Cut-Price Politics
The latest wizard wheeze dreamed up by the Labour Party is an offer to the great British public of cut-price politics and the opportunity to vote in Labour leadership elections - so long as you become a registered supporter by giving the party £3.00.
Now three quid is not a lot of money even in these straitened times, but nonetheless I think I'll pass and do something more worthwhile with the cash.
Because if I really wanted to vote for Ed Milliband, I'd have stayed in or re-joined the Labour Party but I chose to follow a different path many years ago - back in 1999 to be precise.
The only reason this pantomime is taking place is that Labour cannot bring itself to introduce a democratic system of One Member One Vote (OMOV) because this would upset Britain's union bosses, the Bubs for short.
The reforms which are being talked up furiously by Ed Miliband and the Labour leader do not tackle the central issue which is that the trade unions operate in a fundamentally unrepresentative and undemocratic way - because when it comes to party politics the Bubs don't reflect the views of their members.
Labour Fudge (3 February 2014)
The Labour Party is tying itself in knots as Ed Miliband tries to deliver on a promise he made last summer, at the height of the Falkirk vote rigging scandal, to forge a new relationship with the trade unions.
Now the way to do this is quite simple really by introducing One Member One Vote (OMOV), but as this would undermine the power and influence of union bosses - fudge is the name of the game.
In this case fudge means that while Labour plans to dismantle the discredited electoral college which got Ed Miliband elected as leader - not much else will change.
In future, the trade unions will affiliate to the Labour Party only those members who make a positive decision to back Labour - perhaps as few as 1 member in 10.
Yet as things stand the trade unions will hold on to the political fund contributions of the 90% of members who do not sign up as 'affiliated' Labour Party members - and union bosses may just decide to donate this money to Labour anyway.
Which is just as crazy as it sounds.
Unions hit back at Labour Party voting reforms
Plans for tougher leadership nomination rules will 'favour white, middle-aged grey suits'
By MARK LEFTLY
Senior union activists fear that Labour's reforms to the way the party leader is selected will result in centrist, "white, middle-aged, grey-suit" candidates in the future.
Ed Miliband announced this weekend that he will move the party to a one member, one vote system, despite having secured the leadership in 2010 by a wafer-thin margin, with the unions that backed him holding a disproportionate one-third block of the electoral college. MPs and MEPs had another third of the vote, with the remainder given to party members – a widely criticised system that favoured the views of parliamentarians and unions.
The reforms are designed to break Labour's relationship with the unions after allegations of vote-rigging involving Unite in selecting the party's Falkirk candidate emerged last year.
Leadership candidates will now only get their names on the ballot paper if proposed by one fifth of Westminster MPs. This is up from the current 12.5 per cent and gives MPs more influence over the process than the rest of the party.
There are suggestions that this threshold was not signed off in talks between the party leadership and Labour-affiliated unions such as Unite and the GMB, and could be negotiated downwards.
A senior trade unionist has said that the proposal would mean that future contests were likely to be fought between only two and four candidates. This would be likely to suit those who were considered a safe pair of hands, effectively eliminating candidates outside of the party hierarchy at the first hurdle.
"We've looked at this threshold for getting nominated and thought, 'Hang on a second, it's a bit on the high end; you'll only get two or three people out of the Shadow Cabinet on the ballot paper. You would struggle to get someone like a Jon Cruddas on the ballot, let alone a Diane Abbott, probably just white, middle-aged grey suits. This is the main bone of contention," one source said.
Mr Cruddas signed Ms Abbott's nomination papers in 2010, despite favouring the elder Miliband brother, David, as she was struggling to secure even the 12.5 per cent threshold. The veteran left-winger's absence would have resulted in a battle between five white males approaching or in early middle age. There are concerns that future candidates favoured by the unions could also fail to make the ballot for being too far left.
The reforms will be put to a special conference in March. Ed Miliband hopes the move to one member, one vote will be seen as on a par with Tony Blair's removal of the Clause Four commitment to public ownership in 1995.
Mr Miliband said: "This is about completing unfinished business from the past 20 years and creating a One Nation Labour Party built on the principle of one member, one vote... changing Labour so that Labour can change our country."
