General Election 2015 : Where Should Labour Stand?

Ann Black (photo) of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) has circulated the following helpful information about the coming procedures in relation to the Labour Party's policy formation for the next General Election. In fact rank and file Labour Party members find out more about what is going on within the procedures of the Labour Party from Ann than from any other source. She states -

"At the end of February the National Policy Forum (NPF) will publish new consultation papers before a final forum meeting in July agrees the foundations of the 2015 manifesto.  This is the last chance to influence the policies on which Labour will fight the general election. Constituencies can submit amendments until early in June (exact date to be decided) so it is worth organising meetings even during a very busy campaigning period."

I contacted her by email for additional information as to what is happening and she helpfully added -


... the papers will be published on the Your Britain website and anyone will be able to comment.  Also Constituency Labour Parties will be able to submit formal amendments - currently a maximum of ten is proposed, with no more than two on any of the eight documents, but this is still under discussion.  However it will then be up to NPF reps from your region to decide which ones to take forward, and how, and with what degree of enthusiasm.

- the NEC is part of the NPF and will contribute to whatever emerges from the July forum and goes onwards to conference.

- the taskforces (such as this one, who took evidence up to 18th December 2013  HB)  are, I believe, supposed to be feeding in through the policy commissions before July."

I have, therefore, submitted a motion on the following lines for consideration at the next meeting of my Labour Party Branch. It is intended to then be submitted for the agenda of the General Committee of my Constituency Labour Party.  I would encourage all local Labour activists to pursue a similar approach -

 "That this Constituency Party will hold a meeting in April 2014 to determine any formal amendments it wishes to submit to consultation papers which Labour's National Policy Forum (NPF) is due to issue by the end of February, with our local branches and affiliated bodies being enabled and encouraged to examine these consultation papers at their March meetings, and that arrangements be made for a Regional Member of the NFP  to attend the April meeting."

The Your Britain website can also can be examined now to see the current state of play on the policy discussions. There is plenty of scope for improvement.

Tomorrow's Deadline

 
As an individual member of the Labour Party, I received a copy of a 22 page booklet in today's post entitled "One Nation: The Labour Party Membership Magazine".  On pages 15 and 18, it invites me to join in the consultations over a matter to be found at labour.org.uk/one nation party  When I make the link, I am then directed to
http://www.labour.org.uk/uploads/3312ae66-527a-7d24-d1b7-0cccd3f73b4d.pdf
This turns out to be the consultative document "Building A One Nation Labour Party : An Interim Report". In it Ray Collins as General Secretary of the Labour Party states "I would therefore be very grateful to receive submissions by 24 December 2013. If this is a deadline then I (and all other members of the Labour Party who received the booklet today) are given until tomorrow to respond. Luckily, I did not wait until the receipt of the booklet to discover the deadline and I have already sent them this.

But perhaps 24 December was not a deadline, but only a date that would be helpful to Ray Collins.   Yet the special Labour Party Conference is on 1 March and a final report on "Building A One Nation Labour Party" will at least need to be carried by an NEC meeting before then - even if it is just plonked on delegates at the special conference itself. So it is as well to get submissions in as soon as possible to Ray Collins, at least as a belated Christmas present.

Strictly Come Voting

 It is claimed that more than six million people voted in the final of "Strictly Come Dancing". This is a similar number to those who have failed to enter their names onto current electoral registers. It is also 20% of those who turned out to vote at the last General Election; although some of those who voted in the dancing contest will have been under 18s.


Unfortunately, the lesson which politicians are likely to draw from this is that they should become more like celebrities. Yet what is required is to make politics more relevant to people's needs. Given the chance, people are capable of distinguishing between a General Election and a Dancing Contest.
                  

BBC Sources On The Arab World

 
Currently a range of valuable BBC sources can be found which deal with the Arab World. To start with, links to details about twelve Arab Nations can be found here . Furthermore, when accessing details on any of these specific nations a range of other links can also then be found.

Then here is this link to a BBC's item called the "Arab Spring : 10 unpredicted items". Each of these ten items then provide their own links, which themselves then lead on to extra items.

My own bits and pieces on the Middle East can be found via the labels shown below, although these are mainly related to items about Iraq. It was where I undertook my National Service in 1955/56. The experience and the events of that time helped to push me into politics.

The links I provide are as much for my own purposes as anything else. They will supplement my growing library on the Middle East. Its political complexities should be high on our agendas.  Perhaps the BBC will get round some day to giving an equally serious survey of British politics.

21 December - Now there is more, here.



  

Sign Up

I just signed the petition "Parliament: Debate UK hunger and rise in foodbank use #jackspetition" on Change.org. It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link to click onto :
http://www.change.org/petitions/parliament-debate-uk-hunger-and-rise-in-foodbank-use-jackspetition?share_id=FcMJfAXkWi&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition Thanks, Harry.

