re-election with a slightly lower share of the vote and a modest 1.3% swing to Conservative from Labour. This compared with a national swing against Labour of 6.2%. Much more deserving of study is the result in Oxford East where sitting MP Andrew Smith was relected with a 6.5% increased share of the vote and a swing TO Labour of 4.2%. Whereas Stuart's victory was MP/organiser campaign led, Smith's was underpinned by an active local party and a local councillor-base/Labour group that had seen off the Liberal Demcrats on the city council. This is not an exact science. But it is a pointer to the future.

Layering community activity, and the way it is organised and accounted for is critical to rebuilding the Party on the Ground, winning future elections and burying the threat to our democratic socialist party from the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. A possible place to start is using the national agreed limits to start building election-cycle budgets and fundraising strategies to match political goals overtime. After the May elections, of course. Someone in your CLP will be filling in the forms for election expenses. Those limits matter, both for accounting and future budgeting. Think about it. 

Why I joined Labour: the other side of the coin

I have just renewed my Labour Party membership online. It has taken the Labour Party's systems three months to catch up with my decision to cancel my direct debit. As my avid reader(s) know, I have a thing about accountability. Budgets and management accounts are essential in any organisation for all elected management committee/board members however it is incorporated. I could have resigned in the light of my experiences during my two-year term on the Labour Party's national executive committee (NEC). Instead I have chosen to stay and fight the cause of democratic socialism from inside.

My latest opportunity for gesture politics was to cancel my DD. Eventually a flag appeared on my Membersnet personal details inviting me to renew. An invitation I readily accepted, as having passed my 65th birthday I am entitled to pay at the reduced unwaged rate. It is a pity that the tables for membership rates have not been updated in line with current Conference agreed rates. But where there is a will there's a way. I just ticked 'Other' and manually inserted the current unwaged rate.

Then I was offered an opportunity to tell why I have joined the Labour Party. No warm words from me. So don't expect to see the following entry on the Labour home page. Rather crossly, I stated:

Been a member since 1978. Cancelled DD as do not trust Party with my money. One term on the NEC was sufficient. Having reached retirement age have reduced my membership status to unwaged.

There was no Print Page option so I cannot prove I have 'renewed'.  I will just have to keep a careful watch on my Credit Card account payments. 

As for the 'saving' on my membership, that will be going to my local branch to fund our next local election campaign. Here I have the satisfaction of knowing that the Treasurer has already produced the accounts for 2011, and they were presented to the branch last month, subject to audit. Audited accounts are expected to be available at the next branch meeting tomorrow.

Write to Ed: please explain why I should remain a Labour Party member

I do my best to save the Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband from himself. As branch secretary one of my jobs is to compile and circulate the agenda. Being post-Conference it was report back time. But I studiously omitted any explicit reference to Refounding Labour. Our submission was studiously ignored by Head Office. I even missed off Any Other Business. That fooled no-one. As we were about to adjourn to our fundraising supper a colleague asked, "Did that Labour supporters proposal go through? Fortunately, no one was clutching a glass of red wine or masticating the buttersquash/lentil stew, otherwise our host's carpet would have been in a sorry state. "Batty", "insane", "mad", members splutted in disbelief. "Financial disaster...what's the point of being a fully paid-up member?"

Indeed, which prompted a proposal to launch a write-in campaign to Ed and the new General Secretary, Iain McNicol: please explain why I should remain a Labour Party member.

It is all very well for the newly appointed unelected deputy chair Tom Watson to launch a financial appeal to members. But it only takes 400 members currently paying the full rate to drop their subscription to the reduced rate (a loss of £20/head) and the Labour Party has lost £8,000 a year. That happens to be the amount Tom is reported to have raised in the first few days of his appeal. 

On a personal note, and in total exasperation about the mismanagement of the party as a democratic socialist body, I have already cancelled my membership Direct Debit. I propose paying by cheque at the reduced rate until the Leadership wakes up. If the Labour Party is being refounded then it needs to plan an Annual Conference as a deliberative assembly, and hold a proper AGM at which the NEC opens itself to member scrutiny. As for sending a constituency delegate to Conference, I will be voting against for the same reasons. The offer of a free delegate pass bundled into Refounding Labour for every CLP is only the tip of the cost iceberg. Speaking personally, I'll be saying thanks, but no thanks until members get a say. That will mean the NEC and the Conference Arrangements Committee transforming the planned event for Manchester in 2012 over the next few months. 

