Lib Dems Crash

The Lib Dems suffered a crushing defeat in Thursday's District Council By-election in the Gosforth Valley Ward of the North East Derbyshire District Council. It had been their stongest Ward. It is where I live.

In this three seater in 2007 the average results of the Political Parties were Lib Dems 51.1%, Tories 30.0% and Labour 18.9%.

The By-election was a contest for a single seat. The Liberal Vote fell dramatically to 31.3%, the Tories took 37.1% and Labour moved into second place with 31.6%.

The Liberal percentage vote fell by 19.8% with 7.1% of these going to the Tories and 12.7% to Labour. The Liberal swing to Labour was almost twice as strong as the swing to the Tories.

Although the turnout dropped substantially from 36% in 2007 to 26%, the Labour vote actually increased from a previous average of 315 to 354. It was its best ever result in the ward.

Whilst Labour only moved into 2nd place by 4 votes, it overtook the Lib Dems who had had an average lead over them of no less than 563 in 2007.

If the By-election had been fought under the Alternative Vote, then the Lib Dems would have been eliminated and their second choices redistributed between Labour and the Tories. Labour would have needed just 207 of the potential 350 transferred votes to ensure victory. That is under 3 in 5 of the transfers.

In The Dark

Just about anything to do with the Fixed-Term Parliaments Bill is inaccessible on the Parliamentary Channel at the moment. This includes video coverage of the debate, the Hansard coverage and a copy of the Bill itself. There is a further black-out of the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee who are looking into the matter - no video coverage, no Committee Hansards and no Reports. There is also silence at the BBC at the moment. I feel a conspiracy theory overtaking me.

UPDATE 15 SEPTEMBER - That's better after reading the above someone has now switched the lights on.

Don't Gamble With The Future

See Dronfield Blather

Dear Editor.....

FROM THE LETTERS PAGE OF TODAY'S GUARDIAN

"Last lap for the Labour hopefuls.

The ballot papers are due to go out in the Labour leadership contest (Labour contenders await Blair, 30 August). At the last minute each of the candidates has produced a manifesto, but (except in one case) these are tucked away in an obscure blog entitled Dronfield Blather, which is run by the Dronfield Labour party discussion group, which ran a three-month campaign to obtain them. It would be helpful if the voters could first see what they are voting for. The manifestos differ considerably in style and presentation. Andy Burnham's is entitled Aspirational Socialism and is some 9,000 words long. He is also pushing this via his own website. The others have not yet done this.

Diane Abbott and David Miliband have produced what might be called "minifestos" of under 700 words each. Whilst the two Eds have come up with scissors and paste jobs taken from what they see as relevant and important past items. As quantity is not the same thing as quality, judgments of the relative merits of each of these presentation can only be determined by examining them on the Dronfield Blather website.

Harry Barnes."






NOTE : The official booklet (opposite) being issued with ballot papers contains statements from the candidates, but these are limited to some 250 words. The material available via Dronfield Blather is much more extensive.

And Now There Are Five

The entry "Manifestos Of Intent - Read These Before You Vote" has been updated, as the blog "Dronfield Blather" has now received material from all five candidates in the Labour Leadership Election. See here.

Now that they have all set out their stalls, we have something to judge the winners' actions by in the future. That will aid the democratic process within the Labour Party.

Manifestos Of Intent - Read These Before You Vote

See the Manifestos from the Candidates in the Labour Leadership Election here.

We Have A Manifesto

In response to the campaign run by "Dronfield Blather", Andy Burnham has today issued a Manifesto setting out the programme he would seek to pursue if he is elected as leader of the Labour Party. It is some 9,000 words long and can be viewed and/or downloaded from his web-site. It is a serious contribution and should be studied by all those with votes in the leadership contest.

Andy describes his stance - "It begins with a definition of the philosophy that underpins my approach to politics and outlook on life. It is Aspirational Socialism. It means that we want all people to fulfil their hopes and dreams but knowing that this will only happen for those who have least if we work for a world where resources and power are shared".

