Last night, the parliamentary Labour party debated and agreed to ballot Labour MPs on a rule change from Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey – two of the MPs who last year nominated Liz Kendall – which sought to eject from his place on Labour’s national executive Steve Rotheram, MP for Liverpool Walton who nominated Andy Burnham. […]
Posts under ‘Activism’
Make Labour’s rules up as you go along is still the 4.5%er preference
Jan 19th, 2016 by Jon Lansman.
What’s love got to do with it? A brief rejoinder to Peter Hyman
Dec 24th, 2015 by David Osland.The Labour right and the Labour left never was one of the great romances. Ever since the couple plighted their troths on 15 February 1906, theirs has always been the very exemplar of loveless marriage. Little wonder that both partners have been guilty of flirtation – and sometimes adulterous couplings – at repeated intervals, for […]
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UNISON activists need to move on from the General Secretary election
Dec 23rd, 2015 by Andy Newman.I am not a member of UNISON, and I am neither qualified nor inclined to comment on the respective merits of the various candidates who recently contested their election for General Secretary. However, I do think that there is cause for concern for the whole labour movement that such a large and important union may […]
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Dave Prentis re-elected general secretary amidst allegations of ballot rigging
Dec 18th, 2015 by Keith Wright.Dave Prentis was yesterday declared re-elected as leader of UNISON, the UK’s largest public sector union, amidst allegations of ballot rigging, in face of a call by one-third of the union’s national executive committee for his suspension and with a public petition calling for an independent inquiry and the election to be re-run. One candidate has now issued a legal […]
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All I want for Christmas is a democratic socialist agenda, Jeremy
Dec 15th, 2015 by David Osland.So much for the clandestine mutterings that Corbyn would be gone by Christmas, then. By now it must be obvious to even the dimmest 4.5%er that they won’t be finding a new Labour leader in their stocking come 24 December. Do you really think it’s an accident that Corbyn has been photographed in a Santa […]
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Labour First are wrong: debate is not a distraction
Dec 15th, 2015 by Patrick Smith.Buried at the bottom of a model motion circulated by the right-wing Labour First is a call to ban any changes to the Party’s selection process until after the General Election. This would mean that no rule change could be submitted to conference until 2021 and would not be debated until 2022. This is the constitutional […]
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The anti-Imperialism of fools
Dec 13th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Ever since IS became the next big bogey to fill the USSR-sized gap in the perceived threats-to-our-existence market, I knew it would be a matter of time before an empty-headed comparison was made between Islamists scuttling into Syria and the volunteers who flocked to Spain to fight fascism in the 1930s. It was no surprise […]
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Advice for “bullied” MPs: stop moaning
Dec 7th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I’ve bullied an MP. In the Autumn of 1997, a small group of annoyed students gathered on the steps of Hanley town hall to shout at then honourable member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Mark Fisher, as he gave a constituency surgery. This was a few months after our shiny New Labour government announced the abolition of […]
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Historical allusions: a helpful guide for Blairites and appeal for cooperation
Nov 30th, 2015 by David Osland.Gordon Bennett, those Blairites (a historical term for people roughly corresponding with the 4.5%ers – Ed) can’t half be a bunch of drama queens sometimes. The merest slight to the amour propre of the tattered remnants of New Labourism often meets with hyperbolic allusion to some of the most dramatic events of recent centuries by way […]
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Ann Black’s report from Labour’s November executive
Nov 29th, 2015 by Ann Black.National Executive Committee, 17 November 2015 Ann Black reports on Labour’s national executive committee meeting which took place this month. The first meeting after conference is always a long session, planning for the challenges ahead. Overall objectives were to develop Labour as a campaigning movement, achieve real change, build trust in communities, and win elections at all […]
