UNCUT: Labour should support the government’s ministry of justice reforms

08/07/2013, 05:00:18 PM

by Ian Moss

Whisper it quietly but there is a long overdue transformation going on in the ministry of justice and Labour should support some of it. Ignoring the tired idea that parliament is at its worst when it agrees, there are a number of proposals coming from Chris Grayling that, if successful, will help reform the shabby, out of date operations of the justice system and produce efficiencies and positive reforms at the same time.

In my short time in the ministry of justice I ran a few heretical ideas up the flagpole, and it is nice to see some of them fluttering away proudly. From my lofty position within criminal justice strategy I had the luxury of not having to actually deliver anything, but equally I had the benefit of being able to roam across the system and look at the hard numbers and the operational approach.

The departmental budget was a mess, and there was no sophisticated plan to deal with the problem, with senior officials putting all of their eggs in to the basket of “reducing prison numbers” and “cutting legal aid”. When Ken Clarke was appointed as secretary of state one director general in my near view literally leapt up and whooped, punching the air. Said official had palpable relief borne out of the belief that, with Ken, they could roll through their unsophisticated plans for cuts. They had to, as there were no other plans.

Unfortunately letting prisoners out was never going to be politically acceptable and slashing legal aid, as we have seen, is a crude and unjust way of getting the budget numbers in order. Ken Clarke may have been a big beast of old but slept through his time in MoJ without any obvious interest in tackling the questions of reform that were necessary. The reforming zeal on which he built his reputation in the 80s and 90s was not in evidence.

MoJ required a wholesale transformation of its operations to release value and improve the system. I think Grayling has got to this conclusion very quickly.  Policy Exchange has also proposed some sensible measures in its Future Prisons report. Labour should take these proposals seriously and lend its political support to a long overdue overhaul and reform of the ministry’s operations.

Firstly, and importantly, large amounts of value in the department are tied up in assets that are in prime locations. Stand on Southwark bridge and look longingly down the beautiful view of the Thames. On the right bank, within plain sight will be the crude, ugly brick building of Southwark crown court. Look upstream and you will see the unedifying sight of city of lLndon’s coroners court.

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UNCUT: Letter from Wales: Welsh government blows €130m investment in north Wales

08/07/2013, 03:11:03 PM

by Julian Ruck

For a classic example of the Welsh government’s blazing incompetence and reluctance to consider any true private investment (but to be fair, there is no authentic private sector in Wales) that doesn’t involve their profligate dishing out of tax-payers’ money at will to duff so-called commercial enterprises, please consider some correspondence (below) that was recently sent to me by Jeremy Oakley, a businessman.

Mr Oakley’s abridged  letter to first minister Carwyn Jones, on 16.5.13 is as follows –  please note, no response was forthcoming from Mr Jones, neither was there a response from his deputy Rhodri Price, who had put his deputy, one James Price onto it as a matter of urgency.

“It is with deep regret that I must inform you of my decision to pull investment we had planned for north Wales, specifically for the Trawsfynydd power station site.

Over the last 2 years, we have created a green energy project that was specifically designed for Trawsfynydd.

The project was to create 100 full time long term jobs by using new technology to create Bioethanol from the local natural resources of grass, bracken and soft rush.

The annual return to the region would have been c€20m plus the income derived from full time mixed ability jobs created in a high unemployment area.

The capital expenditure for the project would have been 130m EUR of which c60% would have been a local spend.”

That’s right €130m of investment in Wales in exactly the type of green energy project we desperately need, lost without even an explanation. But Wales’ loss is other countries’ gain. Mr. Oakley continues, Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Labour history uncut: Crash! Bang! Wallop! What an economy

07/07/2013, 11:09:08 PM

by Pete Goddard and Atul Hatwal

On 31st May 1929, Ramsay Macdonald departed Darlington for London, cheered by a massed crowd swathed in green and white, Labour’s minty-fresh colours in the north east.

At each stop crowds were gathered at the platform demanding a speech from the election victor. He duly obliged where he could, although thanks to the use of station Tannoys, nobody actually understood any of it.

