Peter Kenyon

Does the ASA's remit extend to the Labour Party +1 scheme?

Tomorrow, time permitting between a whistle stop trip to Birmingham and a double Prom, I'll be asking the Advertising Standards Authority whether its remit extends to political parties and their recruitment literature.

Unelected Labour Party deputy chair Tom Watson asked earlier on hisTwitter feed whether I would be his Labour Party +1 (hint, hint - if every Labour Party member recruited a member membership would be doubled). It's a long while since the Labour Party sought to recruit members, except while electing a new leader.

What worries people like me is the bare-faced lie about membership here:

As a Labour member you'll be able to have a clear say in our future policies and direction, as well as being able to stand for elected office in your area.

Excuse me. Which/what cosmic power filled the black hole that is Labour Party policy making?

No Labour CLP NEC incumbent deserves re-election, unless....

Labour's future as a democratic socialist party as far as I'm concerned hangs on whether it delivers 21st century tools enabling members to have a say.

Yesterday's proceedings of the Organisation Sub-Committee reported first by Luke Akehurst and posted here, suggest that the culture remains top down. While there were words expressed about the use of technology:

•    There will be greater use of technology to facilitate discussion and
to feedback to party units about their submissions. NPF members will
also be involved in giving feedback. All NPF members will get greater
information about the work of the JPC and the Policy Commissions.
•    There will be an online audit trail to track what has happened to amendments.

they are hedged with conditionality.

So the challenge for all members of the NEC CLP section seeking re-election on whichever slate, or none is have you agreed a specification and budget for that technology with a delivery date? Will the policy documents be published in a format that enables any member to see any proposed changes by any other member? Will representative sample voting facilities be included? 

If not, none of you will be getting my vote when the ballot papers arrive to enable me to cast my vote in the 2012 CLP NEC elections.

Silence peasants, in the Labour Party members' views don't count

Don't take my word for it. I have just caught up with Ann Black's latest NEC report. This is available in parts (for easier reading) on the Labour Democratic Network website.

On policy making she wrote:

Policy-making seems to have moved not only beyond the NEC but beyond the national policy forum and conference.  Near the end I discovered four glossy booklets entitled “Towards a new economy”, “Britain’s role in the world”, “Restoring responsibility, strengthening our communities” and “Fulfilling the promise of Britain”. Maybe the papers came from the elusive shadow cabinet working groups.  They appear hastily compiled, with inconsistencies, identical quotes attributed to different people, and repeated paragraphs, but they make interesting reading. 

This begs a critical question. Why should any CLP bother to send delegates to Conference? As for hapless National Policy Forum delegates, what is the point?

There are remedies. The NEC could reshape Conference and make it a deliberative assembly. Until CLPs organise, nothing will change. Except of course the number of CLPs sending delegates to Conference will probably continue to decline. Just like membership.

Political Party recruitment offer - 'Help shape our policies'

Hurrah! An offer from a political party I couldn't possibly refuse. After eight years of campaigning including overseeing two years of research to establish an evidence-based case for political party membership, someone has seen the light. We discovered there was a very close link in the UK between political party membership and having a say in policy-making. Of course, there are other rights, as the offer enumerates:

OTHER BENEFITS OF BEING A MEMBER

As a Member, you'll also enjoy the following benefits:

• Being able to attend Party Conferences 
• Helping to select the Party's candidates for Local, General and European elections
• Voting rights in elections for the Party Leader  
• Exclusive videos from the Party Leader

Becoming a Member costs just £25 - or £5 if you're under 23. And all your money goes to our campaign to build a better Britain.

So join today and help shape the future of your Party and your country.

An affordable membership rate, no impossible to administer membership gimmicks (1penny for a year), no messing around with sliding scales, no cut price membership rates for supporters with limited voting rights, a straightforward offer with a membership application form, what could be simpler?

Just a shame it's from the Tories.  

