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Posts Tagged ‘Ken Livingstone’

London’s lesson from Jamaica: don’t write off your candidate

08/01/2012, 12:01:04 PM

by Conrad Landin

While Britain slept off its Christmas excess, Jamaica went to the polls on 29 December. Overnight, result after progressive result rolled in as the votes were counted.

The scale of victory for the People’s National Party (PNP), the main left-wing grouping, was a surprise. Poll after poll in the last weeks had shown the election on a knife-edge, with most showing the governing right-wingers slightly ahead.

In the event, it was a contest of policies and records. Poverty had skyrocketed under the incumbents, who also faced negative publicity from their connections with Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, the drug dealer who made global headlines last year when the island’s government refused to extradite him to the US.

But behind all this lies a remarkable woman: Portia Simpson-Miller. Despite her youthful appearance and manner, she has been on the country’s political scene for the best part of three and a half decades, entering parliament seven years before Tony Blair first graced the green benches.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 1 Comment »

London Young Labour elections: Adam McNicholas sets out his stall

08/10/2011, 10:30:00 AM

by Adam McNicholas

Many of us returned from Liverpool with a renewed sense of purpose as we approach the 2012 “mid term” elections. However, most members will not have been in Liverpool. They will have been working and going about their lives. For delegates and participants, the responsibility rests with us to bring the discussions and debates of national conference to the local level. As a member of the London Young Labour executive committee, I see it as my responsibility to ensure that young members across London are able to have a voice, whether or not they are able to attend key national events in the party’s calendar.

For those of us, like me, that have the flexibility in our circumstances to have been at Liverpool, reaching out beyond the base of party activists is not simply a challenge; but a responsibility that we bear.

As we approach the London Young Labour annual general meeting on 23 October, the current executive committee must do all that it can to ensure that LYL members have the opportunity to discuss and consider the direction of the party. As well as hearing from Ken Livingstone, there will also be scope for discussion and debate on the direction of the party. I will work to ensure that the schedule for the AGM is not just about elections, but about giving LYL members the opportunity to discuss the direction of travel that we are taking. (more…)

Posted in Grassroots | 2 Comments »

YourKen: can a website really change the game?

27/08/2011, 12:24:47 PM

by Adam Richards

This week marked a big step forward for Labour in London and Ken Livingstone’s campaign to win back City Hall, with the launch of his campaign volunteer website, YourKen.org.

YourKen.org is clearly inspired by the success of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, my.barackobama.com which did so much of the mobilising of his support during the Democrat primary contest, and to a lesser extent the SNP’s campaign during the recent Scottish elections.

The website is built on the same technology from the US-based company, NationBuilder. The founder, Jim Gilliam, talking about his tools said ‘too often, online efforts are seen as a sideline to the offline efforts of a campaign’.

The success of NationBuilder is bringing online and offline communities’ together, empowering volunteers and energising campaigns. And it works. One example makes the point. Thanks to an ingenious system 50 SNP party supporters instantaneously signalled on Facebook their “like” for a speech by Alex Salmond during the buildup to the Scottish elections; simultaneously a video of the speech appeared on their Facebook news feeds. That clever device meant that 60,000 people instantly became aware of the speech and had the opportunity to view it. Pretty powerful stuff.

The key theme that runs through YourKen.org is community which is important to consider in light of recent events in London. Outside of the micro-community of the [extended] family the key next two obvious communities are those of interest and those of place- both in quite obviously in decline. Fewer people know their neighbours names now than in decades past, especially in London with its high levels of residential churn and population mobility.

In my view there is a third kind of community though, the most important- that of time-based, or temporal communities. These are communities that come together either intentionally or serendipitously, often as a one-off and to make a formal decision or declaration to take action at a moment in time. Like an election. (more…)

Posted in Grassroots | 1 Comment »

Not today

09/08/2011, 10:00:04 AM

by Dan Hodges

Not today. Please, just not today. Laurie Penny, I think you are a beautiful and gifted writer. But don’t tell me violence cannot be mindless. Or that it is all about catharsis. Not today.

Sunny Hundal, your real and passionate desire to break politics free from its straight jacket of committees and speeches and selection meetings does you credit. But please, don’t circulate any more time lapse photography of people’s homes burning and tell me it’s “brilliant” or that it’s “art’. Not today.

Owen Jones, the working class need a voice, and you are an articulate spokesman. But please, no more hand wringing about the dangers of an “authoritarian backlash” against those who tried to loot and burn our city to the ground. Not today.