It is hoped that the four other contestants will set out their stalls based on their own values and commitments. Later this week we will publish or provide links to any Manifesto material we have access to from them.

Eventually we will make our own assessment of the different cases which the five candidates argue

Manifesto Momentum

The Following is taken from the blog "Dronfield Blather".


Yesterday as part of his Labour Leadership Campaign, Andy Burnham circulated an email in which he stated - "Next week, I will set out in my manifesto how I intend to rebuild our great Party from the bottom up, as an open and vibrant campaigning force with power vested in the hands of our members. ..... My manifesto – ‘Aspirational Socialism’ – is a coherent political philosophy and vision for our country. Keep an eye on my website at www.andy4leader.com for more information. You will be able to download my manifesto to read at your leisure."

As we first reported on 2nd July, Andy's action is fully in line with a commitment he had then made to "Dronfield Blather". Following a further exchange of emails, he repeated his promise to us as recently as 6th August.

As soon as he issues his manifesto we will provide access to it on this site.

As we showed in the item we posted on 1st August, we also hold promises from the other four candidates that they will also issue Manifestos. We will send each candidate a link to this current item and press David, Diane and the two Eds to also deliver their Manifestos next week. Not least because the ballot papers in the contest are due to be circulated from 1st September. It would be good to have a chance to read and digest the Manifestos before then.

We initially ran a campaign for the issue of such Manifestos here.

Now There Are Five

This is taken from today's "Dronfield Blather".


All five candidates for the Labour Leadership have now responded positively to the campaign run by Dronfield Blather to issue Manifestos of Intent. On Friday we reported that four out of the five were then on board, but afterwards the missing Ed Balls was approached at the close of the final hustings held at Manchester and he accepted our proposal.

It all reminds us of the first of Enid Blyton's books about the Famous Five. It was entitled "Five On A Treasure Island" and as is shown opposite. The cover of the book depicts Enid's missing character being safely brought aboard at the last moment.

However, the drama is not yet over. The five have all agreed to publish Manifestos of Intent. Three have confirmed this by email, one by a letter and the other face-to-face with Blogger Brader at Manchester.

But we only have until 16 August until the balloting commences. So we are keen to gain access to the finalised Manifestos themselves for publication by then. So far we hold some initial material from two of the candidates, although if they wish they still have time to elaborate on what we hold.

Whenever all five Manifestos are to hand we will publish them alongside each other. If anyone falls out of the boat we will, however, publish what we then hold on 16 August which is the date that balloting commences in the contest. We can't wait any longer than that.

Candidates are, of course, free to publish their own Manifestos at any time they wish. If they beat us to it, we will nevertheless stick to the above timetable.

UPDATE AND CORRECTION 3rd AUGUST.
The start of the ballot for individual members of the Labour Party has been changed from 16 August to 1 September. We hope, however, that the candidates will submit and/or issue their "Manifestos of Intent" well before the new date. People need time to examine and discuss Manifestos. So we will still seek to act in conformity with the time-table mentioned above.

UPDATE AND ALTERATION 5th AUGUST.
For what are called logistical reasons, the final date on which we hope to issue the candidates' Manifestos is now pushed back to 25 August. It is a good old fashioned compromise between the two dates mention in the earlier update. At least it shows that we are in communication with the high commands in the various candidates' camps.



Below - the famous five at their final hustings at Manchester.

Manifestos of Intent - the latest

The campaign on Dronfield Blather to get the five candidates in the Labour Leadership contest to issue "Manifestos of Intent" is making steady if slow progress. Four of the candidates have agreed that they will do this. But no response at all has yet been received from Ed Balls despite numerous efforts to get him to respond.

August 16th sees the start of the balloting in the contest. All the submissions that are received will be published alongside each on that date - unless all five can be published together on an earlier date. See here also.

70 Not Out

This is what a Manifesto looks like.



