Daniel Charleston-Downes

Posts Tagged ‘Daniel Charleston-Downes’

Yes to OMOV. No to registered supporters. Ed Miliband’s party reforms are killing Labour

25/08/2015, 10:49:12 PM

by Daniel Charleston Downes

We can now forget the Ed Stone and the bacon sandwiches, we now know for sure the most damaging thing that Ed Miliband did for the Labour party. The recalibration of votes among members to one member one vote was essential and the right thing to do, but then this was extended too far into a new concept of registered supporters.

It makes sense to take the selection of leader away from just MPs. MPs have maintained their right to select who makes it to the ballot, but even then they seem to have done everything that they possibly can to misplace that power. Once the ballots are out it is correct that the PLP should have the same weight as those delivering leaflets and running campaigns.

The fact of the matter is that registering to support a party was always going to result in some mischief. As it happens it has meant that there are those in the Conservative party that have sought a vote in order to pick what they consider to be the least desirable electoral option for Labour and it has encouraged those from the far left to sway the ballot.

Both pose their own problems. Opening yourself up so that your opposition can infiltrate your leadership selection is foolish, particularly if MPs are nominating a candidate whilst denouncing them as a suicide ticket. This should never be allowed to happen and unless the NEC can guarantee that not one vote has been cast by an individual for the sole intention of disrupting the party, the vote should not go ahead. I would be amazed if they can do this with any confidence.

The second issue is that it has exacerbated and even created divisions within the party that weren’t prevalent before the election. There were a great many members that wanted a deeper anti-austerity message but many were able to assess that need against electoral pragmatism.

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This polarised leadership contest is ignoring the key lessons from our general election defeat

06/08/2015, 05:52:39 PM

by Daniel Charleston Downes

A common complaint made by public service workers about governments is that the manner in which decisions and policies made are is entirely hegemonic. The secretary of state for health, education or defence rarely has first-hand experience of those sectors they represent and if they do it was often a while ago. Added to which, politics is placed above pragmatism and the experience and knowledge of workers at the coal-face that could give a detailed account of what the problems really are.

In any analysis of the 2015 general election defeat it would follow logically that the best accounts could be given by those that fought and lost marginal seats. Thankfully this is exactly what the Fabians have done in their collected essays Never Again edited by Sally Keeble and Will Straw. This collection gives accounts of seven regions around England where Labour underperformed. It gives insight into what the successes were of CLPs directly involved in their communities and the issues that national policy and leadership were giving candidates on the doorstep.

Whilst the existence of the document itself is cause for much cheer, it appears as if the leadership contenders are coming to the wider debate about the future of the Labour party with their direction already established. Corbyn for example has in his analysis inevitably come to the conclusion that Labour were too right wing and did not provide clear opposition to austerity. This seems counter to all evidence, the near 80% of the electorate that supported a pro-austerity party and the experience of many accounts on the doorsteps. Further it completely ignores the conclusions of the Trades Union Congress survey that showed Labour were generally perceived to have been too soft on both welfare and immigration.

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Labour will not reconnect with the British people until parliamentary selections become more open

09/07/2015, 03:15:59 PM

by Daniel Charleston Downes

If you were to close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears and not participate in any hustings nor read any campaign material you would still be able to predict the shape and tone of the leadership election so far.

You would perhaps put good money on the word ambition to be lumped onto the phrase ‘working people’ and ‘working families’. A new favourite appears to be the maxim that Labour should help people to ‘get on in life’. You would correctly predict that much would be made of the fact that Labour did not understand the needs and wants of the electorate, that we are out of touch and need to ‘connect’ with the public once again.

Much of this rhetoric is platitudinous, but sometimes wisdom can be found in bitesize chunks, much like fortune cookie prophesy. The Conservatives have occupied the space once again of the safe choice for a governing party, the rogues that we all hate to love. People may complain about them, but they get the job done and a necessary job it is indeed. Just by being affable and in possession of reasonable wit, Boris Johnson is able to suggest a further cut to 40% in the top rate of tax with no fear whatsoever that it could isolate him from the Tory leadership. It is Labour that needs this touchy-feely connectiveness stuff more than our current government.

