Votes For Prisoners - Remove The No-Go Sign

The following is from a BBC Report, see here.

"Ministers will give Parliament another vote on whether to give prisoners the vote this week, the BBC understands. Political correspondent Carole Walker said she understood MPs would consider options, on Thursday, including votes for those serving six months or less and those serving four years or less. A third option on the draft bill would be no votes at all, she added."

I wonder if any MP will do the honourable thing and put down an amendment to the Government's list of options, in order to allow all prisoners to have the vote. If there are worries about prison loads of voters distorting the outcome in specific constituencies, they could be given votes via their last known places of residence prior to their imprisonment.

The main reason that prisoners should be able to have the vote is that they are human beings. But even if they are thought to be not very nice human beings, that is no reason for disenfranchising them. For quite correctly we don't otherwise try to separate the wheat from the chaff when we decide who is entitled to the vote - not since we  came (basically) to adopt the correct overriding principle of adult male suffrage. Separating the wheat from the chaff is an elitist response, contrary to democratic values.

There is also the fact that masses of people who commit serious crimes, never get caught. There is no mechanism we can adopt to remove the franchise rights of those who have murdered, raped and pillaged, but have got away with their crimes.

Everyone resident in the UK over a certain age (which I feel should be 16) should have the vote as they are subject to the laws which parliament determines. This is obviously the case with prisoners, as the law has caught up with them. The only exception to the right to vote should be for those who can't vote, due their having the most serious of learning difficulties. And even then we should err on the side of caution.

I just hope there are some MPs who see things in the above light. After all they are supposed to be at the cutting edge of democracy.

I have never heard a principled argument against what I say above. There are only appeals to our prejudices, as shown by the interviewer in the video attached to the link in my opening sentence.

Clay Cross - 90 Continuous Years With Labour

 

It is a 90th Anniversary. Since 15 November 1922, Clay Cross has been represented in parliament by only Labour MPs. Since 1950, it has been part of the North East Derbyshire Constituency and the MPs (in turn) have been Henry White, Tom Swain, Ray Ellis, myself and currently Natascha Engel. Yet prior to the 1950 General Election, Clay Cross was itself the name of the Constituency which bore its name. Below I give a synopsis of of that Constituency's Labour Parliamentary History.
 
The Clay Cross Parliamentary Constituency operated from 1918 until the time of the 1950 General Election. It covered much of what are currently the southern areas of both the North East Derbyshire and Bolsover Constituencies. In those days it was an area in which coal mining abounded.

Yet although the Constituency was dominated by the miners’ vote and the Derbyshire Miners' Association (DMA) was a powerful influence in the area, out of the six different Labour candidates it ran for parliament at various elections, only two of these were miners. The absence of miners as Labour candidates in parliamentary contests in 1922, 1923, 1924, 1929, 1931, 1933. 1935 and 1936 (when four different Labour candidates ran) showed an independence of mind amongst local miners from the pressures of the leadership of the DMA. This was aided by the influences of a socialist-inclined local Methodism and by left-wing activists in the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in areas such as Bolsover. The ILP, however, went on to disaffiliate from the Labour Party in 1932. A further factor leading to the period in which miners' were not run as candidates, is that Clay Cross became one of the safest Labour seats in the country. It, therefore, attracted the interest of leading figures at national level in the Labour Party.

The first election in the Clay Cross Constituency in 1918 followed a conventional pattern for an area dominated by the DMA. . Fred Hall, the Labour candidate was a leading official of the DMA, who eventually served for 29 years on the national executive committee of its parent body, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. He was, however, the only Labour candidate for the Clay Cross Constituency who ever failed to win the seat. He lost by 1,221 to a Liberal who had Conservative backing. For the Conservatives and Liberals who had been the larger elements of the 1915-18 War-time Coalition had joined into a deal aimed at not running candidates against each other. 
 