Ken Livingstone, you were once a great and radical figure. But no one needs to hear your cheap politicking about your statesmanlike dash from the Olympic awards ceremony. Or your back of the envelope theories about how 14 and 15 year old rioters trashed JD sports because they are not able to provide for their wives and children. Not today.

Boris Johnson, I’d actually liked to have heard something from you. But instead I had to put up with your spokesman Kit Milhouse explaining why it was fit and proper for the Mayor of the world’s greatest capital city to watch from afar as his charge exploded in an orgy of destruction. We’ll no doubt hear the same excuses trotted out often this election year. If we must. But not today.

Theresa May, I understand being the only senior member of the government, (Nick Clegg hardly counts in these circumstances), is tough. But I don’t want to hear any more rubbish about “policing with consent” when that consent has been brutally withdrawn by a small but violent minority. And I’d park the protestations that cutting thousands of police officers won’t have had any operational impact. For today.

David Cameron, I don’t actually blame you for taking a much needed break in Tuscany. And it was nice you made friends with your waitress. But as you sit savouring the taste of your Tuscan Dream please, do one thing for me. For all of us. Don’t tell us we’re all in this together. We are, of course. But we don’t need to hear it from you. Not today.

There is lot we do need to hear. And lots that needs to be said. About the dislocation of inner-city youth. About the link between crime and poverty. About race and resentment. About lack of employment and educational opportunities. The widening gap between the rich and poor. The politics and the sociology and the criminology. All deserve, indeed require, an airing.

We must debate, and examine, and interrogate. We must argue and enquire and report. We must ask ourselves what sort of society we really want to be, and take a deep look within our own communities, and souls.

We must do all of these things. Just not today.

Dan Hodges is contributing editor of Labour Uncut.

Posted in Uncut | 24 Comments »

No way back from losing London?

03/06/2011, 07:30:54 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Can you hear it? That creaking, grinding metallic sound, emanating from the capital.

Even faintly in the background?

No? Well, it will get louder in the coming months till it’s deafening.

It is the sound of the clock being turned back twenty years to a time when London was a Tory town.

Labour might have lost the 2010 general election, but London remained a last redoubt in the south. Despite all the troubles, Labour was still the dominant party, winning 36.6% compared to the Tories on 34.5% and the Lib Dems on 22.1%.

In terms of seats, the result was even better with Labour taking 38 seats, the Tories 28 seats and the Lib Dems just 7 seats.

But that was then and a year is an eternity in politics.

2011 could go down as the year in which the Tories turned back a generation of Labour ascendancy in London and pulled decisively ahead.

A new Uncut analysis of YouGov polling shows how a Labour lead of 2% in January had become a deficit of 4% by the start of June.

Polls can be deceptive and there is always a debate to be had about the extent to which they really reflect voting intentions, but two factors make these figures particularly worrying for Labour.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 18 Comments »

The real reasons Ken wants Lutfur back in the party

13/11/2010, 12:00:13 PM

by Jessica Asato

It is clear that, despite trying to arm-twist some quite senior members of the Labour party into allowing Lutfur Rahman back into the fold, Ken Livingstone has failed the new mayor of Tower Hamlets for the time being. Instead of pushing the issue at the next meeting of the NEC, Ken has recently rowed back – having had the riot act read to him by Victoria Street – and said there’s no timescale. Though the ambition is still there. Earlier this week Ken said “there is a lot to be said for letting this all calm down and seeing how Lutfur performs”. So why has Livingstone gone out of his way to find such common cause with Rahman?

When I last wrote about the Mayoral election, some commenters suggested that Ken was merely being politically pragmatic by supporting Lutfur. This was not an endorsement of Lutfur’s ideological position, but instead a calculated partnership with an eye on the future. They pointed out that his vote doubled in Tower Hamlets during the 2008 London Mayoral election, arguing that the East London mosque and the Islamic forum of Europe (IFE) were key to his success. By siding with the Labour candidate three weeks ago, Livingstone might have alienated these two important lobby interests in the borough, which could create a mass desertion of Muslim voters from Labour’s cause across London ahead of 2012. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 10 Comments »

Livingstone had face to face talks with Ed Miliband over Rahman

10/11/2010, 12:12:28 PM

Ken Livingstone and Ed Miliband have held face to face discussions about Lutfur Rahman’s future in the Labour party, an official Labour mayoral spokesman has confirmed to Uncut.