As for the money I'll save, that's going to my local branch. We have an election campaign to fight in 2013. 

Will the Labour Party leader order immediate publication of Clause 1 rewrite plan?

Today's Guardian carried a story misleadingly headlined, Ed Miliband seeks to rewrite Labour's founding principles. I think that should have read return to Labour's founding principles. But as ever the devil is in the detail. What is the proposed new Clause 1?

There are lots of hints in the article. In the interests of openness and accountability about Refounding Labour, I invite Ed Miliband to instruct the new General Secretary, Iain McNicol to circulate the proposal to all constituency labour party (CLP) secretaries immediately. Otherwise we are going to have three weeks of speculation before Annual Conference 2011 about the wisdom or otherwise of the proposed change.

Twitter traffic since the story was first announced by  Guardian is indicative of how ideas sometimes develop a life of their own. I think Anthony Painter takes first prize for setting out the difference between a political party and a community organisation here. Luke Akehurst takes the wooden spoon for the most feeble justification for the proposed change.

@PeterKenyon it's radical in that we haven't been doing it in most of the country

There is a job to be done by the NEC ahead of Conference to amend the proposed change to make sure that the Party's founding electoral focus is retained, whilst embracing the need for national/regional/local organisation and campaigning to achieve power and promote Labour values through legislation.

In the meantime, someone needs to wise up Ed Miliband about the shortcomings of community campaigning organisations from a political party perspective. What's their business model? Are they securing monies at the expense of progressive political party membership?

London Labour Party - a governance free zone

In four weeks time on 13 November, the London Labour Party will be holding its biennial conference in Stratford Town Hall.

Our CLP has lined up a delegation, two men and two women, who have elected a Head of Delegation. But what is going to be discussed? Is there a Biennial Report and Accounts, are there resolutions to be voted on, is there an agenda? As a CLP secretary, I have no idea. How is the delegation going to be guided when it comes to choosing what should be debated?

I have access to Survey Monkey, so I could offer every member on eMail a chance to express a view on the performance of the London Regional Board, or set out preferences for debate, or choose whom the delegation should vote for to represent the region on the National Policy Forum. For most members it would probably be the first time they have ever even heard of the London Labour Party.

In this new bottoms-up Party of ours, I hope my avid readers close to our new Leader will be moved to have a think about the regional structures - listed as among the darker corners requiring a powerful light shined on them in my book.

The regional director might get a feather in his cap if he put all this material up on the regional party's website, if, of course, the powers that be let him. Think of the precedent it would create in the other 10 Labour regions. if you think every member has a right to know, toot for transparency.

Tips for new Labour Party NEC members - who's in charge?

What better place to start any new role than with induction?

So what might await the new National Executive Committee members, Ed Miliband, Ken Livingstone, Oona King and Luke Akehurst?

I remember my requests in the summer of 2008. I asked for a copy of the budget and management accounts. No I was told. I could have sight neither of the budget or the management accounts - such information was only available to the Business Board and the Audit Committee, but I was welcome to see the Accounts for 2007 as set out in the Conference papers. As for a diagramatic layout of the organisation, its staff and their reporting lines. I was assured one would be available shortly - that was on 6 October 2008 - I'm still waiting.

So beware comrades, there is a shadow management running the Labour Party effectively answerable to no one. 

Unity pleas must not mask a deep rift over how the Labour Party is run

A HH:MM:SS countdown to the Labour Party Leadership announcement adorns its website. A gradual swell of pleas for unity can be anticipated ahead and after the declaration. The political fight has to be taken to the Tories. Who could disagree? Livelihoods of millions of people whether in or out of work for whatever reason are under threat from the ConDem's mismanagement of the budget deficit.

