Powenna

“I think Labour should set up small pots of money that local Labour groups can bid for in order to undertake certain community projects of their choosing. That way you can develop some accountability over local campaigns, and back the best ones.”

A pleasant enough idea, but as ever the accountability only goes one way, from grassroots to hierarchy.

A more radical approach is to devolve the party’s funds (including, in time, MPs’ consitituency allowances and Short monies) down to CLP level in the first place, so that those higher up the chain then bid to CLPs for their resources through, say, the provision of a yearly business plan againstw which they can then be held to account. That way the CLP (who effectively become like trustees of a charity) can ensure that the small community-enhancing projects, which you rightly want to see happen over and above vapid voter ID activity, are built into the plans.

Reversal of power structures in this way will drive local party energies, and because power now lies in a more accessible place in the party, will also drive recruitment (and affiliation).

That more radical transfer of power and resources to the lowest manageable level is what we’ve set out in our submission to Refounding Labour, though I suspect it’s your moderate proposals, where power, resources and lines of accountability and responsbility keep heading the same way as ever, which will get taken up. If they do, they will be good, but in a small, disappoiniting, lost opportunity kind of way.

Sorry Rowenna – that p for r was just a typo

No complaints about those. However the rhetoric about re-founding the party by those on high, will, I suspect, not be followed through by meaningful action. Why? Because there is an inherent reluctance from those with power to relinquish it, and more pointedly, there is an enormous gulf between the poltical/socio-economic outlook of current and prospective grass-roots members and too many current Labour MPs who cling on to New Labourism, neo-liberalism and have Blairite outlooks. They are the sticking-point: their lingering presence in prominent positions (and/or their media tartery) deters many.

What do you think Labour should do in terms of the Blairite shadow that hangs over it? I can’t help but think that Blair is gonna be like Thatcher was the the Tories – the difference is it’s easier for the Labour Party to disown Blair/Brown and would think there might be mileage in someone at the top of the party doing so.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13914013

Rowenna,

How about actually looking at the people who the Labour Party are actually supposed to represent as opposed the people who you would merely like the approval of?

Over the last couple of months here and other bloggs, major discussions have been going on regarding the persecution of disabled people at ATOS. In fact, there have been demonstrations outside their offices. Why not have major spokespeople admit that ATOS are too heavy handed and campaign against the unjust manner that people with seemingly insurmountable disabilities are being passed as fit for work. This persecution culminating in an unashamed attack by Phillip Davis proposing to exclude disabled people from the minimum wage, undermining the minimum wage in the process.

Why are Labour MPs and councillors conspicuous by their absence from these demonstrations and debates? The ‘best’ Labour could manage this week in condemnation was describing the SNP as ‘Neo-fascists’. We are seeing attacks on local services, but no Labour people on picket lines, either. We see the terms and conditions of those in most need being systematically sliced away, yet the Labour movement are posted missing, why?

I don’t want to disparage ‘community projects’, but surely having the poor suffer the brunt of the cuts should be priorities, one, two and three?

There is nothing wrong with Labour’s ‘diversity’, what Labour needs if focus. People are less interested in the make up of the Party and more interested in what is it you actually stand for.

Stand up for people and give them a reason to join in and explain that, for example, the minimum wage is under threat unless they take active part in defending it.

Once upon a time there was a nice middle class kid with an effete forename who wanted to do something for the poor of London, where he was brought up. He went into community work (although he also fought for his country) and from there into Labour politics. He knew that working people had formed organisations to fight for their interests, and that he had to work with them – indeed he wholly accepted that the Labour Party existed only to promote the political objectives of the Trades Unions. And those objectives could only be secured if the workers secured the commanding heights of the economy. In the culmination of his political career, he formed a government which implemented an adequate welfare net, set up a Health Service and nationalised key industries.

Fast forward sixty years and we have another such kid, with her foot on the first rung of the ladder, who appears to know nothing and care less about Labour’s history – who never mentions the Unions let alone uses the word “socialism”. Instead she wants to expand the use of market signals within the Party’s own adminisitration. Her ambition appears to be to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Those of us who think the current Labour Front Bench a pathetic shower, with neither passion nor principles, should take heed. This is what the future looks like: third-rate wannabes who are only too ready to do the capitalists’ dirty work for them by running soup kitchens and literacy classes in deprived neighbourhoods.

A half-decent Labour Party would expel Ms Davis, preferably via her Twitter account. If she had an ounce of honesty or decency she would take herself off to the Lib Dems, where she belongs.

[6] “This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term.”
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/clement-attlee

But could such a man do business with the likes of Blair, Campbell, Mandy or the Milli-bores?

[7] You know the answer to that as well as I do.

For the avoidance of doubt: I have no issue with working-class Labourites being right-wing, as indeed many of Attlee’s cabinet were. But those of us who were born into the middle-class, as I was (just: my father had an external London degree which he studied for at night school whilst working – a pattern which will doubtless return for those who can’t afford to borrow £60k+ for a fullt-ime degree) have to choose – we have no place in the Labour Party except as socialists. Michael Foot and Tom Driberg – indeed pretty well all that generation – understood this perfectly well.

Rowenna Davis wrote what appears to be some kind of application, possibly angling for a job as adviser at Westminster. It ommitted any mention, as Mike@6 pointed out, of the history of the movement, the fact that we are a socialist party and one other thing she chose to ignore, the contribution of the working class. The article could’ve come from any of the glut of Blairite, New Labour, purely middle class cronies who were all over the media when David Miliband did’nt win the leadership race. You see my point Rowenna, he lost because the people who form the heart and soul of THE LABOUR PARTY rejected the most middle class of the two candidates. The rest were never going to win, they just do’nt have the experience of government(Diane Abbot), or they were seen as to close to the Blair/Brown administration(David M, Ed Balls, etc. etc.) Ed M is relatively new to the game, certainly middle class but slightly more aware of the world beyond Westminster than his brother. My main criticism of him, is that he always tries to be reasonable with everyone. If you think someone is behaving like a twat, treat them as such. Forget politeness and protocol, say what you see and tell it like it is. Firebrand politicians, forthright orators, plain-speaking no frills people, that was the kind of politician Labour were once proud to count among their number. I long for the day when those people are the ones making the headlines again, instead of what we have now: bland, inoffensive, fence-sitting, non-committal party clones, all waiting for a call from the media, offering a profile boost, or waiting for the leadership to notice them. If you want get noticed, do something notable, kick up a stink, be controversial and, most of all, remember which party you joined and why. If you only joined for the money and the fame, you joined the wrong party. We are socialists with a concience, not social climbers with a desire to be Z list celebrities.