The campaign to get the five candidates in the Labour Leadership contest to issue "Manifestos of Intent" has the support of 70 individuals or organisations who have votes in the contest. They are drawn from members of some 40 Constituency Labour Parties, plus the Socialist Medical Association and include John McDonnell MP. Others who have votes in the contest can best add their support here via the comment box.

Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott have accepted the proposal. There are rumours that Ed Balls will withdraw from the contest. If he wishes to ditch the rumour, then an announcement that he will issue a Manifesto would help. If he is packing it in, then this will mean that 2 out of 4 of the candidates are on board. That leaves the two Milibands. The issue has been brought to their attention at public meetings, phone calls to their staff, via letters, via emails and on their (and others) web-sites. It would help if those in contact with the Milibands would push the issue with them. Perhaps like Marx and Engels they could publish a joint Manifesto!

Urgent - Act To Defend Iraqi Trade Unions

See Labour Start on what is happening and how you can act to protect the Trade Union Movement in Iraq.

The issue is further explained by the TUC here, here and here.

2 Down. 3 To Go.

Diane Abbott has agreed to this request to issue a manifesto spelling out how she would act if elected as Leader of the Labour Party. Andy Burnham was the first to agree to do this.

Responses are still awaited from the other three candidates. They were first contacted on the matter over a month ago. Subsequently David and then Ed Miliband had the matter brought to their attention at public meetings. Whilst Ed Balls has been contacted on the issue by one of his parliamentary nominees.

So we could yet get 5 out of 5. If you have a vote in the Labour Leadership contest, then you can sign up to this campaign here.

Improving Labour's Selection Process

Garland. Daily Telegraph 9 July, 2010.
In batches between 20 and 28 June I emailed 141 of my former Labour parliamentary colleagues seeking support for them to back a call to the Labour Leadership Candidates to issue what some of us have called "Manifestos of Intent". Our proposal is explained here.

The candidates themselves have been approached three times since 18 June on the matter, with an extra copy of the request being handed over by me directly to David Miliband at a meeting at Sheffield. The matter was also raised with Ed Miliband at a meeting on Thursday. He had not seen it.

These various efforts have so far received only two responses, both of them positive. One from John McDonnell giving his support and the other from Andy Burnham accepting our proposal.

The two Eds, whom I have never met push the unanswered emails back up to 141. So I wrote a letter to the Guardian about the problem. This was published on 6 July and is given below.

To date, my letter to the Guardian has stimulated a response from only one Labour MP although the person concerned fell outside the category of my above efforts.

I appreciate that there is nothing as ex as an ex-MP, but I had hoped that one or two of the remaining Labour MPs who were around before 2005 would seek to humour me. I now know that the "ex" stands for ex-communication. Although one "out of office" reply did inform me (and thus constituents getting the same reply) that if I did not get a reply after 28 days that I should send another email. So I could get some responses after the leadership contest is over.

If there is anyone out there that is not past their sell by date and has influence with a Labour MP (including the candidates for the leadership), then perhaps they could push our case with them.

Here is the Guardian Letter, under "Question for Labour hustings".

"Polly Toynbee is spot on when she says that the Labour hustings take the oxygen out of the leadership debate (Labour's hustings are dismal, 3 July). It isn't, however, just the nature of the spoken word which has trivialised the contest. What about the written word? Candidates' leaflets, press interviews, circulated emails and blogs are all used to produce the equivalent of soundbites. It is hoped that we will read into them much more than they say.

What is needed instead are the production of serious and detailed think pieces by each of the candidates in the form of personal manifestos, showing where and how they hope to lead the party. On behalf of 50 rank-and-file Labour members from 15 different constituencies*, I have asked the candidates to issue such manifestos. So far Andy Burnham has agreed, while the proposal has received the backing of John McDonnell, who failed to qualify for the present travelling circus.

I hope that the other leadership candidates will respond favourably. In batches I have also emailed another 139 Labour MPs who used to be my colleagues when I was an MP. They may need to check their spam boxes. For my self-esteem, it would be nice if I received more than the two replies which have arrived to date!