All the more reason to expose and seek to heal a long-standing rift over how the Labour Party itself is run. Rift? What rift? It's between the democratic centralisers and the democratic socialists. There was a time, it is said, when Party staff served all sections of the Party. No longer. Throughout Tony Blair's period in office as Leader, Party staff were deployed to serve the Leader; and with increasing ruthlessness. Remember the fiascos over the leadership of the Welsh Assembly, and who should run in 2000 as Labour's candidate for London Mayor?

The lingering stench of democratic centralism continues to pollute the Party as was all too evident at this week's pre-Conference National Executive Committee. A prolonged campaign of interference in the rights of Labour Party members in Tower Hamlets to select their own candidates for public office reached fever pitch with a mini-hysteria led by Acting Leader, Harriet Harman, her husband, Jack Dromey, aided and abetted by NEC chair Ann Black (seeking re-election on the self-styled Grassroots Labour slate) and the General Secretary Ray Collins. Swift action by the new leader to replace Collins and other HO staff has been called for on Left Futures. That's easier said than done. There is a deeply engrained democratic centralist culture espoused not just by Labour Party grandees and HO staff, but supporters at every level of the Party. John Harris in the Guardian on Wednesday caught a facet of this culture in his Comment piece Labour's right will roar back. He asked:

What has happened to the party's right? Most of its remaining number are clustered around MiliD, and aside from the odd pop at "Red" MiliE, keeping shtoom. But do not be fooled: they are as fired up as ever, and preparing for a return once the membership gets back to leaflets and balloons.

Note Harris's appreciation of members as sentient beings. The centre-left has no coherent vision or message for members disenfranchised in constituency parties frozen in time by the National Executive Committee awaiting the outcome of a ConDem government boundary review, which will take years. The machine's dogged resistence to parliamentary prospective candidate reselection needs to be recognised for what it is - a sitting MP's insurance scheme. I'm a Chartist. I support annual parliamentary elections as the most effective means of holding our elected representatives to account. But given recent experience the least Labour could do is reintroduce compulsory reselection. Where  there is no Labour MP, CLPs should be encouraged to come up with not just consituency, but branch development plans. These should link fundraising, local/national campaigning and political education to fight every parish, town, district, local and regional government seat. Alliances can be forged with community groups. It is a mammoth task. The new Leader should seek a rapid start on this work.

In doing so s/he will have to be mindful of what the NEC is actually proposing at Conference in Manchester. To encourage local initiative (not), it is proposing a rule change to oblige all party units to transfer any property it holds in trust or owns into the name of the Labour Party. It is sequestration in defiance of the wishes of countless benefactors dead or alive. Why? To bolster the national Labour Party's balance sheet increasing its assets at no financial cost. I doubt my ability to organise a sufficiently vocal protest to get  the proposed Rule change withdrawn. But if the new Leader wants to send a clear message to members s/he could useful insist at the NEC meeting on Sunday that sequestration is deferred pending an open and transparent consultation.

As I said at the NEC on Tuesday soundings undertaken by the outgoing Treasurer Jack Dromey were utterly cynical. They took place over the summer holiday period between the second half of July and 17 September. Worse, sound reasons for having a coherent property policy are being used to cover up the scandalous breakdown in financial governance arrangements of the Labour Party without the lessons being fully aired, understood and addressed. In the absence of proper budgets and management accounts, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I should not  trust HO with my membership subscription, let alone a bequest . 

In the quest for change in the Party, relations between Leader and individual member and political levy payer/affiliate awakened by the 4-1/2 month long campaign have to be built on further. Reform of policy-making and encouragement of debate taking on the Tories should not be confined to Westminster but extended to everywhere people live and work. Here there is an opportunity to rebalance the Party's federal structure. New Labour squeezed the affiliated trades unions' representation on the National Policy Forum - to around 1/6th. But it left the TUs holding a disproportionate number of NEC seats - 13/33 who continue to fulfil a praetorian guard function for the Leadership. That compares with just 6/33 for constituency reps. TU representatives also hold the whiphand on the NEC organisation committee. Those whom I have encountered in my two year term on the NEC are temperamentally unsuited to managing discipline in a voluntary organisation. Put simply they have forgotten the need for carrots. Sadly, they have abandoned any regard for natural justice as evidenced in former MP Ian Gibson's deselection last year, and latterly over Tower Hamlets. There should be equal representation of affiliates and CLP representatives on the Organisation Committee, and in the coming year it should be chaired by a CLP representative.

