I want Labour to win the next British General election whenever. In the meantime I want us to re-elect the London Mayor, keep budgetary control of the Greater London Assembly and strengthen Labour's position in Welsh and English local elections in May.
Most of the Party action needed to achieve those goals is going to be on the watch of the current NEC, including the four current members out of six in the Constituency section elected back in 2006 on the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) slate.
A lively discussion is under way on Grimmerupnorth about the merits of the CLGA slate for the 2008 NEC Constituency section elections. That should really help the hapless six who have agreed/been elected to stand. For the record Save the Labour Party is one of the organisations that belongs to the CLGA. We hold postal ballots of our members to decide who is going to fill allocated place on the CLGA slate. Ann Black came top of our poll. I came 2nd and Susan Press came 3rd.
Grimmer says the CLGA should get real. What's her game? She was a member of the STLP national committee that discussed tactics and met the CLGA and reluctantly agreed that we could not force the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy to hold an all-member ballot of its members. Given the relative strength of membership in STLP and CLPD compared to the Labour Representation Committee and Compass, this all seems barely representative. I agree with that. None of the above, to the best of my knowledge, has a membership as large as the biggest CLP in the Labour Party. Nor has the 'non-membership' organisation Labour First, which includes Luke Akehurst amongst its leading lights.
All of the above hit above their weight. All are failing to force the leadership to listen to the calls for rebuilding. The only light is that tomorrow the NEC will hold a briefing meeting about recruitment of a new General Secretary, Party finances and internal and external inquiries into hidden donations. That meeting, albeit only a briefing, is thanks to a CLGA member of the NEC posing questions to which the current NEC are entitled to answers. STLP officers actively encouraged that call for an early meeting. STLP considers that radical steps will need to be announced at the 2008 Spring Conference to rebuild the party to have any hope of transforming the Party's electoral prospects in May. That is an essential springboard for a 4th term.
In the meantime the Centre Left has to remain united and disciplined even behind a slate that Grimmer finds fault with. If I were to fall under a bus, she would be the first person to whom CLGA would turn to fill the vacancy. Who then would she be encouraging you not to vote for on the CLGA slate to get John Wiseman elected?