Responding to yesterday’s Uncut story that Livingstone would push for Rahman’s readmission to the party at this month’s NEC meeting, the spokesman said, “Yes, Ed and Ken have met and discussed the issue. I’m not going to go into the details. It was a private meeting”.

The spokesman denied that Livingstone planned to raise the issue at the NEC meeting scheduled for the 30th, but refused to deny that he planned to raise it at a future date. When asked specifically if the denial meant that Livingstone was not pushing for Rahman’s readmission at all, or simply that he did not plan to raise it on the 30th, the spokesman replied, “let me seek clarification, and I’ll get back to you”. The spokesman subsequently called back, and responded, “Ken will not be raising the issue of Lutfur Rahman at the NEC meeting on November 30”.

When asked on 5 successive occasions to confirm or deny whether Ken Livingstone wanted Lutfur Rahman readmitted to the Labour party, the spokesman responded “We’re not going to get into hypotheticals on what’s going to happen in the future to Lutfur Rahman”.

When asked if the fact Ken Livingstone had raised the issue with Ed Miliband indicated that it was significant rather than hypothetical, the spokesman responded, “That’s your interpretation”.

The spokesman added, “The reality is that the position re the NEC on the 30th is the complete reverse of the story you printed”.

Asked if that meant that Ken Livingstone had accepted Rahman’s exclusion from the Labour party, the spokesman replied, “No”.

Posted in Inside | 2 Comments »

Livingstone to push for Lutfur Rahman’s readmission to Labour

09/11/2010, 01:15:04 PM

Labour disciplinary problems come not in single spies, but in battalions. As Woolasgate rages, Uncut understands that the NEC meeting on 30 November will see Ken Livingstone stage an audacious bid to get Lutfur Rahman reinstated to the party.

According to Labour officials, Ken has already discussed the issue directly with Ed Miliband, talks which a Livingstone insider described as “positive”.

Rahman, who defeated official Labour candidate Helal Abbas in last month’s election to become directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, has asked Livingstone to broker his return to the Labour fold.

Sources close to Tower Hamlets Labour party confirmed that discussions have taken place between Rahman and Livingstone about his bid for re-inclusion, and that Rahman had decided to delay appointing a full cabinet in the borough until his status in the party had been confirmed. In contrast to the Livingstone camp, they believe that Ed Miliband will not endorse a return for Rahman, and that Livingstone does not enjoy sufficient NEC support to secure his readmission otherwise.

The decision to push for Rahman’s inclusion will create serious tensions within the local party. Local MP Jim Fitzpatrick has made his own submission to the NEC calling for disciplinary action against Ken’s public show of support for Rahman during the campaign.

Sources close to Ed Miliband have indicated that such action is unlikely.

Posted in Inside | 6 Comments »

The lessons from Tower Hamlets, by Jessica Asato

22/10/2010, 02:00:27 PM

Were you out campaigning in Tower Hamlets yesterday?

I thought not. You’re not alone; lots of Labour campaign stalwarts stayed away. They took one look at the situation and thought that their precious holiday could be saved for a more deserving campaign.

Even without knowing the complex saga of Tower Hamlets politics, trying to elect an imposed candidate who came third in a party selection seemed like electoral suicide. It was. Despite a valiant ground campaign which I witnessed yesterday, our candidate Helal Abbas was beaten solidly by Lutfur Rahman on 51% of first preferences. I can’t remember the last election day in which I felt so outnumbered by the sheer presence of opposition campaigners. Rahman’s supporters drove round in cars plastered with his literature and quite happily flouted electoral rules by crowding round the entrance to polling stations with leaflets. The few of us who did make it there were stretched thin. It won’t count as one of my happier campaigning experiences. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 20 Comments »

Ken must go, says David Prescott

19/10/2010, 11:30:14 AM

It’s ten years since Ken Livingstone was expelled from Labour for deciding to run against the party’s official mayoral candidate.

For a year he sat in Parliament with the whip withdrawn, preparing his independent campaign against Frank Dobson. Frank came third with 13% of first preferences, Ken top with 38%, increasing to 58% in the final round.

Ten years on, after a rushed London mayoral selection pushed by non-elected officers of the national executive committee, Ken was chosen as Labour’s candidate.

There are those – and I’m one of them – who’d have liked a wider field of candidates to choose from, one that included Alan Johnson, a Londoner with an enormous 13 years of ministerial experience. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 12 Comments »