Trefor Davies of trefor.net commissioned and published an article by me on the state of the politics of digital and its likely impact on the General Election. In the article I classify the issues around citizenship and economics. Obviously the manifesto has not been published and so prediction of its content is not easy. Regular readers will know that I am a supporter of both the Open Rights Group and Privacy International. I have also served on NESSI, the EU’s internet/I.T. R&D project incubator. I am hopeful on the issues of citizenship, unsure on copyright and intellectual property laws and expect a good offer on digital government. …
The State we need
Michael Meacher convened a meeting to launch his anthology, “The State we need”, the title of which is a play on words on Wlll Hutton’s “The State we’re in”. The launch was held in Portcullis House. The speakers were, Meacher himself, Kelvin Hopkins, John Mills , Anne Pettifor and Richard Murphy. …
PASOKisation in Britain
The once mighty PASOK has been reduced to the smallest Party in the new Greek Parliament. In 2009, it won 44% of the popular vote and formed the Government; earlier this year, it won a under 5%. Its decision to join the New Democrat led coalition in 2010 had led to a split, with much of the left of PASOK leaving to support its eventual replacement, Syrizia. PASOK has been killed by its own austerity policies and walking away from the hopes and causes of their political base. …
Academies of Justice
Will Hutton in the Guardian states that the Greens propose to extend the rights to belong to Trade Unions and to prohibit discrimination against TU members. It’s true see, check out their policy statement http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/wr.html, they also plan for a a right of Union recognition. Where’s the Labour Party on this? Actually, where’s the TUC and unions? I know it’s a long way from manifesto, to government policy, as a long term labour party member, boy do I know, but if the party policy ain’t right, then the parliamentary party’s policy and government policy is unlikely to be. …
Labour and the Greens
Last year, Luke Akehurst published a piece on Labour and the Green Party on Labour List, in which he argued that Labour needs to campaign strongly against the Greens to stop their momentum. Like all good strategists, he’s seeking to avoid a war on two fronts. I made a comment on the page, and considered writing a longer piece here but in the end failed to find the time. …
London Labour Conference 2014
A recovered stroy from storify created to document London Labour’s Conference.
This is published as at the date created. …
London Labour in Europe
I attended the lunchtime meeting hosted by three of London’s Labour MEPs. They started by saying thank you to the members at the meeting for the efforts made to secure London’s fantastic result in the Euro elections. The meeting was framed as “How to fight UKIP?” The old canard, started by Farage that London is inoculated from UKIP, because we’re young, liberal and cosmopolitan, the truth in my mind is that London’s multiculturalism is its UKIP anti-body. One of the attendees, spoke on dealing with UKIP, which I summarised in this tweet, …
Going to London Labour’s Regional Conference
Lewisham Deptford’s delegation to the London Labour Regional Conference, held at Hammersmith & Fulham’s Town Hall was reduced through illness but there were a couple of us who made the journey.The morning consisted of awards, keynote speeches from Harriet Harman & Sadiq Kahn and motions on Health and Economics. Sadly I didn’t get to read the Conference Arrangements Committee report which explained why many of the proposed Emergency Motions weren’t emergencies, were contrary to the rules, contrary to the law or, and my personal favourite, silly. (I might have made the last one up.) …
Labour Friends of the ORG
Over lunch, I & Claude Moraes, hosted a meeting of the “Labour Friends of the Open Rights Group”. Claude spoke of the European Parliament’s response to the Snowden leaks and its defence of citizens ECHR Article 8 privacy rights. He also signposted the coming Digital Habeas Corpus which being that it’s European legislation will take some time. There was a keenness to take the policies of the ORG into the Labour Party. The countdown to the general election and the Party’s adoption of its Programme in September means that the opportunity for short term changes in the policy are limited however @LabourDigital which is a de-facto caucus is campaigning around its manifesto and the Shadow cabinet policy review is due to be launched on 25th November. We agreed to keep in touch and to use the original google group, founded after #orgcon10 to do so. …
Luke Sorba on #lab14
My friend and comrade Luke Sorba, a Labour Councillor in Telegraph Hill ward, who mainly blogs on Facebook was Deptford’s delegate to Labour’s Conference this year and his comprehensive written report, was presented to the General Committee last night; it covered the rear guard actions by the Blairite rump, a reflection that some ex-ministers showed an arrogance to the membership, disappointment at the lack of debate on the conference floor and concludes with a paean to Ed Miliband’s heart and courage. …