Posts Tagged ‘AWS’

Is Labour listening to voters enough? Not yet.

18/05/2022, 10:25:34 PM

by Paul Wheeler

As a party organiser in the 1980’s I was charged with organising ‘Labour Listens’ events. The idea was that Labour MPs and councillors would respectively listen to an audience of voters on what Labour needed to do to win their vote.

It worked up to a point although the average time before one of the politicians broke their silence  was about ten minutes. It was more successful in allowing the then Labour Leader Neil Kinnock a platform to move away from a series of policies that were popular with activists, such as unilateral nuclear disarmament, and rather less so with the average voter. Sadly, it didn’t work for Neil’s bid to be PM, but a willingness to listen to the voters paved the way for our electoral success in 1997

As the full results of this month’s local election become clearer it’s evident that Labour fortunes were distinctly weaker the further you travelled from Central London. It’s not a good result when the Tories lose over 300 council seats and we gain barely 30.

So maybe It’s time for an updated ‘Labour Listens’? If so here’s two issues we can put out there for a wider conversation

David Evans the robust General Secretary is reputed to be a fan of the Values Mode analysis of social groups and voting behaviour. One of the key groups are what might be called’ ‘Prospectors’ those driven by a desire to succeed but also a strong sense of community and family values. Liverpool has a lot of them as do many ethnic groups whose support for Labour has been vital. Many rely on their vehicles to earn an increasingly precarious living as self- employed drivers and tradespeople. The outright hostility of many Labour councils to these elements of the working class through the imposition of driving restrictions and low/no traffic neighbourhoods has alienated many and was certainly a factor in the surprise loss of Tower Hamlets council. Thankfully Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester successfully gained a deferral of a low emission zone there until the Government committed to additional funding.

If Labour can be accused of zealotry in its approach to the millions of motorists, it is minor when compared to its current attitude to the vexed issue of women’s rights and representation.

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The leadership election and Corbyn’s shadow cabinet show that Labour needs All Women Shortlists more than ever

16/09/2015, 10:19:09 PM

by Alex Ross Shaw

2015 marks the fortieth anniversary of the election of Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party. 2015 is also the year that the Labour party, which used to love to taunt the Conservatives over their ‘women problems’, elected a man to be the Leader, Deputy Leader and their London Mayoral candidate.

Following Harriet Harman’s departure from her second stint as acting Leader of the party, a role twice fulfilled by women otherwise kept out of the magic circle of leadership, it’s worth reflecting on the necessity of All Women Shortlists (AWS) in our party and their failure to supply a leader in the 20-plus years they’ve been put forward.

Instinctively, I don’t support AWS. I have seen them foster resentment among colleagues male and female. I would prefer a system where shortlists are made up of 50:50 male to female ratios but sadly, what I would prefer in an ideal world does not work. Therefore my support for AWS is based on evidence of which the 2015 Labour internal elections are merely the latest in a long line.

If you believe men and women are equal you have to address why men dominate the upper echelons of society and politics and always have. The answer is structural and perhaps even inherent in how society and people operate. Clearly, simply increasing the number of female candidates is not enough. Labour has a much larger talent pool of female MPs than the Conservatives and we’ve still failed to elect a woman leader.

The fact that having two strong candidates in 2015 after having one candidate in 2010 on borrowed votes is seen as progress shows how far we have to go. 2015 should be the bare minimum, not our best effort yet.

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