The Cart Before The Horse

The following is my submission to "Building A One Nation Labour Party : Interim Report."

I am deeply worried about two out of the four main areas covered by the Interim Report on "Building A One Nation Labour Party". The problem is that if Ed Miliband is defeated on these proposals at the Special Conference called for 1st March 2014,  he will look like he is a weak and losing leader.  I, therefore, hope that the whole of the Report can be kicked into the long grass until after the General Election and that the Special Conference can be postponed until at least 2016.  

On Issue No.1 in the Interim Report.  Trade Unionists and the Labour Party

The way to encourage outside trade unionists and others into Labour Party activity is not to start out with rule changes.  We should, first of all, adopt policies and programmes which appeal to these groups' best instincts. That is how to attract members and activists. Yet we will have to wait until the Labour Party Conference in September 2014 before we finally adopt a range of policy programmes, which will emerge via the National Policy Review procedure. It is only after we get the programme in place, that we will see if it works and attracts activists into our ranks. After this, we will be in a better position to judge if some rule changes will then help. The way matters are currently being approached is to put the cart before the horse. 

The case for delaying matters is added to by the shortcomings of the proposals which we are being asked to discuss. There is no current evidence that significant numbers of trade unionists who aren't currently members, will suddenly sign up via their trade unions to take out a form of Labour Party Membership. Even if their trade unions pay the affiliation fees on their behalf. Nor is there any evidence to show that people will readily pursue such new procedures. Nor that they would then become active at Labour Party meetings or in its campaigns.

There is a good chance that the new procedure to be used to try to attract trade unionists into this new category of membership, will backfire. Labour would then lose much of its current union funding. Given current problems with funding from the Co-operative Movement, a loss of funding from trade union sources could be a serious financial blow for our operations. Alternative forms of funding which might then be looked for, would be worrying - arising from the private market.

Then numbers of current individual members of the Labour Party could decide to adopt the new form of affiliated membership instead. As all Labour Party Members are expected to be members of trade unions when they can, this could lead to a further loss of party revenue. Some might move from individual to affiliated membership as that will be cheaper. Others might do it for ideological reasons, preferring to enjoy a looser arrangement with the Labour Party than the one on offer to them at the moment.

On Issue No. 3 in the Interim Report.  Using Primaries to Select Candidates.

I understand that between 10,000 and 20,000 registered supporters have signed up since the 2011 Labour Party Conference.  However, this is done mainly via a web-site and the Labour Party operates essentially via a collection of e-mail addresses from these people. As time passes they may have moved, died, ceased supporting Labour or got themselves fresh email addresses. Indeed some may never have supported Labour in the first place, but just fancied voting for a future leader. This all matters, because when there are 50,000 of them they will get a 10% share of the votes in electing the Party Leader and Deputy.

The proposals in the Interim Report seeks to add to the Registered Supporters Scheme. It is proposed to select our next candidate for the London Mayoral elections, by making use of the Registered Supporters Scheme. This could bring in enough people to obtain the 50,000 figure to trigger their rights in Labour Leadership Elections. This would then essentially mean that the Registered Supporters from London would dominate the vote of this section; compared to an estimated 25 such voters from my own constituency. But once the London arrangement is up and running, it could then be exported elsewhere: including for the selections of Labour Parliamentary, European and other candidates. These are arrangements which are currently voted upon only by the individual membership of the Labour Party.  Again some current individual members of the Labour Party might feel that they might as well settle for just being Registered Supporters. 

Conclusion.

It would be best to put the whole of the current Interim Report onto the back-burner, to avoid the form of changes which are dealt with above. But if these matters remain virtually unchanged when put to the Special Conference on 1 March 2014, then these items should be rejected.

The Late John and Vi Hughes

John and Vi Hughes.