A really bold Leader would tackle the representation of women in the Party's structures head on. An opportunity to set a 50% minimum for elected places in the Shadow Cabinet was lost on Tuesday thanks to the sisterhood. Acting Leader Harriet Harman failed to secure the votes in the PLP ballot. The NEC failed to hold the PLP to account. When I questioned the status of the PLP inside the Party, i was told by self-professed equalities champion and General Secretary Ray Collins that standing orders were outside the scope of the Rule. Not true, every CLP and local government groups SOs have to be approved by the NEC. When I protested NEC vice-chair Norma Stephenson moved next business, which was promptly adopted by NEC chair Ann Black. There are sound reasons for the PLP to be brought explicitly within the scope of the Labour Party's Rule Book when it comes to Party policy and financial governance arrangements. A thoughtful Leader on Sunday morning would ask for a rethink and suggest that the PLP SO changes should be put to Conference with an NEC recommendation for immediate adoption of a minimum of 50% elected places for women. Then a political education programme is needed to both encourage women to stand as Labour candidates, and branches and constituency parties to choose them.

Finally, there is the question of accountability of the Leadership. The Party hierarchy has already fixed an indefinite term of office, contrary to Rule, for Deputy Leader Harriet Harman. Nomination papers for Leader and Deputy Leader should be issued each year. The democratic centralists have ignored this since 1997. If the new Leader wants to reconnect with members s/he should insist that nomination papers are sent out. it gives every member the chance to say: "You are doing a great job, I will renominate you" or "Hang on, you are not, I will nominate another member of the PLP". The democratic centrist fear chaos, and bizarrely are proposing a Rule change in Manchester. That has been  described by Left Futures as a "wreckers' charter". If that is intended to stir up effective opposition, it is to be applauded. But not at the expense of securing a commitment from our new Leader to be accountable regularly to the membership as well as the electorate.

After seven years of campaigning for membership and our critical importance getting Labour's messages across on the doorstep, I hope our new Leader will not just put the Blair/Brown years behind, but the democratic centralist practices that prolonged them beyond the electorate's patience.

Smashing the Labour Party machine: a Labour Leader's 1st= priority

As the Labour Leadership, Treasurer and NEC election ballot papers drop, it's time to look inwards and ask is the Labour Party's internal organisation fit for purpose?

Since the contest started to replace Gordon Brown millions of words have been uttered, written and recorded about the direction of travel, New Labour versus old Labour, drawing lines under the past and moving on. Today we have been treated to vivid reminders in the Blair memoirs about why Leadership elections between the real contenders are healthy for our party democracy as well as the electorate. But little has been said or discussed about the Labour Party's internal organisation(s) which the new Leader will inherit.

Worse, we have had an ongoing conspiracy of silence about the absence of a Deputy Leadership election. Nor should we forget that if the Shadow Cabinet had had its way, the Leadership contest would have been done and dusted before the Parliamentary summer recess in a machine effort to shoe-horn in David Miliband. Paradoxically, it was the Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) that put a stop to a rushed Leadership contest; but then ignored the Rule Book regarding nominations for the Deputy . Admittedly, the General Secretary reported legal advice. However, that was shown subsequently to be non-existent. But the machine ground on oblivious. Nor did the NEC's appetite for a show of openness and transparency over the Leadership contest stop it from extending a dubious interpretation of the Rules to effectively exclude so-called leading left-winger John McDonnell from the contest.

Whoever is announced as the new Leader on Saturday 25 September should be asking her/himself whether the Party machine would function better if there were a broad and well understood consensus about the Rules, rather than infinite scope for scheming and manipulation. Statements from the candidates to date are not encouraging. Lots of warm words about openness and transparency, listening to members and the like, but a lack of necessary attention to detail to be persuasive.

