Labour Uncut

UNCUT: The April shadow cabinet league

12/04/2012, 08:30:36 AM

by Atul Hatwal

It’s become a tedious holiday tradition: MPs tweeting about their various constituency appointments and local campaign meetings, furiously reassuring voters and party members that they are busy at work, despite the long parliamentary recess.

The world really doesn’t need another tweet telling us yet again about a “good reaction on the #Labour doorstep” and for Labour’s shadow cabinet, many (though not all) should just take their break with good grace – they have earned it.

The first three months of this year have seen an unprecedented work rate: over 400 press releases, nearly 1000 written questions and almost 50 speeches from the despatch box.

Compared to last year, at this stage in the parliament, the shadow cabinet’s total score indicates a 54% hike in effort. In every category, the shadow cabinet has done more and worked harder.

While doubts will persist on the effectiveness of the party’s overall strategy, and Bradford West might be a prologue to greater disappointments in the May elections, it is hard to criticise the work ethic of many at Labour’s top table.

Since the last league in early February there has been a minor shuffling of the pack with three shadow cabinet members posting notable performances: Caroline Flint, Chuka Umunna and Andy Burnham.

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UNCUT: Time to put away the needle and thread and stop stitching up selections

11/04/2012, 08:30:59 AM

by Peter Watt

If I was sat in Labour party HQ in Victoria Street right now, staring down the barrel of further financial strife, then I would be tempted to do everything I could to minimise unnecessary expenditure. And I would be right to do so. If the reports are true that the party overspent last year by £1.7 million then it is quite a big gun after all!

But if it really is financial strife that has apparently lead to a proposal to ban sitting MPs from standing for election to directly elected mayors or police and crime commissioners later this year, then that is a terrible error.

It is however an error that merely highlights a serious malaise at the heart of our politics, and to be fair, the politics of all of the major parties.

On the face of it, the argument for the decision to ban ambitious MP’s from standing is persuasive. Each by-election will cost £70 – £100,000 or so. We might lose to another (popular) candidate. Why take the risk?

But these reasons are all predicated on an out-of-date thought process.

The assumption is that the only way to win is for the party to impose the “right” candidate. That the campaign must be run using the central party machine which imposes the will of the “experts” on the locals. And finally that the campaign must then spend on staff, hotels, travel, campaign HQ and lots of flash literature. All spending money that the party doesn’t actually have.

To be fair, for many years this model served the party pretty well. As I know well because I have worked on, planned, set budgets for and managed selections (read into that what you will) for more by-elections than I care to remember. But it is a model that is simply no longer fit for purpose.

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INSIDE: Proxy voting to be allowed in Manchester Central selection

11/04/2012, 07:00:34 AM

Party bosses in the Manchester Central parliamentary selection have been forced to back down and allow proxy voting, following the threat of legal action.

The party had originally taken the highly unusual step of banning postal voting on the grounds that the process was being run on a tight timescale.

However Labour Uncut learns that Anna Hutchinson, the party’s regional director in the north west, who is acting as procedures secretary, has now written to candidates confirming that proxy voting will be allowed during the selection meeting next Monday (16 April).

This followed complaints by at least two of the four candidates – Manchester councillors Mike Amesbury and Rosa Battle – together with constituency party officers, local councillors and several party members who feared many elderly and disabled members would effectively have been disenfranchised by the ban on postal voting.

It is believed one of the members who complained sought legal advice on the basis that the party’s draconian ruling infringed the Disability Discrimination Act.

As well as Amesbury and Battle, the nomination is being contested by Ed Miliband’s deputy chief of staff, Lucy Powell, and Patrick Vernon who runs a health charity in London.

The Manchester Central selection is caused by the decision of sitting MP Tony Lloyd to contest the new role as Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner. He held the seat at the last election with a majority of 10,430.

The by-election is scheduled to be held on 15 November, the same day as elections for the 41 police commissioners.

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GRASSROOTS: As the government abandons women, where is Labour on equality?

09/04/2012, 12:00:38 PM

by Mike Eakins

The 27th April 2011 was a missed opportunity for the Labour party. On that day the debate surrounding gender inequality did, briefly, rear its head at the forefront of the British political agenda.

David Cameron’s quip advising Angela Eagle to “calm down, dear” brought two distinct reactions with many in the Labour party outraged at the prime minister’s remark. Those with profiles to enhance such as MP Heidi Alexander asserted that “people will rightly be asking how someone with such disgraceful views came to be selected as a Conservative candidate in the first place… David Cameron should apologise and make clear that there is no room for sexism in Britain today”. At the same time some commentators berated those on the left for overreacting to what they insisted was nothing more than a humorous remark.

Amidst all the posturing and prevaricating Yvette Cooper was the sole frontbench Labour voice to look deeper into the prime minister’s comments and question whether they were symbolic of a wider “blind spot” that this government has in relation to women.

