Peter Watt « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Peter Watt’

Labour party general secretary: some tips for hopeful applicants

07/04/2011, 07:00:16 AM

by Peter Watt

Last week the party finally decided to set a timetable for the selection of a new general secretary. Not before time. Ray Collins has been a good general secretary. But once he had announced his departure and taken his seat in the Lords the timetable should have been set. The delay will, inevitably, have been destabilising for the party organisation.

To hold office as the general secretary of the party that created the NHS, established a minimum wage, legislated for civil partnerships and created the open university is a tremendous responsibility and enormous privilege. It is also incredibly hard and demanding work.

So I thought, having been there, that I’d try and give some inside tips to those thinking of applying.

My first tip is to be prepared to sacrifice any semblance of work-life balance. You will be in demand seven days a week, often for 16 hours a day. It’s one of those jobs where if someone wants to speak to you, then they want to speak to you right now. If you are unavailable it will be seen as a personal snub. It doesn’t matter why you were unavailable. You weren’t available when they wanted you; and people with egos remember snubs. (more…)

Posted in Inside | 3 Comments »

The good news and the groupthink

31/03/2011, 07:00:02 AM

by Peter Watt

Less than a year after the horrors of securing a derisory 29% in the general election, Labour is competitive again and is rightly optimistic for the first time in many years.

The party is consistently ahead in the polls, and by-election results are stunning at a Parliamentary and local government level. At the same time, the government seems gaffe-prone: just think forests, Andy Coulson or school sport partnerships. And it is doing things which are unpopular and controversial like introducing spending cuts, raising tuition fees and reforming welfare. Economic recovery is slow at best, inflation is a problem and interest rates look like they are on their way up, pushing up mortgage costs. And all that before the full impact of the cuts are felt and the outcomes of May’s elections and AV referendum impacts the morale and unity of the government. Mutterings in the newspapers about a possible early general election following a coalition ripped apart by its own divisions are nonsense – but they are indicative of unease. And all this less than a year into the government. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 8 Comments »

Let’s leave the anti-cuts rallies and join the fuel protests

10/03/2011, 07:00:04 AM

by Peter Watt

Cuts, cuts cuts. Across the country, local parties are campaigning to defend libraries, schools and jobs at hospitals. Every cut announced nationally and locally is condemned and the heartlessness of the government blamed. In fact, to listen to Labour at the moment you would think that the only thing that people are talking about is cuts to public services. But I’m not sure that that is right. In fact, I think it may be a very dangerous assumption to make.

Sure, if you ask people do they agree with closing or their local library, children’s centre or whatever they will say “no”. But that doesn’t mean that they oppose “the cuts” in general. As Atul Hatwal powerfully pointed out on Uncut last week:

“The net result of six months of battle on the economy has been literally nothing. No change whatsoever in the 23% majority who view the government’s approach to cutting the deficit as necessary”. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 8 Comments »

The week Uncut

26/02/2011, 12:30:25 PM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Peter Watt thinks our brand’s toxic and we should learn from the Tories

Atul Hatwal brings you the latest shadow cabinet work rate league table

Coach Kevin Meagher is leaving David Miliband on the subs bench, for good

Tom Watson says we must remember the name Mohamed Bouazizi

Peter Mandelson on why there should have been a Granita II

Rob Marchant on faith schools and why a bad idea just got worse

Stefan Stern says Cameron has failed the leadership test

Dave Howells is not happy seeing the sacred cow go off to slaughter

Dan Hodges gets cross with the preachers of “fairer votes”

Posted in Home | No Comments »

Let’s learn from the Tories and detoxify our brand

21/02/2011, 09:05:51 AM

by Peter Watt

There has been much debate since the general election about whether the toxicity of the Conservative brand led to them falling short of an overall majority. Proponents of this theory hold that while David Cameron had gone some way towards detoxifying the Conservative brand, he had not gone far enough. The result was that, although the public had decided that they certainly didn’t want a Labour government, they hadn’t yet decided that they wanted a Conservative one.