By the time Macdonald arrived at King Cross station at 11pm there were 12,000 people waiting. This wasn’t simply because of over-running engineering works outside Peterborough, either. The huge crowd was there to herald the return, albeit as a minority administration again, of a Labour government.

No pressure then.

Nobody was impressed by Ramsay Macdonald’s impression of a stamp

The next day Macdonald began the painful process of sulks and tantrums that came with forming a new government.

His first appointment should have been easy. Like last time Macdonald wanted to select an unfailingly loyal foreign secretary – himself.

But Arthur Henderson rather fancied a job where he could visit foreign countries and then invade them. He threatened to boycott the government if he didn’t get the job.

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UNBOUND: Unite & Paisley

06/07/2013, 06:48:45 PM

We have withdrawn an article today relating to  Unite and Mr Len McCluskey that contained allegations concerning Unite’s role in nominating Labour MPs with particular reference to Paisley. This withdrawal follows correspondence form Unite’s solicitors to the effect that information contained in the article was false. Pending further enquiries, we have withdrawn the article and request that media outlets do not report further  the information contained in it.

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UNCUT: After Falkirk, it’s time for state funding of political parties

05/07/2013, 06:36:50 PM

by Dan McCurry

When somebody wants to end a relationship, they don’t engage in a rational conversation, they engage in rudeness, spite, and provocation. The end of the end maybe a rational discussion, but the beginning of the end nearly always starts with unpleasantness. The manner of Len McCluskey’s conduct in recent times has been unacceptable. This is not clumsiness, ignorance or accident. It is downright rude, and he knows it.

When the Tories have attacked Labour’s union relationship in the past, it has had little effect. Voters know Labour is fearful of indulging the unions to much, and that the unions support ordinary working people. However, the recent Tory attacks are different. Cameron, at PMQs, was not attacking Len McCluskey, he was attacking Ed Miliband. His allegation was that Miliband is not in control.

My first observation of the power of unions over Labour was at the 2009 Bournemouth conference. I arrived as delegate, excited and empowered with my vote. I wanted to put forward a motion and lobby other delegates to back my ideas. I soon realised that the results are stitched up by the unions beforehand. The delegate vote is window dressing for the membership.

The unions own the Labour Party conference. It is an annual jamboree where they get to take the stage and pontificate before some of the most powerful politicians in the country. There is nothing wrong with this. They paid for the conference so surely they can enjoy it. But when we witness them booing the name of a former leader, Tony Blair, what are we to make of this?

At the time it was dismissed as a one-off silliness, but it didn’t end there. The contempt has continued. Do these people have a respect for the institution of the Labour party, or are they only at conference because they are paymasters and therefore entitled to a good piss-up? If so then it’s an extremely expensive piss-up.

The unions give us millions each year, and they obviously have a duty to question whether these donations are in the interests of their fee paying members. They may also ask whether the high profile funding of Labour serves their image well, taking into account the barrage from the other main party, which must breed hostility in managers. There is a serious question as to whether funding Labour is a liability rather than an asset to the unions.

The alternative to union funding is state funding. If the level of state funding were sufficient then no party would be obliged to a specific interest group. Politics would be less dirty in terms of allegations and suspicions.

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UNCUT: Handing the Falkirk report to the police is a good first step. But more is needed.

05/07/2013, 01:27:50 PM

by Atul Hatwal

So news breaks this lunchtime that the party is handing the report into Falkirk West to the police. Good.

On Wednesday this week, Uncut was first with the news that the Fraud Act had potentially been breached. Yesterday, we broke the news that the party was refusing to commit to handing over evidence of any illegality to the police and relevant authorities.

In the post yesterday, we called for the party ‘s legal advisers to look at the report and asses whether any evidence of law-breaking was uncovered during the course of the NEC inquiry. This morning the Labour party did exactly that and as expected has found it extremely likely that the law has been breached.

The party is making the right moves to clean up this mess. But there is unfinished business. Handing the report to the police will address the potential breach of the Fraud Act.

However, the Data Protection Act has also very likely been breached and this is within the remit of the Information Commissioner rather than the police.

The party inquiry will have found evidence of this breach, not least with the complaints of Unite members who found that they had been signed-up to the Labour party without their knowledge.

