Grassroots « Labour Uncut

Green industry should be at the heart of Britain’s growth, says ffinlo Costain

10/10/2010, 12:49:13 PM

In his first speech as Labour party leader Ed Miliband said, ‘No plan for growth means no credible plan for deficit reduction.’ He’s right. But where will growth come from?

When Miliband was energy and climate change secretary the answer was clear: it would come from delivering a low carbon economy in Britain. But the framework for that transition, set in place by Labour when in government, is now under sustained attack by the treasury, despite David Cameron’s pledge that his would be Britain’s ‘greenest-ever government’.

Many fear that the comprehensive spending review on October 20th will be the death knell for the renewable heat incentive, the green deal, the green investment bank, essential port development, and even the department of energy and climate change (DECC) itself.

Politicians such as shadow energy minister, Emily Thornberry, representatives from greenpeace, friends of the earth, and the TUC, as well as business leaders from the micropower council and the federation of master builders have articulated the need for concerted pressure to ensure the Tories and Lib Dems live up to their pre-election and Coalition Agreement promises.

(more…)

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A Labour activist at Tory conference, by Amanda Ramsay

08/10/2010, 04:00:10 PM

Tory activists flocked to their annual political pilgrimage in Birmingham this week, for David Cameron’s first party conference as Prime Minister. Despite 13 years of opposition leading to a coalition rather than a Conservative government, this was a big moment for Tory activists. But for a paid-up member of the Labour party, the prospect of attending my first ever Tory conference filled me with dread. Politics is nothing if not tribal and the prospect felt so alien.

Once in Birmingham, the atmosphere was much the same as the intoxicating buzz of most Labour conferences in recent memory, other than 2010 perhaps, the leadership election having engulfed proceedings. However, there were some distinct differences about the Conservative version.

For starters, the exhibition itself had a bizarre array of interest groups, hard to imagine at a Labour conference: the British fur trade association, countryside alliance and Carlton club to name but three. Harvey Nichols also had a stand as did Crombie, offering made-to-measure clothing for ladies and gents. I don’t think we have a Harvey Nicks at our conference. (more…)

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Darren Cooper on the shame of Michael Gove

06/10/2010, 11:30:52 AM

People in my borough of Sandwell will never forget that week in July when schools secretary, Michael Gove, first announced that our schools had survived his BSF axe – and then cruelly reversed his decision.

Parents, pupils and teachers won’t soon forget his refusal to listen to reason and give our community the school building projects it so desperately needs. And we certainly won’t forget his refusal to come to Sandwell and explain his decision.

This morning, Michael Gove appeared on our local radio station, BBC WM, and offered nothing more than excuses. For five minutes he failed to offer a single genuine reason why he couldn’t take the ten minute journey from Tory conference in Birmingham to visit the schools in Sandwell whose hopes he so callously dashed this summer. The audio is here. (more…)

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We don’t need to blow people up to win the argument on climate change, says ffinlo Costain

05/10/2010, 12:28:44 PM

This week the 10:10 campaign (getting people to cut their carbon emissions by ten per cent in 2010) presented a nasty little film, which they hoped would help wake people up to the perils of global climate change. It was an error of judgement, and the 10:10 director acted quickly when she saw the offence the film had caused, withdrew it and apologised.

Her fast response is laudable. But climate campaigners must be more careful.

When I was a student in the early 1990s I was passionate about social justice, angrily in favour of peace, and Michael Portillo – at the time a hard-right Thatcherite instead of the late night teddy-bear Tory he’s become – was the Devil incarnate.

But then one night something happened. (more…)

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When the plan falls apart, by Rob Carr

03/10/2010, 11:00:45 AM

When I was a kid, the big show on TV was the A-Team. In breaks and after school, my friends and I used to be the A-Team. This mainly involved acting out invented episodes whilst running around back lanes or climbing trees down the local park.

