Labour conference: is it time for a change?

The autumn season of party conferences represents a tradition every bit as venerable as that of fish and chips on the pier, Brighton rock and Blackpool tram cars. However there are many – me included – who believe that the party political conference, like the traditional British seaside holiday, is an institution that has seen better days. In fairness I am not suggesting that we need to do away with the annual conference altogether but I do feel that we can improve on its present format and organisation. One of the main reasons for reforming how, where and when conference is organised is what it ends up costing ordinary members – especially in terms of travel, accommodation and time. A delegate from Scotland told me that she has taken a week’s annual leave to attend her first and (given what it was costing her) probably her last conference. A significant number of delegates I spoke to told me that that they had been forced to take unpaid leave in order to attend conference as they simply could not get the time off work in any other way. Having a party conference that only takes place on weekdays means that the only people who can easily attend are the people who are paid to, some retired people (I stress ‘some’), people who are independently wealthy - or just fanatics. If we are serious about reforming and renewing as a party then we need to make conference much more accessible for working people and particularly young working people.

On a positive note, speaking at a Fabian fringe meeting Douglas Alexander made some encouraging comments about the need for the party to re-think exactly how it sets about reconnecting with the grass roots of the movement. What the other parties do is up to them but in a time of renewal and reconnection Labour needs to think long and hard about how it organises its traditional annual shindig. Here are three practical suggestions:

Hold conference over a long weekend - this could assist in helping the party to reach out and reconnect with ordinary party members. Holding the conference throughout a working week makes it very difficult for many working people to attend and therefore participate in what is the party’s largest annual event.

Move on from hosting conference in traditional seaside resorts like Blackpool, Brighton or Bournemouth. Labour’s 2006 party conference was held in Manchester and was viewed by most delegates as a huge success. Why not consider hosting future conferences in cities like Birmingham, Newcastle or Glasgow?

I’m off to get some jellied eels and some rock – with luck I may not ever get the chance again!

Don't do it, Gordon!

Another Labour Party Conference. And once again there has been a media blitz trying to force us into a premature decision affecting our future. Last time it was all about when Tony Blair should go. This time it's all about when Gordon Brown should go to the country.

Great for the Rudolph Murdochs and Jeremy Paxmans of course. with the prospect of an exciting battle for power pushing up newspaper sales and the ratings of political pundits. But not, I submit, so great for the likes of us.

Here we are, only halfway through our term of office with a good majority and still much to do regarding the implementation of the policies we were elected for. A successful election now would give us about four more years of government, just two more years than what is left to us. A successful election nearer the end of our allotted time would give us something like six or seven years more. More time for our policies to work, more time for our values to be embedded, more time to create that progressive consensus which could make this the century of social democracy in this country. Do we really want to run the risk of having all that  snatched away in a matter of weeks?

The counter-argument, of course, is the possibility of losing the election if we delay. I say we have more to lose than to gain by going for it now. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The mood of the electorate is volatile. It wouldn't take much bad news, whipped up by a media bent on producing a tight finish, for the polls to swing the other way (as seems to be already happening at the local level, e.g. Sunderland).

Moreover a whiff of triumphalism is beginning to creep in amongst the party faithful, which is never attractive and can be counter-productive. Harriett Harman's "we are ready for an election and we know the British people will vote for us" may  play well to the gallery but to this observer it brought to mind  Neil Kinnock bellowing "We're all right! We're all right" from that Sheffield platform in 1992.

And do not underestimate the hatred that is still smouldering away against this government. Such an emotion is much better at getting people to the polling stations than luke-warm support, particularly on a cold, wet November evening.

No, let us be safe rather than sorry, Gordon, and allow time for that lukewarm support to be turned into the kind of enthusiastic support that can survive the worst that fate and  the Daily Mail's headlines can throw at us.

Brown's stance on Mugabe

We are delighted by the firm stance of the British government and its commitment to support the Zimbabwean people. ACTSA has been lobbying the British government on Mugabe's invite to the Lisbon summit for a number of months now and is pleased that the British government is taking such a strong stance against the potential invitation to Robert Mugabe.

We have been working hard to inform and lobby the UK and EU governments on the human rights violations being lead by the Zimbabwean government and we hope other EU members follow Brown’s lead. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is currently holding a two day stay-away for workers in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe are being intimidated by riot police to try and prevent the success of the ZCTU stay-away. We must all show our support for the ZCTU and also our disgust for these intimidation tactics.

The ZCTU have made a frim and clear statement that they do not wish Mugabe or his cronies to attend the summit in, rather he should be attending to the needs of his people and not jet setting to the EU where he is banned.