When Fred Hall dropped out of standing for the seat just prior to the 1922 General Election, Charlie Duncan was selected in his place. He had helped to found the Workers’ Union who had been involved in the birth of the Labour Party and represented unskilled workers. He had been the Labour MP for Barrow-in-Furness from 1906 to 1918 and had spells as both Whip and Secretary for the Parliamentary Labour Party. He won the elections in Clay Cross in 1922, 1923, 1924, 1929 and 1931. His final success revealed how Labour had built up the seat. The 1931 election was held following the collapse of the minority Labour Government in the middle of a major financial crisis, with Ramsay MacDonald its leader defecting to run a National Government. Labour’s position at the subsequent General Election collapsed from 288 to 52 seats, yet Labour held Clay Cross by almost 10,000 votes. A massive Labour majority in the adverse circumstances of the time.  
 
When Charlie Duncan died in 1933, Clay Cross adopted Arthur Henderson as their candidate. Known as “Uncle Arthur” he was a huge figure in the early history of the Labour Party. He was leader of the Labour Party from 1908 to 1910 (with another spell at the start of the First World War). He served as Labour’s first Cabinet Minister in the First World War Coalition Government from 1915 to 1917, resigning when his idea for an international conference on the war was voted down by the rest of the cabinet. He helped shape the pre-Blairite structure of the Labour Party as its General Secretary, a post he held from 1912 to 1935. He was Home Secretary in the first Minority Labour Government of 1924 and Foreign Secretary from 1929-31. When MacDonald defected Henderson took over as Labour's temporary leader until 1932, but gave up the position because he had by then lost his parliamentary seat. Clay Cross provided his avenue back into Labour’s parliamentary politics. In the by-election one of his opponents was Harry Pollitt the General Secretary of the Communist Party who lost his deposit with 10.8% of the votes to Henderson’s 69.3%. So there was a total left vote of over 80%. Whilst he was MP for Clay Cross, Henderson went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and was held in high regard it being claimed that “no-one ever sought his help in vain"*. He died in 1935.  

At the subsequent General election, Clay Cross ran the 35 year old Alfred Holland who was a local Methodist. But within 10 months he was stricken with spinal meningitis and died shortly afterwards.

A by-election in 1936 led to the Clay Cross Labour Party running its fourth candidate in five years. George Ridley had been on the Executive of the Railway Clerk’s Association since 1909. He was seen as “becoming the Labour Party’s leading pamphleteer*”. In 1944 he also died whilst still an MP.

After 26 years, Clay Cross once more adopted a Derbyshire Miners’ Candidate in Harold Neal the area’s Vice President, who went on to become Secretary of the Miners’ group of MPs in parliament. There was a war-time pact amongst Churchill’s Coalition partners at the time, which covered the Labour Party. This was not to run candidates against coalition partners in by-elections. So only two independent candidates stood against Neal. One ran as a “Workers Anti-Fascist” and the other as an “Independent Progressive”.  Neal got 76.3% of the votes. When the war ended, he improved his position by taking 82.1% of the votes in opposition to a Conservative.

When the boundaries were redrawn and the Clay Cross seat was absorbed into other areas, Harold Neal became the Labour MP for Bolsover. He had a period as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fuel and Power in 1951 and retired as MP in 1970 to be replaced by Dennis Skinner who was the Chair of NE Derbyshire Labour Party, President of the DMA and also an active member of the Clay Cross Labour Party. 
 
A souvenir brochure published by the Clay Cross Divisional Labour Party in 1948 pointed out Labour’s dominance in the area, stating that there were “46 Local Government Seats (exclusive of Parish Councils) within the Constituency : of these 40 are held by Labour members. In addition, there are 16 Parish Councils : in the majority of cases we have 100 per cent representation”*.  ( * = The two earlier quotations are also taken from this souvenir brochure.) 

Those were the days. 

It Is Time To Worry

We now have concerted attacks upon the BBC, the NHS and the Courts. Here is the latest.

