In a packed hall a mile from London’s Olympic park, the London Labour Party’s biennial conference was in bullish mood this last weekend. In spite of the loss of last year’s mayoral election, delegates and platform alike sounded confident that London Labour is in good shape electorally, as well as determined and radical in its [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Party Rules’
Labour candidate selection: UPDATE
Jan 24th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.Yesterday we reported on changes to Labour’s parliamentary candidate selection procedures. We did so on having spoken to members of the executive about the meeting and the content of the papers they had received. Unfortunately, we got it wrong in some respects — and fortunately the changes turn out to be better than we’d understood [...]
Labour executive tinkers with candidate selection but radical surgery needed
Jan 23rd, 2013 by Jon Lansman.(With Postscript on by-elections and late selections and please also see this update) Selecting a parliamentary candidate in a winnable seat is perhaps the greatest influence a party member has on the political process. And it might happen only once in 20 or 30 years. You would think Labour’s national executive would give it serious [...]
Ann Black’s report from September’s Labour executive and conference
Oct 11th, 2012 by Ann Black.National Executive Committee (NEC), September / October 2012, in London and Manchester NEC Meeting, Tuesday 25 September Ed Miliband previewed the themes of his conference speech: continuing to attack the Tories for unfairness, incompetence and failure even in their own terms; showing how Labour could make a difference now; developing an economy that works for everyone; and [...]
Ed fails to deliver on his promise of empowering members
Sep 26th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.At Labour’s national executive yesterday, Ed Miliband failed to deliver on his leadership campaign promise to give members more say in policy making. The final package of Refounding Labour measures they have agreed is shrouded in the language of empowering members, as were those introduced by Tony Blair in 1997 and Gordon Brown in 2007. The reality, [...]
To consolidate its lead Labour now needs to correct 3 major mistakes
Jul 23rd, 2012 by Michael Meacher.With business leaders, even the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, now slamming Osborne’s policy for indecision, equivocation, short-termism and political manipulation, Labour must now be poised to take a decisive lead in the crucial area of economic policy. But if it is going to consolidate a lead which at present is much [...]
At last, let’s have a policy process which empowers members
May 21st, 2012 by Jon Lansman.Last week we welcomed Ed’s replacement of Liam Byrne with Jon Cruddas and his nomination of Angela Eagle to chair Labour’s national policy forum. The fact was that Liam Byrne had wasted 18 months without any genuine advance in the policy review, and Peter Hain had failed to establish a working model of member participation [...]
The question now is not will we win with Ed, but how we win with Ed
May 4th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.Who says we cannot win with Ed Miliband as Leader? It was only in January that a meeting of leading Progress MPs decided not to challenge him this side of a general election — not because they really back him but because they couldn’t bring themselves to back Balls or Cooper, and they didn’t have a [...]
In defence of Eric Joyce
Mar 10th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.It is not every day that we devote space to the defence of centre-right Labour MPs; nor do we in any way condone the drunken and violent behaviour of Eric Joyce in the Strangers Bar at the House of Commons. However, when we read today that “Labour officials made it clear that Joyce who has [...]
Call for Labour inquiry into the organisation & activities of party-within-a-party Progress
Feb 20th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.A 20-page dossier which seems to have been widely circulated, including to all Labour constituency party secretaries, is calling on Labour’s national executive to “determine the organisational nature of Progress, and whether or not this form of organisation is acceptable inside the Labour Party.” The extremely high level of funding of Progress, combined with periodic [...]