To complete the cleansing, the party should handover this is evidence of law-breaking to the Information Commissioner and ask him to investigate.

Only then will the party truly begin to move on from the disaster in Falkirk West.

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UNCUT: Labour’s real problem with ‘tolerated entryism’

05/07/2013, 06:58:52 AM

by Kevin Meagher

Confirmation earlier this week that 14 constituency Labour parties are in “special measures” but only one – Falkirk – seems to have anything to do with the swirl of allegations surrounding Unite, begs the obvious question:  what about the other 13?

Looking at that list, at least some of those suspensions are because of irregular recruiting practices by ethnic groups in order to affect the result of council and parliamentary selection processes. Indeed, four of the fourteen are in Birmingham, where six Labour councillors were convicted of electoral fraud in 2005, with the judge in the case saying their behaviour would not “disgrace a banana republic”.

This is, of course, a subject usually tucked away in the ‘dirty laundry’ file with party chiefs wary about cracking down on this sort of behaviour out of a misplaced sense of not wanting to castigate ethnic groups. Unfortunately this soft-soaping merely sees the problem persist, with many of the 14 suspended parties effectively in limbo for years.

Back in 1999, the party’s North West regional office received complaints of irregularities in the selection of council candidates in Oldham (the town’s two constituency Labour parties are included among the list of 14).

The dozen or so regular branch members of Alexandra ward Labour party were joined by 300 new Asian party members for the annual meeting to select the candidate to stand in the local elections. The sitting (White) councillor was duly deselected. The same hammer-to-crack-a-walnut tactic was then employed in other local selections.

The Oldham Independent Review, into the 2001 riots in the town, chaired by David Ritchie, succinctly explained what had been happening:

“…[L]arge numbers of new members have been registered shortly before some ward selection meetings and although they apparently comply with Labour Party rules on eligibility to vote, our informants had good grounds to question their allegiance to the Party. One of them when challenged professed that he normally voted Liberal Democrat. Some meetings to choose candidates have been disfigured by threats of violence and other disorderly behaviour, and in one case a selection meeting needed heavy police presence.”

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UNCUT: New Falkirk twist: Now Labour refuse to commit to pass evidence of law-breaking to the police

04/07/2013, 07:00:33 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Another day, another Falkirk West farrago. Labour has now managed to tie itself in knots over what to do with evidence of illegal activities, uncovered as a result of the party’s inquiries.

The current position is that Labour will not commit to handing over any evidence of suspected law-breaking to the police or relevant authorities.

To recap, this sorry affair was kicked off when local Unite members complained to the party about being recruited into Labour without their knowledge.

In late May, the Sunday Herald carried details of one of the letters of complaint, originally sent in March, that ultimately triggered the NEC inquiry,

“Myself and two family members have been enrolled by Unite…I or my family did not fill in or sign any forms and wish to know what information the party holds about my family… I have concerns as to the way Unite in Falkirk are recruiting party members.”

On this basis, two laws appear to have been broken – the 1998 Data Protection Act and the 2006 Fraud Act.

Just over a month ago Uncut reported that angry members in Falkirk West were considering reporting Unite to the Information Commissioner because of a breach of their data protection rights.

Under the terms of the Act, each individual must have agreed before their personal details are passed to a different organisation.

At the point where Unite members’ personal details were registered with the Labour party, without their consent being first granted, the law will have been broken.

Then, yesterday Uncut reported on the likelihood of a breach of the Fraud Act. Whoever completed the bogus applications and validated them would have contravened section 2 of the Act under the terms of “false misrepresentation”

Submitting completed forms to the Labour party, without the new members’ consent, would have constituted false misrepresentation.

Two laws, two breaches. One to do with peoples’ rights over their personal information, the other with the act of someone deliberately falsifying membership forms.

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GRASSROOTS: The trouble with ‘45

03/07/2013, 05:35:56 PM

by Lee Butcher

Emerging phoenix like from the ashes of 2010 is proving somewhat more difficult than initially expected by some in the Labour party. The shattered economy, left ruined by the fiendish bankers, found the party holding the can and going down to a historically poor election defeat.

