Posts Tagged ‘review’

The Labour Together election review showcases everything that’s wrong with the Milibandite approach to politics

27/12/2019, 05:20:32 PM

by Atul Hatwal

Since it was announced, the Labour Together review has had a strangely unifying impact on the party: voices from across the ideological spectrum, hard left through to the old right, have panned it. Earlier this week on Tuesday, Lisa Nandy, one of the people leading the review, was on the Today programme, giving the opposite of a ringing endorsement,

“I have to be honest though, I didn’t know anything about this review until two days ago.

And if the lesson is drawn from this election is, a review can be drawn up in a meeting room in Westminster without any reference to the two parts of the Labour movement – our councillor base and trade union base, that were probably the reason we didn’t have a worse result, I just don’t think that people are drawing the right lessons at all.

We need to be out in places like Ashfield, listening to people like the ex-miner I met yesterday, not sitting in meeting rooms in Westminster trying to debate this out amongst ourselves with the help of a few think-tanks.

I just think the approach is wrong.”

The reason the review has brought together so many disparate strands of the Labour movement in eye-rolling frustration is twofold.

Problem number one: The review dodges the tough questions.

To inform the review’s analysis is a survey. An OK idea. Less OK is the manner in which it completely ignores the obvious. Options for Labour’s terrible showing are offered but these focus on campaign organisation and individual policies. In all of the possible reasons that Labour did badly, nowhere is any mention of the leader and his vote-repelling impact on the doorstep. Nor is there any acknowledgement of the public’s incredulity at the wish-list manifesto and its role in dissuading the the electorate that Labour was a serious choice for government.

Needless to say, the term “anti-Semitism” does not appear anywhere in the survey.

As with all these types of party commissions, there’s an onus on doing some original research. Hence the survey and interviews with defeated candidates. But in the terms of reference, there seems to be no acknowledgement of the vaults of existing quantitative and qualitative analysis. There’s so much that it is near pointless doing the sort of partial effort proposed by Labour Together.

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Sarah Brown’s “Behind the black door” gives an intriguing insight – but leaves out the juicy bits

15/03/2011, 01:45:45 PM

by Anita Ward

As someone who has always admired and liked Sarah Brown – for the dignity she showed through the death of a child and her self-respect whilst her husband was under attack from just about everybody on an almost daily basis – I was looking forward to reading this book.

The title was fascinating. What was this tome going to tell me? Scandalous gossip? Cloak-and-dagger political revelations? Sadly, neither.

What it did give me was an insight into a role that few of us would relish. A role where if you put one foot wrong you are likely to be castigated for life; a role where if you express your own opinion, especially as a woman – think Cherie Blair – you’ll be pilloried. You have to be the constant adoring wife with no views of your own, well at least in front of the camera. And, it’s a role hardly anybody will thank you for doing.

This is not a political blockbuster, nor is it the girly book some people were expecting, but is probably halfway between the two. I found it easy to read, something I could put down and pick up; but it wasn’t so absorbing that I felt I had to keep reading no matter what.

There were some light hearted moments, some loving family moments, and you get to find out that politicians talk about the same things “ordinary” people do and are fascinated by the same people many of us are – Nelson Mandela, to name but one.

What I think it lacks is what she really thinks of those people who conspired against her husband. What she really thinks of the media for their hounding of him. I get the impression that she wants to say much more than she has. It’s sad that she didn’t, because it leaves you with the feeling that something is missing from the book.

Did I enjoy Behind the black door? Overall, I think I did, but it isn’t one I’ll re-read in a hurry.

Cllr Anita Ward is Lord Mayor elect of Birmingham.

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