In an interview with the New Statesman, the shadow home secretary described what she called a “toxic combination” between the traditional conservative view that the woman’s place is in the home, and the liberal objective to withdraw the state from family life.

The lack of analysis of what lay behind Cameron’s attitude towards women is an indication of how the world in which the equality debate now operates is one of tax policies centred on pasties, government ministers taking blame for individual stupidity, funding scandals, fuel panic and George Galloway MP.

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GRASSROOTS: The Lib Dems’ amazing adventure

09/04/2012, 07:00:05 AM

by Ben Mitchell

Once upon a time there was a political party who believed in something. Who stood for something. Who held views other parties rejected. Who campaigned on issues that weren’t always universally popular.

They then had a leader who grew and grew in stature. Who charmed and won over the electorate in a series of pre-general election televised debates.

But, unfortunately, for said party, this never translated into votes on polling day. Blame our antiquated voting system they raged. We sympathised.

But then, when all seemed lost, along came a smart and convincing salesman offering them the chance of a lifetime. This jolly, chirpy, chappy, waved the prospect of power-sharing under their disillusioned noses.

What’s more, this guy looked and sounded very much like our guy, thought the party faithful.

They hit it off instantly. The public were taken aback: two sworn enemies jumping into bed with each other; governing together? But, their politics are so different. How will they ever get anything done, asked a sceptical media?

Won’t they bicker and argue constantly?

But, they didn’t. In fact, they seemed to quite like each other. A lot. That other bunch aren’t so bad after all, they thought to themselves. We’ve been unfair to them all these years.

Anyway, the party thought, we’ve still got our beliefs and our principles. We’ll never sacrifice them.

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GRASSROOTS: In defence of trade unions and Labour’s union link

06/04/2012, 03:42:17 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

When Ed Miliband published his list of meetings with party funders, unsurprisingly several were with Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey. This was widely reported in the press but in the articles there was scant mention of the myriad of sectors a huge union like Unite represents: millions of individuals, working people, 20 sectors at the last count including agricultural, health as well as industrial.

As if one meeting every year or so would be enough time to discuss the huge swathe of complex issues that unions like Unite, the GMB and Unison are dealing with on a daily basis.

The contrast with the elite vested interests of the Tory party, as personified by the likes of Lord Ashcroft and former Conservative Party Treasurer Peter Cruddas, could not be more stark.

But it’s not just the so-called right-wing press who are complicit in the misrepresentation in the media. Last Saturday, the Independent referred to Len McCluskey donating £5million, as if it were a personal donation, like he just wrote a cheque out of his own money!

“The Labour Party has benefitted from the publicly known link to working people and their views and needs,” Esther Pickup-Keller, president of the Aspect group of the major professionals’ and managers’ union Prospect tells me. “This type of democratic channel is a long, long way from secretive private dinners and meetings with senior politicians by capital corporate interests and donors.”

It’s offensive to hard-working people that the very small amounts of money paid by individual trade union members to the political funds of our unions are portrayed as somehow wrong by certain right-wing commentators and MPs. Where’s the balance?

I’m no militant, but let’s remember what this is all really about. One of the most poignant stories to learn as a teenager, to spark my imagination and social conscience, was that of the Tolpuddle Martyrs; their story speaks about something universal, way beyond party politics – shock and awe that these men could be shipped-off to be imprisoned on the other side of the world, for standing-up for their rights in the workplace, civil rights, human rights, call it what you will.

This is still the case today, for those of us who believe in trades unionism, the relevance of trade union membership is as relevant now as it’s ever been.

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UNCUT: Livingstone NIC-ed on tax avoidance

06/04/2012, 08:04:03 AM

by Atul Hatwal

The hand to hand combat of a mayoral campaign is hardly the ideal environment for sober reflection, but for the Labour party, it’s time to have a long hard think.

After yesterday’s partial release of the mayoral contenders’ tax and earnings details, there is now a threat that Ken Livingstone will not just lose the London election, but will seriously damage the national party in the process.

The full nature of this danger is not quite apparent yet. The media focus over the last 24hours has been on examining the total tax paid by each of the candidates, looking at who paid the most. This is understandable but misses the point.

The issue is not about the absolute amounts handed over to HMRC, but whether these figures demonstrate that the candidates have, or have not, lived up to their rhetoric.

It’s about trust, not finance and for one of Labour’s most high profile figures, who has volubly railed against tax avoidance, the figures are damning.

In 2010/11, setting aside pension contributions, Ken Livingstone received 92% of his income – £63,333 – through dividends and just 8% or £5,700 through a normal salary where tax was deducted on a pay as you earn (PAYE) basis.

This approach is a standard and perfectly legal way of drawing down money from a company and is used by hundreds of thousands of people for one simple reason: it avoids national insurance contributions (NICs).