But while politics academics Richard Jobson and Mark Wickham-Jones wrote on Independent online that "Labour has tackled some of the difficulties that compromised its capacity to present itself as democratic", the Tory party chairman Grant Shapps has argued that "nothing will change". He said: "It's the same old Labour with Ed Miliband too weak to stand up to the union barons who own him".
Union Democracy (6 June 2013)
Senior union activists fear that Labour's reforms to the way the party leader is selected will result in centrist, "white, middle-aged, grey-suit" candidates in the future.
Ed Miliband announced this weekend that he will move the party to a one member, one vote system, despite having secured the leadership in 2010 by a wafer-thin margin, with the unions that backed him holding a disproportionate one-third block of the electoral college. MPs and MEPs had another third of the vote, with the remainder given to party members – a widely criticised system that favoured the views of parliamentarians and unions.
The reforms are designed to break Labour's relationship with the unions after allegations of vote-rigging involving Unite in selecting the party's Falkirk candidate emerged last year.
Leadership candidates will now only get their names on the ballot paper if proposed by one fifth of Westminster MPs. This is up from the current 12.5 per cent and gives MPs more influence over the process than the rest of the party.
There are suggestions that this threshold was not signed off in talks between the party leadership and Labour-affiliated unions such as Unite and the GMB, and could be negotiated downwards.
A senior trade unionist has said that the proposal would mean that future contests were likely to be fought between only two and four candidates. This would be likely to suit those who were considered a safe pair of hands, effectively eliminating candidates outside of the party hierarchy at the first hurdle.
"We've looked at this threshold for getting nominated and thought, 'Hang on a second, it's a bit on the high end; you'll only get two or three people out of the Shadow Cabinet on the ballot paper. You would struggle to get someone like a Jon Cruddas on the ballot, let alone a Diane Abbott, probably just white, middle-aged grey suits. This is the main bone of contention," one source said.
Mr Cruddas signed Ms Abbott's nomination papers in 2010, despite favouring the elder Miliband brother, David, as she was struggling to secure even the 12.5 per cent threshold. The veteran left-winger's absence would have resulted in a battle between five white males approaching or in early middle age. There are concerns that future candidates favoured by the unions could also fail to make the ballot for being too far left.
The reforms will be put to a special conference in March. Ed Miliband hopes the move to one member, one vote will be seen as on a par with Tony Blair's removal of the Clause Four commitment to public ownership in 1995.
Mr Miliband said: "This is about completing unfinished business from the past 20 years and creating a One Nation Labour Party built on the principle of one member, one vote... changing Labour so that Labour can change our country."
But while politics academics Richard Jobson and Mark Wickham-Jones wrote on Independent online that "Labour has tackled some of the difficulties that compromised its capacity to present itself as democratic", the Tory party chairman Grant Shapps has argued that "nothing will change". He said: "It's the same old Labour with Ed Miliband too weak to stand up to the union barons who own him".
Democracy is a very simple concept which has been with us ever since the time of the ancient Greeks - although many battles have been fought down the years to establish exactly who has the right to vote.
Trade union democracy is something else - a strange 'hotch potch' of rules that make no sense except for the fact they they give power and influence to a very small handful of union bosses - over potentially important decisions like who should be the next Labour leader.
In the same way that the Westminster Parliament needs to get rid of its undemocratic First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system - the Labour Party has a credibility problem over the role of the trade unions.
One Member One Vote (OMOV) is the only way to run an organisation which claims to operate on democratic principles - and anything short of OMOV is simply a way of saying that some people's votes are worth more than others.
Which means, of course, that important leadership and other selection contests are wide open to manipulation.
Life's Little Ironies (6 November 2012)
Life is full of little ironies, so I'm told.
Yet I had this confirmed to me at the weekend as I read the papers at the weekend - in particular the article from David Miliband and Dave Prentis in the Guardian - declaring their great support for the 'Living Wage'.
