Peter Kenyon

Wake up call for Labour Leadership candidates: 2010 Conference plans

If Labour's leadership candidates are hoping to show the Labour Party as the open, liberating, empowering force on the centre-left of British politics - capable of listening, learning and governing any time soon - then they should demand to see the latest plans for the 2010 Conference in September. (I set out some ideas before the meeting here.)

The grid, which was laid round at yesterday's National Executive Committee, to put it kindly could be best described as a very early draft, an opportunity for discussion in its own right. 

The 'powers that be' face a daunting challenge. A sudden upsurge in interest in Party membership (some 30,000 joiners since the General Election) is a spontaneous reaction to the ConDem coalition adding new income to help Labour's strained, but improving finances. They join members like me, the post-New Labour remainder, many of whom have endured years of being ignored, abused and plotted against by the Leadership and its praetorian guard of party officials and fellow travellers. Crudely, the fixers need to keep the brave newcomers and cynical diehards both happy and focussed on winning.

My pitch at yesterday's meeting was to ask for the Conference to be staged with the widest possible opportunity for debate. In Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) speak that means forget the set piece speeches. The current grid showed 22 such slots, excluding the Leader's Report - 85% for men (mainly white), many of whom will not be in the Shadow Cabinet by the late Autumn. To enable debate, I suggested that constituencies and branches need to be encouraged to table resolutions. Guidance will be issued in August, I was told. Too late as far as I'm concerned. Far too many members have just given up on having a say. HO doesn't even bother to acknowledge submissions, let alone provide an audit trail to answer the question: What happened to our resolution on .......?

The General Secretary should instruct staff forthwith to acknowledge all correspondence from branch and constituency labour party officers, and created audit trails - a modest investment in so-called 'customer relationship management' tools and staff training for the use of same would be a step in the right direction. 

The guidance concerning subjects for debate, when it is issued, is likely to require then to be summed up in 10 words backed up with 250 words of detail, known in CAC speak as a 'contemporary issue'. There is another saga behind this. But I want to concentrate on that different Conference.

Then we come to another of the many hurdles in Conference organisation - the definition of 'contemporary'. If you are still with me this is very important, like Beecher's Brook is to the Grand National in steeple-chasing. The Labour Party's policy making process now know as Partnership INTO Power, as the Party is in Opposition, involves an election cycle rolling work programme. I tried to get agreement yesterday on the cutoff date being the Clause V meeting which signed off the 2010 Election Manifesto in mid April. ie anything that has happen since could be the basis for debate. But as usual, I was firmly slapped down. This time is was with a reminder that that was a CAC decision and it is not meeting until next month.

Finally, there is the question of how issues are chosen for debate. There is a Priorities Ballot, in which Conference Delegates cast their votes for the subjects covered by those issues ruled in order by the CAC. Under rule the affiliated trades unions can chose 4 and the CLP delegates can chose 4. Too many CLP delegates are not aware that the TUs agree their 4 among themselves, guaranteeing debate on their issues. As a result many CLP delegates also vote for those issues and waste their opportunity to broaden debate to eight issues. That could be avoided if , for example, the Priorities Ballot were conducted in two parts so that TU issues do not appear on the Priorities Ballot in the CLP section, thus avoiding confusion and guaranteeing eight topics on the agenda.

So if the Leadership candidates want an Annual Conference worthy of Labour as a renewed political force, they could do worse than agree jointly, whomever wins, that they expect:

1. debate to be optimised

2. set piece speeches to be limited to replying to debate (with the exception of the Leader's Report and the Deputy Leader's closing speech,

3. no backroom attempts to purge the agenda of difficult and painful issues, and

4. members' correspondence re policy to be dealt with in an open, transparent and professional manner.

and say so very publicly.

Curiouser and curiouser: Left Futures backward thinking

A mystery organisation, Grassroots Labour, has sprung up on the self-styled Left Futures website masquerading as the NEC (National Executive Committee) Slate. This should NOT be confused with the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) slate that for the last 14 years has offered up candidates for the NEC. I declare an interest, as the preferred candidate of Save the Labour Party (STLP) for re-election to the NEC following an all-member ballot on the CLGA slate.

The GL was cobbled together overnight by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD). It was created following STLP chair Peter Kenyon's (my) refusal to break an agreement at the last CLGA meeting. That was that the CLGA, in the absence of consensus on six names for the constituency section, agreed that eight names should be circulated to CLPs and a final slate of six would be agreed if possible after the 30 July nomination closing date, and before the issue of ballot papers to members, now not expected until early September.

