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The Rotherham selection is a case study in how not to manage a party

14/11/2012, 05:12:03 PM

by Kevin Meagher

The bad karma emanating from Denis MacShane’s resignation appears to have seeped into the process to select his successor, if last night’s shambles is anything to go by.

Reports that half the membership in Rotherham walked out of the selection meeting in protest over the shortlist of just two candidates they were presented with must qualify as the worst-ever start to a parliamentary by-election campaign.

In its defence, the party needed to act quickly if it was to move the writ to include Rotherham in the brace of by-elections in Croydon and Middlesbrough already scheduled to take place on November 29.

It made sense to do so. The reputation of politics is low enough without MPs being found to have “knowingly submitting 19 false invoices” by the House of Commons’ standards and privileges committee as MacShane was (oddly enough, the committee is chaired by MacShane’s neighbouring MP, Kevin Barron).

But the other festering issue in Rotherham is child abuse, particularly the lamentable, grotesque failure of the authorities in the town to stamp out the grooming of vulnerable young white girls by gangs of predominantly Pakistani men.

So the party was left with a dilemma. Move quickly, and a short campaign could prevent a head of steam building up, either about MacShane or child abuse. So far, so smart.

But then it started to unravel. Rather than allowing the local party to influence the selection shortlist a decision was taken to drop-in a “clean skin” candidate. Someone from outside the usual political haunts who wouldn’t draw quite so much heat from a jaundiced electorate, sick of all politicians.

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Time to smash the glass ceiling that still faces women at work

14/11/2012, 03:41:13 PM

by Ann McKechin

Workplace equality is currently a hot topic among UK and EU legislators. In Europe, Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, recently had plans for a 40% female quota on EU listed company boards quashed. Revised proposals released today look to soften down the original draft legislation. In Westminster, my colleagues and I on the business, innovation and skills select committee are now gathering evidence for a new inquiry: women in the workplace. The results so far have been both illuminating and alarming.

On a positive note, the evidence suggests that one year on from Lord Davies’s report Women on Boards, women at the top of British businesses are finally getting a seat at the table. The number of female board members in FTSE 100 companies has increased from 12% in 2010 to 17.3% in 2012, whilst the number with no women on the board dropped to eleven.

But there is still work to be done. The majority of women being appointed to board level positions at public companies are non-executive directors, who lack the power and influence that executive office brings. Despite the number of FTSE 100 companies with more than one woman on the board increasing to fifty since Lord Davies recommended a voluntary code of conduct for chairmen to follow, there remain fifty companies with only a single female board member. Change is a slow process, however, and the news that the corporate gender balance is gradually tilting towards equality can only be a good thing.

“Breaking the glass ceiling” and progressing to the top of the corporate ladder is far removed from the concerns of the vast majority of working women in the UK. Much of the written evidence submitted to the committee relates to the barriers stopping women across the pay levels returning to work after having children, from lack of flexibility in working hours to childcare costs which rank as the most expensive in the developed world. Gingerbread, a charity championing the rights of single parents, noted in their evidence that too much part-time work is concentrated in low-paid, low-skilled jobs.

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Rotherham is the most important election of all

14/11/2012, 07:00:06 AM

by Rob Marchant

It seems that, over the next two weeks, we are about to suffer a plague of elections: six by-elections, plus the rather-important PCC elections.

But the one which has the most compressed timescales of all – where candidate Sarah Champion was selected yesterday, with a mere two weeks until polling day and after a walkout at the selection meeting – is going to be the toughest, nastiest and arguably the most important of all.

Why?

Denis MacShane’s resignation a fortnight ago, over the falsification of invoices, was a tragic, shabby end to what was an otherwise rather admirable and productive career, including three years as minister for Europe and some brave work fighting anti-semitism. And whilst there was never any question of personal gain resulting from his actions, it was also clear that his behaviour was inexcusable and that he had to go, to avoid dragging out the pain for him, Labour and his constituents over a further half-parliament.

What has not yet been focused on, however, is the considerable headache that his departure gives Labour.

First, we are in a political climate where the conventional wisdom is that trust in established parties is at a historic low – and therefore the likelihood of major parties being punished is high. Although neither Respect nor the BNP are currently in particularly good shape, this is good news for both of them in all these elections.

