The Progressive

Labour's new webspace for members

Yesterday I was introduced to the Party's exciting new 'Member's Personal url' pages (MpURL in web-speak) which Party members can find here.

It's got a great feature called 'Pin2Win' which lets you find out what events are happening nearest to you (and right across the country) as well as allowing you to post events too.

Everyone is given their own blog space and there are chatboards for each of the National Policy Forum Commissions. It also enables you to get in touch with other members in any other constituency as long as you know the name of their CLP. A particularly nice touch is a forum called 'Stories from the Doorstep'. There's a great story on there recounting a response from a long-time Labour voter who had been asked whether she needed a lift to the polling station. Her response: "thats a very kind offer dear but I prefer to use the cars supplied by the Tories. They are far nicer vehicles and it gives me great pleasure to waste their time." Classic.

Since I didn't realise that there was this new space for members to get active in, I'm guessing that there a few others out there too and thought it should be flagged up! Sign up today!

Whose side are they really on?

Here we go again. Another media feeding frenzy to give the impression that the government is falling apart. This time it's Labour Ministers getting the blame for administrators failing to administer and judges failing to exercise judgement.

All the usual ingredients are there: distortion, misrepresentation, exaggeration, the conflation of different stories. As are the usual culprits: opposition spokespersons stirring the pot, the judiciary peeved that they and their ilk cannot run the country (or run in the country after small, furry animals), MPs and opinion formers of the liberal and far left still trying to get Tony Blair out before his time, as sweet revenge for his efforts to make them face reality.

An additional factor is now the candidates for Labour's top jobs (and their supporters) using this and other opportunities to do down potential rivals. The inevitable result? The following headline from the Guardian says it all. "Confidence in Labour government at lowest point, says poll"

Slagging off this government is of course the default position for those on the right of the political spectrum. As for those who are supposed to be on our side, I think it is time to ask them where their loyalties really lie.

Meet is Murder

Who says public meetings are dead? There was a time when it was widely proclaimed that the idiot box had killed the willingness of bums to get on seats in dusty halls in their spare time. I’ve been to two in the last week that seem to suggest people can’t get enough of the cut and thrust of debate.

On Tuesday Baroness Uddin sponsored a “Beyond the Veil” meeting at the House of Commons addressing the situation of ethnic minority and implicitly Muslim women in the political process. Hazel Blears made some opening remarks and left. Jacqui Smith stayed longer but also had to go off and do stuff. I hesitate to proclaim that the lunatics then took over the asylum but it seemed pretty cool that a bunch of vociferous BME wimmin were left to air our views in the opulent splendour of a parliamentary committee room which normally houses blokes of middle age, middle England etc etc. The discussion at times felt a little circular with lots of complaints. One person had come down from Huddersfield and penned an action plan on the train with outcomes and deliverables for getting Muslim women into Parliament. It all reminded me of the old Women’s Lib maxim “a Woman’s Place is in the house… of Commons” mixed with a dash of New Labour fondness for targets. Of the two men present Lord Ahmed left before the end and the other; Mohamed Khalil, who stood in the last general election in Aylesbury neighbouring seat to where I was on the ballot paper, got a bit of a rough time largely for being a bloke as far as I can see. One of the common suggestions was for expenses to be provided so that sisters from further afield can attend future re-runs. What with the current Labour party cash crisis I can’t see it happening.

Even though we're all meant to be on the same (Labour) side, more confrontational in some ways was the Charles Clarke vs. John McDonnell punch-up at Queen Mary College organised by Tower Hamlets Labour Party on Thursday as part of its week of action. MP and London minister Jim Fitzpatrick was also on the platform with ex-MP Oona King chairing. McDonnell actually spoke very well on inequality. It was largely a negative picture he painted but in response to the statistics trotted out by Clarke on how many times the man who would PM had rebelled McDonnell pointed out that Michael Foot and the young Neil Kinnock had been rebels who became leader. But they never became PM either is what he didn’t stress. When asked to name their Labour movement heroes, McDonnell plumped for Atlee and the rather brusque devil-may-care Clarke picked Kinnock - fittingly given that Kinnock mk2 was in some ways his Frankenstein-like creation.

Meanwhile Fitzpatrick selected Keir Hardie on the grounds that he was “a Scot who came to east London”. What is it with this trajectory? The north-of-the-border accent of Sir Robin Wales, Newham’s elected mayor, betrays the fact that he was hardly born within the sound of Bow Bells and George Galloway probably didn’t even know where Bethnal Green was before his Glasgow seat boundary was re-drawn. As she has done at past Progress events Oona King proved to be a fine ringmaster - a future in TV hosting beckons possibly? As with her one-time adversary’s gig two days earlier in the Commons, the room had to be vacated due to booking time constraints with the crowd baying for more.