Labour Got It Wrong

Labour's vote in helping to defeat the Government yesterday was a big mistake. Only those handful of Labour MPs who take a full anti EU line should have been in the rebels' lobby. Is there any Labour MP who has expressed his or her concern about what happened? And did any Labour MPs vote with the Government or positively abstain? Labour should vote on what it judges to be the rights and wrongs of an issue, not from reasons of political manipulation. There are sound practical reasons for acting in line with your own views and values, as well as moral reasons. In politics, your sins are liable to find you out. And voting for what you don't believe in is something that is habit forming.

There is, of course,  plenty that is wrong with the EU. Above all. it needs a democratic framework. But it needs actions other than those of political manipulation to start to achieve this.

Update 2nd November : Labour MP Margaret Hodge is claimed to have said that being asked to vote with Tory rebels in favour of a cut in the EU budget was "hateful" and "outrageous". Yet she still went into the lobby with the Tory rebels.  See here.

The Shape Of Things To Come?

The British Electoral Registration system is already in a mess with several million people missing from the voting lists. But changes in the rules for registration will make the situation far worse. Do these developments in America show the shape of things to come? Given a class-biased electoral registration system, Romney seems to have it in the bag.

From Today's Guardian : Letter To The Editor

 

        Fallout from the Scottish referendum

One of the strongest arguments for giving the vote to 16-year-olds, as proposed in Scotland (Editorial, 22 October), is that it is an essential step towards tackling voter under-registration. The Electoral Commission has reported that at least 6 million people are missing from electoral registers. Yet now we see that the under-registration figure is likely to be larger than this, as census details have just been revealed which show that 1.57 million people in England and Wales have second addresses and this will entitle many of them to double registration. If, say, 1 million throughout the UK have done this, that means that under-registration is then over the 7 million mark.With votes at 16, the names of "attainers" would be included on registers when they were 15, showing the dates of their coming birthdays and their then entitlement to vote. If registration for these first-time voters took place via their schools, an initial registration of almost 100% could be achieved. A proactive registration system could then be put in place to ensure that most of those who initially registered did not later in life slip through the net.

As under-registration is high among the 18-25 age group, the poor, the rootless and ethnic minorities, this leads to a situation where the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies are seriously distorted. A system of initial registration via schools, with an associated and imaginative educational programme, could start to correct this imbalance and develop a commitment among young people to use and improve the democratic process. Or are we going to leave it all to Alex Salmond?

Harry Barnes
Dronfield, Derbyshire

The Clay Cross Rent Rebellion

It is the 40th Anniversary of the Clay Cross Rent Rebellion. So what was it all about?

In 1970, the Conservatives had a surprise electoral victory. Ted Heath replaced Harold Wilson as Prime Minister and became known as Selsdon Man, because he adopted a set of free market and anti-working class policies which were in line with what would later be called Thatcherism. The strong reactions against his approach later led him to alter his basic stance via a set of "U" turns, for which Thatcher was later to deride him.

In the year in which the Heath Government was established, council house building was still widespread and only fell marginally short of the total number of houses built under private enterprise for both owner occupation and renting. Furthermore, many Labour Councillors themselves lived in Council houses and understood the needs and interests of communities they were part of.  The Heath Government wished to switch the housing pattern for working class people away from their heavy dependence on council housing.

In pursuing their interests, the Conservatives produced a White Paper entitled "Fair Deal for Housing" which prefigured their Housing Finance Act which received the Royal Assent on 27 July, 1972. Well before the measure became law, the Government's intentions were well understood and were creating considerable concern amongst council tenants and their Labour Councillors. Government subsidies to reduce rents were to end. Councils were to be stopped from supporting council rents from the rates. Then (as a start) most Council Rents would have to be raised by £1 per week in October 1972, which is an amount approaching £11 in today's prices. If a Council failed to act in conformity with these provisions (a) any subsidies for Council House Building would be ended and/or (b) a Housing Commissioner would be sent in to operate the Act. 

On 10th June 1972, 223 delegates from 87 ruling Labour Groups met in Sheffield and carried a resolution by 74 votes to 1 (with 5 abstentions) demanding that "the labour movement shall not take steps which may lead to the implementation of the Bill."