There were four main characters of which (in the eyes of an eight-year-old) only two were cool. They were John ‘Hannibal’ Smith and Templeton ‘Face’ Peck.

This of course caused difficulties. Among six or seven of us, only two could be the cool characters, two others had to be the boring characters, and the rest were the ‘baddies’. This should have led to squabbles, arguments, sulks and tantrums, but as a rule it didn’t. Eight year old minds are creative and open and we usually managed to rotate the roles in a democratic fashion before killing each other by the climbing frame.

Except for one kid. There’s always one kid isn’t there? In the case of my childhood, it was a kid I shall call Paul. Mainly because that was his name. Paul was a pain in the arse. He insisted on being Hannibal. If he couldn’t be Hannibal, he would refuse to play. And, worse, he’d generally end up sabotaging our game as we played around him. (more…)

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How not to find out the NEC results, by Kirstin Hay

02/10/2010, 02:30:21 PM

I arrived in Manchester ready to head down to the Labour leadership announcement with Johanna Baxter, one of the candidates for the national executive committee (NEC). There was trepidation in the air throughout the whole conference zone, everyone waiting anxiously to find out who would be the next person to lead our party. We had all known for months exactly when and how this announcement would take place. Unfortunately, this was not quite the case with the NEC results.

We turned up to conference without knowing which day they would announce the results (not that we hadn’t tried hard to find out). While we enjoyed finding out that Ed Miliband was going to lead our party, and attending the Ed Balls campaign party (Johanna and I had both been very involved in his campaign), the rest of the evening consisted of trying to gather information from national policy forum candidates and party officials (including asking the current chair of the NEC) about what the process was for announcing the results. None of which let Johanna know when her votes would be published. (more…)

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Where the reds play at home, by Kevin Meagher

01/10/2010, 02:30:10 PM

MANCHESTER has had a good week. This is now the best Labour conference venue by a mile. Lots to do and easy to get to. And a place where beer is served as it should be: with a head on it. Take note you lager-guzzling southerners.

Not convinced? OK, it’s also a good Labour town too. In fact, about as resolutely Labour as you get. The only Lib Dem MP for the city, John Leach, even spoke at a fringe meeting earlier this week making the case for a future Lab-Lib co-operation. And he voted against his party’s coalition deal with the Tories. Might he come over? He used to work for McDonalds so he’s used to flipping.

The first ever trades union congress was held in Manchester (1868 at the Mechanics’ Institute, since you ask). Marx and Engels knocked out part of The Communist Manifesto sat at the wooden desk in the window alcove of the reading room of the Chetham Library in the city centre. (more…)

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“And Labour’s top baron is…Keith Vaz”, by Sunder Katwala

01/10/2010, 12:00:14 PM

The votes in the affiliates section of Labour’s electoral college are cast by the individual members of the unions and socialist societies, not as “block votes” by their leaders.

But who is Labour’s top baron? Which organisation proved most successful in persuading its members of the wisdom of its leadership, getting closest to a bloc vote pattern of voting for the chosen candidate?

No. It wasn’t Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley of Unite, nor Paul Kenny of the GMB, and not Dave Prentis of Unison either.

Both Unite and GMB voters split 2:1 for Ed over David Miliband, and Unison by 3:2. That is not nearly enough to prevent them falling a long way behind a rival party baron, as the full breakdown of affiliate voting shows. (more…)

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Ed Miliband must keep alive the movement for change, says Ben Maloney

29/09/2010, 05:25:59 PM

Following Saturday’s result it’s vital that Ed Miliband gets to grips as quickly as possible with the scale of the challenge ahead of him.

And the most important thing he can do, if he’s serious about taking Labour forward, is recognise that if we’re going to pose a genuine challenge at the next election we need to rebuild the party from the grassroots up.

Based on my experience of the last four months, the answer for Ed is to embrace the hugely successful model that has already been implemented as a result of David Miliband’s movement for change. (more…)

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