For all that has been said however we don’t seem any nearer to understanding what our relationship with the electorate means. There have been some suggestions of further devolution, in local and regional government, in communities and in public services – placing greater power in the hands of the individual. Ed Miliband spoke much of the power of local Constituency Labour Parties taking on responsibilities in the grassroots and building a national movement from a campaigning core, a concept that I am very passionate about. Both of these philosophies however only attract those that are already engaged in the political process, none of them reach out beyond already established ‘active’ citizens. This represents Labour’s central problem with their isolation from the public.

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Is socialism still at the heart of the Labour party?

31/03/2015, 07:23:18 PM

by Daniel Charleston-Downes

Just before the Labour party conference in 2013 Ed Miliband was asked when he was going to put socialism back on the agenda of the Labour Party. ‘That’s what we’re doing sir’ was his reply. As we approach the election he has again been asked to defend his record as ‘Red Ed’, being told that the party was still not left wing enough for one supporter. The party is plenty radical enough for Mr Cameron however who described the entire party as a ‘bunch of hypocritical, holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists’.

To some extent you can ignore Cameron’s quote as an uncharacteristically desperate and overt personal attack on Miliband in response to a surprise poll bump for his party. But there are growing voices in the party, especially when faced with having to defend austerity measures, that are dusting off their berets and bringing their Marxism out of retirement. Already within the Labour party you have Labour Left and Red Labour to name just some factions that draft policy and put pressure on the party to move left. Some of those that feel that the cause is already lost have defected to the Greens or more recently Left Unity.

Labour is still, in at least name, a social democratic party and is affiliated with socialist groups in Europe and the wider international community. Socialism in Britain has always been a little different to its European brother with a tendency to venerate the Lords and the Queen and have a deep respect and even spiritual relationship with the Church. Traditionally, Labour’s greatest and most radical socialists have come from the middle to upper classes, take Tony Benn and Clement Attlee as examples. The Labour party, since it became a large-scale political party, hasn’t always sat easy with the working classes as a true movement for the masses.

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Jim Murphy needs to be radical to revive Labour in Scotland

18/12/2014, 05:27:18 PM

by Daniel Charelston-Downes

Labour, according to the New Statesman, is now 20 points behind the SNP in Westminster voting intentions. This would see an almost virtual wipeout of Scottish seats for Labour and goes some way to explaining why Nicola Sturgeon was so keen to welcome the new Scottish Labour leadership with words of unity and collaboration. It seems SNP are preparing for, even expecting, coalition partnership.

Jim Murphy’s leadership has come at a crucial time for Scottish Labour. When Lamont talked of her despair at Scottish Labour being treated as a branch office, she hit close to home with all Scottish voters. London-centric politics is killing the main parties in Scotland and will take Labour down leaving the SNP the last man standing.

The moment Tony Blair’s name became sacrilegious in my household growing up was when he abandoned Clause IV. With Murphy using the language of the Clause, he is clearly trying to evoke memories of that kind of reform within the party and the wave of electoral success that brought with it. A rehashed statement of intent for Scotland is an attempt to move Labour into a ‘reformer’ platform.

However what Scottish voters liked about Salmond and continue to appreciate in Sturgeon is their lack of political machinery.

Where Murphy will struggle, and where his use of Blairite language displays a complete lack of understanding, is that he is viewed as the worst kind of career politician. He is straight out of Westminster. He has bounced from education, to the National Union of Students presidency, to think tanks and policy groups and now parliament. He has always seen Scotland through Labour eyes.

If Labour is ever to win a majority again they are going to need to gain Scotland back. The SNP are a much greater threat to the Labour party than UKIP are to anyone, they are doing a much more successful job of converting anti-Westminster sentiment into seats than any other British party.