Dividends are not liable for NICs, so being paid principally through dividends reduces or completely removes NICs payments.

In 2010/11 the threshold to start paying NICs was £5,720 per year and as if by magic, Ken Livingstone’s PAYE income for the year was £20 below the level where any NICs would have to be paid.

Fancy that.

The only reason £5,700 was paid as PAYE income at all is that that there needs to be a level of PAYE earnings each year above a minimum threshold (£5,044 in 2010/11) to build eligibility for certain benefits. For example, the state pension, for which Ken Livingstone qualified, during 2010/11.

Again, to be clear, this is not tax evasion, and it’s certainly not illegal, but avoiding NICs is tax avoidance for most voters.

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GRASSROOTS: Last night’s mayoral debate was a train wreck, today’s tax developments make things worse

05/04/2012, 12:54:16 PM

by Helen Godwin Tiege

Wasn’t last night’s mayoral debate depressing?

A quick look through my twitter feed during and after the debate confirmed my view that it was disorganised, poorly chaired, petty and wholly uninspiring.

Brian Paddick and Jenny Jones were largely ignored, or at best drowned out by the two front runners and the chair, Jeremy Paxman, and when there was opportunity for them to speak their points were interrupted or left unanswered.

Where was the real discussion on social housing, irresponsible landlords, youth unemployment, Olympic legacy? These are the issues that I want to hear about, but there was no time amongst the petty sniping about anti-semitism and tax avoidance and general airing of personal slurs.

I’m Labour so Ken Livingstone will be getting my vote on May 3rd and I will be out campaigning for him this weekend. I am in agreement with his core policies of fare cuts, more police and reintroduction of the EMA. London needs a Labour mayor at a time when there is so much poverty and inequality in this, one of the worlds richest and greatest cities.

But I can’t help but think that Labour made a crucial error in nominating Ken for Mayor. I know I am not alone. He was a terrific mayor and I would defend his record to anyone but this election should not have been about personalities, it should not have been an excuse for people to air 30 year grudges against ‘Red Ken’.

And with this morning’s furore over disclosure of taxes, and Ken’s less than helpful statement on why he won’t release his tax returns, the whole campaign is dragged ever further from the real issues. For the next few days the news will be dominated by this one issue, to the exclusion of all else.

London in 2012 is in a challenging place and we needed, and deserved, a serious, issues led campaign which should have given Labour an opportunity to reveal its post-New Labour agenda with a serious, fresh and passionate candidate who could lead the debate away from blustering Boris.

We could have mobilised our army of incredible grassroots activists to send a message to the coalition by turning not only Lib Dem votes to Labour, but Tory ones too.

That just won’t happen now.

Instead I fear that this tit for tat approach from both front runners and running distractions like tax returns will continue until polling opens, and we reds might end up feeling blue on May 4th.

Helen Godwin Tiege is a Labour party campaigner

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UNCUT: London deserves a better mayoral campaign

05/04/2012, 07:55:31 AM

by Peter Watt

Does anyone outside the heady world of politics actually care about the London mayoral election?

Setting aside the train wreck of last night’s debate on Newsnight, the mayoralty is one of the highest profile positions in British politics and carries the biggest personal mandate for any politician in Europe, bar the French presidency. It should matter.

The reason I ask is that my 18 year old daughter (18 last week) received her poll card recently. I overheard her chatting to a friend about the fact that she could now vote which she was pleased about. But then she said that she wasn’t actually sure if she should bother voting at all. So I decided that I would tackle this appalling apathy head on and explain the importance of voting and the particular merits of voting in the London mayoral election.

But I decided, I had better marshal my thoughts first – you know what tricky buggers teenagers can be if you’re not prepared. Anyway, I worked up what I hoped would be a concise set of arguments that set out the importance of democracy and of voting. People have died for the right to vote; having your say; preserving freedoms and so on. It wasn’t exactly Mandelaesque but it wasn’t bad. But then I began thinking about the reasons to specifically vote in the London mayoral election and I struggled.

This has to be one of the least inspiring election campaigns that I have ever witnessed. It seems to boil down to: vote for Ken because he isn’t Boris or vote for Boris because he isn’t Ken. Unless you want to vote for some bloke called Brian whose most endearing feature seems to be that he isn’t called Boris or Ken. I mean beyond that, what else is there?

According to Ken’s website, he is going to give all Londoners a “Fare Deal” by cutting transport costs. Well that’s good. But is that it? According to Boris’s website the main reason to vote for him is to re-elect him. Not even a fare cut from Boris then. But to be fair, if the opportunity to re-elect Boris is not enough to excite you then if you click through to the main site then you learn that by voting for Boris you can cut waste, create an Olympic legacy and…to be honest I got bored. It’s not really the stuff of political legend is it?

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