Because David Miliband is the Labour MP for South Shields of course - the former Foreign Secretary who won the support of a majority of individual Labour members (and Labour MPs) in the party's last leadership election - which took place in 2010.
While Dave Prentis is the general secretary of Unison - whose trade union votes (along with those of GMB and Unite) ensured the Labour leadership crown went not to David Miliband - but to his younger brother, Ed.
And the rest is history - except for the fact that people should understand history and how the Labour Party got itself into a position where the ordinary members voted for one person as their Leader - yet ended up with a rather different outcome.
All is explained in the following posts from the blog site archive in September 2010.
6% = 70% = 90% (26 September 2010)
The Labour party's electoral college makes about as much sense - as one of the Mad Hatter's tea parties.
But to be fair it has done what it was designed to do - which is to give union leaders undue influence over key party decisions - by galvanising a small handful of union activists to vote in a particular way or, as in this case, for a particular candidate.
Democracy it ain't - instead it's all about machine-like, Tammany Hall politics - also known as vested interests and raw power.
Consider for a moment the voting figures which decided who would be the next Labour leader - and potentially, at least, the country's next Prime Minister.
199,671 trade unions votes were cast in the trade union section of the electoral college - 80,266 for David Miliband and 119,405 for Ed Miliband.
Before the ballot took place the unions were boasting that around 3,500,000 trade unions members would be invited to vote - in a veritable orgy of union democracy.
Yet the turnout of around 6% means that ordinary union members voted with their feet - apart from a tiny number of union activists - who have no claim to represent the views of the wider membership.
The voting figures also confirm that Labour's electoral college is to democracy - what Alice in Wonderland is to quantum mechanics.
Because the Miliband of brothers received the votes of 122,806 individual Labour party members - 66,814 for David Miliband and 55,992 votes for Ed Miliband.
Before the ballot - Labour claimed 170,000 members would be entitled to vote - so the turnout of party members is respectable - at just over 70%.
MPs voted in even greater numbers, as you would expect, and cast 262 votes in total - David Miliband receiving 140 and his brother Ed receiving 122 - so the turnout amongst MPs was well over 90%.
Yet all three sections of the electoral college get the same weighted vote - i.e. 1/3rd, 1/3rd and 1/3rd.
So the end result is that some votes are much more equal than others.
In Labour's electoral college reality is turned on its head - much like Alice in Wonderland - with the incredible effect that somehow or other - 6% = 70% = 90%.
Whatever this is it's not democracy - more trade union members voted (199,671) than the entire Labour party membership (122,806) - which just about says it all.
Maybe these people were Tory, Lib Dem or SNP supporters - seeking to influence the outcome - who knows?
But what we do know is that the new Labour leader was not elected by his own party members - which is a sad day and a bad day - for anyone with a passing interest in democracy.
Unions Pick Labour Leader (25 September 2010)
Hot off the press comes the latest news from Manchester - the trade unions have effectively picked the new Labour leader, Ed Miliband.
Ed won the contest by 50.65% to 49.35% of the total votes cast in the electoral college - a close result as predicted.
Yet he won only by significantly out-polling his brother David in the trade union section - where most of the voters are not even Labour party members.
David Miliband received the most votes in the MPs section - and also amongst individual party members.
But his undoing came about because union bosses ran a concerted campaign against him - the big public sector unions - GMB, Unite and Unison - working in concert to deliver for their man.
So Labour's worst nightmare has indeed come true - see previous post dated 22 September 2010.
A close run contest is one thing - but the differential turn out in different sections of the electoral college - means that the trade unions have overturned the will of MPs and individual party members.
In effect, democracy has lost out - and will continue to do so until Labour's electoral college is replaced - by one member one vote.
Trade union democracy is something else - a strange 'hotch potch' of rules that make no sense except for the fact they they give power and influence to a very small handful of union bosses - over potentially important decisions like who should be the next Labour leader.
In the same way that the Westminster Parliament needs to get rid of its undemocratic First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system - the Labour Party has a credibility problem over the role of the trade unions.
One Member One Vote (OMOV) is the only way to run an organisation which claims to operate on democratic principles - and anything short of OMOV is simply a way of saying that some people's votes are worth more than others.