Academies: are they begining to have an impact?

This year's GCSE results revealed a promising performance from city academies. Are they beginning to work?

A brief analysis of this year's GCSE results indicates that the government's new city academies are likely to show a faster rate of improvement than other schools nationally.

It would appear that in academies the proportion of pupils gaining 5 or more A*-C grades has increased by an average of 7% and by 5% when English and mathematics are included. Although the national benchmarks for 2007 will not be available until league tables are published in January 2008 it is unlikely that the rate of increase will be much above the 2.1% figure for last year (0.9% including English and mathematics).

Despite this it seems that the idea of creating an additional 400 academies - backed by Gordon Brown - is still too much for many Labour party members and supporters (including many MPs). The common argument against academies is that once established they might well end up sucking resources from other local comprehensive schools. But will they?

As long as academies remain in the depressed hearts of the old towns and cities and, perhaps most importantly of all, maintain their all-ability intake, I do not think that Labour party members should worry too much. The real challenge for party members and supporters is how to make education in the inner city both transformational and inspirational. It is just possible that academies may provide a means of local communities meeting these challenges.

What many people overlook is that in the setting up of so many of these new academies in areas of significant social and economic deprivation, the government has rediscovered what many used to call "compensating measures". Yet should we not just give existing academies a chance? In the short term the answer has to be a qualified "yes". There are, after all, some encouraging indicators. Ofsted has stated that academies are having "remarkable" effects but there is more work to do to ensure that they all successful.

A PWC report said that academies had largely won the support of pupils and parents but still faced problems, including widespread bullying and inappropriate buildings. The 2007 GCSE results show several academies doubling the number of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-Cs or better at GCSE. For example the Trinity Academy in Doncaster this year increased the proportion achieving five good GCSEs from 30% last year to 63%. The truth is that for communities trapped in a cycle of educational failure and under achievement the academy programme can offer new energy, new purpose and new opportunities for young people who deserve better.

However it is incumbent on all of us to ensure that such ambitious and expensive programmes benefit the communities that they are intended for and do not become the preserves of the middle classes.

Why it's not a lurch to the right

It's not often that there's a meeting of minds between Andrew Rawnsley and Melanie Phillips. David Cameron's apparent inability to make up his mind about his post-Blair direction of travel, however, seems to have provoked just that.

Yesterday, Rawnsley reported the Tory leader's inner circle denying that their boss was engaged in a 'lurch to the right' after three weeks in which Cameron has desperately attempted to ward off a savaging by his rightwing critics by tossing them red meat on tax cuts, crime and immigration. 'If it is not a lurch to the right,' sniffed Rawnsley, 'it's a lurch all over the place'.

And today, Phillips follows up with a similar charge. 'The greatest harm,' she warns, 'comes not, as [Cameron's] critics think, from the word "right" but from the word "lurch".' She goes on:

This is because, whatever views he may have, it is even more important for a potential Prime Minister to be seen to have the virtue of consistency. If you don't know where you are with him, you can't trust him; and trust is ultimately what guides people to cast their vote. Opportunism is fatal to that trust. And the Tories' abrupt change of direction seems to be dictated by just such opportunism.

But both Rawnsley and Phillips seems to misread the nature of the Cameron project. As Bruce Anderson argues in today's Independent, the Tory modernisers' outlook has long rested on the view that it was the Conservative brand, not the party's policies, which lay at the heart of their electoral misfortunes over the past decade or so. In polls and focus groups prior to the 2005 general election traditional Tory themes - on crime, Europe, immigration and tax - were popular with voters; support for them plummeted, however, once their association with the Conservatives was revealed. The solution: rebrand the Tory party as inclusive and modern and ditch the 'nasty party' image of the Hague-IDS-Howard years.

As Anderson bluntly puts it, the Cameroons' aim 'was to lead the voters to reassess Toryism, not to sunder their party from the Tory tradition'. Cameron, he continues, is a 'small-c Conservative': 'a Kissingerian realist' on foreign policy and a man who 'happily worked for Michael Howard' at the Home Office and 'has never suggested that a single criminal should serve a single day less in custody for a single crime'.

And let's not forget the only three concrete pledges Cameron made during his campaign for the Tory leadership: to introduce tax breaks for marriage, withdraw the Conservatives from the supposedly federalist European People's party in the European Parliament, and ensure a more diverse mix of parliamentary candidates - in other words, rightwing policies presented by new faces.

Cameron may well have chosen the wrong path to No.10, but let's not pretend he's been panicked by the 'Brown bounce' into deviating from it.