Labour's new GS: a battle for the Party's soul

Behind the scenes a battle is underway for the soul of the Labour Party. In a week's time its National Executive Committee will be in full swing. Top of its agenda will be deciding who is to be the next general secretary. The short-listing panel has offered the 33-member body a simple choice between head of fundraising and former acting general secretary, Chris Lennie and the GMB union's national political officer, Iain McNicol.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of that decision, there is no reason to suppose currently that a decision will be defered. A political choice is on offer - more of the same or a step into the future. Bizarrely, rumours are reverberating round the Palace of Westminster that Labour's new leader has already made his mind up and wants Chris Lennie.

I'd like to think that there was no substance in the idea of a foregone conclusion. But I had hoped he would see merit in making the Parliamentary Labour Party shadow cabinet elections annual and open. Instead he is seeking authority to ban them altogether and increase the Leader's powers of patronage by securing the right to select the team in opposition as when in government. So I am not holding my breath.

LabourList's Mark Ferguson is inviting questions for the two candidates.

But at LabourList we're more interested in demystifying these archaic party processes, and giving you an insight into what this race means for you, as party members and supporters.

That's why over the next few days, we'll be asking you to tell us what you'd ask the candidates. Between now and noon on Monday, we'll be collecting your questions. We'll then post a selection and invite the two candidates to respond.

That will definitely be worth watching.

For those of us who have been focused on those processes for some years, I wouldn't have used the term 'archaic'. Despite the brouhaha over a sub-clause of the Party's Rule book following former leader Tony Blair's election in 1994, it was the deliberate oversights and abuses of due process that lost Labour 5 million votes, some 250,000 members (net of annual recruitment and lapsing) and inevitably a general election. Anyone still working for the national party today has questions to answer about that state of affairs. 

There is evidence to highlight those issues of lost voters and members available here from the LabOUR Commission Interim Report (2007) via the newly launched Labour Democratic Network website. Shadow cabinet member without portfolio, Jon Trickett MP, spoke passionately about the issues from a policy, rather than a process, perspective to a 'Winning Labour' rally at Leeds Town Hall on Saturday. He was citing evidence of how Labour's core voters had abandoned the party because they no longer believed it represented their interests. Whereas the professional vote among so-called A and B social classes was actually up in 2010.

The big divide is what to do about it and a pressing underlying issue; namely the state of the party's finances. For the GS wannabes: Is there a narrative linking a commitment to reaching out to putting the party's finances on a sound footing? The Labour Party has recently concluded a consultation called Refounding Labour. For close observers it has been a text book example of how NOT to conduct a consultation. Efforts to ensure an open and transparent process failed. I would not be the slightest surprised to discover that Head Office staff wrote a report setting out recommendations before submissions could be read, and presented it to last week's NEC Organisation Committee. Nor would I be surprised if recommendations were made with claims of varying degrees of support from submissions received (but not either read or analysed systematically).

Who would want to give money to any organisation that routinely denied you a say, or ignored you when you made a contribution? 'No say, no pay' is no more complicated a concept to grasp than 'no taxation, without representation'. Consider the other consultation about policy started following our post-election defeat in 2010. It  resulted in a draft policy document being circulated 36-hours before the National Policy Forum two weekends ago in Wrexham. If anyone has a copy of an internal note from Chris Lennie, as Head of Fundraising registering the strongest possible objections to the way Partnership in Power has been managed since Conference 2010, please let me have a copy. It can't have helped raise money over the past nine months. 

In answer to the Mark Ferguson challenge, Emma Burnell who tweets as @scarletstandard has just said what the next GS needs is:  

             [a] broad innovative funding strategy, empowered activist base, transparent policy process.

So I hope our leader, who has found his voice to take on the media conglomerates, will spare a thought for his party, its financial well-being and, moreover, its soul when he casts his vote next Tuesday. 

 

 

 

 

Is Ed Miliband Labour's Rolf Harris in disguise?

