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AUTUMN EDITION 2008 ISSUE NO 71 PRODUCTION EDITOR: RAY DAVISON EAST DEVON CLP AND CLPD SW REGIONAL ORGANISER All Enquiries: [email protected] CLPD publication for CLPs and Labour Party Members Telephone 01395 277481 www.clpd.org.uk (where this newsletter can be downloaded & for full NEC reports) or email CLPD: [email protected] CHANGE DIRECTION OR LOSE ELECTION WRITES CHRIS McLAUGHLIN, work and tax rates at the top. Bread and but- EDITOR OF TRIBUNE ter issues such as transport, rail in particular, as well as proposals for increased runways, The saga of Too much has been asked about whether the and the disastrous post office closure pro- Government has a chance of winning the gramme must be addressed urgently. Warwick II next election and too little about whether Much has been achieved in the Warwick II it deserves to. New Labour is dead, though talks but it remains to be seen to what extent This year, for the first time, following its legacy of privatisation of public services the Government gets fully behind the agree- pressure from Unions and CLPs, backed and obsession with the dominance of free- ments made in those talks and to what extent by CLPD, the constituencies were given market principles over all others lingers toxi- unreconstructed Blairite ministers are prepared the right to submit textual amendments cally throughout Government. New Labour to carry them through. The Leader needs to al- to the 6 final-stage NPF documents. is dead not only because it was not Labour low himself to be guided by the party he leads, CLPs were able to submit as many enough and not only because Tony Blair has for it appears to be more in touch with the real amendments as they wished. But, instead departed the scene. It is dead because it was issues than he appears to be. It just so happens of going direct to the NPF at Warwick II not Labour enough, because it is failing to that the mechanism, which can make this hap- (25/27 July), they went instead to one of deliver to voters, especially traditional sup- pen, is already in motion under rules urged on eleven regional meetings (each consisting porters, anything to meet their expectations. the movement by Gordon Brown himself. The of 7 NPF reps – 5 regional CLP reps and The need for change has been long overdue. changes in the decision-making process, which 2 reps elected by the whole region). Alto- It did not need the clunking fist of the Glas- will be tested for the first time at the forthcom- gether over 200 CLPs submitted a grand gow East defeat to reveal that the electorate ing Annual Conference in Manchester, were total of some 4,000 amendments. The has had enough of New Labour. Those of presented as a means of ending the 100-year large majority of these sought a change the right of the Labour Party who advocate a stalemate between the Party and Labour in of direction towards more progressive continuation and deepening of Blairism are Government. They were heralded as means policies. At the regional meetings the 7 backing a kamikaze strategy which risks wip- of involving the Party more and the members reps were under no obligation to progress ing out Labour for a generation. were asked to trust the leadership. the amendments, but they were generally The Government needs a change of They did and at Warwick they and the encouraged to pick them up and submit direction. But without a change of policy unions delivered. The Campaign for Labour them to the NPF in their own names. there can be no change of direction, and Party Democracy also delivered by ensuring Around 1,500 of the CLP amendments no chance of winning the next election. maximum involvement in discussions on were picked up and progressed to Warwick The two are umbilically linked. The change amendments to the six official policy docu- II. Given that there was considerable du- in direction that is now being demanded by ments. plication of amendments, it seems likely party members and trade unionists must be The agenda, which emerged from War- that the vast majority of the CLP amend- bold. The Prime Minister has nothing to wick, though not wholly intact, will, we can ments were progressed. In addition, the lose, but might win the election, by embrac- hope, help the Party re-connect with vot- other members of the 190-strong NPF ing and campaigning passionately on a new ers and revitalise the Government at a time were able to submit textual amendments programme which addresses the aspirations when the Tories have failed to stamp their to Warwick II. Many took this opportu- and needs of millions of people left behind mark in the mind of voters. They certainly nity, especially the trade unions and the by