The CLPD 'offer' was that I should go on the GL slate along with fellow males Ken Livingstone and Pete Willsman, together with Ann Black, Christine Shawcroft and Sofi Taylor. The CLPD envoy proposed dropping Sam Tarry. That seemed to me to be a breach of faith with Compass and Compass Youth in particular who were keen to get involved in Labour Party governance. Moreover, Sam had been elected national chair of Young Labour the year before and would have reduced the average age of the CLGA slate by nearly half a generation at a stroke. Instead, I suggested the CLPD should choose between Ken and Pete, knowing that idea, to put it politely, would be refused out of hand.

Anyone exploring the inability of the centre-left to respond to New Labour need look no further than the CLGA. I have been a member of the NEC for nearly two years. There has never been a caucus or systematic attempt to seek alliances with other sections of the Party represented on the Labour Party's so-called ruling National Executive Committee. There is no agreed agenda. There is a CLGA statement about policy. But the NEC to date is still locked in post-Blairite stasis and doesn't do policy.

Anyone keen to know more is welcome to ask and I will do my best to answer. In the meantime, Save the Labour Party's committee met this afternoon and had a mercifully brief report back and discussion on the slate issue before deciding to stand by the CLGA agreement and circulate all eight names in its next members' and CLP/BLP newsletters. It will review the nominations for each candidate if available on 31 July. In the meantime, STLP agreed that there was work to be done preparing for the next NEC on 20 July, Rule changes for Conference 2010 and demands of the Leadership contenders.

As for Left Futures, it boasts: “The best that’s Left in Labour. Good writing. Sharp criticism. Open debate. Campaigning. Red or green, aligned or not, Left Futures seeks to refresh and activate your politics."

Let's hope its unexplained promotion of CLPD-retro was a momentary lapse from its mission. BTW - hot tip for whomever designed the gizmo (copied above) do you want everyone to miss the real excitement by arriving in Manchester on Sunday 26^th? The Labour Party Conference 2010 starts on Saturday 25^th September, when agenda issues with the Conference Arrangements Committee have to be addressed, and for added interest this year – the results of the Leadership election will be announced the same day.

Labour Party - post election priorities - local organisation then leadership

Last night I attended the first 'business' meeting of my local Constituency Labour Party since the election. I hope my brief account doesn't put off any of those 13,000 new recruits since Tory/Lib-Dem nuptials were consummated. On the contrary, this is the stuff of democratic politics - deeply steeped in the need for accountability, opportunities to let off steam, learn lessons and kindle new ideas - all focussed on winning more votes next time.

It was our Executive Committee comprising the CLP officers, and delegates from each of the local party adminstrative branches (not to be confused with electoral wards). In the first place, a week earlier, as secretary of the CLP following consultation with the chair, I had assembled an Agenda - a list of the issues to be tackled. Requests for reports from the agents for the local and general elections were requested, the Treasurer offered to update on finance now the election spend has been totalled, as Secretary I flagged up forthcoming national Party elections.

The reports duly arrived, too late for some to have had time to print off between work and meeting. But copies were shared as each item arose. Frustrations over the inevitable election-tide cock-ups were aired. Then the moment arrived for deciding what was to be said to the CLP's General Committee - a larger gathering which ultimately governs the affairs of the Labour Party locally. So, I asked is it to be recriminations or recommendations?

Sanity prevailed - so I had better get on with the minutes, and assemble the agenda for the GC before events bowl me over. That evidence-based blog whirling round my brain on why the General Secretary of the Labour Party misdirected the NEC about the conduct of the Labour Party leadership elections yesterday will just have to wait until after lunch.

Labour leadership - proper debate impossible without more brotherly love

Listening to the Labour Party leadership coverage to date, I have come to the conclusion that an evident appetite for the widest possible reflection and proper debate will be impossible without a rethink - not of the rules, but how the principal players behave in the circumstances. We need even more brotherly love.

As set out the Labour Party rules concerning valid nominations have come to dominate Leadership contests. Labour MPs (members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)) have the whip hand. They and they alone can determine who can and cannot get on the ballot paper. In the event of a vacancy, Rule 4.2.B.i says that 12.5% of Labour MPs must nominate to ensure a place on the ballot paper. In the event of no vacancy, under Rule 4.2.B.ii says that 20% of Labour MPs are required. It need not be like that.