Clay Cross in North Derbyshire had a population of 10,000 and had 1,400 council tenancies catering for over half of its population. Its 11 Councillors were all Labour. On 4th September 1972 it unanimously adopted the following motion - "That this Council will not operate any of the provisions contained in the Housing Finance Act 1972, and the Electorate shall be informed of the decision together with the reasons for coming to this decision and that the officers of the council be instructed not to make any preparations for implementation of any of the provisions of the Act nor to act on behalf of the Conservative Government as a Commissioner".

Initially a total of 46 Councils failed to operate in line with the legislation, whilst 80 Tenants Association were organised to hinder its operation. In the Chesterfield Rural District Area which surrounded Clay Cross their Tenant's Association ran a campaign for the non-payment of the £1 increase which its Labour Council had "reluctantly" introduced. In Dronfield, situated at the Northern End of the Chesterfield Rural District, its Urban District Council was Conservative-controlled and it had jumped the gun with a 50p increase in the April. Its Tenants and Residents Association, therefore, started out with a fortnight's rent and rates strike exactly 40 years ago today.  Dronfield had 1,000 Council Tenancies.

But much larger and immediately to the north is Sheffield where a Coordinating Committee for Tenants, Residents and Community Associations had been established in 1971. Sheffield having 76,000 Council Tenancies. Dispite this bodies' pressures, the Sheffield Council implemented the Act by 53 votes to 42, carrying out a later increase by 45-40. The second increase rested on the votes of 12 Sheffield Aldermen, but at least a non-eviction pledge was given for those withholding the increases.

Powerful pressures were, however, placed upon all the non-implementing Councillors and upon the tenants and residents who withheld rent or rates monies. By January 1973, 32 of the rebel Labour Councils gave up the struggle. 12 held out until later in the year. That left only Bedwes and Machen in Monmouthshire and Clay Cross in Derbyshire as non-implementing Councils. They both had a Housing Commissioner sent to their authorities to enforce the legislation. Bedwes and Machen did not block his work, so they were then out of the struggle. Clay Cross, however, blocked the work of the Commissioner and continued the fight.

Acton was taken against them by the District Auditor who claimed that they were responsible for a shortfall of £69,000 in their revenue account and could be bankrupted and thus debarred from office.  Eventually this position was upheld by the a High Court Decision by Lord Denning on 30 July 1973.

Fresh elections were then held in Clay Cross and Labour took 10 of the 11 seats with a 85% turnout. Local Government Reform meant the Clay Cross Urban District Council would be absorbed into a larger authority a month after the election and those elected would then become Parish Councillors, without Council Housing responsibilities. But for its remaining month as a District Council, the Labour Councillors refused to implement the Housing legislation. This led to the District Auditor surcharging them "jointly and severely" so that their liabilities fell over the £2,000 mark which would lead to their debarment. To save fresh bankruptcies among the second team the local Constituency Labour Party ran a defence fund, which paid off their debts. This fund, however, did not cover the much wider surcharges levelled against the original team of Clay Cross Councillors.

The Clay Cross situation was a matter of continuous dispute within the Labour Party from 1972 until 1978.  In 1972, Conference passed a resolution supporting the local campaigns of tenants, trades councils and Labour Parties "to spearhead the campaign against the Act". But it rejected a move for the retrospective clearing of "any councillors who suffer any penalty through their actions." Yet in 1973 it passed resolutions supporting "opposition to continuing rent increases" and backing Clay Cross. Furthermore, David Skinner one of the non-implementing Clay Cross Councillors stood for the Constituency Section of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party and obtained 144,000 votes. This section invariably elected Labour MPs and, although David, wasn't elected it was a telling result which showed strong support in the Labour Party for the Clay Cross struggle. The Clay Cross issue was pursued unsuccessfully at the 1974, 1975 and 1976 Party Conferences. But then in 1977 Conference overwhelmingly carried a resolution stating "This Conference deplores the continuing disqualification from public office of the 21 Clay Cross Labour Party members and demands that the Government introduce a Bill to remove the disqualification forthwith". David Skinner went back to the rostrum the following year complaining that the NEC had not even pursued the matter with the Labour Government.

