Grassroots « Labour Uncut

The Andy Burnham interview

04/08/2010, 12:00:07 PM

Burnham: Everton, FA Cup final

When Andy Burnham is asked a question, he gives it some thought. And then he gives you an actual answer. Sitting in his Parliamentary office in Norman Shaw South, Burnham tells it how it is, no matter how deliberate the grimaces from his team. The result is a genuine response from a man who’s answering on normal terms. He’s got time for everyone; chatting to researchers in the corridor when we arrive, and he’s got plenty to say about the campaign. But even now he’s aware that playing nice is often read as lacking strength. He talks to Labour Uncut about career politics, Christianity, Everton and his eyelashes.

Q. (from Luke Charters-Reid): What would you do to revitalise the party for young people, to attract young members who are essentially the Labour cabinet in 40 years time.

A. Well, we’ve got to make Labour the natural home for all young people who want to change the world. As I did, and as I still do. When I was fifteen, I wanted to change the world. That’s why I joined Labour. But we lost a sense of it when we were in government. So, what would I do? I had a meeting on Saturday with Manchester young Labour and the young Fabians and we had a really good discussion about this.

I think you’ve got to rethink through what is a young person’s introduction to Labour when they join. And I don’t think we should immediately assign them to a branch or a ward and then a constituency. I think the first contact they should have is from a young labour group in their locality. Because I think too many might fall at the first hurdle. They get the first contact and go to a meeting that they basically don’t relate to and we’ve got to rethink our introductory approach to people joining the Labour party. They’re joining it to change the world and to change policy. And we’ve got to make sure that their first experience of labour is inspiring, why they think they’ve joined. And we also have to think about how we can connect them immediately to the policy discussion and how to change the world. Sadly, the party’s not done what it says on the tin. That’s what they thought they were getting when they joined and they often turn up at meetings finding they’re talking about the minutes of the last meeting or the yellow lines by the chippy or something like that. That for me…we’ve got to rethink what is their introduction to Labour.

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Sundip Meghani on why Labour is losing the Hindu vote

03/08/2010, 01:34:14 PM

There is an expectation within the Labour party that ethnic minorities will remain loyal to the cause come what may. They won’t. In fact, not only is Labour losing popular support amongst British Hindus, but the Tories are making significant inroads into this once rock solid demographic.

The trend is reversible, but we need to act decisively in the coming months and years to shore up our vote with Britain’s half a million strong Hindu community.

First, it is important to understand that Hinduism isn’t just a religion, it is a way of life. There is a great deal more than just religious belief that binds the British Hindu population together. It is also worth pointing out that the British Hindu community is becoming increasingly confident, organised and influential, with the emergence of several major umbrella organisations and think tanks in recent years.

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Kris Ballance wants a leader for the whole UK

02/08/2010, 10:23:53 AM

Can Labour provide a leader for the whole UK? It may seem like a strange question to ask, but it is something that party members who live in Northern Ireland ask daily.

Labour did many great things for my province while it was in government, but one thing is still outstanding – leadership.

During the last election, Cameron tried to seize an opportunity that no other party in Westminster has publicly tried to do before – he wanted to have a government that would represent the whole of the United Kingdom and would contest every Westminster seat to ensure that that happened. (more…)

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In the face of the BSF decision we must stand up for our schools, says Nick McDonald

30/07/2010, 02:36:11 PM

In Nottingham, we have recently started a campaign to protest against Michael Gove’s decision to cancel Labour’s Building Schools for the Future. His decision came as no surprise, but that will be of little comfort to the schools and learning centres that have fallen on the wrong side of the line.

The cancellation of BSF affects two of our schools; Top Valley School & Engineering College in the north of Nottingham and The Trinity School in the west. These two schools are special cases. They were to receive part of the £33 million funding specifically promised as an agreed fifth wave of BSF investment in Nottingham. But there are even more schools or learning centres here have had their building projects either scrapped entirely or dramatically reduced. For teachers, parents, and children of all of these schools this is clearly a devastating blow.

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Richard Serunjogi says Oona’s got the passion and the pragmatism

30/07/2010, 08:35:24 AM

I managed to resist the tingling temptation to scribble my thoughts second-handed on the basis of twitter, blogs and the smokescreen of the media. I waited until I’d seen Oona and Ken slug it out for myself. The wait was worth its while.