Beyond the Rules, and the need to be guided by them if not bound, are a multitude of issues about organisational structures, personnel and finance. As reported previously, when elected to the NEC I requested among other things a copy of the budget and the latest management accounts. I was refused. Moreover, the NEC's Terms of Reference (ToR) were changed at my first full NEC meeting in November 2008. Of course, they were not changed by diktat. There was a veneer of democracy, namely a 'vote'. I  recorded my dissent and stated publicly that I remained to be convinced the ToR were fit for purpose. Contributors to this blog have argued that I was seeking to engage in micro-management. Far from it, management accounts in large organisations are summaries of a budgetary and accounting system that, if well presented, highlight trends. A new leader could change the internal culture of the Labour Party at a stroke by demanding full disclosure on a confidential basis for all NEC members both of the budget, and the management accounts.

This should be done in the context of rebuilding the Party's finances to fight future elections, not on the basis of the requirements of the Electoral Commission, important though they are. The Labour Party of the future needs to establish a complete picture of money flows both local, regional and nationally. Currently head office takes no meaningful interest in the finances of its party units that generate less than £25K income a year, even though that amount is more than enough to fund local activity throughout the electoral cycle between General Elections.

It should not have gone unnoticed that Labour fought the last election without increasing its borrowing. This does not mean to say that one of the cogs in the machine, namely the General Secretary didn't try and turn in that direction. I don't blame him for trying. But the NEC said: No. Labour's campaign had to financed out of cash in hand and donation. Head Office has a very successful fundraising department targeting wealthy Labour members and supporters, as well as the trade unions. The latest donation figures from the Electoral Commission show over £10 million was given to the Party to help finance the election in Q2 2010. That was despite fighting the Tories and the Lib-Dems with 'loser' Brown as Leader. The election results showed where Labour had activists on the ground in sufficient numbers, it could hold seats, as it did, for example, in Islington South, Oxford East, Tooting and Westminster North against the national trend.

UPDATE SEE COMMENTS: I wrote: In the exceptional case of Oxford East, the seat was retained with very little printed literature at all. Antonia comments: It's nonsense. See my comment for my apology for possibly misunderstanding the level of printed literature distributed and its impact on the outcome.

I have already challenged John Prescott's pitch for the post of Party Treasurer on the grounds that he doesn't seem to have got the message - it's members that count, not money of itself. Of the leadership contenders, David Miliband is the most suspect of a 'filthy lucre fixation', with his boast that he has demonstrated his money-raising capacity. Sure, but was it ethical? The Labour Party still lacks an ethical donations policy. The Party machine from sitting MPs, the vast majority of the National Executive Committee, though Head Office and Regional staff appear frightened of members playing a greater role. Why? Because, they would have to be more accountable to them.

A new Leader could set the tone by quietly insisting that the whole NEC is on the platform for the Annual Report and Accounts, and insisting that delegates are entitled to ask questions of any NEC member. That could be done in Manchester in four weeks' time. With regard to staff, the contenders should take a  particular interest in the Erith and Thamesmead ballot box tampering affair in 2009, as yet unresolved. Members will recall there was a high profile selection process featuring the young Georgia Gould, daughter of former PM Tony Blair's favourite pollster. She was seeking the nomination as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate. In controversial circumstances,  the Labour Party high command decided to take control of the process and lodged the ballot box in Head Office. After the alleged 'break-in', the selection ballot had to be re-run via solicitors. An internal inquiry was instituted by the NEC, since then - silence. Unconfirmed reports allege that senior staff representatives have blocked DNA testing that might help the General Secretary with his inquiries. 

That unsavoury episode underlines the extent of distrust between active members and party staff that has to be addressed if the Party is going to regroup successful to harness all the talents of its members and supporters.

I hope some of this issues will be touched on in the remaining hustings especially by my first and second preferences, not to mention the need for proper policy debates at Conference. Hence my headline '1st= priority'.