@9

Oh come off it. Other than 1983 the Labour Party’s topdogs have always been mainstream and right of the main party. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or that it should always be this way but don’t pretend there was some golden age where Labour politicians were extolling the virtues of the working class and socialism at every available opportunity. Even Atlee was more centre than left judging by the criterea of the day.

I’m not saying their was a golden age, I’m saying we used to have people on the benches who were never afraid to vent their spleen. Since Blair took charge, it seems as though rising through the ranks to sit at the top table became priority 1. Standing up and speaking out became almost the kiss of death for your prospects of getting anywhere. Certainly, Labour has had its’ fair share of bigots, MCPs, idiots, hypocrites, liars and thieves, although when Brown took over, those types appeared to wind their necks in, unfortunately they switched from making offensive comments in public, to secret briefings, leaks to the media and general mudslinging on the anonymous platform of the internet. Back in the day, at least they ID’d themselves in public, so you knew who was a genuine socialist, and who was a cuckoo in the nest. Chief cuckoo, Blair, showed them the art of double -speak and slieght of hand. Net result, New Labour, total fucking disgrace.

[11] “Chief cuckoo, Blair, showed them the art of double -speak and slieght of hand. Net result, New Labour, total fucking disgrace” – some say the price of Tony’s ‘journey’ was the very soul of the party itself?
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/1/30/1264890484341/Chris-Riddel-Observer-com-001.jpg

Remember the optimism in ’97 – if we only knew then, what we know now.

Today we have put our faith in Ed, but maybe staking your hopes on a candidate with the shadow of fratricide hanging over him does not auger well?
http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d417153ef0133f496ec3f970b-800wi

Perhaps one of the reasons ‘Blue Labour’ has been touted is the vacuum that followed in the wake of Blairism.

I do not think any of RD’s aspirations are wrong in themselves but neither do I think they will do anything to re-energise a party, a party born out of trades unionism and socialist ideals, that nowadays seems rather rudderless?

@ 8 Mike Killingworth

“But those of us who were born into the middle-class, as I was have to choose – we have no place in the Labour Party except as socialists.”

It’s a trifle weird to claim that the selection of valid political positions available to you are determined by your class. What you’re saying is that I (middle-class) and a working-class person could support Labour for identical reasons, but my position would be “wrong” and his would be “right”.

[13] If I was talking about another Party – the Greens, for instance – it wouldn’t be “a trifle weird”, CG – it would be completely crackers. The whole discussion we’re having here, however, is predicated on the fact that Labour is a horse of a different colour (red, not blue): created to promote the interests of a particular class by a particular method – as described in Clause Four as was, and referred to by a number of us here as “socialism”.

Anyone who is a member of the working class as conventionally understood sociologically, i.e. a worker “by hand” can join the Party as of right – it exists for her and she joins it to promote her own interests. It is not for others to say that she doesn’t know how to do that!

Workers “by brain” may join the Party but they do not do so for the same reason. They (I left in 1990, I could smell what was coming in the wind) should only do so out of altruism. For example, even if we thought that Scargill mishandled the miners’ strike, it was not for us to say so.

OP – “If Labour wants to win, local groups need to focus on tangible issues as well as minutes and voter ID. In five years time it has to be able to answer the question “What did Labour do for the local community?”

How about supporting tangible issues like the public sector workers’ strike on 30 June, preferably by marching alongside the trade unionists who pay for the Party and do most of the electioneering leg-work?

[15] “How about supporting tangible issues like the public sector workers’ strike on 30 June, preferably by marching alongside the trade unionists who pay for the Party and do most of the electioneering leg-work?” – the strike is a mistake according to our Ed – he says: “The most important thing for the unions is to get the public to understand what their argument is. I don’t think the argument has yet been got across on public sector pensions as to some of the injustices contained on what the government is doing. Personally I don’t think actually strike action is going to help win that argument and I think it inconveniences the public. I think strikes must always be the very last resort.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/24/labour-ed-miliband-reform

@14 Mike Killingworth

Jeez… with such a welcoming inclusive outlook like that, how could a politcal movement hope to fail in the 21st century?

Attitudes like this help explain why Labour is the hollowed out husk of a party we see today. The continuity militant tendency and the nauseating New Labour parasite that sucked the remaining life out of the Labour party are both equally to blame.

Sadly, given recent events, it’s not as if we even have a viable alternative (except perhaps in Scotland).

It may be true that if it isn’t broke, you don’t need to fix it, it must be equally true that when things are broken beyond repair they aren’t worse fixing.

The tension between the Blairite/Brownite rump and the far left aren’t going to go away, and it’s obvious that since they are co-dependent they will sink together. Old Labour, New Labour and Newer Labour were about as far away from being progressive or radical now as they were in the 60′s or in 1945.

As currently constituted, they have zero prospect of coming up with a progressive, radical platform to promote a fairer and more equal society, to reduce the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, and to address issues like saving the NHS, promoting a better education system, helping to tackle climate change etc.

Things may get worse before they get better, but hoping that refounding the Labour Party is the answer flies in the face of decades of woeful under-performance and failure to change the face of Britain.

Enough, and more than enough of this parcel of rogues.

17 amends

“aren’t worth fixing” obviously…. dontcha love touch screens?

“Rowenna,

How about actually looking at the people who the Labour Party are actually supposed to represent as opposed the people who you would merely like the approval of?”

Hear hear. I’d also add that Ed Miliband should apologise for the speech he made suggesting that people on IB were perfectly able to do some jobs. If a doctor finds someone not fit to work, they are not fit to work. He should apologise to all disabled people for implying they are lazy, to the man in question for his assumptions, and to the man’s doctor for implying that the doctor was not doing his job properly.

When he does this, I’ll vote Labour.

@19 Richard

“When he does this, I’ll vote Labour.”

