National
Executive Committee, 6/7 November 2006
Mike
Griffiths, the newly-elected Chair, welcomed members to the
traditional post-conference discussion of objectives and
plans for the year ahead. Generally the NEC was judged to
have become more effective, though there were still concerns
about our independence and the principle of an appointed
party Chair. Communication would be further improved, and I
asked that party members should be notified promptly when
events such as the spring conference were cancelled. The NEC
supported a number of recommendations from the outgoing
Chair Jeremy Beecham, including greater involvement in
fundraising and promotion of the 1000 Club, and regular
meetings between NEC officers, MPs, party leaders and the
trade unions. His proposal that the NEC Chair should be
elected for two years provoked mixed reactions and was not
pursued. My view was that the annual Buggins’ Turn should
only be reviewed if we also rotated committee Chairs and
policy commission convenors more frequently, so that more
members could gain experience and share responsibility.
Walter Wolfgang drew attention to the NEC’s role as the
custodian of party policy and conference decisions.
Winning for
Britain
The NEC
then discussed strategy for the Scottish, Welsh and English
elections in May 2007. Strong candidates championing local
people would be backed by regional and national resources.
Members stressed that Labour should gain credit for the new
deal for communities, concessionary travel, decent homes and
the educational maintenance allowance. Examples of LibDem
councils cancelling bus passes and privatising
meals-on-wheels should be publicised and the BNP must be
tackled, building on the excellent work by trade unions. On
a technical level there was concern about the complex single
transferable vote system to be used for Scottish local
councils.
This was
followed by an update on the party renewal project. The
website now allowed members to talk to each other, Let’s
Talk events were happening throughout the country, and there
were more than 220,000 entries on the Labour Supporters
Network. I asked that more care should go into identifying
which of these were actually members, and addressing them as
such. Others stressed the particular importance of
encouraging new members to renew after their first year. A
few argued that mechanical approaches were irrelevant to the
real problems, but the majority saw technology as assisting
doorstep work rather than replacing it, and even Pete
Willsman defended the vital role of nerds in the campaign
machine. He also asked for the results of the membership
survey sent out with the NEC ballot.
Patrick
Loughran then reported on Partnership in Power. The joint
policy committee would meet on 21 November to plan the
national policy forum programme and explore the relationship
between the forum’s policy commissions and the new network
of ministerial groups, all of which are developing policy
towards the next manifesto. Members stressed the continuing
need to make the forum process more credible, and regretted
recent problems when leading figures expressed views on the
veil without reference to party-government partnership.
Following up two hot issues from conference, the health
commission would consider wider involvement in
policy-making, and the housing sub-group would circulate
monthly reports to stakeholders including constituencies.
Patrick’s team also exposed Tory contradictions between
praising economic stability and guaranteeing public
spending, while promising massive tax cuts. The LibDems
were more difficult to nail down as they were mainly a
repository for protest votes, but they were economically
incoherent and soft on crime and anti-social behaviour.
The Morning
After
Tuesday was
a formal meeting. The prime minister opened by saying that
despite the polls we were stronger than six months ago,
with the experience to tackle the big challenges of
globalisation, security, energy, pensions and the economy.
Some members were worried at sounding doom-laden, against
“don’t worry – be happy” David Cameron, though Dennis
Skinner doubted that Dave’s fluffy-bunny language could
withstand much scrutiny. Tony Blair agreed that optimism
was important, but it must be tied to realism. On the Royal
Mail, the crunch would come when markets were liberalised in
2009, and while people were fond of rural post offices, they
did not actually use them. On health, he recognised public
anxiety and the desire for financial flexibility, but the
prize was tremendous: a maximum of 18 weeks between GP’s
surgery and operating theatre, eliminating NHS waiting
lists.
Walter
Wolfgang questioned the need to replace Trident, with 59% of
the public opposed and many better uses for £25 billion, but
Tony Blair thought that nothing had changed since the 1980s
when the nuclear issue lost elections for Labour. He told
Pete Willsman that private security forces in Iraq, far from
being uncontrolled, were licensed by the British to provide
protection, and continuing killings were the work of al-
Qaeda and Iranian-backed Shia militias. I asked whether the
United States would punish Nicaragua for electing the wrong
president, but he said he was sure they didn’t care, and
there were more pressing foreign policy concerns. Back
home, contrary to local press reports his Oxford speech on
science had emphasised the idealistic aspects, and his
remarks on the economic rewards were in response to a
student who asked if she would lose out financially through
a career in science.
Party
Matters
Jacqui
Smith outlined her role as chief whip in getting Labour’s
manifesto through parliament. She tried to be flexible for
reasons of health, family, campaigning and other
commitments, and to aid with reselections she hoped to
provide constituencies with records of attendance and other
activities as well as voting. MPs’ representatives argued
that far from being supine, there was vigorous discussion
behind the scenes and Labour’s biggest-ever rebellions had
taken place since 1997. Clare Short had now expelled
herself by sitting as an independent, and Dennis Skinner
reminded us that she spoke against Liz Davies’ candidacy in
Leeds North-East at the 1995 conference, swaying naïve
first-time delegates including myself. Jacqui confirmed
that she had received representations about Labour MPs who
are prominent in the Countryside Alliance.
As the
first step in the coming leadership election the NEC
approved a code of conduct for candidates and agreed that
new members should be able to vote immediately, waiving the
eight-week period in which local parties can object, and
creating excellent recruitment opportunities. Contact
details of constituency and union secretaries would be
supplied to candidates by the central party, though it was
recognised that MPs, secretaries, Young Labour, Labour
Students and others have full membership lists and can use
them as they choose. Further procedures would follow, but
everyone hoped that the campaign would focus on the
candidates’ abilities and policies rather than on process
issues.
Conferences
Past and Future
This year
512 delegates from 497 constituencies attended, almost
unchanged for four years. Peter Watt regretted problems
with late accreditation, mainly due to late or incomplete
applications and the Manchester police’s unfamiliarity, with
our systems, though the Tories had worse problems in
Bournemouth. The conference arrangements committee had
identified problems with the structure of debates, for
instance mixing health with education, and too many platform
speakers, though the policy seminars were successful.
Cynics were assured that the “I Love You Tony” placards
simply showed that delegates wanted to say a special
thank-you to mark Tony Blair’s last conference speech. .
Next year
the deadline is 30 March 2007 for constituency delegates,
and nominations for the national policy forum, national
constitutional committee, and conference arrangements
committee. The closing date for constitutional amendments
is 8 June 2007, the provisional deadline for contemporary
resolutions is 10 a.m. on Friday 14 September and for
emergency resolutions 12 noon on Friday 21 September. The
spring conference will be replaced by a variety of events in
all regions, though the youth conference will still be held
in Glasgow from 16/18 February 2007 and include the election
of the NEC youth representative, for which nominations close
on 20 January 2007. The programme will be evaluated against
previous spring conferences in terms of participation,
enjoyment and cost.
Finally the
NEC agreed membership of commissions and committees. I
remain on the crime, justice, citizenship and equalities
policy commission, and on the organisation committee which
now includes the work of the party development taskforce.
However I have joined the business board, and left the
women, race and equalities committee in the capable hands of
Norma Stephenson and her colleagues.
Questions
and comments are welcome, and I am happy for this to be
circulated to members – and supporters - as a personal
account, not an official record. Past reports are at
www.annblack.com