Labour Party challenges: rebuilding trust

Former Labour ministers are enjoying a last gasp of media exposure. It must be August. Paul Myners berated the Labour Party leadership contest as a failure in yesterday's Guardian here, and reportedly urged them to break the rules governing the hustings. Alan Milburn is off to advise the Tories, joining David Blunkett and Frank Field. (Yes, Frank was a minister over 10 years ago.) And amid the ConDem slash and burn proposals, Local Government secretary Eric Pickles takes out the Audit Commission, prompting wailing from his Labour shadow, John Denham and praise from fellow National Executive Committee (NEC) candidate,  Ken Livingstone, better known as a Labour London Mayoral wannabee. In the meantime leading self-proclaimed leftie blogger, Sunny Hundal has joined the Labour Party. 

Each of these episodes tells a tale about the role of trust in our politics. I want to concentrate on the Audit Commission. I had occasion to approach the Audit Commission (AC) informally about a fundamental breakdown in the established procedures governing local government finance some ten years ago. It was in the wake of catastrophic budgetary failure in the London Borough of Hackney. Researching the AC's functions I learned two important things: 1) it was set up by the Conservatives in 1982 while Michael Heseltine was the minister reponsible as Secretary of State for the Environment, and 2) that 'client' for the audit was not the local electorate, through its council and elected members; but Parliament, through the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons and the Secretary of State. In other words, for nearly 30 years, we have had institutionalised mis-trust in the management of local government finance.

Mistrust? Why so. Well in virtually every other form of collective activity, I can think of trust is institutionalised 'locally'. An unincorporated voluntary organisation's members appoint an auditor at their Annual General Meeting to report to them on the previous year's annual accounts and, looking to the future, advise on going concern. They are routinely enabled to pose questions at next year's AGM. Ditto, members of incorporated bodies, whether charitable or commercial.

On my journey (to coin a phrase in prominent use, currently) I have discovered while the Labour Party at branch and constituency level functions like that, well at least in theory. It is a different story nationally. Mistrust is institutionalised to the extent that as an elected member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee I am not allowed to question the Auditor directly, nor am I entitled to receive regular management accounts.

Our leadership candidates would do well to reflect on this before pontificating about the war or the deficit, or rebuilding trust with the electorate, or even members.

Is the Labour Party a going concern post-2010 General Election?

This is the question anyone is entitled to ask. It is one that every Labour Party leadership wannabe should be addressing. As an elected member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee, I was issued with a gagging order last year not to do so. Arguably, it sums up in a proverbial 'nut shell' what is wrong with the Labour Party's current governance arrangements.

A key feature of New Labour was to belittle due process. Today, how many Labour Party meetings feature a regular Treasurer's report with accounts? Certainly, not Labour's so-called ruling National Executive Committee. An instant audit of constituency and branch labour party meetings would be very revealing. My own branch and CLP treasurers provide a monthly update usually in writing if there are any significant changes. I think most members appreciate their willingness to be open and accountable. Annual accounts are audited and the auditor(s) make themselves available at the AGM. When there is slippage there is catchup.

Somewhere in the dim and distant past I took a different path from the sofa politicians of New Labour. Maybe it was helping in the local Co-op shop as a young lad in Lancashire. Perhaps it was reporting quoted company results for Reuters. Then there was a fraud by a local scout troop leader that resulted in my son and his fellow Scouts being cheated of an overseas camping trip, (The offender was eventually given a custodial sentence for breach of trust.) Whatever, I came to expect that in any voluntary association, or incorporated body I was involved in that the highest standards of financial reporting would be aspired to.

So what about those five Labour leadership wannabes? Four of them have been members of the Cabinet - governing the country, imposing targets, demanding accountability of others. Do any of them have a sense of irony?

Now to the substance of whether the Labour Party is a going concern. I have been informed that the 2009 accounts have been signed off. It is regrettable that there was no NEC meeting beforehand with the Auditor(s) both elected and appointed present to answer questions. So the answer to the question is I don't know. I could speculate. But I won't. I just want to see the figures with my own eyes and have an opportunity to question the auditor(s) myself. I belief that some of the 16,464 members who voted for me to represent them on the NEC expect no less.

Which Labour Leadership wannabe will speak out against these 'New Labour' practices, and defend my rights?  Which  will support the call for a proper Annual General Meeting at Conference? We need to know if we are to learn from the past and create a sound foundation for the future.