Ken Livingstone has seemed like such a hard candidate to beat to the Labour nomination that I have wondered why Oona King would even try. After last week’s showing it’s pretty clear why. The energy which filled London Young Labour’s (LYL) mayoral hustings could sum up our revitalising project in a phrase – the future, passion and pragmatism. (more…)

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Rob Macpherson’s crowdsourcing dos and don’ts

28/07/2010, 06:57:43 PM

Online crowdsourcing has been hidden in the nooks and crannies of politics for long enough. The past few months have seen this democratic use of technology surge to the forefront of mainstream political dialogue. But if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell used his blog to crowdsource the first question of David Cameron’s initial PMQs… before continuing to raise House of Lords reform, a topic he himself has been trumpeting to anyone in the Tory party who would listen.

Meanwhile the public consultation that is the Treasury’s spending challenge suffered setback upon setback and has not done enough to create any real dialogue between government and citizen.

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Votes at 16: ffinlo Costain says that, for once, we should follow the Isle of Man

28/07/2010, 12:16:19 PM

There’s one constitutional reform that would make Britain fairer and more representative, but currently lowering the voting age to 16 isn’t on the cards. For once, we should follow the Isle of Man’s lead.

The Isle of Man isn’t renowned for liberal government. Birching and anti-homosexual laws were abolished only relatively recently, and penal policy is still draconian. But in terms of voting reform the Isle of Man has always been a step ahead. In 1881 they were the first to introduce votes for women, and then in 2006 the Manx parliament, Tynwald, chose to reduce the voting age to 16.

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Stephen Bush and Alistair Strathern launch the “Back Burnham” campaign

27/07/2010, 04:17:39 PM

“We have become dangerously disconnected from ordinary working people, we’ve not been speaking their language, we’ve been dealing with issues that aren’t their main concerns..”

Andy Burnham MP

We are a grassroots alliance of party-members drawn from both left and right, North and South, united by the belief that our leadership election has been marked by the same damaging disconnection from the wider electorate that defined our worst days in government.

The narrative of our leadership election has all too often been shaped by the Guardian editorial team and a handful of influential figures within our party. We have focussed too much and too long upon fringe issues; and not enough on the voters we have lost, why we lost them, and how we win them back. It should be a source of considerable worry to Labour that, as the paper war over endorsements ends and the real battle for votes begins, we have a better idea on how the candidates stand on the alternative vote than deficit reduction. (more…)

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Labour renewal must transcend tribes to put voters, not members, first

27/07/2010, 02:15:41 PM

Amid all the “who’s up and who is down” commentary on Labour’s leadership contest, it’s easy to forget that the contest is about selecting a Prime Minister in waiting, not a leader of the opposition. In today’s FT, Philip Stephens argues that if Labour’s defeat had been a little more crushing, our reflections would be more realistic. In today’s Telegraph, Mary Riddell warns against knee-jerk tribalism in opposition and urges Labour to resist retributive instincts that are stopping leadership candidates from agreeing with coalition policies now and again.

The election result surely shows that political tribalism is now dead in the water and that relying on a core vote strategy is ‘ballot box suicide’. But equally unrealistic is an obsession with winning back skilled working class C2s that ignores Labour’s vote share collapsing across all lower social classes. Whoever wins the leadership is going to need to make some big and symbolic repositions to show that Labour has listened, learned and most importantly, changed.

Time is of the essence. Labour had the chance to renew in office but left it too late. By the time the manifesto was published, the frame through which voters judged Labour had already been set. The Tories made the mistake of burning through three leaders before they were prepared to renew their ideas and reposition their offer to voters. We can’t afford to do the same.

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Ian Austin on the leadership primary he’s running in Dudley North

27/07/2010, 12:35:18 PM

Voters in Dudley North are going back to the polls this week. Labour party volunteers are out delivering letters to residents. Supporters of different candidates are busy hitting the phones and knocking doors canvassing for votes.

It’s not a by-election. It’s a ground-breaking American-style primary to give Labour supporters in Dudley North their say in the Labour leadership election. I’ve promised to cast the vote I’m given as a Labour MP for the candidate local people choose. (more…)

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