BBC Today programme's interviewer later this morning might well ask Ed Miliband's nominee for National Policy Forum Chair, Peter Hain, if our new Party leader is starting with a blank sheet whether  he's Rolf Harris in disguise.

Rolf, now a national treasure, is best know (perhaps) after the didgeridoo, for his breathtaking on-screen drawing and cartoons capturing an image and captivating his audience.

That much could not be said of Ed's performance on yesterday's Today programme in conversation with a quizzical John Humphries. But in the tradition of rabbits out of a hat, Ed did manage a line which loyalists like yours truly were able to clutch and cherish.

After an excruciating, interminable number of minutes (BBC iplayer will no doubt tell me how many), Ed finally stepped up to the plate with a message:

"We do have to be a party that speaks up for the vast majority of the population"

Yeah, that's the objective. The other question for Hain is : How?

Ed can't wait for two, three, four years to sketch out a graphic image of Labour post TB/GB. There are elections in May 2011 in the developed nations and in (cough. cough), middle England for local government. They are less than six months away. Between now and then, Labour has got to fire up its members and supporters sufficiently to field a candidate to fight every seat. That in itself will be a challenge.

Of course the naysayers will want to concentrate on so-called key seats. If the lessons of 2010 are really being learned that approach proved woefully inadequate to retain power. Answering the blank sheet filler questions posed by Liam Byrne cannot be a distraction from the campaigning required to deliver an electoral Exocet below the ConDem coalition's waterline.

A first hint of the questions for today's Labour National Policy Forum, the first since February 2009, was provided by former NEC chair Ann Black who ventured:

1 - Economic Policy:  There is an Alternative

2 - The NHS

3 - Welfare Reform

4 - Funding University Education

5 - Constitutional Reform

Next Left yesterday reported that Liam Byrne has written to party members to set out the themes and questions for the party's policy review, ahead of tomorrow's National Policy Forum meeting, stating:

There are four broad questions we want to hear about

* How do we grow our economy and ensure good jobs and a sustainable future?

* How do we strengthen families, communities and relationships?

* How do we put power in people's hands, over politics and public services?

* How do we secure our country and contribute to a better world?

We want to know how people see their interest - and the national interest. We want to hear views about the hear and now and the long-term.

Specifically, we would like people to think about the following questions:

1. What are the priorities for protecting Britain from the changes that the government is making? Where are the areas where we should make common cause?

2. What do you see as the key challenges for the future of our country; your community; your family?

3. What are the changes you think Labour should get on with now?

4. How does Labour re-earn your trust on the key issues facing Britain?

I would venture to suggest that whatever the questions, and whoever 'we' is,  the process by which these issues are addressed and the responses acknowledged and analysed is absolutely critical. There are too many Labour Party members past and present who have been led down the garden path before and been left in a maze with no digeridoo. The public know that.

If....Labour's new Leader wants members to have a proper voice

Ed Miliband stated his ambition to give members a 'proper voice' last month at the Labour Party's Annual Conference. If I were asked where to start, what would I advise? 'Sacking' Pat McFadden MP as the chair of the National Policy Forum is not where I would have started. Don't get me wrong, I am not shedding any tears for Pat himself. But the Party's whole policy-making process is so seriously flawed that there are some members would like to scrap it and return to formulating resolutions. That would be a mistake IMHO.

Some serious thought was given to the process by the unofficial LabOUR Commission in the wake of the 2005 General Election. Primary research was undertaken resulting in two LabOUR/YouGov polls in 2006 - the findings can still be downloaded from here . An Interim Report was published after the 2007 local elections and can be downloaded here.

