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Archive for June, 2010

How the ward was won: Paul Cotterill

09/06/2010, 10:48:36 AM

In the district elections of 2007, a team of just four activists helped to secure a Labour victory within a safe rural Tory seat never before held by Labour. We saw a 44% increase in the Labour vote since the last time the seat was contested in 2003.

It would be easy to be overly triumphant, and to make claims that ‘all local campaigns should be run like this’. In fact, we followed the general campaigning guidance issued from the Labour party centrally and regionally. But we do believe that other specific lessons might be learned from what we managed to achieve.

First, we had a different approach to the press. The standard Labour campaigning message is that all opportunities to raise the profile of the party, and especially the candidate in the local press should be seized. In the Bickerstaffe campaign this was not done, and there were no press releases or calls to the press of any kind.

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The scores on the doors

09/06/2010, 10:00:08 AM

This list is MPs who have declared plus those who have formally nominated. 33 nominations gets you in the race.

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Wednesday News Review

09/06/2010, 07:39:06 AM

Count down

Abbott hoping to make the final cut

“Diane Abbott received a boost to her candidacy for the Labour Party leadership when Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, nominated her yesterday. Ms Harman said she was doing so in the hope of helping to ensure there is a woman on the ballot paper, and will not cast her vote in the election this September.” – The Independent

“Mr Balls, the shadow education secretary, called on supporters to back Miss Abbott during an event held by the GMB trade union, saying that it was important for a woman to be in the race.” – The Telegraph

“BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said the three candidates so far are all Oxford-educated men in their 40s, and none of them are from the party’s left – unlike both Ms Abbott and Mr McDonnell. On Tuesday, acting Labour leader Harriet Harman said she was nominating Ms Abbott because she did not want to see a “men-only” contest.” – The BBC

“Speaking on Tuesday Mr Burnham said he was confident he would gain the seven nominations he still needed, while Ms Abbott and Mr McDonnell – who failed in a bid to challenge Mr Brown for the party’s leadership in 2007 – did not appear close to a deal to transfer MPs to the other to ensure a left-winger made it on to the ballot.” – In the News

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NEC chair’s letter to PLP chair

08/06/2010, 09:46:00 PM

PLP chair Tony Lloyd has this evening emailed all Labour MPs attaching a letter to him from Ann Black, chair of Labour’s ruling national executive committee.

In it, she reports “widespread concern among party members that this leadership election should allow the broadest possible debate”.

This will add to pressure on the 44 Labour MPs yet to declare to nominate Diane Abbott, and on John McDonnell to stand aside in her favour. The deadline for nominations is 1230 tomorrow (Wednesday).

This is the full text of Ann Black’s letter to Tony Lloyd: (more…)

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PLP leadership hustings: laughometer

08/06/2010, 06:45:26 PM

We did a laugh count at last night’s PLP leadership hustings.

Tiny chuckles weren’t recorded.

To score you had to get a proper laugh from a significant portion of the room.

David Miliband 1

Ed Miliband 4

Andy Burnham 3

Ed Balls 1

Make of it what you will.

Posted in Inside, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Don’t cut growth: Andy Westwood says that Labour got it right

08/06/2010, 04:43:31 PM

‘We’ve got to get the economy moving’ urged David Cameron ad nauseam during the election campaign. But beyond his condemnation of the ‘jobs tax’ and his desire to shrink the size and the role of the state, the detail was nowhere to be seen. He claimed then that what government spent or did was not the same thing as the economy – visibly incredulous as Gordon Brown warned about endangering the recovery by cutting expenditure too quickly.

A few weeks into the coalition government and the headlines are still about cuts, because in Cameron’s words ‘growth won’t be enough’. That may be because he has yet to give it any serious thought, or it may be because they just prefer to talk about the deficit. But there’s a third possibility: it may be because the Tories and Lib Dems don’t want to admit that they have retained Labour’s new industrial policy.

Key to this was the formation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and ‘NINJA’ – the ‘New Industries, New Jobs’ white paper jointly written and conceived by Lord Mandelson and John Denham. Which document was published in Budget week exactly two years ago, providing a narrative for a more optimistic economic future amidst the fast developing recession in 2008.

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PLP leadership hustings

08/06/2010, 03:55:32 PM

A private meeting of hundreds of MPs is not really a private meeting. But meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) are slightly more so than entirely public gatherings.

Several MPs tweeted from yesterday’s PLP leadership hustings: John Woodcock, Rachel Reeves, Douglas Alexander and Denis MacShane, for instance.

But these were tiny snaphshots, in some cases only of their favourites.

The note below is a fuller record. There are many public hustings to come. But the tone of the leadership cadre is always slightly different at the PLP than anywhere else.

We have provided this note for that reason.

Nominations close at 1230 tomorrow. There are currently 42 MPs still to declare or nominate.

This is a not a transcript. It is an amalgam of several contemporaneous notes taken for their own use by people present at the meeting. If some candidates have more remarks recorded than others, it is because they said more things that people wrote down.

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The Undecided

08/06/2010, 03:15:19 PM

This is a list of MPs who have not yet declared for or nominated a leadership candidate. At present there are 42 undecided MPs.

See the list of official nominations on the party’s website here.

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Posted in Inside | 11 Comments »

Keith Vaz: he’s got so much love to give

08/06/2010, 01:25:59 PM

You can’t please all the people all of the time. But you can try.

While others hedged their bets, Leicester MP Keith Vaz came out early in support of David Miliband.

Some who remembered the 2007 deputy leadership contest were surprised to see Vaz nailing his colours so firmly to the mast. He was the only MP in that contest quietly to pledge his vote to all six of the candidates.

Less surprising, in which case, that yesterday he nominated Diane Abbott.

Even if she gets on to the ballot paper, though, he is under no obligation – not even moral – to vote for her. This is known as spreading the love. Keith is the master.

What passes for a PLP establishment machine in these days of interregnum is making serious efforts to get Abbott onto the ballot paper. MPs who haven’t yet nominated are being asked if they well lend her their support, in order to secure a less indefensibly homogenous choice for party members.

We believe it is to Vaz’s credit that he has switched his support in this way. More than anything, party members want a broad choice.

Last week, Keith added to the epistolary avalanche which threatens to obliterate the PLP, as dozens of their number seek election to something or other.

In Keith’s case, he is seeking re-election as chair of the important home affairs select committee. As a select committee chair – as in all things – Keith sees broad appeal as paramount: “all but one of the thirty one reports we produced was unanimous”, was the proudest boast of his letter to colleagues.

Posted in Inside | 1 Comment »

Let’s stop the robot-talk and really communicate on the doorstep, says Peter Newlands

08/06/2010, 10:46:08 AM

I don’t mind smiling and clapping when a shadow minister arrives at the church or community centre they’re stumping at that day. I understand the arrangement; it looks good on television to have shiny supporters filling out the screen.
The difficult part to swallow is when the cameras are off and we’re in the pub afterwards. I’ve spent many a night getting upset when an earnest young supporter defends some bizarre policy thought up by the high command.

I lie awake after returning from a day’s campaigning and wonder what goes on in the minds of these people. I struggle to believe that they are stupid, or gutless; but I also find it hard to accept that any supporter really came into politics with a gripping desire to lengthen the time we could detain a terror suspect without charge to 90 days. (more…)

Posted in Grassroots | 6 Comments »