Whilst the struggle against the Housing Finance Act did not succeed in its objectives, it was part of wider campaigning which led to Heath dropping his Selsdon Man approach. When Labour returned to office there was then a recovery in Council House building, until it was successfully undermined by Thatcher's tactics. The persistence with which the Clay Cross issue was pursued at Conference (especially on the initiative of its Constituency Labour Party) also shows the significance of the democratic arrangements that were then open to the rank and file of the Labour Party, which have since been removed. 

Yesterday evening the Dronfield Labour Party Discussion Group were fortunate to discuss these matters, when David Skinner addressed it on the "40th Anniversary of the Clay Cross Rent Strike". What appears above is, however, my own contribution and not a report of David's fine talk. My main sources have been Leslie Skfair's article "The Struggle Against The Housing Finance Act" in 'Socialist Regsiter 1975' and the Annual Reports of the Labour Party for the period. Anyone spotting errors, should use the comment box below.

Ed's Clause 4 Moment

 In effect it now reads -

"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable predistribution that may be possible upon the basis of the operation of responsible capitalism."

Below is the relevant extract from Ed Miliband's speech made (appropriately) at the Stock Exchange where he called for "predistribution" under "responsible capitalism" . The full speech can be found here.

"Of course, redistribution will always remain necessary.  But we've learned that it is not sufficient. And fiscal circumstances will make it harder not easier.  The new agenda is that we need to care about the model of the economy we have and the distribution of income it creates.We need to care about predistribution as well as redistribution.

Predistribution is about saying: 'We cannot allow ourselves to be stuck with permanently being a low-wage economy'. It is neither just, nor does it enable us to pay our way in the world. Our aim must be to transform our economy so it is a much higher skill, higher wage economy. Think about somebody working in a call centre, a supermarket, or in an old peoples' home. Redistribution offers a top-up to their wages. Predistribution seeks to offer them more: Higher skills.  With higher wages. An economy that works for working people. Centre-left governments of the past tried to make work pay better by spending more on transfer payments. Centre-left governments of the future will have to also make work pay better by making work itself pay. That is how we are going to build growth based not just on credit, but on real demand. And that is how we are going to help the squeezed middle of this country and, build a better economy when there is less money around."

So what are Eds the first steps in his journey towards predistribution under responsible capitalism?

He went on to say "to tackle the challenge of predistribution...we have made proposals on changing the way the banking system works, and promoted a British Investment Bank...Sir George Cox, formerly Director General of the Institute of Directors, is leading our review on short-termism...We need proper competition in all sectors of the economy so that consumers get a fair deal. That means not allowing any cosy cartels to develop in any sector, from energy to our train network...We also need...all Government departments working together, including through procurement, to support British business...We need a skills system...And we plan to build that new agenda with schools, young people, businesses and trade unions working together to fashion our new vocational training system...We need a special welfare state that encourages people to work, and rewards those who do...the move towards responsible capitalism is actually being led by many business people...A responsible capitalism is a resilient capitalism".

Ed's dream seems to be a belief in the establishment of a system of "perfect competition", whose early advocates claimed would work for the benefit of all - whether they earned their living from their land, their labour or their capital. But it is a long time since this idea was even seen as a dream. We have long since moved into a world dominated by forms of monopoly capitalism, whose interests have themselves come to dominate political activity. An effective move to predistribtion would require measures such as a ceiling for earnings and wealth holdings, as well as improved minimum wages and benefit levels. But that would be called redistribution, rather than predistribution.   

Alf Morris

Many fine tributes have been made to the memory of Alf Morris who died yesterday at the age of 84. In particular, he has been remembered for pioneering a Bill through Parliament in 1970 which became the first Act ever in the world to recognise the needs of disabled people. It led on to his being appointed to the post of Minister for the Disabled in 1974 by Harold Wilson. Again he was the first person in the world to acquire such a position. He then continued to pursue the concerns and interests of disabled people for the rest of his life.

