Peter Kenyon

Change has arrived - for the Labour Party?

Skimming the blogosphere after a catching up with some beauty sleep, I have just been reminded on my Blackberry that Change has arrived by Compass, thanks Gavin, I was awake just after 2am when Pennsylvania was called for Obama and McCain was history. Tom Miller welcomed back sanity:

The big story, then, is that unlike every democratic victory since LBJ, it was won on a platform of fundamental change. Labour hasn't done this effectively since the 1960s. My generation of Labour activists believe that it is time.

Well, Tom I hope you won't mind me taking issue with you. it is not just your generation that believes it is time. My generation too includes people who understand the power of the Internet and traditional organisational skills to achieve change and think it is time.

Obama and the majority of the US electorate who voted for him have cleansed a stain from the US Constitution as set out by the founding fathers who owned slaves. We in the UK have yet to cleanse the stain from our unwritten constitution that allows a Prime Minister monarchical powers. When Labour sets out how no Labour Prime Minister will ever be allowed the powers of patronage and executive license aka the Royal Prerogative exercised in my lifetime by Brown, Blair, Major, Thatcher, Callaghan, Wilson, Heath, Douglas Home, Macmillan, Eden, Churchill and Attlee then we will know that change has arrived here too.

Labour's next NEC meeting: time for decisiveness

In two week's time I am due to attend my first Labour Party National Executive Committee meeting with a full business agenda. It will have been preceded by a full-day of broader thinking about strategy over the next 12 months or so, and hopefully beyond.

I've just penned some thoughts for the Save the Labour Party newsletter Issue No.16 November/December 2008, which will be published shortly.

With US polling stations now officially opening across the pond, my attention is on the remaking of Democratic Party politics. I bumped into a contact at No.10 over the weekend who told me that a recent article I blogged about here in early October had been circulated around the PM's political advisors, and asked had I seen the latest Fabian Society Freethinking paper, or read Matt Bai's book The Argument - Inside the battle the remake Democratic Politics?

Well, I hadn't then, but I have now. I'm going to encourage all my NEC colleagues to read them too.

Nick Anstead, author of one of the two articles in the Fabian Society paper concludes:

The US election challenges Labour to change dramatically – altering the way the party is organised, how it interacts with its supporters and communicates with the electorate. The reward of learning the lesson, however, is potentially huge; reawakening Labour as a movement and making the party fit for purpose as a campaigning force in the twenty-first century.

What do you think?

 

Party funding reform - no, members test of politics - yes

Deripaskagate risks encouraging the roaches for statefunding of political parties from the dark corners of the Palace of Westminster where they have been lurking since the effective collapse of the Hayden Phillips Inquiry two years ago. The pros and cons are set out here.

Democracy would be strengthened if politicians were encouraged to rely on membership subscriptions and small donations to fund their party organisations.

The success of Barack Obama in adopting a 50-state, grassroots organisational approach in his US presidential election campaign has had eye-watering success raising funds. Latest statistics show $259 million or 43% of Obama's campaign funding is accounted for donations of up to $200.

That's a salutory reminder that if a politician cannot persuade people to support her/his political values and ambition by putting their money where their mouth is, then the aspiring politician doesn't deserve to be in politics in the first place.

I'm encouraged to see that at the forthcoming London Labour Party bienniel conference 'Membership - the backbone of the Labour Party' is being offered as a workshop. Let's hope it doesn't get cancelled due to a lack of interest.

Psst....Liberal conspiracy goes West

Good to see that Liberal Conspiracy is keeping up with news from afar. Sunny Hundal is stateside reporting on a story avid followers of this blog will recall was posted nearly a week ago. The more of us that look closely at this fascinating aspect of the Obama campaign the better. If Obama wins the US Presidency, the lessons will become as compelling for political party rebuilding as Labour Party Leader Gordon Brown's package to restore global financial stability, establish global regulation and set the agenda to drag the world out of recession.

Remember, Obama is funding his campaign from small donations, not taxpayer handouts. Responsibility for campaigning (it is said) is being devolved without top-down control. Local management, accountability and planning is being enabled.

Memo to Ray Collins, recently appointed Labour Party General Secretary: How many local Labour Party units are currently suspended? Was suspension appropriate? Are there alternatives? What could the Labour Party learn from the 'New Organizers'? A must for the NEC away-day in mid-November whatever the outcome of the US Presidentials, I'd say.

US Presidential election - innocents abroad

Within 12 hours of Democratic nominee-presumptive declaring himself the winner in his party's 2008 Presidential primaries, Barack Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It was business as usual. For all the fanfare about 'change', the US Presidential election hangs on money and spin. Scanning this week's political weeklies, David Lammy writing in the New Statesman claims:

The reality is that a new way of doing politics is emerging. I draw three big lessons....First, 2008 has seen a decisive rejection of the "political class"...Second, both nominees refuse to be bound by artificial ideas...Third, we are seeing new ways of creating a political movement....Obama's campaign has at once lowered the barriers to entry into politics and consistently raised the expectations of what can be achieved when people are willing to take part. A far cry from our political parties' reliance on membership and rigid structures.

Oh, please.

Mainstream US political parties are run by the political class for the political class. If Obama starts to rebuild the Democratic Party as a, erm...cough, cough...democratic party in which members or supporters have a say, then Mr Lammy's claim might begin to have some substance. As a member of the political class that has raised the barriers to entry into politics in the UK by denying members a say, Mr Lammy has some explaining to do first.