Really? On the basis of one apology relating to one speech on one policy area?

Seems to me you’re too easily impressed. even if he did apologise, and you believed him to be sincere….. how about everything else?

That apology would be very welcome, though.

[17] Well, mining villages and Council estates in Docklands communities are well known for being welcoming and inclusive?

I don’t have any expectations of the Labour Party – early on in this site’s life I wrote a short series of articles suggesting how it might usefully be torn apart and rebuilt into something fit for purpose. Whether the yawning (and expanding) gap between rich and poor can be narrowed by action merely inside one set of national boundaries is a nice question, though.

[17] “it must be equally true that when things are broken beyond repair they aren’t worth fixing” – yet the social injustices that first drove the party remain, so who else will represent this constituency?

In ’97 many believed NuLabour could redress some of the damage inflicted on the country by Thatch and the cricket loving, Egwina shagging grey man who followed her.
But what will Tony actually be remembered for?
*Spin?
*Tuition fees?
*Destabilising the NHS as a publicly owned and publicly run service?
*Eroding civil liberties?
*Oh, and something bad that happened in Iraq?

Now amazingly all of those ordinary people who did not fare terribly well after Mandy & Co took the reigns still regard Labour as their natural representatives, the obvious question is why?

Well it is easy to spend just 5 minutes listening to Dave & Nick to realise that these toffs, and the business interests they pander to, are not really much of an improvement – while a few labourites have drifted into the arms of the greens and sadly a few are even disillusioned enough to throw their lot in with the comedy villains (aka the BNP).

Labour may have dug a very deep hole for itself but the battle is not lost just yet, if only because the needs of groups Labour traditionally represent remain as important today as they did when the NHS began.

. It ommitted any mention, as Mike@6 pointed out, of the history of the movement, the fact that we are a socialist party and one other thing she chose to ignore,

Oh FFS – grow up will you. The submission process wasn’t about writing a history of the Labour party. People who want to go back to the golden ages of the 1950s need to realise that the world has moved on.

[24] See [23]. Don’t throw stones, Sunny – they might get thrown back.

From the other side of the political fence, I’d think Labour would be a lot more distinctive if they advocated not socialism but clear cut social democracy, and were open about displaying those instincts.

That would of course mean some unpopular positions such as being publicly pro-European, but they could be the first to break away from the charge to the mythical centre that is pretty boring…

In truth, all three parties need to die as none are fit for purpose – then we can bring in a proportional voting system and some new untainted parties can fight that out. A lot of the tribal stuff that separates the parties hinged on battles that have already been fought and won/lost.

http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/

Well said @23, it’s like the fat kid at school, getting picked on, just because he’s big and a bit cumbersome. The kid has a good heart and just wants to help people, so it would’nt hurt to help him lose a bit of the bulk. The coalition however, are so set against our tubby friend, they want to starve him/her to the point where prostitution is the only option left. The private sector has the cash, ‘Dodgey Davey C is the pimp, bored with slapping around his main bitch, Nikki C, he decided to target the fat kid. Nikki saw a chance to punish her pimp, for the shitty way he treats her, so she lied and said,”It is so wrong ov ya Davey, you pickin’ on the fat kid. You is a nasty man.” It was a bit rich of Nikki C, considering that, she egged Davey on, she hates the fat kid as well, for living on state handouts and Nikki thinks if you have lots of money, you must be better than poor people.

@ 16.the a&e charge nurse

‘the strike is a mistake according to our Ed – he says: “The most important thing for the unions is to get the public to understand what their argument is …” ‘ etc

Thanks, a&e. You’ve just reminded me of one of the reasons I left the Party after 20 years. What was another? Oh, yes … Iraq, that was it … and then there was (cont. p.94)

@25 – you feel free to join and campaign for the TUSC by all means.

Sunny @ 24

Sunny, the World may have moved on, but it appears that we are still fighting the same battles that the Labour movement originally came into being to counter. It has been said that a week is a long time in politics, but if that is true, what about a hundred and twenty years?

At the beginning of the last Century, the ‘Left’ of politics was concerned about the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor and the working class being denied decent housing, decent education, decent wages, terms and conditions, decent healthcare. Throughout the Labour’s history we have fought and won many of those battles. Either outright or partial victories, but progress was made. Let’s not put too fine a point on this, even under the Tories we saw our society advance. The post War settlement appeared to give us a significant advancement in our collective goals, right up to the early eighties. Then what? Slowly but surely the basic building blocks were removed from that settlement. The council stock, organised labour and labour laws like the Works Councils (Winston Churchill) and the slow death of the NHS occurred. What do we see today?

There is nothing ‘modern’ about the disabled being made to fend for themselves and being expected to rely on alms from passing strangers, the unemployed expected to Dutch auction themselves in a fight for survival, whilst Capital reap the rewards, the sick being unable to afford to go to hospital and the rich buying their way to university. This is where we on the Left started.

For someone to suggest that the number one priority for Labour is ‘more diversity’ is simply a joke. I will concede that ‘diversity’ may be a good thing, but it is not an end in itself. ‘Diversity’ is merely a bell weather telling us we are doing the right thing right across the board. The question is not, ‘how do we appeal to working class Muslims and middle class gays’. The answer is ‘working class Muslims are knocking on our door’, that tells us we are doing the right thing. If ethnic minorities are put of by our inaction, that is our fault, because we cannot convince them that their struggle is our struggle. We do not need special pleading, everyone should be considered special to us. If the Labour Party are not for the weak and the vulnerable, then what is the point? If we ONLY want people to bolster our ‘diversity’ then we are wasting their time as well as ours.

What has happened over the last thirty years is that the political classes have managed to disconnect the lower echelons of the class system with the rest of society. We have seen the people who comprise of the bottom rungs of society become detached from the rest of us. We have saw their terms and conditions been quietly torn up. The Labour Party tried to tidy that up to an extent, but we have allowed the ‘Right’ the ability to divorce the fate of the shopworker from that of the welder. The man on three or four hundred quid a week feels that as long as we kill the working conditions of the lowest paid workers and it won’t affect him. That is why we cannot build council housing, defend the poor, the sick the unemployed and the disabled. We have forgotten that humanity that made people to campaign for welfare States, the NHS or disabled Rights.