Harry Barnes

(Labour MP 1987-2005), Dronfield, Derbyshire"

* = I miscounted, the number of CLPs was 20. We currently have 2 extra, plus the Socialist Health Association. Why not add to these via the top link?

Backing from the Socialist Health Association

The Socialist Health Association are backing the call for candidates in the Labour leadership election to issue "Manifestos of Intent". Andy Burnham is the only candidate who has so far agreed to do this.

One Accepts. Four Reminded

The call which appeared here, has received a positive response from Andy Burnham (photo) and has the backing of John McDonnell. It is a request for the candidates in the labour leadership contest to issue "Manifestos of Intent" related to the democratic socialist principles contained on the back of Labour Party Membership Cards.

The other four candidates have today been sent this fresh email -

"Dear Diane Abbott, Ed Balls, David Miliband and Ed Miliband,

A fortnight ago I emailed then posted you a request to issue a "Manifesto of Intent" for the Labour Leadership Campaign. Manifestos which it was hoped would be issued widely amongst those with votes in the selection. I also handed a copy of the request to David Miliband that day, at a meeting he addressed in Sheffield.

So far Andy Burnham has responded favourably to this request, so I am sending him and his campaign team a copy of this email.

I hope that each of you will now agree to our suggestion.

Full details of our proposal are provided here, listing those who are backing us -
http://dronfieldblather.blogspot.com/2010/06/calling-those-with-voting-rights-in.html

All the best,
Harry Barnes (Labour MP 1987-2005),
(Address, email, phone number and blog details also supplied)."

Ken Coates

Ken Coates died on Sunday. He had a great capacity for what others would call work; whether it was political writing, academic output, establishing bodies which integrated publishing with group organisation, being a member of the European Parliament or participating in the dialectics of debate with adult students or political activists.

But none of the above were chores to Ken. What he saw as the real work he undertook in his life was when he was a coalminer from around the ages of 18 to 26. But even (or especially) in those days he learnt a great deal from various of his workmates and those he socialised with about Trade Unionism and Labour Movement Politics. So when he went to Nottingham University to study Sociology in what I will later show was the key political year of 1956, he talked of having discovered a new found freedom which lasted right throughout the week - and for every week. He had moved into a world which was to enable him to pursue two of his related passions - adult education and socialism. No longer did he have to share his precious time with coal getting. When he moved to be a Tutor in Adult Education (also at Nottingham University) he directed his attention to work with miners and other workers, whom he wished to share his newly found freedoms with.

I came to know Ken gradually when I moved into a parallel world of industrial day-release teaching for Trade Unionists (especially miners) at Sheffield University. This was in 1966 when Ken was launching the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, which my wife and I marched with in a protest outside the Labour Party Conference in Scarborough the following year. Then it was on to a huge fringe meeting which was a precursor of the Institute of Workers' Control which Ken helped launch formally the following year.

Ken's political instinct was always to develop initiatives which would draw people together in ways that would expand their understandings and would thus spread socialist ideas. These included War Crime Tribunals, opposing the war in Vietnam, European Nuclear Disarmament, Industrial Democracy, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, a Pensioner's Parliament, an Assembly of Disabled People, a Convention for Full Employment and Spokesmen Books.

Throughout such activities he published masses of related books and articles (some are shown here), whilst editing collections of essays. He seldom worked alone. He worked particularly well with the late Tony Topham, who was a fellow adult tutor at Hull University. Their joint work was normally concentrated around the issue of Industrial Democracy, but they also produced a majestic 900 page work on the 1870-1922 formation of the Transport and General Workers' Union , entitled "The Making of the Labour Movement" (Spokesmen paperback edition 1994). My own copy being a gift from Ken to which he added his fraternal greetings.

In 1970 he came to major public attention when a study of poverty in the St Ann's district of Nottingham was published as a Penguin Special in joint authorship with Richard Silburn, entitled "Poverty : The Forgotten Englishman". He worked with Silburn on related work. He also collaborated closely with Michael Barratt Brown who ran the Industrial Day-Release programme from Sheffield University were I was one of a group of eight tutors teaching on the courses. Ken and Michael's joint work included "The Blair Revelation: Deliverance for Whom?" (Spokesman. 1996) which indicated that Ken would not have an easy relationship with the New Labour hierarchy.