Forget the telly, which already looks dangerously passé in these multimedia times. If you’re in need of something to do in these long nights, public meetings are where it’s at. Go seek one now.

Loud and clear, please

A survey by CommunicateResearch has today placed Labour at 36% in the opinion polls, giving us of 2% lead of 2%. Although this figure appears small, and will no doubt change repeatedly until the country next hits the ballot boxes, it should not go unmarked or uncelebrated. A similar poll last month, for the Independent, gave the Tories a 4% lead. How have Labour managed to regain the lead?

Andrew Grice, Political Editor at the Indy, claims that Labour’s surge in the polls is due merely to the prominence of law and order issues in the Queen’s Speech earlier this month. Steve Richards, also in the Indy, argues that these ‘reactionary’ issues may give the party a lead at present but cannot secure a forth term for Labour. Richards claims that Labour have focused heavily on these issues, at the expense of its progressive agenda, thus leaving the Downing Street door open for Cameron. His advice: Labour needs to shout about its progressive policies “loudly and often”. Take heed.

For more information take a look at www.communicateresearch.com

Blair: will history view him as a radical leader?

Tony Blair’s valedictory remarks at this year’s conference were a sobering reminder of the wisdom of Heraclitus: ‘the only constant in life is change.’ Since 1997 change there has undoubtedly been, much – if not most – of it for the better. As a country we have had our ups and downs: public investment up, police numbers up, school standards up, unemployment down, crime rates down, inflation rates and mortgage rates down. This is all good stuff and the public wants to see more. The reality, however, is that the improvements we have necessarily seen in the past few years are quick-fix and easy-win in nature. Real, transformational and long lasting change will take much longer. The battle (and it is a battle) to transform our public services is not yet won. Public services in Britain are in the process of being revived but there are still many (of whom a significant number are on the left) who wish not revival but reversal.

Blair was and is a radical reformer and the outcomes of this radicalism are to be found in the ordinary, in the mundane daily miracles that are taking place in our schools, our hospitals and our local communities. It is a radicalism that Labour members can be proud of and it is a radicalism that is beginning, slowly, to change this country for the better. If we are to make the most of this then we need to secure a fourth term at least.>

Radical party reform is critical to mobilising every single Labour sympathiser in 2009

Whoever ends up leading the Labour party into the next general election must accept the brutal truth that as a movement we under-polled our full support in 2005. In 2009 we will need to mobilise every single Labour sympathiser and this, surely, will place a new imperative on internal party reform. If one takes a seat-by-seat analysis of the 2005 election result it shows just how much local campaigns made a difference. For example in seats where MPs were being replaced by new candidates the overall performance of the defending party was demonstrably and significantly worse than average. Therefore one might argue that as important as the election of a future leader undoubtedly is, the issue of how we renew and rebuild the Labour Party itself is just as vital.

However we need to accept that we will never communicate the full measure of our radical, progressive ambition – epitomised by our commitment to end child poverty or to build an international consensus about debt relief – through a media that is distorted by cynicism, and twisted in its search for bad news. Just as, nationally, Labour must hold the radical centre, so must local parties become centres of radicalism in their communities, often becoming the first port of call for those who are ambitious to change where they live, and a network through which we engage progressives in every corner of these islands in our national – and international – campaign for social justice.

It is clear, surely, that a sharp swing to the left will NOT bring us electoral success. Nor, as Liam Byrne MP pointed out in his Fabian pamphlet last year, will binning the reform manifesto on which we successfully stood in 2001 and in 2005. Yet it’s equally true that in 2005 we didn’t poll our full support.

Radical party reform is vital if we want to mobilise every single Labour sympathiser in 2009.

Labour and the family

Hello all,

I am delighted to be able to join the Progress blog. I think its very important that everyone participates in the debate on the future direction of the Labour Party as we seek to renew ahead of the next general election. This website is already proving to be an excellent forum for party members to discuss ideas.

Yesterday, I made a speech on the importance for Labour to focus on supporting strong, stable families in the years ahead. The speech was part of the government's Social Exclusion week, which has been led by Cabinet Office Minister Hilary Armstrong.