If this was the case, and I suspect that it was, then this latent brand toxicity remains a problem for team Cameron. The government is currently being defined by one (economic) policy – cuts. Everything it does and says is, however unfairly, seen through that prism. Welfare reform – driven by cuts; public service reform – driven by cuts; “big society” – masking cuts. No matter how hard he tries, David Cameron simply can’t seem to get any other story up about what his government is for, or its vision. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 40 Comments »

Loneliness Kills

10/02/2011, 07:00:16 AM

by Peter Watt

Loneliness is bad for your health. In fact, loneliness kills. According to the world health organisation, loneliness is a higher risk to your health than lifelong smoking. If Beveridge set out to fight the “five giant evils” of ignorance, idleness, want, disease and squalor, then perhaps now is the time to tackle a sixth modern giant, loneliness, with the same vigour.

Last week saw the launch of a campaign that calls on individuals, the voluntary sector and national and local government to work together to end loneliness. Loneliness, according to the campaign to end loneliness, is:

“a psychological state, an emotional response to a perceived gap between the amount of personal contact an individual wants and the amount that they have”.

The group that is the most vulnerable is, of course, older people. The campaign marked the launch by publishing a report, safeguarding the convoy, that sets out the harsh reality for many older people: (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 3 Comments »

The rhyme and reason for early intervention

27/01/2011, 07:00:55 AM

by Peter Watt

We need to intervene much earlier in a child’s life if we are to reverse the impact of poor parenting. This is the key message set out in Graham Allen MP’s recent report Early intervention: the next steps. It finds that:

“babies are born with 25 per cent of their brains developed, and there is then a rapid period of development so that by the age of 3 their brains are 80 per cent developed. In that period, neglect, the wrong type of parenting and other adverse experiences can have a profound effect on how children are emotionally ‘wired’. This will deeply influence their future responses to events and their ability to empathise with other people”.

And the report makes clear the consequences of poor parenting:

A child’s development score at just 22 months can serve as an accurate predictor of educational outcomes at 26 years.
Some 54 per cent of the incidence of depression in women and 58 per cent of suicide attempts by women have been attributed to adverse childhood experiences, according to a study in the US.
An authoritative study of boys assessed by nurses at age 3 as being ‘at risk’ found that they had two and a half times as many criminal convictions as the group deemed not to be at risk at age 21. Moreover, in the at-risk group, 55 per cent of the convictions were for violent offences, compared to 18 per cent for those who were deemed not to be at risk.

The report, commissioned and welcomed by the government, calls for cross-party acceptance of the benefits of early intervention. It also asks all parties to accept that late intervention is expensive and ineffective. A further report setting out funding options is promised in the summer. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 7 Comments »

Is it ok for socialists to pay for private education and healthcare?

13/01/2011, 07:00:37 AM

by Peter Watt

Like many other parents, we have spent the last two weeks trying to sort out a school for our four-year-old. Coming straight after the Christmas break, it means I have had lots of reasons to reflect on how my family, and my children in particular, are the most important thing in the world to me.

I am at one of those transition stages in life. I have just finished one job and start a new one in February. It has made me a bit introspective, to be honest. I look back with sadness at the sacrifices that my family, my older children in particular, made so that I could pursue a career in politics. I thought about the school plays and the messy pasta and paint pictures that I chose to miss. All in order to work long hours. I am lucky that they don’t seem to hold it against me. But I am sad at the shared experiences that we missed and grateful for the things that we do now do together.

My now better-balanced life means spending more time with the younger children. This year I saw three nativity plays, went to four Christmas parties and cannot count the number of times I bumped into Father Christmas.

Seeing and thinking about my children develop, change, explore and grow is incredible. It has made me think of every other family, across the country, doing whatever they can to put their family and children first. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 17 Comments »

Foster care: why it matters

30/12/2010, 07:00:50 AM

by Peter Watt

Neil is ten years old. This morning he woke to find that he had wet the bed. His Mum smacked him and told him that he was stupid. It happened most days. His bed was changed only occasionally. He did not wash or shower. He put on the same clothes as yesterday. The same clothes that he had been wearing since the school holidays had started. His trainers had got wet in the snow and had never properly dried.

He knew that today was going to be a bad day. He had heard his Mum and Dad get in from the pub late, arguing loudly. His Mum had gone off to meet his Dad, leaving him to get tea for his brother Arnie, aged seven, and sister Sam, aged three. He had eventually taken himself to bed. He certainly did not want to be up when they got in. Sometimes they would come back with strangers and stay up talking loudly. He was pretty sure that they were taking drugs. When that happened he took his brother and sister into his room, shut the door and hoped for the best. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 3 Comments »