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Labour history uncut: the union road from Tolpuddle

13/11/2012, 03:40:50 PM

Pete Goddard and Atul Hatwal continue their tour through Labour history with a look at the role of the unions in establishing the Labour representation committee (LRC) in 1900

For the unions, the road to the Labour representation committee started in a field in Dorset. Not an actual field, obviously. A road starting in a field wouldn’t be very useful, and nobody had yet invented EU infrastructure funding.

In 1832, six agricultural labourers from Tolpuddle gathered together and founded a friendly society. They aimed to protest against the lowering of wages in the area in the hope that they could afford the little luxuries in life, such as food.

The name friendly society was appropriate to the gentle pace of protest in the region. West country militancy had reached its peak a couple of years earlier, in nearby Wroughton in Wiltshire.

In response to cuts to welfare administered by the local church under the poor laws, working men marched along to the church’s graveyard and began smoking. Not in a Tibetan monk-protest type way. They simply lit their pipes and puffed away.

Outrageous.

The local gentry thought so anyway. As far as they were concerned pipes in the graveyard was the thin end of a wedge that inevitably led to mob rule and the guillotine. Sure, they called it a friendly society, but wasn’t that just marketing? In 1789 Parisians had probably been invited to the “unexpected open day of the Bastille” too. (more…)

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This government is abandoning Britain to the legal loan sharks

13/11/2012, 10:50:01 AM

by Stella Creasy

Today’s evidence from R3, the insolvency practitioners, that the rapid and rabid growth of Britain’s payday loan industry is leading people to go hungry in order to repay these debts, is saddening but not surprising to me. For two years now along with many others I’ve been trying to warn the government that they needed to protect British consumers from these legal loan sharks- and for two years they have found excuses not to do so. Now as debt engulfs the household budgets of so many, we see the consequences of their choice to do nothing.

As the government tries to claim Britain is now on the up, we ignore how people are coping with the financial hardship of the recession at our peril. ONS data shows families are being squeezed much more this time than in previous eras, as they experience both falling household incomes and rising inflation. Predictions are wages will stay flat for years to come, offering little respite to which to look forward.

Dismissing the consequences of this as some in the government have done by telling people they should ”live within their means” misses the point. Too many in Britain, both in and out of work, cannot make their incomes meet the basic costs of everyday living. Research by Which? published last week found a third of payday loan users had taken out credit they knew they couldn’t afford to repay in order to pay for essentials such as food and fuel. In the week when British Gas bills will rise again, consumers are looking at the gaps in their budgets and rightly asking when will this all end. With massive cuts in benefits around the corner only adding to the misery they face, it is a question Westminster must answer.

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Labour will only win the economic argument when we make it about the future, not the past

12/11/2012, 07:00:02 AM

by Jonathan Todd

The return of the British economy to growth and president Obama to the White House both suggest that Labour will only decisively win the economic argument when it is primarily about the future, not the past.

While welcoming the economy’s recovery, Labour claims output has been foregone due to the government cutting too far, too fast. This frames the economic debate as being about faulty decisions of autumn 2010 by George Osborne and their consequences over the next two years. As much as the celebrated speech of Ed Balls at Bloomberg in August 2010 is vindicated by events over this period, framing the debate in this way invites the question: Why was the government’s fiscal consolidation programme deemed necessary?

Of course, Osborne then cites the reckless profligacy of Labour. Equally obviously, we contend that this programme was unnecessary and the cause of the recession “made in Downing Street”. What may be less apparent is that, no matter how intellectually justified the Bloomberg speech, arguing about past decisions asks the public to reconsider events over which they have a settled mind.

They would have voted differently at the last election were they convinced that Labour had credible and effective plans for public spending. Especially given the pain that government spending decisions have since brought, it is understandable that we find it difficult to concede this. But a strategy for winning the next election predicated upon the electorate reversing a verdict given at the last election rarely works.

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The Sunday review: the US presidential election

11/11/2012, 08:00:19 AM

by Anthony Painter

Politics is part art, part science. The best campaigns combine artistry and method. US election 2012 was the one in which science won and art was overwhelmed. And what a disappointing election it turned out to be – albeit one with a good outcome.

In his victory speech, president Obama declared:

“You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse who’s working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job, or a roof over their head when they come home.

That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small; it’s big. It’s important.”

What a pity that this voice was muffled throughout the campaign. The Washington Post blogger, Ezra Klein, explains why:

“The Obama campaign found that their key voters were turned off by soaring rhetoric and big plans. They’d lowered their expectations, and they responded better when Obama appeared to have lowered his expectations, too. And so he did. The candidate of hope and change became the candidate of modest plans and achievable goals.”