The specific recommendations on policy making were:

6.16. Proposed reforms:
a) The NPF should be reconstituted as an openly elected body on a one member one vote (OMOV) principle from relevant constituent parts. Constituency section members should be elected by OMOV,
probably on a regional basis.
b) The Party should aim to make sure that the final policy document is fully reflected in the Labour Party manifesto in according with the Rules and Constitution.
c) Democratic participatory policy formulation will require a new Secretariat at arm's length from the Party in Government with a transparency protocol for the NPF and NEC.
d) The chair of each policy commission should be an NPF member elected by the NPF.
e) The JPC should be reconstituted as an elected organisational body to ensure effective coordination of policy making in a timely fashion. It should not have powers to alter NPF policy recommendations. Its members should be elected from within the NPF by the NPF.
f) The JPC should establish a clear timetable for the rolling programme set for each parliamentary cycle. This should be communicated to all CLPs, Branches, Labour Groups and posted on the web.
g) Consultative reports should be despatched to all Party units with an invitation to respond and a (suggested) template for responses allowing time for proper consideration of the proposals.
h) All Branches – either individually, grouped or through a CLP all members’ forum as considered appropriate locally – should be encouraged to have a special meeting to consider policy documents. There should also be a one page summary and briefing sheet for Branch Chairs/Political Education Officers (PEOs).
i) The contact details of all NPF members should be available so they can be invited to speak at the local policy forums.
j) Publication of all submissions on the Party website so other parties, members and affiliates can access submissions and cross fertilise ideas.
k) All parties sending submissions should receive an (electronic) acknowledgement and link to where it is posted within a month. After the closing date, an independent analysis of all submissions
should be posted on the website and, together with the response and actions of both the Policy Commission and NPF, circulated to parties submitting. Thus there is a clear audit trail.
l) When a PiP dialogue focuses on contemporary issues (e.g. the decision to invade Iraq), CLPs should continue to make formal submissions and send resolutions as they feel fit, but these should
be acknowledged, published and – on key issues – analysed. Branches should be encouraged to conduct the dialogue through their CLP in a collective democratic endeavour, which incidentally
would make the process more manageable.
m) Individual members and Branches who make submissions on policy issues electronically or in writing should always be acknowledged and provided with a response where possible. They should also be advised that if they are dissatisfied with the response that they can ask their Constituency Party to make a formal submission.
n) In the event of policy differences at the NPF, minority reports should be drawn up for debate at Annual Conference and/or CLPs and affiliated bodies should have the right of amendment to NPF
documents by resolution to Conference.
o) In the event of policy differences between the Party in Government and Conference, a new mechanism is required to enable the NEC to appoint a special working party comprising  representatives of government, and the NPF to secure resolution within a limited time period after Annual Conference.

As of today, over three and a half years later, the NEC has yet to agree procedures for nomination and election to any Joint Policy Committee, National Policy Forum or Policy Commission positions. Nor has it embraced readily available web-based techniques to provide an audit trail for submissions. An example of how transparency might be achieved can be seen here.

Peter Hain, MP who is Ed Miliband's nominee to replace Pat McFaddan as chair of the National Policy Forum and possible joint convenor of the Joint Policy Committee will, if elected, face an uphill struggle to restore members' confidence in the party's policy-making process.

If I were him, I would be making sure that that the new Leader was seized of the need to put a plausible nomination and election procedure in place well before the NPF meets on 27 November. That is easier said than done as there is no National Executive Committee meeting until the following Tuesday, 30 November. Sorting this pdq would send a clear message to the party that policy making will be overseen by Labour people with democratic legitamacy, willing to be held to account.

Labour Party policy-making: a suitable case for treatment

Daniel Blaney writing on LabourList challenges Ed Miliband on the return of party democracy to policy making. I think the questions should apply to all the leadership candidates.  Personally, I'm not convinced that what the Party needs is a return to resolution based policy making pre-1997. That view was shared by the LabOUR Commission, which made detailed recommendations in 2007 about reforming the policy making process. Though I am aware that there is talk of a return to the old ways among affiliated TU political committees and the like, as well as among some members in the constituencies.

