but with a whimper

but with a whimper

Momentum now allegedly has a political election for its NCG; I not so sure of the relevance or the politics. Forward Momentum aka Fix Momentum main promise is to ‘democratise’ Momentum in the name of the members but more realistically in the name of disenfranchised Momentum local groups and have now developed a policy manifesto in some obscure manner and allowed themselves to be founded with a purge authored by the same people that founded LAW in the same way and in doing so split the campaign against the witch hunt, a trick they followed up with by behaving in a similar sectarian, party-building fashion so that the LRC walked away from the Labour Left Alliance.

Momentum Renewal are an articulation by the rump of the office, post Parker and Lansman, with their London Stalinist & trade union, mainly Unite, bureaucrats’ support, often the same people, together with their careerist MP hangers on. They also claim their priority is to have a single left slate for the next set of elections so let’s hope they have learnt from the mistakes & arrogance made by Momentum over the last 12 months in sending negotiators without a mandate , a starting position demanding everything,  and a hit list of other left wingers.  They claim to want an outward looking focus for Momentum, rooting it in community campaigns, the cynical would say it’s a diversion, asking people not to get active in Labour Party caucusing, and leave it to their betters.

The truth neither side get is that Labour’s Left is not Momentum and that Corbyn’s coalition is broken.

Too many have been taught that the victory of ideas is measured by the size of your majority on committees – it ain’t so! Ideas need resonance in the movement and the population.

We can now clearly see that Momentum’s brand is weaker than Corbyn’s which is why so many people joined it and others lied in claiming they supported him. The behaviour of parts of Momentum in the tolerance of bullying and slander is disgusting and matched or encouraged by some so-called supporters of Jeremy outside Momentum and some of their opponents in the PLP. So much for a “Kinder, Gentler Politics!”.

I will also mention that the value of the database is much less than once it was. They have not kept it up to date, people move politically and geographically, and it was built to support and inform people about Jeremy’s leadership campaigns. Many people signed up to it for that purpose, and never conceded concepts of leadership to its NCG, Officers Committee or even its Chairman (sic). (I’d best check, I’ve not heard from them for a couple of months, wonder if I have been purged; I stopped giving them money over a year ago after the office rigged the 2nd Lewisham Momentum AGM in a row.) …

Down the plug’ole

Down the plug’ole

I had a look at the 2020 Leadership election and the 2016 results. There was a 4% drop, about 20,000 less, in people voting in 2020, from 2016 and yet, Rebecca Long Bailey, the standard bearer of the Left, got just short of 178,000 less votes than Corbyn. In a static electorate, the Left went backwards, by a lot!

This does not auger well for the next set of NEC elections. The rump left, which includes Momentum must begin to talk and listen to those who changed their minds and build unity within the Party around Starmer’s 10 pledges. …

Anti-semitism, what the Party has done?

While considering my response to the leaking of the General Secretary's investigation into the activities of its senior management and its compliance department in conducting invesigations into complaints about anti-semitic behaviour I had cause to consider the Party's reaction to these complaints. It would be hard to say that collectivley it had ignored them although reasons for the delay in asking Conference to change the rules should be determined. Harassed by the press, Labour’s membership and NEC have rightly fought to ensure there is no place for antisemitism in the Party, they have launched two enquiries, issued two or three codes of conduct, and changed the disciplinary rules three times. This blog article was originally part of another, but the article became too long, the remainder of this article (overleaf/below) looks at the enquiries and rule changes undertaken to fight anti-semitism within itself and concludes the thought that I wonder where the original good will & unity of purpose went.

Fallout from a Road Trip

Fallout from a Road Trip

The press have been full of the story of Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham (from London) while he was isolating due to CV19 infection. “Led by Donkeys” have their own inimitable take on this; they took it to Cummings’ London home. However, he has been supported by various members of the Cabinet, including the Attorney General, probably in an act of prejuidice, in the legal sense, and capped off last night, by Boris Johnson who took the daily press conference, for the first time in a while and, not for the first time told the nation to fuck off. It seems that what Cummings did is responsible and legal. Johnson also restated that the Govt. planned to re-open the schools, starting with the youngest, against the will of most parents and most school workers. Johnson’s press conference was followed by an extraordinary hostile tweet from the Civil Service twitter account, allowing us to draw the conclusion that Johnson is “arrogant & offensive”; I mean it’s not exactly news.

What the Tory Government fail to recognise is the elitism and arrogance of this behaviour. A number of twitter users have expressed their anger and sadness that they were able to see, visit and comfort their dying relatives, even when living much closer than Cummings’ 500 mile round trip. It took me a while to realise how important it is to spend some time with the dying to properly say goodbye. As a child, I had been protected from family deaths and had thus learned not to see them as important events; I even almost missed saying good bye to my mother, through choices of my own, and can now see how important the visits to my dying father in the ICU were. My solidarity goes out to all those who have lost relatives and others precious to them during this crisis, I know that my grief would have been harder to overcome, if I had not been able to see my Dad although I only know this looking back helped by the insights and grief expressed by those writing today. The grief will hurt for a longer time then if they’d been able to visit them. I am sorry for your loss. …

Technology lessons

Technology lessons

It seems the police have found insufficient evidence to prosecute Boris Johnson for misconduct in a public office with respect to his alleged relationship with Jennifer Arcuri and decisions taken by the Mayor's Office to support her business. His day-time visits to her home, presumably during working hours, were, it seems, for 'technology lessons'. It seems that some emails seem to be unavailable, possibly in contravention of the Mayor's statutory record keeping rules and duties. The rest of this blog looks at alternative legal approaches to investigating if wrong doing has occurred. It looks at how good good IT Security controls are needed to allow essential audit questions to be answered.