I attended an ex-students weekend at the Rookery at Ruskin College a few years ago to give a talk on Iraq, which I have had an interest in ever since I served my National Service there in 1955/6. Later I went to Ruskin to study, from 1960 to 1962. The talk I gave was at held in the equivalent of the old lecture room I had once attended to listen to John Hughes and other tutors. Shortly after I started my talk, John and his wife Vi walked into the room and sat at the back. It was a telling moment for me. Here was a man I respected as much as anyone I had come across and whose lectures and tutorials had been inspirational. Yet now he was coming to listen to me. My life from my time at Ruskin has been dominated by political education and political practice, Yet John and Vi turning up to hear me at the Rookery of all places, gave me more satisfaction than anything I have ever experienced in these aspects of my life. Way beyond anything like visits to 10 Downing Street, when I became an MP. After my studies at Ruskin, I eventually had the privilege of becoming a tutor on the same courses at Sheffield University which John had once taught upon between 1952 and 1954, including those he covered at Scunthorpe. Thankfully John did not only teach me applied economics, he used the ideal techniques for adult education. I knew whom I had to seek to follow. As an MP, I was in a group of his ex-students who hosted an evening with him in the Commons. Apart from talking to John and Vi after the meeting on Iraq, it was the only meeting I had with him after leaving Ruskin over 50 years ago. When I had a chat with Vi and John at the Rookery, I pointed out that his comments on one of my essays (after his inevitable encouragements) had said that it lacked an analytic framework. I did not appreciate what this meant and failed to raise the matter with him at the time. But after Ruskin I moved to Hull University and studied philosophy, so the point soon became clear to me. So I told John when we met , that I could now do analytic structures at the drop of a hat. My difficulty has been to find sufficient appropriate empirical information to sustain my analysis. John never had such problems. Vi also taught at Ruskin in my time, but not on the course I pursued. Yet we all invariably linked the two of them together and talked of "Vi and John". It was not just an indication of how close they were, but of the combined impact they had on our closed community. The fact that they died within a fortnight of each other must have been a terrible wrench for their family. Yet without seeking an inappropriate religious symbolism, it means that ever since they first met in 1948 John and Vi were together and virtually departed together. Their togetherness in pursing their joint values is what will be remembered, and will give comfort to those who knew them.

100 Years And A Day

 


Between 1920 and 1942 within a quarter of a mile, there were three Methodist Chapels which were all situated on the southern side of Easington Colliery's main road - Seaside Lane. By the 1930s, the Colliery (in County Durham) reached its peak population of some 10,000.

The first of these Chapels was opened on 22nd November 1913. It is shown in the above picture and it is currently celebrating its 100th anniversary. It was initially called the United Methodist Church, which was a title which arose out of the amalgamation of two previous Methodist sects. But at that time a further distinction existed in Methodism between the Wesleyans and the Primitives. The Wesleyans established their own local chapel on 7th November 1917. Then the Primitives purchased two ex-army huts in 1920 which they used as the basis for their own chapel.  When Methodism was united in 1932, the local Primitive Methodists renamed their chapel; calling it the "Bourne Methodist Chapel", after a prominent former leading Primitive Methodist. They were keen to keep their heritage.

The three chapels co-existed and were drawn into the same Methodist Circuit, sharing preachers and various local activities. When the ex-Wesleyan chapel closed in 1942 their members moved a few hundred yards down the street into the building that is shown above, which was renamed St. John's Methodist Church. Then when the Bourne Methodist Chapel closed in 1956, they moved into the same Church which then changed its name a second time to the Easington Colliery Methodist Church.

The initial three chapels, did not of course suddenly spring for nowhere. Paradoxically, the United Methodists first held services in Easington's pioneering days in what is now 22 Bourne Street and also had open air meetings on the grass which later became Bede Street. On 11th March 1911 their society was officially formed at what is now 6 Byron Street. The two women in the above photo are walking in the direction of these places, which are just a short distance away. The Wesleyians and the Primitives were equally active and by 1910 were holding separate meetings in the Colliery's first temporary tin schools.

The Colliery's initial Miner's Union and leading Labour Party activists were often prominent in the local Methodist Chapels; especially George Bloomfield the local Lodge's Secretary (and Checkweighman) from 1911 to 1939 and also George Walker the Lodge President - whom I knew.  Both were amongst the group of six who met at nearby Murton just after the First World War to establish a Constituency Labour Party. They also became active and prominent Labour Councillors. Like-minded Labour activists in County Durham (such as Peter Lee and Jack Lawson) also travelled into Easington Colliery to preach from its Methodist pulpits.

I picked up many of my own political commitments from several years of activity in Bourne Methodist Chapel, until I left Easington Colliery to do my National Service at the age of 18.  By I returned to Easington two years later, I had rejected my former religious beliefs; but I was left with what had been a local Methodist-socialist heritage. My mother was also active in the Bourne Methodist Chapel and she moved to St. John's when they amalgamated. The last time I visited what is now the Easington Colliery Methodist Church was for my mother's funeral service, which was held on my 63rd birthday. Hence my need to record these matters. Although I happen to be a day late in  discovering this anniversary.

(Many of the above facts come from "Methodism in Easington Colliery :1913-1963", which is a Jubilee Brochure. My mother obtained my current copy almost exactly 50 years ago)

Iraqi Trade Unions Need Our Support

See here.