I began to know him from 1987 when I was first elected as an MP. He had already served in the Commons from 1964. Under a Conservative Government in 1991, he introduced a Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill. Although this was unsuccessful, it was a key stage in a campaign which eventually led to legislative improvements.  In the 1992-3 session, Roger Berry re-introduced the Bill. Whilst the measure was again defeated, it gained considerable publicity for the cause it pursued. Nicholas Scott (the Government Minister leading the opposition to the Bill) was obliged to resign over the role he played. Whilst Lady Olga Maitland a Conservative MP was obliged to apologize over her tactics in opposing the measure. She had been given a series of amendments to submit against the Bill by the Government, as part of its tactics of holding up progress. Yet both she and Nicholas Scott denied their roles when challenged about these in the Commons. When they were discovered to be misleading the Commons, they had to make recompense.


In the following parliamentary session, I was lucky enough to be in a position to re-introduce Alf's Bill. Then the Government embarrassed by the previous sessions manoeuvrings, also introduced their own measure which was a pale imitation of Alf's. In the end it was the Government's Bill which triumphed, but the hassle between the two measures led to certain amendments and improvements to the Government's proposals. Although the version of Alf's Bill which I had introduced carried its Second Reading by 175-0, it was held up in its Committee Stage by the tactics headed by the responsible Government Minister, William Hague. When the measure returned to the Commons for its Report Stage, it was given little time and with a host of Government amendments to it, its Third Reading was never reached. Alf Morris and Roger Berry, however, played key roles in guiding and helping me to pursue the measure; including their membership of the small Standing Committee which spent six weeks on that stage of the Bill. But above all, it was Alf's Bill that I had taken on board.

When Labour was elected in 1997, Alf moved to the Lords. But he was a key figure in persuading the new Government to introduce and carry Legislation which set up a Disability Rights Commission. The Act was passed in 1998. It has since been superseded and Labour did not fulfil all the aspirations which were contained in Alf's pioneering Civil Rights (Disabled Persons Bill). But what Alf achieved from 1970 onwards improved the quality of life of numerous people - and without him this would not have happened. These days there aren't that many politicians we can say that about.

It was a privilege to have known him and to have run a lap carrying his baton.

Not Gold, Silver or Bronze; but Paper

Click onto the above to enlarge it.

The Twin Pillars of the Derbyshire Miners

I took these two photographs today outside of the former offices of the Derbyshire Miners' Association (DMA). The statues are of the two key figures who established the DMA from around about 1880. The top photo shows James Haslam who was the first Secretary of the Derbyshire Miners. He became the MP for Chesterfield from 1906 until his death in 1913. The other photo shows William Edwin Harvey who held several leading positions in the DMA, becoming their Secretary after the death of James Haslam.  He became the MP for North East Derbyshire in 1907, until his death in 1914. The statues were jointly unveiled at a common ceremony in front of a huge crowd of miners and their families in 1915.

It's The Weather, Stupid

The issue at the front of people's minds this summer has been the state of the weather. If Labour wishes to relate to people's concerns and problems, then why are they not attempting to place the  floods and climate change at the front of the political agenda? It is not that nothing is happening. As can be seen here, Mary Creagh Labour's Spokesperson on the Environment pursued flooding problems in the Commons on 25 June. Whilst here on 13 June we see Caroline Flint Labour's Spokesperson on Energy and Climate Change announcing that Labour has commissioned a "fundamental and wide ranging" review on Green Growth. No doubt there are many other bits and pieces that can be pointed to. But what we need is Ed Miliband on a platform in front of the TV cameras with Mary and Caroline, telling us what major initiatives Labour are pursuing at this moment to tackle the consequence of the floods and to seek to overcome the problem of climate change. Or is it that Labour has nothing to say?

Walmart and Inequality

Walmart  is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation,  and the largest when ranked by revenue. It is the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart remains a family-owned business and is controlled by the Walton family who own a 48% stake. The six heirs of the founders of Walmat have a total wealth that equates to that of the bottom 30% of the people of the USA. See.