This campaign was driven by focus groups and polls – science. Only, this wasn’t a campaign of modest plans and achievable goals. It was a campaign of attack and vagueness. What on earth has changed? In The Audacity to Win, campaign leader David Plouffe’s take on the 2008 Obama campaign recounts:

“Focus groups … and feedback from the field were two of our most important assets…We did not use them to make policy decisions. We used them to gauge how the arguments in the campaign were being received and digested. It was about communications, no content.”

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The future of our reserve forces is vital for national security

09/11/2012, 07:00:17 AM

by Jim Murphy

Yesterday, the government announced a public consultation on the future of reservists. We support an enhanced role for reserve forces as we know they can make a bigger contribution to regular forces and our country’s ability to project force around the world to achieve national ambitions.

In recent years reservists have operated in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and most recently Libya. 29 have lost their lives. We pay tribute to their courage, which is a pertinent sentiment in this week of all weeks, remembrance week.

Labour welcomes much of the content of today’s announcement as we recognise that reservists need to modernise. We support considering a symbolic name change from “territorial army” to “army reserve”, for example, to reflect their contemporary composition.

This government has announced extreme cuts in regular forces. 30,000 will be made redundant, with 20,000 from the Army and 5,000 from both Navy and RAF. Reserve numbers will be doubled to compensate. Reserve numbers, however, are going up by 15,000, a figure far smaller than those being lost so there is a capability shortfall in manpower the government have yet to adequately explain.

Furthermore, we have already heard from the consultation’s co-author, Julian Brazier MP, that there is a backlog of applicants who cannot sign up because the bureaucracy in place is inadequate.

In light of this, does it really make sense to cut in regulars regardless of whether the target for reserves is met or not? Given that it is this government’s policy to rely on reservists to meet their defence ambitions, wouldn’t it make more sense to make the cut in regulars contingent upon growth in reserves’ capability?

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Labour history uncut: Fabians – don’t get mad; get pamphleting

08/11/2012, 01:30:56 PM

Pete Goddard and Atul Hatwal turn their attention to the Fabians as they look at the organisations that set up the Labour representation committee (LRC) in 1900

The Fabians germinated from very modest seeds.

In October 1883 Edith Nesbit, her husband Hubert Bland and their Quaker chum Edward Reese decided to set up a debating society. That was it. They were the first Fabians.

Nesbit was something of a J K Rowling of her day, mixing easily in political and literary worlds. Not content with founding the Fabians, Britain’s first political think tank, she also wrote a series of best-selling books.

Most pertinently for the modern generation, she wrote the Railway Children and thereby can claim the credit for introducing a generation of young men to Jenny Agutter. Thank you, Edith Nesbit.

Helping others even after death, Edith Nesbit’s grave doubles as a handy boot scraper

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Labour’s opposition to regional pay in the NHS is intellectually dishonest

08/11/2012, 07:00:55 AM

by Peter Watt

There was a debate yesterday instigated by Labour on the introduction of regional pay into the NHS. Labour’s argument is clear, that by allowing the introduction of regional pay into the NHS the government risks breaking it up. Of particular focus for criticism were the group of twenty trusts in the south west, the south west consortium. They are seeking to opt out of the national agenda for Change framework for pay and conditions as an element of their plans to achieve their required cost reductions. As Andy Burnham said in the debate:

“National pay is part of the glue of a national health service, part of what holds it together, and in turn the NHS is part of what holds our country together.

A one nation service bridging the social and economic divides of our country, uniting east and west, north and south. The N in NHS should be cherished, but instead it is coming under ideological attack.”

Powerful stuff and you may think hard to disagree with. But Labour has some form in this area, in both government and opposition, which makes their position a little tenuous. It may well be that there is a perfectly good reason for this apparent inconsistency but you can be sure that this inconsistency will be exploited by opponents.

First, in government it was Labour that introduced the very flexibilities and freedoms that allow NHS trusts to make decisions that ensure their responsiveness to local needs. And rightly so; as commissioners agree local priorities it was important that the local providers were able to operate flexibly and choose what they did in order to deliver on these priorities.

This didn’t mean an end to national pay and conditions but it did mean that if needed trusts could be flexible. So for instance, if there was a need for one particular service to be expanded in an area where attracting the right staff was difficult, then a trust could respond.

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