And on from Liverpool...

I'm writing this at Liverpool Lime Street Station. I'll soon be on the way home to Milton Keynes. As ever, there is plenty to think about - issues to reflect upon further - new campaigning tools and techniques to try out. Conference should be stimulating - and I always find it is. I'll be honest, I prefer the fringe meetings; the chats with exhibitors, the discussions with old and new friends - to speeches in the main hall.

So what am I taking away from Liverpool? I'm encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by some - and the energy they are bringing into the party? It can be tiring being a progressive - but we can never let ourselves become tired. At most there are 44 months until the next General Election - and it may come sooner. In the meantime there are hundreds of country, district & parish council seats to be won - and services delivered. We need enthusiasm and energy.

But to do that we have to persuade neighbours, friends and fellow citizens that we have the capability to make a real - positive - difference. We have to discuss ideas - a process which involve debate and the use of argument. That could be messy, but need not be. We need to show that we can engage with people who might not share our passion - but can agree with our principles.

There was some unedifying behaviour at conference. Some people got personal. Some put winning arguments and scoring points above addressing the challenge of convincing voters. ALL this is unsustainable. Let's move on.

Why Labour Members are backing Owen Smith

This article appeared on Owen Smith's website - and sets out reasons given by members why they will be voting for him. This piece accurately reflects MY views as a progressive.

Here are the top 5 reasons that Labour Party members have given for getting involved in the campaign to elect Owen Smith as Leader of the Labour Party.

1) Because Owen can form an effective opposition to challenge the Tories' deep austerity cuts and unfair Brexit negotiations

“I'm backing Owen because he realises, intrinsically, that real change in people's lives comes through achieving power. This country is crying out for a Labour opposition that can take the Tories to task on the Brexit negotiations, on the austerity agenda and on the continued privatisation of the NHS. Owen Smith can deliver the opposition that people up and down this country deserve!” - Alexander 

“I am backing Owen because I want a leader who can deal with the press, who can present a real challenge to the current government, who can build and unite a full, strong and experienced shadow cabinet but most of all who heart and soul wants to win the next election.” - Fran

2) Owen can reunite our Party, so we can take the fight to the Tories.

“I voted for Jeremy last time, his strong and hopeful message inspired me. Since then I've seen the party I love fall apart. Owen has the policies and the ability to take us back into government.” - Johnathan

“I'm backing Owen because he can build the bridges between the membership and the elected representatives to unite us in a common purpose - a Labour government. He has already shown he can hold the Tories to account effectively and he will stand up for the things we in the Labour Party care passionately about. He is a team player and a team leader.” - Sarah

 3) Because Owen believes in fighting social inequality

“I grew up in a working class community with a single mother who had to choose between feeding her children and heating the house. I don't want the next generation to live through the same. Jeremy Corbyn can't win over the voters we need to form a government, but I believe Owen Smith can.” - Vince

 4) Because Owen has the right policies, to drive the Labour Party

“Owen to me represents the hope and future we can have as a united country in these turbulent times. A hope that Britain can prosper, but Owen's promises are also backed up by genuine policies. I joined the Labour party not because I wanted to be a part of a protest movement that is destined to be in opposition, but because I wanted to be part of a political party that has a real chance of getting back into government and that can change the lives of people in Britain for the better.” - Hannah

“I am backing Owen because ideals need to be backed by political action. I have never felt more in tune with a politician since Owen Smith said, "It's not enough to be anti-austerity, you've got to be pro something." Austerity was always a terrible economic plan, but saying that means absolutely nothing when we have nothing to replace it with. Owen will formulate the policies that can kick the Tories out of office.” - Oliver 

 5) Because Owen can win the next election, for all those that desperately need a Labour Government

 “At nearly 83 years old, having campaigned for Labour since I was a teenager in 1945, I know how vital a Labour government is.” - Edna 

“I'm backing Owen Smith to be our next Labour Prime Minister because I love my party. I joined because I wanted to make a difference in this country, but to make a difference we need to be in Government. We now need a credible leader with a radical message, and that person is Owen Smith.” - James 

Owen Smith's Workplace Manifesto

On Wednesday Owen Smith announced his Workplace Manifesto, which details his plan to deliver a revolution in workers’ rights. These measures will make Britain the envy of the world for employment rights and job security - under Owen’s leadership real change will be made.