Which means, of course, that important leadership and other selection contests are wide open to manipulation.
Life's Little Ironies (6 November 2012)
Life is full of little ironies, so I'm told.
Yet I had this confirmed to me at the weekend as I read the papers at the weekend - in particular the article from David Miliband and Dave Prentis in the Guardian - declaring their great support for the 'Living Wage'.
Because David Miliband is the Labour MP for South Shields of course - the former Foreign Secretary who won the support of a majority of individual Labour members (and Labour MPs) in the party's last leadership election - which took place in 2010.
While Dave Prentis is the general secretary of Unison - whose trade union votes (along with those of GMB and Unite) ensured the Labour leadership crown went not to David Miliband - but to his younger brother, Ed.
And the rest is history - except for the fact that people should understand history and how the Labour Party got itself into a position where the ordinary members voted for one person as their Leader - yet ended up with a rather different outcome.
All is explained in the following posts from the blog site archive in September 2010.
6% = 70% = 90% (26 September 2010)
The Labour party's electoral college makes about as much sense - as one of the Mad Hatter's tea parties.
But to be fair it has done what it was designed to do - which is to give union leaders undue influence over key party decisions - by galvanising a small handful of union activists to vote in a particular way or, as in this case, for a particular candidate.
Democracy it ain't - instead it's all about machine-like, Tammany Hall politics - also known as vested interests and raw power.
Consider for a moment the voting figures which decided who would be the next Labour leader - and potentially, at least, the country's next Prime Minister.
199,671 trade unions votes were cast in the trade union section of the electoral college - 80,266 for David Miliband and 119,405 for Ed Miliband.
Before the ballot took place the unions were boasting that around 3,500,000 trade unions members would be invited to vote - in a veritable orgy of union democracy.
Yet the turnout of around 6% means that ordinary union members voted with their feet - apart from a tiny number of union activists - who have no claim to represent the views of the wider membership.
The voting figures also confirm that Labour's electoral college is to democracy - what Alice in Wonderland is to quantum mechanics.
Because the Miliband of brothers received the votes of 122,806 individual Labour party members - 66,814 for David Miliband and 55,992 votes for Ed Miliband.
Before the ballot - Labour claimed 170,000 members would be entitled to vote - so the turnout of party members is respectable - at just over 70%.
MPs voted in even greater numbers, as you would expect, and cast 262 votes in total - David Miliband receiving 140 and his brother Ed receiving 122 - so the turnout amongst MPs was well over 90%.
Yet all three sections of the electoral college get the same weighted vote - i.e. 1/3rd, 1/3rd and 1/3rd.
So the end result is that some votes are much more equal than others.
In Labour's electoral college reality is turned on its head - much like Alice in Wonderland - with the incredible effect that somehow or other - 6% = 70% = 90%.
Whatever this is it's not democracy - more trade union members voted (199,671) than the entire Labour party membership (122,806) - which just about says it all.
Maybe these people were Tory, Lib Dem or SNP supporters - seeking to influence the outcome - who knows?
But what we do know is that the new Labour leader was not elected by his own party members - which is a sad day and a bad day - for anyone with a passing interest in democracy.
Unions Pick Labour Leader (25 September 2010)
Hot off the press comes the latest news from Manchester - the trade unions have effectively picked the new Labour leader, Ed Miliband.
Ed won the contest by 50.65% to 49.35% of the total votes cast in the electoral college - a close result as predicted.
Yet he won only by significantly out-polling his brother David in the trade union section - where most of the voters are not even Labour party members.
David Miliband received the most votes in the MPs section - and also amongst individual party members.
But his undoing came about because union bosses ran a concerted campaign against him - the big public sector unions - GMB, Unite and Unison - working in concert to deliver for their man.
So Labour's worst nightmare has indeed come true - see previous post dated 22 September 2010.
A close run contest is one thing - but the differential turn out in different sections of the electoral college - means that the trade unions have overturned the will of MPs and individual party members.
In effect, democracy has lost out - and will continue to do so until Labour's electoral college is replaced - by one member one vote.
