Parliament

Someone finally agrees with me, in that the constituency gerrymandering currently going on in Parliament starts from the decision to reduce the number of MPs. Ralph Scott in the New Statesman introduces me to the paper written by Lewis Baston and Stuart Wilks-Heeg showing that the UK has less elected politicians than most OECD states; this is mainly due to the fact that most of the comparator nations have large and active local government layers but also by measuring the ratio of MPs to population, looking at this via a per capita lens changes the perspective. While I admire Corbyn and Ashworth’s line that the Tories are ignoring 2m new electors who registered for the referendum, it is equally powerful to argue that we need more MPs; each of them can know their constituents on a closer basis and the Government will be held to account more effectively. Scott also argues that the representative work of 21st Century MP requires far more work than was the case even 40 years ago when the numbers were last revised. Also we can’t allow the hypocrisy of a Tory Government reducing the cost of representative democracy while stuffing the House of Lords full of cronies, mates and donors pass uncommented on. …

Servants

Jason Cowley, reviews the balance of class forces in the Labour Party and the falling stars, Burnham, Balls, Cooper and the Milibands, noting that only two are still MPs. Fascinatingly he looks at the seeds of their hubris, their early sucess and probably hits the nail on the head when he says,

Parties in the end are machines for capturing power and there is a sort of life cycle, and you’ve got to be absolutely vigilant about renewing it. Blair and Brown thought they could renew the machine with very clever people, but with one or two exceptions they were – what is the word I’m searching for? – they were servants, they weren’t masters, they didn’t really have a vision of where they wanted to go.

Earlier in the article, he remarks on the internecine fighting between the Blairite and Brownite factions, but fails to identify the lack of political difference made this just a spat between careerists. I remember the shock amongst left wing friends when we discovered that Brown was not going to pursue a more social democratic agenda than Blair, in the words of one, “there was no plan”, and the fighting ensured that there were no successors. The quote above does however illustrate that a Party Leader needs a vision, they need to know what they want to do. The use of the word “servants” is probably devastatingly accurate. …

Gerrymandering

The Boundary Commission for England reported overnight and published their proposals for change in the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries. The rules given were to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600, to equalise the Constituency sizes, except for the Islands and to work from a new electoral register based on individual registration. The impact is well summarised on on various sites. In England, it is expected that Labour will lose over twice as many seats as the Tories.

The Labour attack line has been to argue that the the Boundaries commission datum line fails to take account of the 2m new voters registered since Xmas to vote in the referendum. This is important, as is the argument that Constituencies should be sized to take account of the population, not merely of voters, although an additional member (proportional) system would equalise the worth of votes and maintain a constituency link. Labour and others have pointed out the hypocrisy of reducing the number of elected MPs allegedly to cut the cost of politics while stuffing the House of Lords with cronies, apparatchiks & fund raisers.  Few have argued that the House of Commons would benefit from smaller constituencies since voters and represepentatives could get to know each other in a way that rarely happens today.

I do, and the inequity in this so called reform starts from the plan to reduce the size of the House of Commons. …

Hegemony ends

As both the New Labour Project and it’s ideological predecessor, Social Democracy lose their hegemony because neo-liberalism can no longer deliver the growth and the 1% won’t pay their taxes, people need to reconsider. I have comrades at the Co-op party conference, the time has come again for their ideas, it needs to be central, and posed against shareholder fiduciary duty. Capital Markets efficiency is no longer the key to economic growth, it’s about Labour productivity and Human Capital. One reason why copyright reform is also needed.  …

Reselection

A member of the Labour Party, when talking to their MP, if they’re lucky enough to have one, cannot ‘threaten’ the MP with re-selection. Even declaring an implacable intent to vote to reselect in the mandatory trigger ballot is not a threat. It’s merely a statement of intent; branding this a threat is an arrogant piece of self-entitlement. …

Abuse

Earlier today I published some thoughts on the Labour Party’s weeding of its selectorate. Ian McNicol has leaked his defence via Paul Waugh at the Huffington Post. There are quite clearly some nasty people seeking to get a vote. They  talk about the foo-fighters fan in the article, but they do not talk about Labour First’s ‘help’, nor about dealing with people who have genuinely changed their mind and it’ll be interesting to see what they did Ronnie Drapper for. They do not talk about the Catch 22, that the NEC have put themselves in where members have a right of appeal, but people seeking to join or become registered supporters do not. I also have outstanding questions on segregation of duties,  independent supervision of the General Secretary and anonymous complaints. Mind you, some of the staff working on this may require counselling in October. …

Purges

A shortish, note about the Labour Party selectorate purges. Firstly, about whether we should be criticising the Party’s staff and Officers, secondly about the influence of Smith’s campaign’s backers and thirdly examining one or two cases of the 2nd stage exclusions of members but presumably mainly registered supporters.

The General Secretary is an Officer, appointed by the NEC and Conference and holds office at the satisfaction of those two bodies. Discussing the issue of “satisfaction” is legitimate discourse within the Party.

It’s clear that Labour First are encouraging their supporters to make complaints about people and while they will claim this is to stop cheating and Entryism, the NEC have decided that candidates for Registered Supporter must have no support for other “political organisations” for the previous two years, which will include time in which they may have been members of different parties.  NB We do not place this waiting period on MPs or Councillors “crossing the floor”. This is wrong in so many ways; the most upbeat point to make is that we should be welcoming people who have changed their minds about the best way to build a better society, not placing a two year pre-entry probationary period on them. The anonymous accusations are also worrying.

The charge of trotsyist entryism is designed to justify the inspections and exclusions (and the 6 month freeze date) but the resultant exclusions seem to have mainly hit ex-greens, including some who joined last year and long term members whose 8 week provisional membership period is well over.

One of the most egregious exclusions has been that of the Catherine Starr, whom it would seem has been excluded for expressing her extreme support of the Foo Fighters. (I believe that they are a popular beat combo.)  The Canary cover these purges well in this article, “Another Labour purge…”, and highlight the case of Dr Gemma Angel who was previously a Green Party supporter, joined Labour and has been excluded due to her previous public support of the Greens, the evidence being one tweet! An interesting aspect of this is the notice letter,

where McNicol makes it clear that he has taken advice from the NEC, which in my book may not be legal since the NEC is his supervisory body and these duties are his or his delegates alone. This takes us to the issues of segregation of duties within the disciplinary process required for the purposes of natural justice and anti-corruption control. The letter also documents their two year silence rule.

The third case of interest is that of Cllr Pamela Fitzpatrick, where it would seem vexatious and false allegations of abusive behaviour have been made about a Labour Councillor with many years of membership, leading to her suspension, loss of vote in the Leadership election and loss of whip on the Council meaning she can’t pursue her leadership role in fighting domestic violence.

This isn’t right!

ooOOOoo

I’d hoped this would have been shorter. …