Below are each of Owen’s commitments, with the steps needed to achieve them.

 

Improve collective Trade Union rights

 

1. Strengthen union recognition rights to provide for recognition where majority support is clear.

 

2. Provide mandatory access arrangements to workplaces for trade unions where requested by workers.

 

3. Amend the law to remove unfair obstacles to industrial action, unfair time limits, and opportunities to use injunctions to obstruct democratic votes. Ensure law complies with ILO standards.

 

4. End use of sweetheart unions to avoid recognition.

 

5. Modernise balloting with e-balloting to increase participation.

 

6. Repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 immediately on taking office

 

Improve individual rights for working people

 

1. Introduce Day One employment rights.

 

2. Enhance definition of “worker” in employment law, to outlaw bogus selfemployment, strengthen rights and address agency labour issues.

 

3. Outlaw exclusively foreign recruitment.

 

4. Require all workers to receive a statement of rights, pay, hours, living wage

and average wage.

 

5. Outlaw zero hours contracts.

 

6. Introduce compensation for cancelled shifts.

 

7. Restore access to justice for workers by abolishing fees for Employment 

 

8. Strengthen enforcement of the National Living Wage.

 

9. Strengthen enforcement of Health and Safety legislation, including restoring civil liability for breach of regulations and restore Health and Safety protection for self employed workers.

 

Ensuring a voice for people at work

 

1. Worker representation on all Remuneration Committees.

 

2. Information and Consultation rules to apply to companies of over 50 employees without restrictive trigger requirements.

 

3. Protect Works Councils in larger companies in the event of a Tory Brexit by introducing Works Councils with similar powers and composition (including trade union reps where present) to all companies with over 500 employees

 

Strengthen collective bargaining

 

1. Introduce Modern Wages Councils to cover 9 million workers in Hospitality, Retail and Social Care. Membership of Councils would be balanced between employers, TU reps and workers. Responsibilities would include to negotiate minimum terms and conditions, gender and race equality, access for disabled workers and at least a living wage in the sector.

 

2. Provide a legal framework for voluntary sectoral collective bargaining in other sectors with universally applicable wage rates and provide tax and investment

incentives to encourage participation in such voluntary sectoral arrangements.

 

3. Restore full collective bargaining and end pay freezes in the public sector. National pay bargaining to continue in Health, Local Government and Education

and to be restored in the Civil Service - with Pay Review Board decisions to be respected. Require contracted out services to pay comparable rates. 

 

Achieving lasting  equality

 

1. New Equal Pay legislation, to close the gender pay gap.

 

2. Simplify the enforcement of equality law and abolish fees for Employment Tribunals.

 

3. Reintroduce discrimination questionnaires and employments rights from Day One, for workers with protected characteristics including pregnant women, older and young workers, LGBT workers and disabled workers.

 

4. Require publication of race equality plans for all companies over a certain size.

 

5. Require publication of the highest and lowest rates of pay for all companies with over 20 employees

 

Protecting workers rights after the EU referendum

 

1. Defend workers’ rights in the Brexit negotiation process, where UK labour law and Heath and Safety regulations directly flow from our EU membership.

 

2. Insist on a seat at the table for Labour in the negotiation process.

 

3. Put the terms of the Brexit deal to the British people in a second referendum or at a General Election for their final say

The State of Play

We live in interesting times! - and frankly, worrying times. My nightmare scenario involves

Trump winning the US Presidency (though losing it may bring its own problems - he's already talking about a conspiracy to 'steal the election' from him!)

The Labour Party in Britain opting for purity over power, and re-electing Jeremy Corbyn as leader of a dysfunctional opposition. That might increase the chances of the Scots moving closer to independence as Tory hegemony over Westminster extends beyond the short term.