There is no doubt Partnership in Power (as the revised arrangements agreed in 1997 were known) was hi-jacked by No. 10. A matter about which one of the Leadership candidates, David Miliband, has particular knowledge and experience of, and about which he in particular should be challenged.

If it is to survive the deliberative policy making process will no doubt be renamed Partnership into Power. However, there are serious and urgent challenges that need to be addressed asap by the NEC which are as follows:

1. an immediate restoration of contemporary resolutions for debate at Conference 2010,

2. acceptance of any resolution arising from defeat, the formation of the ConDem coalition and its policies and Labour's flawed 2010 Manifesto (bearing in mind the NPF hasn't met since February 2009, and the Clause V meeting was in mid-April 2010 and no policy commissions have met since the General Election).

3. the Priorities Ballot should be run on a 4+4 basis so that at least 8 contemporary issues are debated following compositing, and then voted on by card vote to establish Conference's support/opposition precisely

4. a founding meeting of the newly elected National Policy Forum should be convened asap (if possible at Conference) to:

   1. elect a chair

   2. agree the formation of policy commissions

   3. elect representatives to them

   4. agree a work programme

   5. harness the policy expertise of all interested members

   6. use electronic media to enable any member to comment on proposals as they emerge, and surveys and opinion polling to maximise participation and representative sampling of both members and the electorate

5. a budget to support policy development and service the above

6. protocols to ensure that the requirements of effect policy opposition in the Houses of Parliament and policy development of Labour's future election manifestos are established between the new Leader, the PLP and the JPC, and regularly monitored by the NEC between Conferences

The NEC should not wait for the election of a new Leader to get on with this business. Prompt action pre-Conference is one way of reminding the Leadership candidates that it is the National Executive Committee - representing all stakeholders - that is responsible for the stewardship of the Party between Conferences - not the Leader alone.

Duffing up Cameron in the Commons is not inclusive politics

Today the Labour Party's executive body responsible for policy, the Joint Policy Commission (of which I am not a member) meets to finalise plans for the General Election manifesto.

I have submitted my suggestions:

Prime objective:

Restoring confidence in Labour's policy-making process 'Partnership in Power' with members and the electorate. We have to be seen getting out there and listening.

Steps to that goal:

Encourage each of the Policy Commission's to meet in January to undertake 'reality checks' with government represented at Cabinet level (possibly using opinion leaders on the most sensitive issues to test our ability to get key election messages across or reformulate to make sure we do)

Timetable steps

1.a NPF linked to the planned Labour local government event 27 February (?) to consider the results of

2. an open and transparent consultation with party members to flush out key issues to help us get re-elected based on 'The choice for Britain' and Policy Commission 'reality checks'. NB. We have a volunteer pool of expertise capable of processing all this waiting to be mobilised. We just have learn to be confident and have trust

3. Key issues should be voted on by the NPF

4. A ballot of members should follow to prioritise and/or choose between short-listed options agreed by the NPF

5. A Clause 5 meeting should agree the manifesto after an election is called as per Rule.

Justification:

We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by being inclusive, open and transparent. (BTW this is not a rerun of 1983!) It's about winning back hearts and minds to Labour. We can only do that by proving to our members and the electorate we are listening.

There is a salutory reminder of why duffing up Cameron in the Commons is not enough and potentially counter-productive in the Spectators Coffee Shop piece here. Having won back public sympathy after the Sun lost it over GB's letter to a fallen soldier's Mother, we don't want to lose it by being seen to bully the rich and their representatives. They didn't choose to go to Eton. They were just born(e) to it.

That pesky 10p tax issue

I hope that Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown will finally see sense over this issue. There are too many people on low incomes paying tax, just as there are too many people without living incomes who are either in work, on entitlements or retired. Every Labour MP should be demanding reforms to deal with this, starting with taking more people out of tax altogether. On Thursday the Labour Party's Joint Policy Committee meets. Among other things it should set the scene for reducing income and wealth inequalities ahead of the next General Election and removing the stain of increased inequality under Labour.