That is what Labour needs to remember and produce. I am not saying it is easy, but then again, nothing worth having is ever easy. If we never make the effort then we will look aback at the 1950s and ask ourselves was it worth it? Was the struggles we fought for everything worth it if we knew we would lose them all thirty years from now?

Just ecause the disabled are not powerful does not mean we have to let them rot, does it?

And here was I thinking that what Labour needs is to stand up for the “labouring” class!

More diversity – Why ? Immigrants all vote Labour anyway and Labour is losing votes because of its deeply unpopular policy of mass immigration.
Throw money at it – Is this the right message for a Party convicted in the court of popular opinion of being spenda-holics ?
Party democracy- The Labour Party is left of the country and way left of the voters it needs in the South. The members are left of the Labour Party( so said Polly Toynbee today admiringly ). The obvious conclusion is that they should have less say.
Party of Protest- …Oh dear..

As a Conservative this is the sort of thinking that makes me content .If some one started thinking about how to attract people who see themselves as ordinary tax payers who would like to afford an extension, then you might start to worry. Nonetheless Rowenna seems a sincere and committed person and, lets face it, Peckham provides few clues as to how the Labour Party might re -inhabit main stream political space. From her perspective this probably all makes sense

For someone to suggest that the number one priority for Labour is ‘more diversity’ is simply a joke. I will concede that ‘diversity’ may be a good thing, but it is not an end in itself.

Since its neither said that should be the number 1 priority, nor that its an end in itself, you’re basically arguing against yourself. So well done for that.

Also, I’m amused that a piece arguing for Labour to have more social diversity in the backgrounds of people who get into the party (especially class) has a whole bunch of people frothing about Muslims and ethnics, while arguing Labour has stopped listening to working class people. Well done for missing the point entirely.

7. the a&e charge nurse

But could such a man do business with the likes of Blair, Campbell, Mandy or the Milli-bores?

No but that has a good side as well as a bad side. Times have changed. Some for the better. Some not. So keep in mind that if Attlee did not radically change his views, he would not find a home in the modern Labour Party – not with New Labour and not with the quasi-SWP inner city middle classes either. After all, what else did Attlee’s government do? Jail homosexuals. Support the Empire. Restrict non-White immigration. Stay out of the EU. If he was alive today, his views would find no political home except perhaps the BNP.

People who want to go back to the golden ages of the 1950s need to realise that the world has moved on.

Mike Killingworth makes a persuasive case that nobody named Rowenna should ever be allowed to join the Labour Party however, for once, Sunny has got it right. Because working class socialism has been defeated over the last 50 years- first the nationalised industries didn’t work, then Thatcher defeated the miners, then technology decimated the numbers of people needed to “work by hand”.

Even the term “working class” is a relic of the past so the fact is that the traditional constituency of the Labour Party has disappeared and Mike’s call for a purer socialist party is asking for the kiss of life for a dinosaur. The once proud communities of working people have been replaced by the ghetto estates of an underclass where only the worthless choose to remain.

So the Labour Party, having no natural constituency left, has morphed into a cabal of bleeding heart, middle class wannabe intellectuals. They have assumed an entitlement to exercise power because of their naive certainty that they know what’s best for the rest of us- career politicians with a “progressive” authoritarian bent governing on behalf of the feckless.

So Mike is wrong and Sunny is right- the modern Labour Party desperately needs another parliamentary researcher named Rowenna.

[34] “After all, what else did Attlee’s government do? Jail homosexuals” – let’s not go to far down the road of suggesting that Atlee symbolised some kind of ideological endpoint.

Wilson’s government decriminalised homosexuality (Sexual Offences Act 1967) while Labour introduced the Civil Partnerships Act in 2004.

What about the tories?
Well I suppose we have to give credit to D-Cam who said, “I am sorry for Section 28. We got it wrong. It was an emotional issue. I hope you can forgive us.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/5710650/David-Cameron-says-sorry-over-Section-28-gay-law.html

I must admit I do not know a great deal about Labour’s post war immigration policy, but it would not surprise me to learn that it was discriminatory.
We clearly had a long way to go back then but I do not think we can equate such views with the BNP not least because the party was not formed until 1982.

According to this poll Atlee was ranked Britain’s greatest PM of the 20th C.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=661

[35] Quite. Yet I’d still like to find some common ground with Sunny.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jim at [30], but I’m not altogether sure where Sunny stands on that one. If he thinks – as he seems to – that inegalitarian politics are impractical politics, then of course I can refer him to any number of political campaigns that seemed pie-in-the-sky at one point in time but later carried the day.

It would be a start if Sunny could remind us all of where he disagrees with Paul Newman [32].

sunny @ 33

Since its neither said that should be the number 1 priority, nor that its an end in itself, you’re basically arguing against yourself. So well done for that.

Sunny I got that from the OP on this very piece:

The first thing we need is more diversity – and I say that as a white middle class councillor in the heart of Peckham.

The first thing, Sunny? Why?

Also, I’m amused that a piece arguing for Labour to have more social diversity in the backgrounds of people who get into the party (especially class) has a whole bunch of people frothing about Muslims and ethnics

No, I am not frothing about Muslims and ethnic minorities. The Labour Party have a dark history when it comes to ethnic minorities I am afraid. When people from the West Indies first emigrated to Britain in large numbers a couple of branches of the Labour Party actually voted to stop these people from becoming members. Pretty shameful stuff and mistakes that I hope the Labour movement, never makes again. I would hate to think anyone would be excluded from the movement under any circumstances.

I am not suggesting that Labour should discourage people from joining, but that we should be attracting people from diverse backgrounds because our message is crystal clear, not because a councillor has announced it is the ‘First thing we need’. The first thing we need is to identify the real issues that confront working people on a daily basis and addressing those real needs. If we do that, the ‘diversity’ will come as a natural consequence.

[35] “Because working class socialism has been defeated over the last 50 years” – if it has it has little to do with “the ghetto estates of an underclass where only the worthless choose to remain” but rather the cunningness of vested interests who have become adept at keeping ordinary people divided (not least through the relentless propaganda spewed out by the the likes of the Fail).

I suppose the movers and shakers must be chuckling to themselves given the amount of column inches covering extremism, chavs, or all the other supposed subversives who present such a dire threat to the very fabric of our society?