successive policies. Being “on your side” don’t like New Labour but they don’t re- four CLGA – supported members of the must be made to mean something, by ad- ally know either what David Cameron really NEC (Ann Black, Christine Shawcroft, dressing housing, low pay, rising food and stands for. Labour can fill this space with a Peter Willsman and Walter Wolfgang). fuel prices, the environment, insecurity at new and revitalised body of policy. Altogether over 2,000 amendments were To subscribe to Tribune, go to www.tribunemagazine.co.uk or call 01635 879 385 submitted to the NPF. (continued on p2) PLEASE PASS THIS NEWSLETTER ON TO OTHER COMRADES TO ENSURE A WIDE CIRCULATION. CAMPAIGN BRIEFING AUTUMN EDITION 2008 WHERE DO WE GO The saga of FROM HERE? Warwick II MARK SEDDON, FORMER angulation, of pitching to the populist Right (from p1) EDITOR OF TRIBUNE in order to win over swing voters, was aban- At Warwick, the Friday (25 July) AND NOW DIPLOMATIC doned some time ago. The defeat of Hillary was taken up by some 400 meetings CORRESPONDENT AL Clinton in the Democratic Party Primaries, between groups of NPF reps and finally put the lid on a time and a place that ministers on specific policy areas, JAZEERA ENGLISH many Democrats, including Barak Obama, in an attempt to agree “consensus SUGGESTS AN ANSWER would probably like to forget. wording”. The Saturday was given The ‘new’ Democrats were in truth over to ‘workshops’, where the NPF ‘Politics is cyclical — discuss.’ There is a clear pitched out of office in favour of George reps discussed the agreed consensus and apparent danger in writing anything at Bush and the Republicans. But the Demo- wording and the outstanding amend- least a month or so before it is due to appear, crats didn’t stand around wringing their ments. At the same time, lots of side for so much can change. Who knows? By the hands, looking wistfully back at the Clinton meetings with ministers were held time this appears, the Cameron bounce may years and blaming the voters for ‘not getting to search for an elusive consensus. have gone, voters may have discovered the the message’. They got down to re-building The side meetings involving union real Gordon Brown, James Purnell will have their political base, horribly weakened by the reps continued until nearly 6am on joined the Tories and Labour will be on the Clinton years, years when the word ‘activist’ Sunday morning. Throughout this road to recovery. was a dirty word, years during which those time individual reps with specific But then I am writing this in Beijing, on activists were denounced for being ‘extreme’ amendments were hunted down by my way to North Korea, so anything seems and ‘unrepresentative’. Does it all begin to earnest officials clutching “consen- possible. sound horribly familiar? sus wording”. It has to be said that Politics is indeed cyclical, and some of When the history of the recovery of the this process of ‘cutting and sticking’ those cycles more profound than monthly fluc- US Democratic Party is written, I hope that was much more fraught and unpro- tuations in the opinion polls. In post-war Brit- Howard Dean and his army of supporters in fessional than the well-ordered ar- ain, the political cycle — or rather its agenda MoveOn.org, will not simply join the appen- rangements for compositing on the — was dominated for the first quarter century dices. The US Democrats are not just electa- Saturday afternoons in the pre ‘Part- or so by the Labour post war settlement and ble now because in Barak Obama they have nership in Power’ days. And yet, the Welfare State. The final quarter century has a charismatic and appealing Presidential can- of course, devious Blairites are still been defined by the Thatcherite inheritance didate; it is because the party’s political base trying to re-write history by pouring and the Labour Party’s virtual surrender to it. had been revived. Dean used the internet, scorn on those good old days. So now as we hover on the brink of glo- he worked with the unions and with interest During the weekend several bal recession and with the safeguards for groups that supported the Democratic Party’s meetings of CLP reps were called the poor, the elderly, the working class and agenda to re-connect with the blue collar vote by Simon Burgess, NPF Vice-Chair the middle class in tatters, it seems improb- in America. The party was no longer embar- representing CLPs. The 6 CLP reps able that the Blairite agenda and face of rassed to be associated with labour, and it be- on the NEC were deliberately ex- Cameron’s Conservatives may be the public gan to move away from a fixation with gender cluded from these meetings.

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