The Case For Public Ownership

Sidney Webb (1859 - 1947) 
 
The original version of Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution, drafted by Sidney Webb in November 1917 and adopted by the party in 1918, read, To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

The move in Britain towards public ownership, a mixed economy and the welfare state came in the years of the Second World War and immediately afterwards. The war effort demanded effective economic organisation and the start of a much fairer distribution of the basic requirements of food, warmth, clothing, and health. Even schooling entered the frame in 1944. The electorate in 1945 decided that we would not return to the days of poverty and exploitation that had characterised the inter-war years. The NHS, welfare provisions, council house building and the public ownership of key elements of the "commanding heights of the economy" took place under the Attlee Government. Even when the Conservatives returned to office, they then limited their programme of denationalisation to the Steel Industry and basically accepted the norms of the welfare state and the mixed economy. Their future depended upon accepting this compromise.  An era of "consensus politics" then emerged, with fewer fundamental differences between the two main parties. The problem with the basic acceptance of the status quo by Labour was that capitalism can always find its way around restraints, unless governments act continuously to block and transcend its activities.

The cohort of voters who supported Labour in 1945 and the early 50s, tended to remain loyal to the then Labour's vision of society. But whilst some of us from that time are still around, we are now a dying breed: long since replaced by fresh cohorts. New experiences and influences began to shape the norms of the new generations. Car ownership, undermined the scope for public transport. Whilst rail denationalisation and the end of much municipal transport, further shifted us away from public transport. The growing world of television was opened up to advertising and to commercial programming, thus enhancing individualistic values. Then whilst Thatcherism rowed upon a wave of anti-collectivism, she also acted to undermine its remaining communal base with the destruction of much of manufacturing and mining. To which she added the sale of council houses. Moves which New Labour never sort to contain. Then in recent years we have moved into a incredible and ever expanding technological revolution. Almost as soon as the latest advances are made in computer-style technology, they become outdated.  Capitalism uses its position to cash in upon these changes - as an avenue for sales and controls. The capitalist power elite established global controls, buying services via the use of the third world's impoverished work force; whilst selling in the dearest markets.

But capitalism always operates for its short term interests. Paying as little as it can for raw materials, labour power and technological innovations. It then sells where it can make the highest profits. These practices lead to an eventual collapse in effective demand, leading to economic deprivation. For capitalism ends up failing to supply people with the money to purchase its own goods and services. The global financial crisis of 2008 is likely just to be a taster of things to come.

Yet there is a huge paradox. This was pointed to by the late Royden Harrison. Things have moved  rapidly in recent years, but events have only confirmed his diagnosis. He pointed out that the objective circumstances for the operation of socialism had never been better, yet the subjective circumstances had never been worse. For whilst objectively we have the skills, knowledge, organisational potential and technology to provide for everyones' basic, intellectual and emotional needs; the subjective appreciation of what is possible have never been worse. Our minds are often taken over by passing consumer fads and the beer and circuses of the modern media. When people rebel (often under stark circumstances) they tend to be consumed by unquestioning and counter-productive doctrines, such as those of racism and militant Islam.

So what can be done about the world's serious situation - climate change, imperial expansionism, fanaticism, starvation, mass poverty, unemployment, economic decline and the threat of economic collapse?  As radical improvement requires a change in people's values and commitments, then it is essentially a question of political education, political education, political education. Luckily there is something to build upon. If people could not be moved to contribute readily to disaster relief funds or to go to people's aid when they saw accidents, then there would be nothing to build upon. But consumerism and individualism still get adjusted by the experiences of daily life into avenues where human sympathy and collective instincts come to the fore. Political education directed towards the best in people is, however, very different from political indoctrination. The strongest educational question is "why?". It rebounds on those who see themselves in the role of stimulating political education. Any of us could be wrong at anytime.

If public ownership is to advance (including the end of outsourcing in the public sector which currently accounts for 24% of expenditure in the UK's public sector). then there are big problems we need to tackle. Public bodies can be prone to bureaucratic centralised controls. Wealth, power and status can come to dominate in the public as well as the private sector.  Democratic controls by producers and users of services are an antidote. Municipal, Consumer Co-operative and Worker Self-Management structures will often be more appropriate than the running of centralised State owned systems. Above all the providers of services and their users need to share a public service ethos. Those who work for a public body, need to see themselves as public servants. Whilst those who benefit from such services need to share similar values, which lead to them not just to grabbing whatever they can. Selfishness detracts from the common good.

I am not seeking perfection, just general standards of human decency and a sense of sharing.

The biggest problem is, however, to get ourselves out of the grip of capitalist domination. Sidney Webb called for the inevitability of gradualness in advancing public ownership. Today, it might take us time to get the ball rolling towards forms of public ownership, for we need to get politicians on board. Each step might be difficult. But once we create the conditions to start the move, we might come to be surprised as to just how revolutionary our gradualism has become. For we will come to realise that the future of mankind is tied in with our actions.

If you see public ownership as an avenue towards our salvation, then check "We Own It" out.  Things did not end with Sidney. Nor with Tony Blair's rejection of Clause IV.