Ken had stood as Labour candidate in Nottingham South in 1983. And although he lost, he had the distinction of having the late Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband canvassing for him with the help of his two sons David and Ed. He then became a Labour Member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1999. In 1994 his seat encompassed the area of my own parliamentary seat in North East Derbyshire, where we worked together especially on environmental problems which blighted the area.

But the crunch came in 1997. First he was suspended by the Labour Group in Europe for failing to accept the arrangements they had put in place for the shortlisting of candidates for the coming Euro Elections. Tony Benn in my neighbouring seat Chesterfield and myself defended Ken's right to express his view. But towards the end of 1998 he joined the Green's Group in the European Parliament. He had clearly placed himself outside rules which the Labour hierarchy were only too keen to use. I tried to pursued him to pull back from his position, pointing out that there was still scope for rebellion against New Labour at Westminster at least, where 47 of us had voted in the first major rebellion against New Labour Whips over Single Parent Benefits. But Ken was never going to settle for being a loyal grouser.

Ken's uneasy relationship with Labour's officialdom had in fact led to his expulsion from the Party back in 1965. He fought his corner until 1969 before he was re-instated. His story and the wider politics of the period are covered in his book "The Crisis of British Socialism - Essays on the Rise of Harold Wilson and the Fall of the Labour Party" (Spokesman 1971). If he was alienated by Wilson, there is no way that he would continue to operate peacefully under Blair.

1956 (as I earlier indicated) was a huge year for socialists. It saw the Khrushchev Revelations about Stalin, the Suez Invasion, the Soviet Invasion of Hungary and revisionist advance in the Labour Party with Tony Crosland's publication "The Future of Socialism". Ken had been in the Communist Party up to then. But even then he had disagreed with an earlier line that Stalin had taken against Tito (where Yugoslavian Communism developed the concept of Worker Self Management which related closely to Ken's later work with the Institute of Workers' Control). For a period as Ken became an adult student he worked with those who established the International Marxist Group and he had a period on the board of International Socialism. He now seemed to be a Trotskyist.

In many ways Communism and Trotskyism are opposing socialist approaches. But Ken soon developed his own synthesis out of these to fit in with British (and later European) circumstances. He had already been drawn into activity with the New left of the late 1950s, with figures such as E.P.Thompson, Michael Barratt Brown and Ralph Miliband. What emerged for Ken was working with the left of the Labour Party where he could, but never surrendering to right wing practices. But it only made sense to Ken for him to spend energy in opposing the leadership of say Wilson and Blair, if this was only part of his main activity of building towards socialism via key issues such as Worker's Control and Environmental Protection.

We should certainly not dismiss his life as being full of heroic failures. The War Crime Tribunal was a major initiative and industrial democracy made inroads via Lucas Aerospace and others. His work for five years as President of the Human Rights Committee of the European Parliament was substantial. Above all he touched the lives of many as a tutor, writer and a political activist. Any of us would have been proud to have delivered a fraction of what he achieved from his "newly found freedom".

Snorkels For The Unemployed

During the inter-war depression the Plebs League produced this cartoon. The Con-Dem Coalition is now employing the same tactic, although inflation has boosted the figures that are shown. There is, however, an innovation which Duncan Smith is now considering. He may issue snorkels to those on the bottom rung, so they can swim around looking for jobs. No wonder the Lib Dems joined up to this Compassionate Conservatism.

Is There Room For A Third Miliband?

Ralph Miliband (1924 to 1994), the father of David and Ed as shown on the cover of Michael Newman's biography "Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left" (Merlin Press, 2002). The New Left being a very different creature to New Labour.

The father of David and Ed Miliband was the Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband. In his final book called "Socialism for A Sceptical Age" (Polity Press, 1994) he wrote “(t)here are in effect three core propositions or themes which define socialism, all three equally important, and each related to, and dependent upon, the others. These are democracy, egalitarianism, and socialization of a predominant part of the economy.”