David and Ed have had their Mother Miliband moment, eshewed deals and guaranteed an election for the next Leader of the Labour Party. Both seem confident of getting the necessary nominations. For that they deserve genuine applause and gratitude. After listening to Ed Miliband declare his candidacy yesterday at the Fabian Society post-election conference, I went to an alternative Labour movement event organised by the Labour Representation Committee and Labour Briefing at which there was a discussion about the prospects of getting John McDonnell MP on the ballot paper. I doubt that his prospects are any better even with a smaller PLP, than they were in 2007. But in winding up a workshop debate on 'Fighting for Labour's future - A Left turn', I committed to playing my part to try and achieve that aim. Not because I necessarily agree with John, but because I believe there is a significant proportion of party members (both individuals and affiliates) and people in the wider Labour movement, who do. They deserve to be heard in this debate. But will the Party be offered real choice? I think not. That would be wrong, both as a matter or principle and in practice. There is also a question of how the Party is going to be funded. We need to persuade those hundreds of thousands of former members who have resigned or lapsed to come back, and those thinking of joining anew to put their money where their mouths are and sign a direct debit to show real commitment.

So, the power brokers, and in this I include the affiliated trades unions and Unite the Union in particular, need to think very carefully about how they exercise their influence between now and the close of nominations.

To be valid Leadership candidate requires the backing of 33 Labour MPs on a nomination paper (NB not 32 as I have peviously blogged and tweeted incorrectly by rounding down instead of up). That part of the process does not have to be a popularity contest among prospective candidates inside the PLP itself. (Though human nature being what it is, the prospects of changing that state of affairs is not great. So I not under any illusions.)

However, in the search for the most diverse and widest possible contest, I will persist, however, foolishly.  Who are the power brokers I am referring to? Well in the first instance, there are the candidates themselves. On the basis of current information, there will be no woman, and/or no Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic candidates. That in itself is a serious indictment of Labour Party political progress in its 100-year plus history. Nor will all the political wings of the Labour Party be represented. What we are facing is the prospect of continuity candidates with different trills of mea cupla.

What can possibly be done? The Miliband brothers have already demonstrated a way forward through brotherly love. We now need more of that in the form of comradely behaviour, ideally before the nomination papers for the positions of Labour Leader and Deputy are issued. All it needs is just one candidate not just to acknowledge the need for both diversity, and political breadth. But do something about it. That would help transform the nature of the contest.

What to do? The next step would be a big ask of their PLP supporters. As soon as a Labour leader candidate gets 33 nominations, every extra MP nomination is a wasted vote. Which of the declared candidate will invite candidates from other political wings of the Labour Party to stand and offer to lend 'wasted' PLP nomination votes to enable such candidates get on the ballot paper?

As matters stand, there is a very serious risk the widest possible debate will be reduced to grades of the proverbial Rizla paper, as illustrated here. So who is up for challenge? Ed, David? Or Ed Balls, or Andy Burnham or Jon Cruddas or whoever else thinks they can make the cut. To be credible it has to come from a candidate able to show 33 nominees now. So who is it?

Harriet Harman now Labour Party leader pro-tem

Following Gordon Brown's announcement in Downing Street of his resignation as Leader of the Labour Party prior to tendering his resignation as Prime Minister to Her Majesty the Queen, Harriet Harman becomes leader pro-tem.

The Labour Party Rule Book Clause 4. 2. B. iv says:

When the party is in opposition and the party leader, for whatever reason becomes permanently unavailable, the deputy leader shall automatically become party leader on a pro-tem basis. The NEC shall decide whether to hold an immediate ballot as provided under E above or to elect a new leader at the next annual session of party conference.

And opposition is where we are as expected here.

The timetable decision for the election of a new leader will be taken next week. However, there are scurrilous suggestions that the timetable should be brought forward together with the planned National Executive Committee and National Policy Forum elections in the constituency section. Expect strong resistence from this quarter.

Labour headed for opposition today?

