N.E.C.

The Labour Party NEC elections have started. Ballot papers are being issued now, to arrive by 16th July.  They are to be returned by Noon 5th August. I expect them to be both online or paper ballots.

The Left slate’s election address is here…. Ensuring that Left wingers are re-elected and elected must be a key aim to ensure that the next Labour manifesto and government will actually make a difference. If you joined recently to support the Labour Party and its leadership then make sure you take part in these elections. …

Hegemony

In 1944, the UK elected a Labour Government ushering in a 35 year social democratic hegemony, broken i 1979 by the Thatcher government which started a 37 year neo-liberal consensus. Are we at another inflection point? …

chicken coup

The LP’s legal advice on a challenger induced leadership contest is allegedly posted here, on scribd, which is a subscription service. Bottom line, where there is no vacancy, the 20% threshold applies only to the challenger(s). I particularly like the idea that rules can’t be rubbish and because what they are trying, i.e. to apply a higher threshold of parliamentary support to a re-election is not in the rules and is rubbish, it can’t be done. It also notes that all the “is final” clauses, do not exclude the courts and cannot exclude access to the courts. …

New and old

If we are to Remain in the EU, we must consider, a revised regional fund, which we got when we arrived but it seems to have atrophied, a common welfare “floor” and reciprocal subsidiarity agreements. The last of these might embed local democracy into the UK’s constitution. The other issue is the Euro, but the UK is about to show that deficit hawkishness is a choice, not a necessity. …

Thought Police

The role of the Labour Party’s Compliance Unit should be to ensure the Labour Party obeys the law, not to act as thought police on the membership. Furthermore the Chakrabarti inquiry states they don’t have the legal skills to perform its proper function. …

Boris and probity

Boris and probity

He's very unlucky, at the least! Let's look at the Garden Bridge! Ooops! Here's a storify story dealing with the bridge, Convoy's Wharf, his management of the Met and relationships with its Commissioners, his "chicken feed" fees from the Telegraph and his fast track appointment of Veronica Wadley to the Arts Council. ...

What Gary Younge says

Gary Younge in the Guardian,”Brexit: a disaster decades in the making”,

Things he says worth remembering,

On the day after the EU referendum, many Britons woke up feeling that the country had changed overnight. But the forces that brought us here have been gathering for a very long time

When leaders choose the facts that suit them, ignore the facts that don’t and, in the absence of suitable facts, simply make things up, people don’t stop believing in facts – they stop believing in leaders.

Labour could also reposition itself, in the knowledge that it could keep winning elections even as it kept losing voters. Those who voted for Brexit tended to be English, white, poor, less educated and old. With the exception of the elderly, these have traditionally been Labour’s base. But the party has been out of touch with them for some time.

The coalition of metropolitan liberals, city-dwellers, ethnic minorities, union members, working-class northerners and most of Scotland slowly began to fray.

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