Today Compass formally launches Plan B to kickstart the economy. Typically, however, it has already been fully leaked in yesterday’s Observer. It has some helpful (though not particularly original) ideas. It wants to stop the cuts, start a new round of quantitative easing but giving the money direct to businesses, raise benefits to ease poverty [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Compass’
Ed Miliband: against factionalism… except for certain factions?
Apr 22nd, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Ed Miliband is against factionalism. Succeeding Blair and Brown, he has to be. As has been pointed out, the “paradox of post-factionalism” is that everyone counts heads to make sure he is. And to be fair, he’s even opened the door to some of those whom the Blairites judged unpersons — though he hasn’t shown [...]
Could Labour have won in 2010?
Apr 19th, 2011 by Andy Newman.In the final days of last year’s general election campaign, Gordon Brown visited Skelmersdale, to a raw emotional reception. This was an election where Labour was too slow to realise that working class memories of what a Tory government is like were strong. Polly Toynbee, to her credit, did pick up that it was different from politics as usual, and [...]
Party loyalists resign from Compass
Mar 11th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Following the recent decision by Compass to admit members of other political parties, the organisation has been hit today by a number of resignations. Nine leading members of Compass Youth including the chair, Cat Smith, and Ben Folley, a member of the national management committee, have resigned. They argue that the new rules “diminish the [...]
Compass have left a vacuum on Labour’s centre-left
Feb 26th, 2011 by Andy Newman.Mark Ferguson on Labour List very pertinently asks whether Compass have turned their back on Labour. On an admittedly low 13% turn out, the Compass membership has voted more than 2:1 to open their membership out to members of other political parties. Their specific orientation is towards the Liberal Democrats, as their statement on the result of last year’s [...]
Is Compass about to implode?
Dec 6th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.The future of Compass, Labour’s highest profile pressure group for many years, is in the balance. Things haven’t worked out quite like its leading lights expected. The leadership, for instance. Neal Lawson, Compass Chair, wanted Jon Cruddas to do the job. Jon Cruddas didn’t feel up to it and, though he’d been telling everyone who [...]
Compass backs Ed Miliband
Sep 3rd, 2010 by Jon Lansman.Compass has voted overwhelmingly to back Ed Miliband with 55% of first preferences in a surprisingly small turnout of 626. It may be too late to have any effect on the outcome but it does reveal something about where Compass members stand. Only one in eight members backed Jon Cruddas’s stance of suppoprt for David [...]
Compass and the Leadership
Sep 2nd, 2010 by Jon Lansman.“By this week-end, three quarters of the votes in the 2010 Labour leadership election will have been cast. The contest will effectively be over.” So Dan Hedges at Labour Uncut points out. And the effective end of the contest neatly coincides with the announcement of the result of the Compass ballot on who they’re going [...]
Compass: A New Hope?
Jun 14th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.It would be churlish to do other than congratulate Compass for organising its conference “A New Hope” at the weekend. Bringing together a thousand people to hear such a wide range of policy debate, some good keynote speeches and the leadership hustings is more than any other organisation on the Left could currently achieve. But [...]
Centre Left bids for policy-making power
May 19th, 2010 by Jon Lansman.Whilst the eyes of the media are focused on the Leadership election, nominations also open this week for other important elections. A Left slate is emerging for both Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Policy Forum (NPF). The most significant of these is the NPF election: for the first time, this will be [...]