'Vote Clegg, get Cameron' was the warning to voters ahead of last week's election. Latest developments with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats back in talks point to a Con/Lib-Dem coalition, possibly being announced before the end of the day. Talking to trade union contacts over the past few days, I have sensed a real desire to keep the Conservatives out of government. When the Labour National executive Committee (NEC) meets later today, I will listen keenly to accounts of talks between the Prime Minister's emissaries and the Liberal-Democrats. The BBC's Chief Political Correspondent Laura Kuenssberg has just reported that Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, may have pushed the Lib-Dems too hard and into the Tories hands. Whatever, the truth of that it would be tragic if the possibility of protecting the country from conservativism were lost. The parliamentary arithmetic could have delivered a traffic light coalition, just. If there is still scope for considered negotiation, my inclination will be to give Lab-Lib talks another chance, with a negotiating team committed to success.

......Step forward capability Brown, make amends and change the landscape

I started writing this just before the Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed himself in a manner that could bring his term in office as well as his leadership of the Labour Party to an abrupt end, therefore, however, laughably, I will finish albeit with an amended intro.

Labour has eight days to restore its electoral standing and win a 4th term. After Brown's 'sort of bigoted' gaff about Mrs Duffy in Rochdale, that task has just become a lot more difficult, unless he gets back out infront of the public again as soon as possible today...and STOPS talking about MY policy(ies)...they are Labour policies.

That said, the main theme of the debate remains the economy. If the wild and extravagent claims of the other two prime ministerial wannabees and their underlings are any guide - the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are rattled by the underlying fundamentals of the British economy. Increasingly strident, their claims that 'the economy is wrecked' and 'society is broken' can readily be shown for what they are - lies untruths.

Responding demands quiet, soft-spoken confidence. There is no doubting Gordon Brown's confidence. But quiet and soft-spoken? There have been occasions during PMQs in the closing months of the last Parliament, when he heeded the need to avoid being strident, and projected a calmer self. The final televised 'prime ministerial debate' will be such a moment. And it will be decisive.

We are all as a society relatively better off - thanks to a higher public deficit. Without bank recapitalisation, the economy would have been a wreck - not just in Britain, but worldwide. Labour market flexibility underpinned by a national minimum wage and targeted government support for businesses has helped keep more people in work, more businesses trading and more people in their own homes than was forecast 18 months ago. Overlay Conservative policies twenty and thirty years ago and the UK economy would be in a deep depression today. As for the Liberal Democrats, their economic spokesman, Vince Cable, today shredded his own reputation as a save pair of hands with a reckless statement comparing the UK to Greece.

None of the parties disagree about the need to cut Britain's fiscal deficit, the argument is about when and how much. Labour has stated unequivocally its commitment to halve the deficit in four years. The critique issued by the Institute of Fiscal Studies yesterday is about the detail, in particular, Labour's decision to defer a three-year public spending review by 12 months until the Autumn 2010. There is an entirely plausible narrative to justify that decision - to date overall borrowing is lower than forecast last year, ditto unemployment and hence benefit payments by the state, and housing repossessions are also lower - keeping people in their own homes. Growth appears to be returning and is forecast even by those cautious economists at the IMF and the OECD to be the strongest in the Eurozone area next year. That will mean higher tax revenues as well as lower welfare payments. In addition, banks bailed out by the British government are returning to profitability and the government's holdings of their shares are showing a near £10 billion repeat billion profit.

Jobs, maintaining frontline public services - health, education and policing, ending wage, pensioner and child poverty, increased investment in telecommunications, and green industries are all part of a future fair for all.

It is the rebuttal that is crucial to turning the economic debate so that when it comes to casting a vote, we all - well enough of us - refocus on what matters - policies, and our future as a society and not on the flawed personalities who currently lead our political parties. If we remember the General Election is not about electing a prime minister, but an MP representing a political party with a set of distinctive policies, then Labour should win on 6 May. .

Never let it be said, I am not loyal!

Can/will the electorate 'conspire' to dump Labour's Brown?

With 12-days to go British Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown is facing a pincer movement by the other two competing egos seeking to govern Britain. Brown's legitimacy as party leader was compromised in 2007 when he assumed the leadership of his party in what many commentators described as a 'coronation'. That was the inevitable outcome of a process that resulted in no other member of the parliamentary labour party being able to secure the 44 backers needed to force an election. Labour Party members and affiliates that form the other two parts of Labour's leadership electoral college consequently had no say. This will all come into play if Labour fails to secure the largest share of the popular vote and a majority of seats in the new House of Commons when the counting is finished after 6 May 2010.

