Peter Kenyon

Should Labour bloggers refocus on own house?

I have just commented on two other blogs about state-funding for political parties here and here.

Another Blogger4Labour has just blogged on how the Times story alleging a Lib-Dem cash for honours scandal shows them playing catch by linking to Tom Watson MP. And that's fine, providing we the members are seen to be demanding that we put our own house in order.

So shouldn't we Labour bloggers be focussing on that rather than having a few cheap laughs at our political opponents? Wouldn't we have a better chance of regaining the moral high-ground and regaining the trust of the electorate if we were seen demanding that our new Leader and the Labour Party National Executive Committee got their act together? I am absolutely convinced it would be easier to persuade the electorate to vote Labour, and politically aware active citizens to join Labour if the Leadership stopped looking to taxpayers to bail out previous mismanagement of Party finances, and committed us to sorting out problems entirely of our own making.

When's that promised Bill on electoral issues going to be laid before Parliament?

Labour lifts veil on NPF membership

Save the Labour Party (STLP) today scored a modest success in its campaign to improve accountability inside the Labour Party. In my capacity as chair of STLP during Annual Conference 2007, I suggested to Pat McFadden MP, the newly elected chair of the National Policy Forum, that the contact details of newly elected members of the NPF should be made available to all members on the Party's internal webspace now know as Membersnet.

Today (eight weeks later) I was notified by the Labour Party's Head of Policy Development that a link has been established on everyone's Home Page:

Contact your NPF rep

I am now engaged in a lively eMail exchange with Head Office about further improvements to enable even more efficient communication particularly between local representatives of party members and their elected representatives on the Party's decision-making and governance bodies.

You may remember new emphasis was placed on the role of the NPF in Labour Party policy making by our new Leader.

NB Only a fifth of Labour Party members are known to have email addresses. Enquiries are now in train to establish what proportion are now signed up to Membersnet.

First names only infection - Labour Party website

The etiquette of sofa government (call me Tony, as he was known to say) has spread to the Labour Party website. I posted earlier today about those fictitious posts of Vice-Chair and Manifesto Groups (sic) on the Party website. But I see I am only identified by my first name. So I have just commented again for the record:

This system chopped off my surname and doesn't provide a facility for anyone who agrees, in whole, or in part, with my comment to contact me or see my blog: http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/

so feel free

FYI the standard facility is provided for anyone who finds my comment offensive. Bring it on.

Mmm..pURL 1, K1 - Labour control pattern

Anyone, like me, who has given Labour Party HO their eMail address will presumably have received messages seeking support from the six Deputy leadership candidates via his/her M(y) p(ersonal) U(universal) R(esource) L(anguage) MpURL website. How was this done (assuming I have not been singled out in accordance with the published instructions set out below)?

Welcome to the MpURL Message Centre

You can use the Message Centre to communicate directly with other members of the Labour Party via their MpURL. To prevent spamming on MPURLs you are allowed to send a message to one member at a time only and to a maximum 20 different members per month. The only exception to this is CLP Secretaries, who can send messages to all members of their CLP.

K1 to mission control, "Wakey, wakey - there are 48 members in my branch alone, and I'm the branch secretary, and what about the other 180,000 and rising/falling , whom I might want to communicate with as members of the same party?"

I have joined the group "I'm on MpURL" in the hope that collective action will result in a new freer-thinking, democratic socialist Labour control pattern - more crochet than tight-knit.