We need debates in the current Labour Leadership election on these interconnected matters. The current economic situation makes them more relevant than ever.

I present a way in which these understandings might be placed on the agenda in a guest post on the Fabian Society's blog "Next Left" and in the thread below this one.

The support of Labour Party members and affilates would be welcome here. This avenue is open to anyone with an email facility.

Calling Those With Voting Rights In the Labour Leadership Contest - But It Is Not Your Vote We Are After.

The letter below is being submitted to the five candidates for the Labour Leadership - who are shown above. If you are a member of an organisation which has voting rights in this election, then why not add your support via the comment box on this thread? Give your name and list the relevant organisations which you are a member of. These include Constituency Labour Parties, the Co-operative Party and affiliated bodies such as many Trade Unions and various Socialist Societies. The type of details we are after are shown for the signatories at the close of the letter. This comment box only takes information from those with a blog facility. But a further version of the letter appears on "Dronfield Blather" where the thread can be accessed by anyone with an email facility. Other signatories will be added as they are received. As a consequence this thread is being periodically updated.

TO THE CANDIDATES IN THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP ELECTIONS

The supporters of this letter are members of either the Labour Party and/or members of organisations affiliated to the Labour Party who pay their political levy or its equivalent.

Immediately after the election we felt that Labour needed a period of reflection and serious internal debate to assess the reasons for our defeat and to think through the direction we needed to move into.

Instead we have been confronted with an imperfect leadership contest in which the Party’s wider membership and its affiliated bodies have been excluded from the nominating procedure. This has restricted both the range of the political viewpoints and the background links of the candidates who have emerged.

What we feel now needs to be done is to seek to use the current imperfect leadership contest as a means by which we can acquire something like the form of assessment and internal debate which we feel is necessary.

This means that there is a need to divert the current contest away from being just another ’X factor’ game show, towards being a serious debate related to the principles contained in the Labour Party Constitution which state - “The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect”.

To help achieve the depth and nature of the debate that we are seeking, we call upon each of the candidates to publish a Manifesto of Intent to make clear to everyone the direction in which they would seek to lead the Labour Party, based on their assessment of the reasons behind the electoral defeat and their interpretation of the direction where the principles quoted above should now lead us.

We ask that these Manifestos of Intent should be distributed widely in order to generate extensive discussion across the Party and beyond, so that this will assist those voting in the leadership contest to reach balanced and principled understandings.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We invite Labour Party members, members of the Co-operative Party and those who pay their political levy to Trade Unions affiliated to the Labour Party (or the equivalent) to add their names and their organisational links to this letter via this Comment Box or via that of "Dronfield Blather" if you only have an email facility.

1) Ken Curran, Birley Branch LP, Sheffield South East CLP, UNISON, Co-operative Party Sheffield Branch.

(2) John Halstead, Nether Edge Branch LP, Sheffield Central CLP, Cooperative Party Sheffield Branch.

(3) Harry Barnes, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE, Co-operative Party Chesterfield Branch,Labour MP 1987-2005.

(4) Martin Brader, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(5) John Dunn, West Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(6) Graham Baxter MBE, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE, Leader NE Derbyshire District Council.

(7) Jon Williams, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(8) Shelagh Wolliscroft, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(9) Roy Pilkington, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(10) Stephen Brunt, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(11) John Gilbert, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(12) Bill Michie, Nether Edge LP, Sheffield Central CLP, UNITE, Co-operative Party Sheffield Branch, Labour MP 1983-2001.

(13) Bob Piper, Abbey Branch LP, Warley CLP.

(14) Mick Davies, Bristnall Branch LP, Warley CLP.

(15) Shay Boyle, Sutton Branch LP, Bolsover CLP, GMB.

(16) Frances Kelly, Finchley and Golders Green CLP.

(17) Patricia Williams, Sutton Branch LP, Bolsover CLP, UNISON.