The family has been uncomfortable territory for the centre-left after decades in which the right have used talking about the family to stigmatise lone parents and rail against changing modern families. There are indeed difficult questions for us as we consider new ways to support families in the years ahead, but I think its essential that we do confront those questions head on.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on my speech.

Thanks,

John Hutton, Work and Pensions Secretary

Have your say on Milburn's vision for New Labour

Alan Milburn, honorary president of Progress, yesterday set out a far-reaching ‘empowerment’ agenda for the next 10 years of New Labour.

He argued that the central issue for the Labour party to grapple with is that of the citizen’s relationship with the state. ‘The purpose of politics today,’ he said, ‘should be to help people take greater control of their lives so that they become as empowered as citizens as they have been as consumers … I want to change the distribution of power in society.’ In the speech, Milburn tackled the issues of greater wealth disparity, and called for ‘more to shift the focus beyond the traditional welfare solution of correcting the symptoms of inequality – such as lower wages and family poverty – towards an approach that deals with the roots of disadvantage before they become entrenched.’

Specifically, he argued that:

•    Welfare reform needs to be ‘back on the agenda with a vengeance’ with ‘incentives and sanctions’ to reduce the number of lone parents unable to work, partly by requiring them to actively seek work. He praised President Clinton’s welfare reforms, the subject of a recent Will Hutton Observer piece.

The party must adopt a series of tax breaks to spread asset ownership in shares and housing to tackle inequality.

•    State subsidies should allow parents to move children from a failing school, with the money transferring directly to their new school.

•    Government funded by local communities, who themselves decide the rate of taxes through local referendums.

•    Local health service and police could also be more accountable to the community they serve through elections. Community run mutual organisations could take over the running of children’s centres, estates and parks.

•    Voting reform for the Commons, power for Parliament to be able to vote on wars and a directly elected Lords.

•    The views of public service workers, and not just national inspectorates, should form the core of performance league tables.

Running through his speech and policy suggestions was the fundamental belief in the empowerment of individuals and communities. He sees this as the progressive cause that has been central to the Labour party for over a 100 years: ‘We need to forge a new contract between state and citizen where government provides opportunities and citizens strive to take them. Where the top down paternalistic statism of the last century gives way to a new bottom up agenda of empowerment that is in tune with the needs of this.’

What do you think of Alan’s speech? Do you agree with his view that the citizen/state relationship is key to renewing New Labour and what do you think of the specific policy suggestions he makes? Post your comments at the bottom of Alan's speech and he will respond next week.

Labouring the Point

The events of the past week seem to demonstrate that all of those old cliches are true: a week is a long time in politics, all political careers end in tears and the Harold Macmillan maxim that it is "events dear boy events" that are the driver of politics. As Robert Philpot pointed out in his earlier post these are turbulent times indeed to be holding a conference on anything Labour-flavoured.

It was with this backdrop then and with two days to reflect after seeing the PM for real at Progress on Saturday that we held our own symposium at Kingston University where I teach, entitled 'New Labour in Power - 10 Years On' gathering together a group of academics, journalists, practitioners and people who happily straddle divides.

The brief was to reflect on our anticipations of a decade ago and see how far we had been proved right and wrong. If we rewind to "1996 and all that" the event was a re-run of a conference organised by Kingston people back then which culminated in a well known and well received book

The day covered lots of the areas that tend to slip off the agenda when considering big P politics -we had contributions on the moral imperatives of Blairism, the feminisation of politics and on ethnic minority issues as well as more straightforward policy areas. We finished up with Clare Short MP and Fiona MacTaggart MP both resopnding to the day and providing their own projections for the next ten years. Clare's short sharp shock concentrated on the critique that she has honed in recent times. Fiona also spoke passionately - about the need to renew 'politics'.

The world has become an unpredictable place. I have no crystal ball for what comes next but if we're answering the question 'how was it for you?' this was always going to be about walking the tightrope of expectations management. After all New Labour was always an alternative to itself and as Fiona MacTaggart pointed out the left are never satisfied. As conference co-organiser Brian Brivati has remarked history will be kinder to Blair than the crazed atmosphere of the moment where naysayers seem to dominate the news agenda.