Wanted - A Fresh Lot Of Labour MPs

At yesterday's meeting of the National Policy Forum in Birmingham, Ed Milband said

"We need a politics where politicians look like the constituents they represent. That’s why we should not rest until 50 per cent of our MPs are women. That’s why we should not rest until ethnic minorities are properly represented in Parliament and in our party. And we should not rest until we deal with one of the most glaring omissions: the skewing of our politics away from working class representation. And I have asked Jon Trickett from our Shadow Cabinet to lead our work on this issue."

What ideas would you like Jon (above photo) to recommend to Ed? What about (a) a bigger role in the nominating and selection procedures for both the rank and file and affiliated Trade Unions, (b) as Labour still has a residual working class base, limiting future nominations for the post of parliamentary candidate to those already living in a constituency and (c) making the Labour Party a body which working class people wish to join?

My Submission

This is my submission to Labour's Crime, Justice, Citizenship and Equalities Commission.

In his speech to Progress three weeks ago, Ed Miliband said that Labour "will embark on the biggest drive to register new voters in a generation". This is a welcome commitment, but if such a campaign is limited to the period up to the next General Election, it will be unlikely to overcome the massive problems associated with electoral registration in the UK. We also need a policy commitment to say that Labour will tackle registration problems once elected, by introducing the necessary legislation.

The size and nature of the problem surrounding electoral registration has been revealed in a recent report by the Electoral Commission.  They show that at least 6 million people are currently missing from electoral registers, with only 56% of 19-24 year olds being covered, and with the same low percentage for those in private rented accommodation. The major shortfalls in electoral registration occur amongst the young, the rootless, ethnic minorities and the poor. This has a knock on influence in distorting the shape and size of parliamentary constituencies, so that the most deprived areas in the UK are seriously unrepresented in parliament. The move from household to individual electoral registration is likely to add significantly to the numbers missing from registers, thereby worsening the current pattern.

What can be done to tackle such problems? First of all, we need to consider who should have the vote, and why. As the vote should be considered to be a fundamental human right, it should go to all of those who have established residency in the UK. For all residents should have a say in what laws, regulations and taxation regimes they operate under. The only exceptions to such  an arrangement, should be (1) the exclusion from electoral registers of those who are incapable of exercising voting rights due to serious mental incapacity, and (2) those (owing to their age alone) who have not yet reached sufficient maturity. As it would be open to manipulation to employ tests as to when a person was mature enough to vote, an arbitrary age needs to be employed to decide when people will first qualify to vote. For reasons I give later, I suggest that the qualifying date for obtaining the vote should be a person's sixteenth birthday.

Under the above proposals, the current franchise would then be extended to (a) sixteen and seventeen year olds, (b) residents in this country from overseas (at this moment this right is restricted to those who come from Commonwealth Nations and from the Republic of Ireland) and (c) all prisoners (whose new franchise rights could be related to their previous place of residence).

To ensure everyone who had enfranchisement rights would receive them, numbers of improvements would need to be made to the electoral registration system.  First of all, the Government would need to conducted regular advertising campaigns, telling people of their electoral registration rights and duties. Secondly, Returning Officers would have access to records which showed the places of residence of the people living in their areas; including details of residential movements in and out of such areas.  Thirdly, a person would only be entitled to register in the place of their sole or main place of residence; with those changing such residence being contacted to ensure they make use of the existing rolling electoral registration provisions which allow them to transfer their voting rights.. Fourthly, the annual canvas by Returning Officers would require canvassers to engage in door to door canvassing, especially of residences where no-one had registered or where there are significant changes since the previous canvas. Finally, canvassers would undertake searches, to ensure that homeless people were registered. 

The extra costs incurred by Returning Officers in fulfilling their duties, would come from Central Government Funds. It would be no excuse to say that we can't afford democracy.

A sound reason for giving people votes at sixteen, is that a person's initial registration could take place at school when students were fifteen year-old and were due to attain the vote. Local Returning Officers will need to send canvassers to schools in their area to facilitate the process - passing completed registration forms on to neighbouring Returning Officers where this is necessary.

