The most left wing person that can win

I am reading Alex Nunn’s “The Candidate” and as exciting as the race for MPs nominations, and the struggle for supporting nominations in the CLPs and Unions are, one turning point is seen as the vote of the Tories Welfare Reform Bill. One thing missing from the narrative so far is how huge the task of winning in 2020 seemed to be; Labour had seemingly gone backwards and the task seemed insurmountable. I was reminded then and again in reading the book of an anonymous quote from a senior labour politician who said in 2010, that the Labour Party ” … will elect the most left wing person they think can win”. It was just in 2015, there wasn’t much confidence that any of them could do so! …

Making Labour’s Policy 2018

And now you can read Labour’s National Policy Forum Report … available from this site, I got it from Seema Chandwani who hosts it on here blog, and publicised it on twitter.

Wonder when it’ll be published by the Labour Party. …

Arrears

As the AGM season for Lewisham’s Labour Parties approaches, I am considering the various deadlines for payments, decisions and record keeping. The first deadline is 60 days before the AGM date for new affiliates. I have had cause to check what the rules say; it would seem that we need to return to our old friend Chapter 7. This says,

IV.1.D all affiliation fees shall be paid by end of the year.

IX.1.B Affiliation fees due to this CLP for the previous year ended 31 December must have been paid to this CLP a clear 35 days before the date of the annual meeting.

IX.1.C. New affiliations accepted at least 60 days prior to the AGM in the current year shall have all rights associated with attendance at the AGM.

The Labour Party’s financial year is the calendar year. If not paid in the year of account, an affiliate falls into arrears on 1st January of the following year. It must pay the arrears by 35 days before the AGM, otherwise it may be treated as a new affiliate and pay 60 days before the AGM. This could  be easier. but it would seem there are two routes for dealing with arrears.

AGMs must now take place in the second half of the year. …

Thoughts on DaaS

I am still struggling to make a remote DaaS for my tablet.  I have built an amazon image based on Server 2012, which is getting a bit long in the tooth and Skype fails to boot on it, maybe I should ensure I have implemented an Amazon “Desktop” experience, but I am not happy with the price. I wondered if Azure might be cheaper, although on first look it would seem not. I need to be more sure and having a remote DaaS would be cool for the tablet, as bit by bit, services will deprecate the version frozen browser. I suppose that bit by bit RDP will also fail, but let’s see. (Microsoft’s desertion of ARM maybe it’s last act of monopoly actions and is a lesson to both consumers and OEMs of the problems in  not owning your own operating system, a subject I used to write a lot about.)

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Leaving our opt-outs behind

It’s one of my fears over Brexit that the loonies will take us into a transition period without an agreement on anything other than the withdrawal terms, about which they are still haggling, and that should we change our minds, we’ll have to reapply and lose our opt-outs, which include Schengen (common borders), the stability & growth pact’s enforcement regime, a promise to join the Euro (we don’t have to) and our famous rebate on contributions. In transition, we lose our Council seat with its veto, our Commission seat, our MEPs and our Judges on the Court. We definitely become rule takers. …

Power in Momentum I

I have been preparing a little blog article on “Power in Momentum” which has been overtaken by yesterday’s decision by the “Officers” of Momentum to withdraw support from Pete Willsman as a candidate for Labour’s NEC. The article, among other issues, examined the power structures and came to conclusion that with the exception of the powers allocated to OMOV ballots, for which the rules mandated IT still does not exist, every decision and power is granted to the National Co-ordinating Group which meets in secret, doesn’t publish it decisions or its membership and has unlimited delegation powers although it doesn’t publish its instruments of delegation either. (I begin to question if it is genuinely a membership organisation.) One has to wonder why they decided to delegate the decision to the Officers rather than the Chair alone, but it’s a sign of hope that they couldn’t trust the whole NCG even after they purged the remainder of the democratic opposition in the last round of elections.

I have already voted for the #JC9 but do not consider Pete Willsman’s comments to be anti-semitic, and I am not alone, and consider that the Left needs all nine of its slate to be elected. I would urge anyone that has not yet voted that supports the Corbyn leadership to vote for all of the #JC9. …