It is all too easy to undermine the aspirations of such a large and disparate constituency (the working class) – perhaps this is why community and collectivism have always been core values for most decent labourites and these values are still worth fighting for – as I say above, what’s the alternative?

Mike Killingworth makes a persuasive case that nobody named Rowenna should ever be allowed to join the Labour Party

Or Clement, Herbert, or Hugh? How does Gwyneth sit? Posh, or sufficiently regional? Wilson’s Scottish Secretary was called Eustace. Very Crouch End.

I think Sunny is right, everyone unhappy with the Labour Parties lack of activity on opposing the cuts, or the governments NHS bill, or privatisation of services, or attacks on the disabled, or any of the other failures of the current party, should go and join TUSC. The Labour party isn’t going to do anything on those issues beyond empty hand wringing, as they largely support them.

The Labour party is a pro-business pro-privatisation party. The important people in this country are the rich (who can provide donations and rewards for services rendered) and self interested politically light floating voters with no real beliefs who decide the results in marginal constituencies by voting not according to principals, but short term headlines.

Sunny’s right, most of the people commenting here are living in the past. The Labour party isn’t for them, and hasn’t been for them for a long time. And they should realise that and move on.

Ben2 @ 41

The Labour party isn’t for them, and hasn’t been for them for a long time. And they should realise that and move on.

Then who is it for, Ben? If the Labour no longer support working people, the disabled, the poor, the voiceless, carers, union members, those who are defenceless then who is the Labour Party for? If they are not about housing, health wages, terms and conditions, day care, respite, the care of the elderly, education, the defence of those with no voice in society, then what are they about?

41. @ Ben2

“Sunny’s right, most of the people commenting here are living in the past. The Labour party isn’t for them, and hasn’t been for them for a long time. And they should realise that and move on.”

We (= tens of thousands) already have realised that and moved on, but not because we’re “living in the past”. Blair’s custodianship took the Party not so much backwards as rightwards, with the tangible symptoms of increased inequality and war-mongering.

In direct response to the OP I asked quite genuinely @ 15 “How about supporting tangible issues like the public sector workers’ strike on 30 June, preferably by marching alongside the trade unionists who pay for the Party and do most of the electioneering leg-work?”

I’m still waiting for an answer. A party that believes that making working people pay for the capitalist shambles and that argues against open opposition to that shambles (whether because it has no alternative to capitalistic tinkering or because it fears the media) cannot easily be considered a left party.

The Labour party is about obtaining itself and maintaining itself in power. If attacking a minority group like the disabled pleases voters who don’t really think about policies or issues, but do read tabloids and don’t critically analyse them, or who take the Daily Mail seriously, then it is unfortunate, but Labour will do it.

Hence why the Tory policy that is leading to people with terminal cancer being stated as fit for work under a test denounced by the person who came up with it isn’t being opposed by Labour. It is a Labour policy formulated by James Purnell as part of the ‘disabled = scroungers’ agenda that the Tories like so much they are just implementing it quicker.

This is why Maurise Glasman is talking about engaging with the BNP and EDL supporters, because under our electoral system if they are in the South East appealing to them is far more important than appealing to the lumpen proletariat.

Old Labour was about appealing to the good in people, about hoping to build a better society, a more equal society. And that talk alienates people with money, who are really the only people who matter.

While talking about deprivation is sometimes electorally useful to differentiate between Labour and the Tories. But only in terms of having a deserving poor who deserve the occasional hand out but not a hand up.

Look at Ed Millibands big speech from a week ago, where he discussed a disabled man, who he said had a genuine disability, and how he should have been ‘helped’ to find work in the middle of the worst recession since the war. Disabled = scroungers is part of the national narrative now, and no one likes a scrounger. So of course attacking them is appropriate, because there are council elections coming up next May and you don’t want to be seen as soft on scroungers when the Tories have nicked the Labour policy on the disabled and are applying it with such enthusiasm that we’re starting to see suicides.

Anyone who isn’t 100% behind the leadership and the goal of getting back into power by any means, who clings to outdated notions of increasing social mobility or equality of opportunity, is living in the past. Labour aren’t going to reverse any of the Tory cuts. If they can build on Labours previous work and break up the NHS, then it’ll stay broken. Tuition fees will stay at 9 grand if not increase. Labour is signed up to 80%+ of the Tory cuts, but if the Tories do it first and take the hit in popularity, then good. Labour opposition will be concentrating on capitalising on that unpopularity, rather than opposing cuts, which is why opposition from the Labour Party has been weak, and predicated on people only opposing Tory cuts, not Labour cuts.

It’s covered in this article

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/02/22/five-reasons-why-the-left-should-support-labour-council-cuts/

If the Tories are cutting it then it is your duty to oppose it but not make any promises on what Labour would do differently.

If the council changes hands next May, possibly due to public anger at the cuts, or if the council is Labour it is then your duty to support the cuts.

Labour privatisation of services is completely different to Tory privatisation, because it is Labour that benefits from any ‘understandings’ from dispensing contracts. Funding will then flow into the party from grateful beneficiaries and give the party the funding to fight the next election. Serco will sponsor events at the conference, you get the idea. It helps make Labour useful to the people who matter.

Politics now is beyond ideology or principals. If you think things like ‘from each according to your ability, to each according to their need’ then you need to think seriously about supporting the Labour party, because the Labour party sure as hell doesn’t support that.

“We cannot expect young people to function solely as a free leafletting resource” – how true!!

@ #44 But how long should we put up with this nonsense from any party? If Millie doesn’t do what Labour grassroots want – throw him out! His cuts policies if he pursues them and they would have to be in a manifesto, WON’T win him votes. Picking on various “groups” won’t take the heat off him if it’s a larger and larger no. of people who feel picked on! Can’t rely on “scapegoats” if everybody or their relative is one! (Think if Hitler had tried to persecute say Protestants!)

Bet Miliband is getting nervous right now – not of stupid tabloids though I’m sure he wants to suck up to Rupert: but of getting caught between the “revolting peasants” on the one hand, and the IMF on the other! Hey Ed: your religiously nostalgic Blue Nonsense friend Glasman should have told you: that a man cannot follow two masters! (& there’s many more peasants than there are bankers and they’ve all got the internet now!) Heh – heh – heh!!