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Tristram Hunt is losing teachers’ votes

26/11/2014, 02:32:25 PM

by Daniel Charleston-Downes

In a recent Labour List poll, Tristram Hunt was voted the least popular shadow cabinet member. Other than himself and Ed Balls, all other shadow cabinet members were gifted a positive rating. Dr Hunt’s rating was the only one in negative double figures.

David Cameron moved Michael Gove out of the Education portfolio to protect the Tories approaching an election year. Since then, Nicky Morgan has done all that she can to placate teachers on the verge of further strikes by asking Ofsted to release clear expectations on workload. The Tories have also shifted education debate on to the only thing that they can win on, fear of Islamic extremism.

Teachers are unlikely to flock to the Conservatives at the general election, but parents might. Parents should be angry that their children have been used by Gove as guinea pigs in untested curriculum experiments and have had their futures pulled from under them by shifting goal posts. They should be concerned that 10 years of movement towards an education of inclusion is being abandoned for tighter definitions of special needs and rigorous and inflexible examinations.

But they aren’t because there is silence from the opposition. From a parental perspective, Hunt is nowhere. He has made one statement about curriculum changes, that being that the AS Levels alterations are ‘confusing’. Other than that he has attempted to position himself next to the Conservatives on family values in schools and battling extremism. Both territories that Labour are not perceived as strong on with undecided voters and that the Labour grassroots will feel uncomfortable with.

And when it comes to teachers, Labour really are in trouble. Strike action has been gaining less and less traction with NUT and NASWUT members who are increasingly concerned that unions are losing parents and alienating staff from school leaders. An appetite for further strikes has been lost by the utter contempt displayed by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition and the deafening silence from anyone on the Labour front benches.

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Labour cannot allow itself to be pulled into UKIP-centric politics

21/11/2014, 06:51:46 PM

by Daniel Charelston-Downes

It doesn’t feel like there are a lot of positives to take from Rochester and Strood. UKIP claimed the seat and the Tories will feel a majority of just 2,920 is small enough for them to reclaim in the General Election. It will be Labour with just 16.8%, a fall of over 10 points on the 2010 election, that will feel they have lost the most out of a seat that they used to hold.

The UKIP victory in Rochester and Strood is a success that belongs to the media. The press has ensured that UKIP, Farage and Reckless have been pushed to the front of the public consciousness and have kept them there. After the ‘People Powered’ hustings on Tuesday it was clear that many were impressed by the eloquence and ability of the Labour candidate Naushabah Khan and that they were thoroughly underwhelmed by the real-life, live version of the UKIP demagogue Mark Reckless.

The question of how to win seats like Rochester and Strood has to focus on how Labour can both win the attention of the media and steer the debate. On the final days of the by-election the papers, internet and radio were all awash with the he-said, she-said snappings between UKIP and the Tories over who had the most reactionary supporters. You had to look very hard indeed to find anything on Naushabah’s policies and statements on the NHS in light of a local failing hospital or indeed her own views on immigration.

To win, Labour has to be part of a movement that engages in a real debate with UKIP. There is a great deal of petulance, particularly in the form of social media, surrounding criticism of Farage and his party. To brand Farage a Fascist or to say that all UKIP supporters are bigoted nutters misses the most integral issue of the Rochester and Strood by-election, and it was not immigration.

There is definitely a fear of immigration in Rochester and Strood, although the actual immigrant population is relatively low. High unemployment rates, particularly in Strood, and an erosion of British working class culture has led to mass disenfranchisement on a huge scale. Every time that Farage or Reckless say ‘let’s kick that lot out of Westminster, it’s time for real change’ with a pint in one hand and a fag in the other it does look to those marginalised by politics like real change. Crucially this means that when mainstream parties attack UKIP for being bigots or nutters it simply pushes people deeper into their arms.

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