Labour election strategy hangs on its ability to get across a simple message. "It's the economy, stupid." "We saved you from the abyss" is not as compelling as "You've never had it so good". Brown reduced the campaigning slogan to : 'Jobs, jobs, jobs' immediately after the second televised prime ministerial debate. The bedrock of Britain's parliamentary democracy - political party mass membership has crumbled in the post war period. The country faces a 'game change' moment when the professional political class stages another coup to further distance the electorate from the elected.

Contraditions abound. The advocates of proportional representation (PR) for elections to the House of Commons have been claiming of decades that votes don't count. There is even a campaign for PR called 'Make votes count' run by a Liberal Democrat. Yet here we are on the eve of a General Election under first past the post (FPTP) when the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are positioning themselves in the post-electoral scene in which the proportion of votes cast for each party WILL COUNT. Brown's claim to remain prime minister will depend on how many votes are cast for Labour Party candidates, IRRESPECTIVE of whether the seat has traditionally been Conservative, Liberal (Democrat), and more recently Scottish Nationalist or Plaid Cymru. Ever fleet of electoral foot m'Lord Mandelson has spotted that too, and opined accordingly. 2010 is not the year for tactical voting.

To win Labour has a mountain to climb. Whilst I'm glad Mandelson has spotted the blindingly obvious in that regard, he has been exceptionally slow and ridiculously stubborn in acknowledging the catastrophic blunders made by New Labour under former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Brown's only chance of remaining prime minister, and Labour winning a fresh mandate is if he and his allies are candid with the electorate.

As Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband conceded in a foreign affairs debate with the Conservatives' William Hague and Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokemen when asked if he would still have supported the invasion of Iraq if he had known then what was known now, he said:

“Obviously there would have been no such decision.

“Because if we had known then what we know now, if we'd have known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, there would have been no UN resolutions and no vote in the House of Commons.

Brown needs to be similarly forthright about his handling of the economy. Major errors were made by New Labour which relied too heavily on the private sector, especially the financial sector. A major shortage of affordable housing was another blunder of the New Labour ideologists. Remarkably Britain is still a major world manufacturer, despite having no strategic industrial policy for 10 years under New Labour. All that has been changed on Brown's watch. Britain is out of Iraq. (No one questions the legitimacy of the was in Afghanistan, just the tactics.) Brown steered not just Britain, but the world out of the 2008 banking crisis, and subsequent recession. No question. Yes, recovery is fragile. But the adverse consequences in terms of jobs and repossessions were far less than forecast 18 months ago. The banking system did not collapse. We were able to continue drawing cash from the ATMs.

Yes, the cost of recovery has been increased public borrowing. But that is what government's are for. That's the lesson of the last century. At last in Brown and the Labour Party, Britain has a prime minister and political party that understands what government is for. The public finances are not in meltdown. The only real risks to jobs, homes, schools and the NHS arise arguably from a Conservative government, or the uncertainty arising from a possible Tory/Lib-Dem administration. (Even a scant knowledge of their respective positions on the economy and electoral reform screams - polls apart!)

What Labour election strategists have to grapple with is who are the best advocates of these messages. We are stuck with another televised debate. But for some of the electorate election day has already come and gone, some postal votes have already been delivered, filled in and returned. Labour supporters are going to have to use crowd techniques to get easily understood messages across in the final few days. Brown has got to be contrite and collegiate. Lord Mandelson ditto. Team Labour has to be allowed to speak.

Memo to Labour Party PR advocates: Every vote WILL count in 2010

In the event of no political party winning an outright majority of seats in the General Election on 6 May 2010, the party with the highest number of votes cast rather than seats won will, according to innumerable commentators, have the greatest democratic legitimacy.

I hope all my Labour Party colleagues advocating tactical voting, active in the mislabled campaign 'Make Votes not Count' and flirting with proportional representation will reflect on the implications of their actions for Labour in government come 7 May 2010.

I'm voting Labour whatever.

Notts East selection: Chris Leslie gets nomination

Former MP Chris Leslie has been selected by the Labour Party's Special Selection Panel as its candidate in the Nottingham East parliamentary constituency.

He was chosen from a shortlist of nine by a panel of five NEC members, including Deputy Leader Harriet Harman and NEC chair Ann Black. 

The decision was reported by the FT's Jim Pickard here. And I can confirm from my own sources. Some reactions are best not repeated. It is rally round time.

UPDATE: the decision was another split vote Leslie 3 : Taylor 2