Oh and Ben2: I honestly think that you must be Maurice Glasman’s (negative) Jungian shadow puppet image! If Labour isn’t at all for the masses – WHAT (not who) is it for – and what is to be done with it! Stop being annoying!

A) If there ARE no jobs for older/disabled/most workers in an area, they cannot be “helped” into them: they just stay on the unemployment rolls and the most govt can do is cod “schemes” and fiddling the figures: Thatcher & scoundrel crew found that out in the 80s. But they didn’t care: bcos putting the North at a standstill was worth it “to fight inflation”. Hello SNP..

B) How many votes do you think these rich people have – first taken individually – compared to the poor folk? That’s right: the ratio is 1:1. How many of these rich do you think there are, compared to the poor, the disabled and the lumpen on their Shameless estates?? OK so maybe the lumps (that’s German for rag/rogue btw: originally pronounced “loomp” in case you have no talent for languages and can’t read the..

..language of Marx! I can!) OK so maybe the ragged loomps like that stringy-haired bloke off Shameless, can’t remember the actor’s name, don’t vote! But if they did?! Most non-middle-class blacks in the US don’t vote because there is absolutely no party supporting their interests. (They may be tempted from time to time by an ethnic candidate like J Jackson or Obama: but many know that such folks “think white”.)

Well anyway. I’ve always felt – yeah, a bit sorry for the “lumpenproles”: really bcos I think they’re the totally rejected ones who no party loves and even Marx didn’t care for them and thought they were no good, preferring to address himself to the “respectable working man”. Well I think Marx was wrong about this and various other things: I think we need the loomps: particularly in the post-industrial era: we need everybody who isn’t elite or neoliberal! think we need a mission to the – Oompa-Loompas – dare I make that pun? Somebody was going to make it if they had the wit – and I hope no twits..

..think I mean the US blacks by that! I mean our own poverty ghettoes, which are numerically mainly white.

Yes well: when there were lots of Christian missionaries they fanned out far and wide among many strange fierce peoples (actually, some of the Christians *did* get eaten: was doing a bit of research the other day!) Overrall however it was very successful and changed the cultures of half the world! Hmm Maurice Glasman there may be a purpose for you after all! I suggest that the Radical New Labour Party rope him in to preach to the Shameless tribes: if they eat him they do (no great loss!) and if he converts them to voters he’s actually done some good, even if he tells them some rubbish in the process!

Better than Ben10′s opinion of them: that they only stay on the estate bcos they are scum or sth..

I feel that everyone is fundamentally redeemable – but then I would, I’m a Lokean! What a strange religion! (Some people might call it Christian ethics without the moralising & + added humour.)

If the poor don’t vote and don’t contribute to the parties coffers, why would the Labour party do anything but exploit them for electoral advantage and regard them with contempt?

We’re seeing a resurgence in the language of the deserving and undeserving poor because it plays well with the tabloids. It doesn’t matter if you are harassing and sanctioning people with no chance of finding work because the jobs simply aren’t there, it doesn’t matter that the disabled are being thrown off benefits irrespective of medical evidence. Calling anyone poor or disabled a scrounger is going to play well with middle england and with big donors because it gives people someone to blame for the global financial crisis and the deficit. It isn’t because financial regulation is a joke, it’s because scroungers are riding round in gold plated electric wheelchairs taking everyone’s tax money and spending it on food and plasma TVs or whatever.

The left will vote Labour because their isn’t a centrist or left wing party in the UK. There are small parties, but they are ignored by the media. Sunny can afford to tell left wingers to piss off to TUSC, because as long as Labour is a hairs breadth to the left of the Tories then our electoral system means that in order to stop the Tories getting in people have to vote Labour. This means Labour can do what they like in terms of privatisation or a revolving door with big business, because they can point to the Tories and say they want to turn society back to pre-WWI levels of inequality, or because Labour would only cut 80% of what the Tories want to cut, etc etc.

And because of that the left vote for them, even though Labour spits on the left. In many ways it is the lefts fault for enabling the Labour party to do this. However even if thousands of members leave, it still doesn’t matter because the electoral system means a couple of hundred thousand swing voters decide everything, and these are people who don’t trouble themselves to learn about the issues and form opinions ahead of time.

The soul of the modern Labour Party are people like Dan Hodges, Tim Worstall, etc. They are nominally in the Labour party, but they spit on the left and would happily work with the Tories to make sure the status quo isn’t challenged.

It’s about money and about winning. If persecuting the disabled goes down well, the party will embrace it. If playing to the BNP gets votes in marginals, then it’ll happen. And it doesn’t matter if people leave the party. Big business will make up the difference in funding and campaigning can be done by PR companies not party members.

50. Ben2

If the poor don’t vote and don’t contribute to the parties coffers, why would the Labour party do anything but exploit them for electoral advantage and regard them with contempt?

If. But of course they do. Both.

We’re seeing a resurgence in the language of the deserving and undeserving poor because it plays well with the tabloids.

And because, like, it is true. I have never understood why much of the Left has such a stubborn refusal to accept reality on this issue.

It doesn’t matter if you are harassing and sanctioning people with no chance of finding work because the jobs simply aren’t there, it doesn’t matter that the disabled are being thrown off benefits irrespective of medical evidence.

Mostly because neither claim is true. The jobs are there. We gave some 3.5 million jobs to Eastern Europeans in the Blair years. Enough to end British unemployment. Jobs the British unemployed did not want to take. Needless to say, the disabled get a medical check. Those found fit to work are expected to work. Again, what is wrong with that?

Calling anyone poor or disabled a scrounger is going to play well with middle england and with big donors because it gives people someone to blame for the global financial crisis and the deficit.

No it doesn’t. Middle England is notorious for its dislike of calling the poor or the disabled anything nasty at all. Middle England is soft and gooey in the middle. The welfare state is to blame for the deficit because it is to blame for the deficit. This is not rocket science. The GFC is a trivial sum compared to what we waste on benefits every year.

So much for subtlety, as you are the sort of person the Labour party is looking for support from, what would you like them to do in terms of immigrants, or the disabled, or the poor, to get your vote?