On Labour’s Money

On Labour’s Money

I was looking through the LP’s finance report presented to#Lab19, which has the 2018 7 2017 figures in it. I had previously discovered that at the end of 2018, the Labour Party had £20.8m “cash in hand” and so it had become a surprise to me that we had only spent £8m on the General Election, when we had spent £11m in 2017.

But this time round I found some other things that piqued my interest

  1. The Labour Party made a surplus of £1.4m in 2017, the year of a General Election that we lost by 2,500 votes. Why is this?
  2. Income from Affiliations is the third largest source of income, after membership fees, and the front bench “short money” grant.
  3. On the expenditure front, they spent £3m (6%) on “Grants and payments to CLPs”.

For context, total income in 2018 was £46.3m and membership fell by 8.1% (45,914) from 564,433 to 518,519.

There’s a chart of the sources of income oveleaf/below … …

New Blood, New Labour

The NEC are considering whether to use STV for the CLP division of the NEC. This is important, and much discussion is to be had about whether and how this will change the power on the NEC and if its desirable. My helpful contribution is that we never use STV because our preferential systems are for single positions, maybe it would be good, particularly now that many CLPs send multiple delegates to Conference, but we are not talking about that yet.

Much more interesting are Charlie Mansell’s comments.

The results of the last NEC which were narrowly won by the right may underestimate their support.

Mind you, if we’re having STV for the CLPs we can have it for the ALC positions.

It all reinforces my feeling that the Left need, as a priority, to talk and listen to those who voted for Jeremy in 2016 and for Kier or Lisa in 2019. …

Sectarianism

Sectarianism

This article is a review of Anatomy of the Micro-Sect, by Hal Draper, dated 1973. It thus refers to political sectarianism. I was particularly taken by this quote,

What characterizes the classic sect was best defined by Marx himself: it counterposes its sect criterion of programmatic points against the real movement of the workers in the class struggle, which may not measure up to its high demands. The touchstone of support (the “point d’honneur,” in Marx’s words) is conformity with the sect’s current shibboleths – whatever they may be, including programmatic points good in themselves. The approach pointed by Marx was different: without giving up or concealing one’s own programmatic politics in the slightest degree, the real Marxist looks to the lines of struggle calculated to move decisive sectors of the class into action – into movement against the established powers of the system (state and bourgeoisie and their agents, including their labor lieutenants inside the workers’ movement). And for Marx, it is this reality of social (class) collision which will work to elevate the class’s consciousness to the level of the socialist movement’s program.

There’s more below/overleaf, including a commentary on the featured image. … …

Politics matters, even against a disease

Politics matters, even against a disease

It would be odd not to comment on the CV19 pandemic. For various reasons I have been looking back at my blog and remember at one stage it was a semi-public diary. Because it’s my blog, this is quite abstract and very political, I hope that my readers are keeping safe with their families.  This article looks at the diseases virulence and also the need for effective non-pharmaceutical interventions, especially the funding of sick pay and funding for isolation. There is [much] more below/overleaf. … …

Employee self-defence

Employee self-defence

I have been meaning to write an “employee self defence” manual for a while now, and something came across my desk today to remind me of this ambition. Here’s mine off the top of my head.

  • Always reply to management in writing and in good time.
  • Know where your contract is, make a good .pdf copy of it and keep a copy of any variations particularly if you work for a business unit that has been subject to a TUPE agreement, you’d be surprised how careless some managements can be in keeping good records. If you opt out of the working time directive or refuse to, keep a record. If seconded, or asked to cover other duties get the instruction in writing together with the commitment to end the change in duties.
  • While contracts can be varied unilaterally i.e. imposed, it depends on the wording of the original contract, if you object to the changes, let management know in writing, it can’t stop it but it may be relevant for future grievances or disciplinary processes.
  • Keep a contemporaneous diary and keep it off your employer’s IT; they can deny it to you when you need it or worse, amend the record.
  • See your Doctor when needed and take their advice, don’t make them look a fool. If signed off sick, make sure your appropriate management know and they have the appropriate documentation.
  • Tell your management if you are disabled or chronically sick, they won’t make reasonable adjustments unless they do.
  • If you want flexible working arrangements, you have a legal right for this to be considered, understand the management process, they may mandate a specific form and make sure your application and their reply is in writing.
  • Know your grievance and whistle blowing policy so you know who to talk to when you need it.
  • If you think it’s a grievance, lodge it, the least that will happen is that your case is in writing, actually shit managements might retaliate but your case is in writing and if they’re bad, it’ll only get worse anyway.
  • Wrongfully deducting money from your wages is a crime. Proving it may require significant documentation; be prepared.
  • Know the IT use and record management policy of your employer; don’t break them and complain if others try and get you to do so too, by for instance, using personal phones or emails and whatsapp or twitter to discuss work matters. If an employee, don’t use your own phone for any work business; they have a duty to provide one if you need it for work.

That’s it for the moment but I know there’s more. …