We need wide-ranging changes to the electoral registration system, to repair the damages to the current system caused by increased social mobility, de-politicalisation, breaks in the social bond and operations of anti-social measures, such as that of the breach caused in the past by Thatcher's Poll Tax.

On Iraq Since The Invasion

See here.

School of Democratic Socialism

The School of Democratic Socialism (SDS) will be holding two separate (but related) meetings on Friday, June 15, at the Aspect Court building [Room 15104] of Sheffield Hallam University.

Aspect Court is on Pond Hill, which runs past the bus Interchange, down towards the ring road and railway line. There will be an afternoon seminar at 14.00 hours on the question of Money and Finance: the Economic Crisis. John Halsteadl has prepared a brief paper to provide a focus for the discussion. Allowing for a break, the afternoon session should end by 16.30 at the latest.

This will be followed in the evening, at 19.00, by Linda McAvan, MEP, speaking on The Future of Europe, under the SDS general theme of 'there has to be a better way forward!'.

This is in advance the SDS preparing its programme for 2012-13. The two themes are related and require a greater political response than we seem to be getting from the political parties. There will be ample opportunity for you to express your views and we hope you can attend. Please feel free to pass this information on to anyone who may be interested.

Aspect Court has a reception, which is manned until 17.00 hours. SHU rent rooms on the first floor, while others occupy the top two floors. There is a porter on the door, who controls admittance after 17.00. The entrance to the Aspect Court building is opposite the old Queen's Head public house.

Those attending both the 14.00 and 19.00 hour sessions, may wish to make arrangements in-between the sessions for a snack and/or drink.

For background on the first year of the School of Democratic Socialism see here.

John Halstead, Ken Curran and Harry Barnes.

What Happened 60 Years Ago Today?

If you are sixty or over, what were you doing the day that Elizabeth became Queen?

I was a fifteen year old at school and had exams in mock 'O" levels in Maths and Plant Drawing (which was part of studying "Art") . In the evening I went to a meeting of the Christian Endeavour at the Bourne Methodist Chapel at Easington Colliery which was addressed by a local Minister. I even seem to have played the piano for the hymn singing - which must have been the greatest achievement of my piano playing, as I packed in lessons around that time and can't play a note now. When I got back home, I took the dog for a walk at 10 pm.

A few week's later, I went on to fail 'O' level Maths and just scraped the pass mark in Art. No mention in my brief diary notes (then or afterwards) of George VI's death. Nor can I take the dog for a walk in remembrance of that evening. It is raining too heavily and I don't now have a dog.  Nor do I have a religion.

Who Should Have The Vote?

What should be the principle on which we decide who should have the vote?

To me enfranchisement rights should go to anyone who is directly effected by the decisions of those who determine laws, regulations, taxation and other public measures which impinge upon their lives.  The only justification I can see for restricting voting rights would be on the grounds of a person's incapacity to exercise such rights. This limiting factor should, however, err on the side of caution - excluding from enfranchisement only those, say, under 16 years of age* and those with such a serious mental impairment that it makes them incapable of exercising voting rights.

That would mean that anyone who is settled in the territory concerned would have the vote. Yet we currently exclude people from voting who have settled here from overseas and are citizens of countries other than Ireland and Commonwealth nations. We also exclude many who are imprisoned. Yet they are clearly subject to the laws of the land. 

The only problem to resolve under the principle I propound, is what should happen to British citizens who are settled overseas? It seems to me that it is only if they are significantly effected by the general principle I am using, that they should qualify here. It is the only area which calls for any serious judgement to be made. Otherwise the principle I am using is straightforward.

Are any of our politicians arguing the above case? If not, that is seriously disturbing. It indicates a flaw in their commitment to democracy. As is the fact that even under our current inadequate enfranchisement provisions, millions of those entitled to vote are not registered.

* = we need to recognise that the qualifying age for voting is arbitrary; but any selective method of determining when a young person should be allowed to vote would have serious dangers attached to it - which could lead to pressures to limit adult enfranchisement.

Dugsie : That Is A New One On Me

Dugsie : "I agree with Harry. I always have."  See here.