(18) Steve Thompson, Sheffield Central Branch LP and CLP, Co-operative Party Sheffield Branch.

(19) Dr Duncan Hall, Skipton Branch LP, Skipton and Ripon CLP.

(20) Douglas Michael Chewter, Skipton and Ripon CLP.

(21) Marianne Quick, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(22) Ian Robathan, Pheasey Branch LP, Walsall CLP.

(23) Jack Wearing, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(24) Doreen Curran, Berwick-upon-Tweed Branch LP, Berwick CLP, NUPE Retired Member.

(25) Ronald Curran, Berwick-upon-Tweed Branch LP, Berwick CLP, NUPE Retired Member.

(26) Gary Kent, Beckenham CLP, UNITE, NUJ.

(27) Christine Smith, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNISON.

(28) Caroline Smith, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(29) Rosie Smith, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(30) Barry Winter, Chapel Allerton Branch LP, Leeds North East CLP, ILP.

(31) Frank Abel, Manor and Castle Branch LP, Sheffield Central CLP, NUT.

(32) William Brown, Sheffield Hallam CLP, ILP.

(33) Felix Gott, Hornsey and Wood Green CLP.

(34) James Vernoit, Vauxhall CLP.

(35) Rebecca Eeley, Cheadle CLP, Fabian Society.

(36) Bernadette Duffy, Birley Branch LP, South East Sheffield CLP.

(37) Gordon MacMillan, St Ann's, Tottenham CLP.

(38) Dave Hill, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, UNITE.

(39) Janet Hill, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(40) Caz Brader, Manchester Withington CLP. CYWU.

(41) Samuel Ohene, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(42) John McDonnell M.P., Hayes and Harlington CLP.

(43) Edna Woodhead, Ecclesall Branch LP, Sheffield Hallam CLP.

(44) John Woodhead, Ecclesall Branch LP, Sheffield Hallam CLP.

(45) George Bell, UNISON Bassetlaw Local Government Retired Member.

(46) Paul Harman, Darlington CLP.

(47) James Doran, Darlington CLP, Co-operative Party Darlington & South Durham Branch.

(48) Bob Gachagan, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, GMB.

(49) Ann Barnes, Dronfield Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, GMB.

(50) Martin Stone, Chesterfield CLP, UNISON.

(51) Socialist Health Association.

(52) Pete Firmin, Hampstead & Kilburn CLP. CWU.

(53) Val Graham, Chesterfield CLP, UNISON.

(54) Stan Newens, Harlow CLP, Labour MP 1964-70 and 1974-83, Labour MEP 1989-1999.

(55) Derek Bunce, Haywood & Hixon Branch LP, Stafford CLP, UNISON.

(56) Paul Cotterill, Leader Labour Group on West Lancashire Borough Council in a personal capacity.

(57) Simon Whitten, South West Bedfordshire CLP.

(58) Ian Woodland, Southampton Itchen CLP, UNITE.

(59) Andreas Paterson, Norwich South CLP.

(60) Jon Taylor, Chair Wharley Bridge Branch LP, High Peak Constituency.

(61) Mark Grayling, Grassmoor Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP, Chesterfield Co-operative Party.

(62) Tom Gann, Greenwich & Woolwich CLP, Fabian Society, Parliamentary Candidate for Salisbury in the General Election.

(63) James McGee, Salisbury CLP, Fabian Society.

(64) Vino Sangarapillai, Horsey & Wood Green CLP, UNISON.

(65) Anthony Mckeown, High Peak CLP, UNITE, Co-operative Party Chesterfield Branch.

(66) Ruth Stoba, Whaley Bridge Branch LP, High Peak CLP.

(67) Kingston & Surbiton Constituency Labour Party, (posted by Max Freedman Chair).

(68) Stephanie David, Bexleyheath & Crayford CLP, GMB.

(69) Robert Naether disabled GMB Union south wales.

(70) Alex Williams, Stockport CLP.

(71) Steve Pickering, Eckington Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.

(72) Bob Heath. Eckington Branch LP, NE Derbyshire CLP.