You’re the sort of facts light prejudice heavy voter they want to appeal to. Would you like to see a support for a ban on strikes? Cuts to the state pension? Forced labour for the disabled, making them sweep the streets or some such make work, in order to pay the debt they owe to society? Should some of the child labour laws be repealed? Should the minimum wage be scrapped?

Be honest, because this is potentially valuable. The Conservative and Labour parties are almost indistinguishable in terms of policy, what would get you to take your cross from next to the conservatives, or UKIP or the BNP and put it next to Labour, as someone like you is the sort of voter the Labour party wants.

So Much For Subtlety Knows it isn’t a ‘medical’ check, but why let facts get in the way?

@ 51 SMFS

” Needless to say, the disabled get a medical check. Those found fit to work are expected to work. Again, what is wrong with that?”

You are being disingenuous, either through ignorance of the facts (which is bad enough), or as seems more likely given your posting history through an ideologically motivated desire to mislead (which is of course worse).

Nobody sensible is against those who are fit to work being expected to do so. As is well known, and has been widely reported, however the assessment process is flawed with non-medically qualified personnel being given the job of interviewing people, and making recommendations which are all too frequently overturned on appeal because they got it totally wrong.

There may be ways to support people who can work and find them jobs, but it isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap particularly in the current job market.

Insisting airily that there are jobs and either not knowing, or dismissing out of hand, the problems with the current system just makes you look dishonest.

The thing is he may never have bothered to find out about the details of the assessment process, and that pages of medical evidence submitted every year to reapply for disability benefit is ignored in favour of an A4 page tick sheet that almost everyone can pass. Terminal cancer doesn’t stop you lifting your arm above your head or turning on a tap. Having multiple fits every day doesn’t stop you walking 200 yards. They make you unemployable due to insurance issues, but you can be certified as fit for work, your benefit cut and then put on sanctions when your ill.

What he sees is scroungers riding around in their gold plated wheelchairs taking tax money that could be spent on him.

There are two paths to take, to try and educate him as to the issues so he has a more nuanced view regarding the disabled, which is difficult and he isn’t going to want to engage with the issues and confront his prejudices, or to pander to him and the red tops and give people an easily identified minority to pin the blame on.

One of these is the easy path, and a path that will help get the Labour party what it wants, which is power.

Whenever I see people discussing the ‘cost’ of disabled people, I think of this –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg

Yes, it’s a little conservative, but it is a simple message that appeals to people who believe disabled people are a burden on the taxpayer and something must be done.

It is a lot easier to appeal to peoples prejudices than to get them to confront them, and the right have been very successful in winning elections by appealing to the darker side of human nature. When I see Ed Milliband using the disabled as an example of the ‘undeserving’ poor, or James Purnell, architect of the policy regarding the disabled, still a figure of some importance in the Labour party, I know that Labour are following the easier ‘Blue’ Labour path.

@54

Facts aren’t important. SMFS knows in his gut that the disabled are scroungers, he knows the facts will back him up without having to check them. And the media and three main parties all support his view.

52. Ben2

as you are the sort of person the Labour party is looking for support from, what would you like them to do in terms of immigrants, or the disabled, or the poor, to get your vote?

I am afraid there is no chance I am ever likely to vote for a British political party. Ever. There is simply nothing that could persuade me that any option is worth supporting. In terms of immigration, I think they should bring it to a complete halt until we have properly managed the problems we have already. The disabled need proper medical checks to move as many as possible back into the work force and we need to build more asylums. The poor need a welfare system that requires and rewards work (as well as a few basic social standards like marriage).

Would you like to see a support for a ban on strikes?

No.

Cuts to the state pension?

Not for ordinary people. The Gold plated pensions paid out to politicians and higher ranking civil servants should be cut.

Forced labour for the disabled, making them sweep the streets or some such make work, in order to pay the debt they owe to society?

Not forced. I am happy to allow people to choose the lifestyle they prefer. But if they want something from us, they ought to offer something in return.

Should some of the child labour laws be repealed?

No. Some of them ought to be toughened.

Should the minimum wage be scrapped?

Yes it should. Or better yet replaced.

what would get you to take your cross from next to the conservatives, or UKIP or the BNP and put it next to Labour, as someone like you is the sort of voter the Labour party wants.

Hell freezing over. But that applies equally to all of them.

53. Mason Dixon, Autistic

So Much For Subtlety Knows it isn’t a ‘medical’ check, but why let facts get in the way?

No he doesn’t.

54. Galen10

You are being disingenuous

Disingenuous, I guess, meaning that I don’t buy into your ideologically driven nonsense.

Nobody sensible is against those who are fit to work being expected to do so.

I like that “sensible”. Because, of course, huge numbers of people here and on the Left generally are strongly, loudly, vocally, violently opposed to precisely that. As can be seen by all the people who call it forced labour. As Ben 2 did just above.

As is well known, and has been widely reported, however the assessment process is flawed with non-medically qualified personnel being given the job of interviewing people, and making recommendations which are all too frequently overturned on appeal because they got it totally wrong.

All too frequently meaning some small percentage of the over all numbers. It is true that the system has not been working as well as it should. But I am the only person here who has ever objected to that. Everyone else objects to the system itself. But if you would like to have a discussion on how to make the system work more smoothly, it would be a change, but a welcome change.

There may be ways to support people who can work and find them jobs, but it isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap particularly in the current job market

Actually it is easy and it is cheap – refuse to pay them unless they work. Make proper work, 36 hours a week, a condition for all those found fit to work to get their benefits. Even if they have to work for no extra wages at all. I am sure that no end of Community groups and Churches would be rushing to provide jobs for them and work would be found.

Insisting airily that there are jobs and either not knowing, or dismissing out of hand, the problems with the current system just makes you look dishonest.

I don’t think so. We both know there is no shortage of work that could be done. We all know that millions of Eastern Europeans came here and got jobs. We all know that most cleaning in Britain is done by Third World migrants. It takes a special commitment to political dishonesty to deny it.

To pick up something from the original post which seems to have gone unnoticed:

I remember talking to one very high profile Lib Dem about why he wouldn’t defect to Labour, even though he was unsatisfied with his party. He said that he couldn’t be a member of any party that didn’t let its members have a proper say over policy.

