The day we fight back

The day we fight back

I have just spent the evening at the London #Cryptoparty, called on #thedaywefightback. The night was originally planned as an ORG planned Cryptoparty, an un-seminar on how to use your computer and the internet safely and minimize your chances of being spied upon, but the campaign, “Don’t Spy On Us” has been launched by English Pen, the Open Rights Group, Liberty, Article 19, Privacy International and Big Brother Watch. The campaign watchword is their 1st principle, “No surveillance without suspicion”. …

And so it begins

Four hours after Ed Miliband announces that Labour’s London Mayor Candidate will be the subject of a “Primary”, the Evening Standard reports  that Lord Andrew Adonis is considering running for Mayor. Adonis is an ex-Government Minister, who has never fought an election, and is Labour’s leading evangelist for executive directly elected Mayors and the leading evangelist for academy schools. He was made by Tony Blair, and is a leading thinker  on the right of the Labour Party and currently Chair of Progress, the Sainsbury funded think tank and caucus . …

Clean Politics, a bit of Ed, a bit of me

Ed Miliband makes his speech; the autocue is here at Labour List. This speech more than most, one must read his words, everyone else will add their spin. So, here’s mine, by my reading, the key points for change are,

  • Affiliation Memberships by Trade Unions are to be based on consent.
  • A new code of conduct for candidates in internal elections and selections, (we have one now; so who’s fault is it that it isn’t good enough?)
  • Limiting expenditure  including  gifts in kind and 3rd party expenditure internal elections and selections (Good idea, the devil’s in the detail).
  • Regulation of CLP/TU teaming agreements (again an incremental reform; I’d like to see the evidence that the current agreements are being abused.)
  • He proposes that MP’s should be prohibited from having second jobs, (Yes please,  and include the Mayor of London in this proposal.)
  • He proposes that unspecified measures should be taken to clean up lobbying and conflicts of interests in Parliament (Perhaps the Labour Party should expel the worst offenders, and include Peers in the list.)
  • He proposes that Labour’s candidate for London Mayor is to be chosen by supporters, not members. (Why would we want the advice of people who won’t join?)

He also refers to the opening out of policy making since his election as Leader. This is delusional, moving policy initiation to a ‘bit bucket’ on the web is not extending policy making. …

London Labour’s European Circus comes to Deptford

Last night, Lewisham Deptford held its hustings meeting for London Labour’s European parliamentary selections. The new candidates all came to New Cross, made their pitches and then we asked about TTIP, what would make them a good MEP, will they fight for the class, or give in like New Labour, do they support two seats for the European Parliament, what should the EU do about Climate Change? …

A visit to Hackney to meet Labour’s London European Parliament candidates

In which I visit Hackney to hear London Labour’s new candidates for the European Parliament Election speak, and I comment on their policies and capability. I was keen to meet the new Labour Euro candidates that had beaten me to a position on the slate, so I went to visit Hackney North CLP’s selection hustings where the six new candidates to join Labour’s incumbents were talking to members from Hackney and me. …

Boris in Catford

Boris Johnson, London’s occasional Mayor held one of his mandatory People’s Question Time sessions in Catford, towards the south of the London Borough of Lewisham. The event took place within spitting distance of the Lewisham’s hospital that is losing its Intensive Care Unit, jeopardising the A&E and Maternity Units.

Paul tells the story with a storify page, with the accurate if not particularly catchy title “People’s Question Time in Catford, March 2013”. …

What’s my vote worth?

How easy would it be to steal an election in the UK? Over the break, I read “Banana Republic UK?” by Sam Buckley. In it, he argues that that it’s too easy to rig and steal elections in the UK, and that this has been compounded by the then Labour Government’s decision in 2000 to allow postal votes on demand as an attempt to increase voter participation. He reviews process of legal review of elections, illustrates the difficulty and cost of starting and winning such a review. He then looks firstly at the specific review of two wards in Birmingham in 2004, which led to the elections being voided and a number of individuals being disqualified from standing for public office because they had corrupted the postal votes. Those disqualified were members of the Labour Party; Buckley balances this by exploring a review of elections in Slough where supporters of the Conservative candidate were convicted of rigging the election by placing non eligible voters on the electoral roll. The constraints on who can request an election court, the burden of proof and the time limits make it hard for the Police to participate in ensuring that vote rigging doesn’t occur. They can prosecute wrong doers, but cannot void the election. …

Labour’s Lost Mayor

sack boris projected

This article was started just after the election in May 2012, and only finished over the Xmas break of 2013, nearly 20 months later. Some of the tenses may thus be a bit odd. I have backdated this in the blog to the time I started it. However RSS feed consumers and Facebook will publish this as at today. The article talks about the candidates, Labour’s manifesto, the role of London Mayor, how Labour sought to hold Boris to account for his record and character and briefly questions whether London is a coherent political entity. I have tried to ensure the article is contemporaneous to the time of the election. (I didn’t quite manage it.)

As I’ve said, I have been busy over the last year campaigning for Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London and for a Labour group on the London Assembly. Now we have the perfect vision from hindsight others have been writing about the London election, Labour’s victory in the Assembly and failure to win the Mayor election. I thought I’d join in. Many blame the candidate, but I feel the issues are deeper than that and that lessons need to be learned. …