Peter Kenyon

Labour Party membership - no say, no pay

Catching up with friends and family over the festive season included lots of pointed reminders about why so many have either resigned or let their Labour Party membership lapse. Everyone has their own particular reason..too much interference in health and education, failure to take on the fat cats, obsession with private sector, nuclear power, nuclear weapons..I could go on. But one particular remark from a former Labour Party branch secretary whom I asked what would encourage him to rejoin struck me as likely to resonant. That was a commitment to a public inquiry into the second Iraq War.

The rest fit into a generalised category which will come as no surprise: no say, no pay. I see changing that perception of the Labour Party and rehabilitating the idea of party political membership as active citizenship as the challenge which our National Executive Committee must address in 2009 if it is to have a future.

Dreams can come true for Labour Party members

On 27 April 2008, I posted ahead of the May elections and in anticipation of the latest round of Labour Party policy making due to start on 2 May after the polls closed. I suggested:

On tax, we in the Labour Party have got some very serious work to do to restore a sense of fairness to our policy. At what level of gross income should anyone pay tax? I'd open the bidding at the level of the living wage. And you?

Then we need to be work out how fair taxes can be achieved. I'd open the bidding for a higher rate of tax for those earning silly money and shut down the scope for avoidance. But what's silly money?

So, I'm pleased to see that the ruling Labour Party has made some modest progress in that direction. The problem with detailed changes is the main message can and does get lost on the electorate. That's why we need to watch what the Tory think tanks are saying. Even the Adam Smith Institute recognises the merits of taking anyone on the minimum wage out of taxation. (Hat-tip Bob Piper.) That would be a start. I don't agree with its analysis about how to fund such tax cuts. But I am aware that HMG is light years behind getting a grip on its IT spend having failed to understand the scope for cost savings from open source software, plus the ongoing doubts with big price tags about ID cards, Trident and other non-essentials.

The trouble for the Labour Party and its members is that the powers that be banned discussion about tax-policy at its National Policy Forum in July, just when we needed a national debate about tax fairness. However, it was reassuring to see that President-elect Obama wants to clamdown on tax havens as reported shortly after his elections and that the CHX Alistair Darling in his PBR yesterday fired a warning shot across the bows of some of the UK's notorious tax havens in an opening, albeit belated, bid to reduce the scope for tax avoidance.

Who said members should be fleeced of their subs and not heard?

Will nuclear power machoism help rebuild trust?

A BBC report of a unanimous Cabinet decision to back a new generation of nuclear power plants may show Gordon Brown's government is capable of taking a tough decision. But it looks more like another example of crypto-Stalinism as described by John Harris in the Guardian today. Whatever the small print of the announcement expected from Business Secretary John Hutton on Thursday the impression is of an unnecessary decision taken in the face of no apparent solution to nuclear waste disposal, or readiness on the part of private sector investors to go nuclear without public subsidy. Then there is that issue of trust with an electorate increasingly sceptical about Labour's competence in government. It leaves Labour loyalists in the invidious position of having to disown Labour government policy. Nothing new there. But.  Just incase anyone has already forgotten, in her New Year message Labour Party Deputy Leader Harriet Harman promised members a say in shaping policy in 2008.  And. Just in is an eMail request from Alicia Kennedy, Labour Party Deputy General Secretary encouraging members to campaign in marginal seats on 12 January. If only one could trust our Labour leaders .....