ROFLMAO

I went to Stand Up for Labour tonight, who need money; it was very funny and very right on. Jim Jefferies, not performing, in his stand-up routine on abstinence uses the phrase “a hint of a boo”. Ian Stern, who is very funny, he made me laugh, with the help of my neighbour who was laughing throughout, raised a “hint of a boo” by mentioning Progress. He raised a cheer when slagging off Brexit. There were a couple of hundred people present. The Labour Party’s membership, its new membership, opposes Brexit, and so do the majority of its voters. The old left are playing with fire. …

Labour’s New Brexit

Labour’s New Brexit

Today, Labour Conference debated the International Report of the National Policy Forum and a statement on Brexit from the National Executive Committee. I believe the NEC statement was issued to delegates only, on the morning of the debate, which while not unusual is unacceptable. A campaigning comrade, Sacha Ismail posted the words to his Facebook timeline, and I have posted them below. Kier Starmer summed up the debate, and I have posted a video of his speech, which I then comment on. It was a weak speech, which disguises the weakening of Labour’s policy and moves it towards a pro-Brexit position. …

Bundestag 2017

Bundestag 2017

As the results from the German election trickle through, it’s not good news for many. The headline results are that the “at best” right wing populists, the Alternative for Germany has entered the Bundestag. Merkel’s centre right alliance, CSU/CDU and their government partners the centre left Social Democrats (SPD) both lost seats with the latter announcing that despite the arithmetic working that they would look to return to opposition. This leaves Merkel looking to form a “Jamaica” coalition with the Free Democrats & Greens. We’ll see. I wonder if this like the wake up call in the UK, at the 2014 European Parliamentary elections is a signpost of worse to come. …

Mild Shenanigans

Mild Shenanigans

There’s been a bit of a fuss over the Labour Party’s decision not to prioritise i.e. choose to discuss motions submitted by the membership and affiliates on Brexit. There were proposals to support the single market/customs union and to support free movement of labour. The Trade Unions agreed to ensure debates on the economy, Grenfall and industrial policy took place and it was left to the CLP delegates to determine if Brexit would make it to Conference floor. CLPD & Momentum, claiming to be supporting the Leadership, asked that four, admittedly important, subjects were debated and not Brexit. Many of my friends argue that the Brexit debate was being engineered by Corbyn’s opponents to embarrass him. It’s not true of all who argue for Labour’s current policy, defined in Lab16 Composite 1, of defining red lines and obtaining a second mandate if those lines were not met, are looking to embarrass the leadership. … …

Officer Class

Some comrades, mainly it would seem from Brighton, where suspensions and expulsions are still in place protested about McNicol’s continued employment calling on him to resign.

mcnicol must go

Joanna Baxter, an ex member of the NEC, raised a point of order complaining that it was abusing staff.

He isn’t staff, he is an Officer of the Party and holds office “at the satisfaction of the NEC and Conference”. This is an important distinction. There’s no recall, no means of subjecting him to the rules and there’s no term limit. …

Margin Call

Just re-seen Margin Call. What a fabulous film. Wll I say that, it took a second watching to come to that conclusion. It opens with an HR raid on a Bank’s trading floor, and of course they take their phones. It’s one reason why I have two. I don’t depend on my employer to phone a cab home.

It is a fabulous, well informed script, possible except their concentration on current packages and not the severance packages, although the first guy out’s package seems not so generous, although he gets to keep his options. His boss, gets offered a lot more, as do the Traders that perform the fire sale.

There’s a lot of paper and notebooks. The boardroom scene has some fabulous acting. The economics is shite, if you want a film that explains it, see the Big Short or Rogue Trader. …

Compositing

Labour Conference starts on Saturday! I thought I’d document my experience and lessons from the compositing meeting that I attended last year. I was badly stitched up last year and here are some lessons.

The motions to be included in the composite motion will be issued in a CAC report. Read them all, it will be a clue as to the dividing lines between the organisations. Some of them will be identical.

Work out who’s on your side and then make sure they’re represented by someone who cares. In my meeting last year, delegates were voting to exclude words in their own motion.

Take some words into the meeting, the front bench will. In our case, they used five words from our motion, one of which was “the”. Once in the meeting its too late to recover if they propose egregious surgery.

Speaking rights are valuable; you may be able to swap words for speaking rights, it was tried in our meeting but it’s not easy; you can only buy one vote in this way. (Two actually since there’s mover and seconder).

Understand the meeting procedure, Citrine is no help. The Chair, a member of the Conference Arrangements Committee, wasted time, took no amendment motions to re include excluded words and didn;t ask for votes against, since he knew that the majority of the meeting had voted in favour.

The Chair is not neutral, you need to understand their agenda and the new CAC doesn’t take over ’till the end of Conference.

However, and I wish I had known this last year, the meeting can agree to put more than one motion through. You might need to be a large Trade Union to get away with it but at least one of last year’s meetings put through two motions. …

Disloyalty

Boris has written in the Telegraph about the state of the Brexit negotiations, and this is commented in at the FT. The FT leads with the timing, as Mrs. May is planning a big speech in Florence on the EU shortly. Many Tories are also drawn into commenting on loyalty and timing.

On the issue of substance, Boris repeats his usual drivel including contradicting Government policy and re-committing to the £350m/week on the NHS from saved fees. It worries me that the Tories are still looking at avoiding payment of our outstanding fees.

Of the three issues that EU insist are initially dealt with, citizenship rights, outstanding dues and the border with Eire. It’s the money that’s the easiest to comprise on. I believe that short of single market/customs union membership there is no good answer to the border question, but if the Tories want a deal, then they’ll have to compromise on the money even if only to get some room to be awful on citizenship. …