Universal, egalitarian socialism: not quite (admittedly) but I'd say Labour's record as the party of progressive social transformation is pretty much intact. Yes 'could do better' is an obvious thing for the school report but much has been done. It is regrettable that Iraq will be what this governement will be remembered for. As part of my presentation I flashed up a slide of a poster with Labour's last 'Forward not back' election slogan that had been defaced to read 'For war not back'. It would be foolish to reduce 10 years of acheivements at home with this reminder. Indeed other New Labour actions abroad have been laudable. Surely a government department established with a mission statement to accomplish worldwide poverty allieviation is a historical landmark. Clare Short's comments on Monday testify to the fact that, backed by significant money, DFID has become in relatively a short space of time an important player on the world stage. Bono and Chris Martin would have to agree that it's all steps in the right ... sorry, correct ... direction.

The domestic implications of foreign policy will be crucial in the next 10 years. They already are - witness all the European directives that this government has trumpeted as its own such as increased maternity and paternity leave. Look also at the disturbing rise of Muslim extremism - a multi-faceted phenomenon. For voters it will be quality of life issues that determine where they put their cross which in large degree ammounts to the economy (stupid). Anyway I began with a load of well-worn sayings so I'll end with another. I think it was Disraeli who said that 'politics' is an inexact science. As is the way with all cliches the saying is not entirely without foundation.

Fiona's point was on re-connecting was crucial though. This presents all the mainstream political parties with a central challenge. We need to reverse the pervasive tide of apathy that seems to be engulfing voters - the 'don't cares'. The people who believe that political class is all the same and different from themselves may fall into the hands of the political extremes if they percieve that the established political parties are failing to listen to there concerns. Chettering class types concerned about the environment could go green or even blue. The white working class in east london is showing a worrying propensity to vote for the BNP but the dissatisfaction that they are playing on represents a serious opportunity for UKIP or other english nationalist parties to try to plug that gap. It could be said extremism breeds extremism and at a Progress event on the BNP Bath University's Roger Eatwell made an intersting connection between The BNP and Muslim extremists. The recruiting arguments of both are sometimes not dissimilar.

For more blogging background to the meeting see
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_brivati/2006/08/new_labour_ten_yeas.htm

Five tests for Gordon Brown

The Chancellor’s five economic tests became Britain's iron rule on entry to the single European currency. In that spirit, here are five tests that Gordon Brown needs to meet before he can win the Labour leadership contest, yet alone build a platform for a Labour fourth term.

1. Announce a debate on Labour’s future direction. Labour organisations as diverse as Progress, the Fabians and Compass want a debate on ideas and issues, not on when Tony hands the keys in. Leading a dialogue about the next decade of new Labour would give you the opportunity to flesh out your political values to an uncertain audience, scuppering those who want to paint you into a political corner.

2. Don’t ask for Tony’s endorsement. Blair may have been the most successful Labour leader of all time, but the popularity of every Prime Minister expires. Be confident and be yourself. The public may still chime with new Labour values, but they want a leader with a different style to Blair’s. Don’t fret over every comment page which criticises your puritanical values: a serious hardworking approach will be welcomed, if it is genuine. Pretending to be a fan of the Arctic Monkeys, or a life long England fan will not.

3. Hold back your troops. Constant infighting, backstabbing and behind the scenes briefing damages your chances of winning the leadership as much as it damages Blair. If Labour MPs think Iraq affected perceptions of the government, then a full scale civil war in Labour ranks will only add to public disregard. Inheriting a bloodstained crown will surely mean the kingdom is short lived. A No 10 adviser once called Brown 'a Shakespearean tragedy' – it is crucial that such prophecies are broken.

4. Don’t drift to the left. The temptation must be immense, but elections, even Labour party elections are won from the centre. The early period of office will define your premiership. Labour needs to reconnect with those areas of middle England that went Tory at the last council elections in order to win the next General Election. The great challenges of globalisation, energy security, the war on terror, pensions and individual prosperity will not be addressed from the extremes of politics.

5. Hit Cameron where it hurts. The Tories are supposedly relishing the prospect of Cameron going head to head with Brown over the Despatch Box. But Gordon should too. Cameron may be the first Tory leader in recent times with a strategy to win back power, but he has no policies. Gordon has experience, is seen as trustworthy, and serious. Cameron is all spin, while the British public increasingly see spin as the new sleaze. Cameron must be exposed – not only is he shallow, but fundamentally he has not changed the Tory party. His frontbench has none of the talent that Gordon Brown’s Cabinet will have.

Gordon Brown can use his much anticipated speech to party conference to establish his modernising credentials. He must show that he, not David Cameron is the natural heir to Blair. No-one expects him to announce his leadership manifesto now, but he must signal a willingness to engage with the kind of policy debate that every Labour party member, whether on the left, right, Blairite or Brownite wing wants to see.