The usual fissures in the party have opened up and among the unsurprising and entirely unoriginal bickering between left and right about who is to blame, and who will resurrect the party in time for 2015, a certain wistful gaze over the historical shoulders of the movement has began.

The ‘right’ may have stopped looking back when arriving at Mr Blair’s lofty shoulders but the loosely defined ‘left’ have taken it upon themselves to cast their gaze back further into the distant past coming to a halt at the heady days of July 1945. Ken Loach’s nostalgic documentary outing, soon to be a regular repeat on Film 4, was the cultural firing gun of this endeavour.

A country whose recent past had left its economy close to bankruptcy and social ills crying out for remedy; 1945 and 2015 have never felt so similar. These observations are not entirely incorrect and any wise head in the party would do well to ask what Clement Attlee’s band of post-war “revolutionaries” has to teach us.

The problem is not that it is the wrong question to ask, the problem is that the answers returned are incomplete. As with all matters historical and political, the devil lay firmly in the detail.

As the proponents of such a view argue Attlee & Co. faced a fiscal crisis worse than our own and went on to dramatically increase public spending. They did it, so can we! They are entirely correct, but that enthusiasm can only be dampened when it comes to how they did it.

Britain’s economy, then as now, was in great trouble. Bankrupt is the term employed by most post-war historians to describe the Treasury’s books. George Osborne may have been rendered dumbfounded by a certain predecessor’s note informing him of the fiscal situation, Hugh Dalton must have been rendered incandescent at the sight of most of Britain’s cities laying in ruins.

In response to the fiscal legacy left by the work of the Luftwaffe’s finest, and the unbearable burden of maintaining over one million men in uniform scattered across the world, and the government picking up the bill for thousands conscripted to keep the essential industries running, Attlee and Dalton came to much the same conclusion as Messrs Cameron and Osborne; we need to cut spending.

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UNCUT: New allegations of fraud and interference with party investigations emerge from Falkirk West

03/07/2013, 07:00:02 AM

by Atul Hatwal

For the past few days, the debacle in Falkirk West has been the main news story relating to the Labour party. The allegations of entryism by Unite are well known as is Labour’s response: to place the constituency in special measures and bar anyone who joined after 12th March 2012 from voting in the parliamentary selection.

But, new information has emerged that suggests the problems maybe even more serious. The latest allegations centre on a potential breach of the 2006 fraud act and a subsequent attempt to induce those who had complained , to change their testimony before the national party could investigate.

The Unite defence against claims of foul play in the constituency has been that the recruitment of union members, with their annual subscription paid by the union, is within party rules.

This is true, but only on the condition that the new members would actually be willing to pay the subscription themselves and want to join the Labour party to participate as individuals, not as part of a bloc interested only in manipulating selection processes.

In terms of payment of subscriptions, the rules are clear:

“It is an abuse of party rules for one individual or faction to ‘buy’ party membership for other individuals or groups of individuals who would otherwise be unwilling to pay their own subscriptions. “ Clause II Membership procedures, Chapter 2 Membership rules, Labour party rulebook 2013

As they are on the motivation of new recruits for joining the party,

“iii. The party is anxious to encourage the recruitment of new members and to ensure that new members are properly welcomed into the party and opportunities offered to enable their full participation in all aspects of party life.

iv. The party is, however, concerned that no individual or faction should recruit members improperly in order to seek to manipulate our democratic procedures.

v. The health and democracy of the party depends on the efforts and genuine participation of individuals who support the aims of the party, wish to join the party and get involved with our activities. The recruitment of large numbers of ‘paper members’, who have no wish to participate except at the behest of others in an attempt to manipulate party processes, undermines our internal democracy and is unacceptable to the party as a whole.” Sub-sections (iii)-(v), Section A, Appendix 2 NEC procedural guidelines on membership recruitment and retention, Labour party rulebook 2013

The party investigation into Falkirk West was prompted by complaints made by two families who mysteriously found that they had suddenly become Labour party members, despite never signing the forms to join the party.

They complained to the local party, to local councillors, and sources suggest, the police.

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