I think he had a point. Labour members have been right about Iraq, the 10p tax band and many other issues that the leadership acknowledged they got wrong. The Refounding Labour process gives me hope that the new leadership might trust and use members when developing policy rather than suspecting them as a risk. I hope this attitude will continue after the consultation.

What the Liberal Democrats have never been able to square is the circle of dealing with electoral promises versus party democracy – especially as the party can replace the leader, so to whom does the leadership owe fealty, the electorate or the party? Party democracy is not a bad thing, but if it is to be suggested, how do you stop (especially in Labour, which has form on this sort of thing – probably due to its affiliation to other groups, which makes it unique in British political parties to the best of my knowledge) small groups of determined extremists or single-interest bearers taking over party policy. To do this, you need to ensure the party has a broad base of voters, and if your first suggestion is diversification rather than simple outreach, you may not be going the correct way to achieve this.

‘There may be ways to support people who can work and find them jobs, but it isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap particularly in the current job market

Actually it is easy and it is cheap – refuse to pay them unless they work. Make proper work, 36 hours a week, a condition for all those found fit to work to get their benefits. Even if they have to work for no extra wages at all. I am sure that no end of Community groups and Churches would be rushing to provide jobs for them and work would be found.’

This is already being done. People are being sacked to be replaced by unemployed people working to qualify for their benefits under workfare.

It’s ironic that unemployed people will be replacing paid employees and doing work people were previously paid for and used to support their families and contribute to the economy, in order to get the unemployment benefit they are entitled to for their NI contributions. And they will still be called scroungers.

Some people see the solution to the crisis to be to create jobs. Others see it as sacking workers and making the unemployed work for nothing. One is difficult, one is easy and profitable and maximises the value of labour transferred to employers not employees. These unemployed people aren’t going to be going out and buying luxury items, or getting mortgages, or other things. They’ll be subsisting on benefit, and trying to find paid employment when they are already working for free.

59. Ben2

It’s ironic that unemployed people will be replacing paid employees and doing work people were previously paid for and used to support their families and contribute to the economy, in order to get the unemployment benefit they are entitled to for their NI contributions. And they will still be called scroungers.

It is unlikely that they will be replacing any employed people. People with skills, people with work ethic, people with knowledge, they cannot be lightly replaced. It is more likely that new jobs will be created. Let’s wait until we have tried it before we make assumptions about what people will be called.

Some people see the solution to the crisis to be to create jobs. Others see it as sacking workers and making the unemployed work for nothing. One is difficult, one is easy and profitable and maximises the value of labour transferred to employers not employees. These unemployed people aren’t going to be going out and buying luxury items, or getting mortgages, or other things. They’ll be subsisting on benefit, and trying to find paid employment when they are already working for free.

The present system does not, cannot, create jobs. The alternative would. The lower wages are for the employer, the more jobs there are. They would not be working for nothing, and certainly they would not be working for nothing for long. As the economy would grow. They are now producing and hence the economy would grow by definition. As they go back to work, demand rises, new jobs are created, wages go up and pretty soon no one is working for the dole. Under this scheme all unemployed people would be working. They may not be buying many luxury items, as they don’t now, but soon they would be buying other things, investing in their futures, not robbing other people’s homes. And we would all be better off.

The alternative is to leave six million or so people to rot on the dole forever.

[60] There is no a priori reason, in a globalised economy, why an economic upswing should create a single job in this country for its citizens .

We know that manufacturing and tele-sales can be and have been outsourced to South Asia. In the service sector, in London at least, jobs go to young women from eastern Europe who are only too happy to come here for a year or so to burnish their English-language skills. Even if we only count 18-year old girls, there are about a million of them. I don’t know what proportion of them would like to work hard and play hard in London for a year or so, but I bet it’s over half. Why do they make better workers than the natives? Because they are happy to go home after a year, so the employer never needs to sack anyone – there’ll be another one to replace her if the work’s still there and if not he hasn’t hurt anyone.

@57 SMFS

“Disingenuous, I guess, meaning that I don’t buy into your ideologically driven nonsense.”

No, disingenuous in its either of its meanings of being insincere and calculating, or pretending to be unaware.

It is not ideoligically driven nonsense to point out that the new system is flawed, and is categorizing many people unfir for work as fit for work as a result of these flaws. I’m quite happy to accept that more should be done to reduce the total number, and ensure that only those who really ARE unfit for work are included…. but that’s not what is happening, as you are quite aware, but too atavistically ideological to admit.

“All too frequently meaning some small percentage of the over all numbers. It is true that the system has not been working as well as it should. But I am the only person here who has ever objected to that. Everyone else objects to the system itself. But if you would like to have a discussion on how to make the system work more smoothly, it would be a change, but a welcome change.”

Stop being so self-important and playing the martyr. You aren’t the only one who has objected by a laong chalk. The figures I’ve seen, and which have been reported, suggest that a large proportion of the assessments are overturned on appeal because they are flawed.

Many of us do object to the system itself, but it only makes it worse when that system isn’t even administered and checked properly. It only goes to reinforce the feeling that many people have that the scheme lacks a sense of decency, because it motivated by a top down desire to reduce headcount and spending irrespective of the actual needs of those involved.

It is just as incumbent on those promoting the change to demonstrate clearly that those in real need will not be penalised, as it is for those of us suspicious of the change to demonstrate how the current system could be either improved or replaced by something less divisive and unfair as the new system.

“Actually it is easy and it is cheap – refuse to pay them unless they work.”

To clarify (I hadn’t made it clear enough in my earlier post) I was referring here not to those who are accepted as able to work, but to that proportion of claimants who, whilst not 100% fit, are capable of doing some work. The issue for this group is that they are going to find it very hard to compete when there are so many people chasing so few jobs; when they need extra support, they will naturally be at a disadvantage, hence my earlier comment. If the system is changed so their current benefits are reduced, and yet they find it impossible to find work, then without some government intervention to subsidise them (which I’m assuming you would oppose), most employers are going to employ someone else.

“We all know that most cleaning in Britain is done by Third World migrants. It takes a special commitment to political dishonesty to deny it.”

No, it takes a special commitment to intellectual dishonesty to obfuscate the two issues.