Sarkozy or Le Pen winning the French Presidency....

Today I will summarise the state of play in the various UK party leadership elections.


LABOUR PARTY

Owen Smith is challenging the incumbent Jeremy Corbyn for leader. Edible voters (Labour Party members; Registered supporters (who signed up and paid during a brief window in July) and Affiliated Supporters (members of affiliated trade unions, socialist societies and other affiliated organisations who individually sign up as affiliated supporters before next Monday) - will be sent ballot papers (Members only) and an email with instructions on voting electronically - from 22nd August. Ballot papers must be returned (or online voting completed) by noon on 21st September. The result be be announced immediately prior to the start of the Labour Conference the following weekend.

Owen Smith's website can be accessed at http://www.owen2016.com

Jeremy Corbyn's website can be accessed at http://www.jeremycorbyn.org.uk 


UKIP

The favourite to succeed Nigel Farage was disqualified because computer problems meant his online application was only successfully received minutes AFTER the deadline closed. (you couldn't make this up! - but serves as a warning to any students submitting essays or eTMAs (OU) close to the cut off time!!!)

The candidates are

Jonathan Arnott - an MEP for North East England. Aged 35

Phillip Broughton - a former UKIP candidate in the parliamentary seat of Hartlepool

Lisa Duffy - A Cambridgeshire councillor , who is a party organiser. She is a former chief of staff for Patrick O'Flynn - a UKIP MEP. If she wins, he will be HER deputy.

Bill Etheridge - 46 year old who is both an MEP and a Dudley councillor.

Diane James - an MEP for South East England - an admirer of Putin.

Elizabeth Jones - a member of UKIPs NEC and the deputy chair of UKIP in Lambeth.

A new approach to politics

Please submit any comments - either on this blog - or directly to me at washminster@me.com

Why Owen Smith deserves a close look

The leadership election is on - and Labour Party members and supporters have the opportunity to reflect on the future of the party - and consider which path to take. There are serious decisions to make - and as a Labour Party member for over 40 years, I want to see ideas which will lead to a Labour Government.

Owen Smith has set out his vision - and I invite you to consider his ideas. I welcome any comments.

 
The MP says he will tackle inequality and transform the tax system if he becomes leader of the Labour Party

Owen Smith today sets out bold plans to overhaul the tax system and give workers a pay rise.

The Labour leadership contender ­promised to bring back wage councils to stop greedy bosses exploiting staff.

And he pledged to ­transform the tax system to end the “ballooning” inequality in Britain.

In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Mr Smith also reached out to supporters of Jeremy Corbyn by claiming he would be just as “radical” as the left-wing Labour chief.

He said: “My offer is that in me you have someone just as radical as Jeremy. I will bow to no one in terms of my socialist belief, my heroes are Nye Bevan and Keir Hardie, great Labour titans.

“I will take their legacy forward but communicate to people and give people faith we can do it.” Setting out his stall, the Pontypridd MP pledged plans for a £200billion investment fund to build schools, transport links and hospitals and kick start the economy.

He also wants to rewrite Clause Four – Labour’s defining mission statement – to include a duty to tackle inequality.

At the heart of this will be the reintroduction of wage councils – a forum for bosses, unions, workers and the Government – to agree pay, terms and conditions. Wage councils were set up in the 1930s but the majority were phased out by the Tories in the 1980s and 1990s. The last to go was the Agricultural Wages Board, which was axed in England under David Cameron.

Mr Smith said he fought for Wales to keep its own Agricultural Wages Board and, as a result, farm workers there are now paid 6% more than their equivalents in England.

He continued: “That’s a model we should be thinking about right across our economy.

“I think there’s a real case for re-inventing modern wage councils, operating sector by sector, looking at the specific terms and conditions in individual sectors and arguing for better terms and wages for workers in those sectors.

“They were a brilliant way in which we gave working people a bulwark against employers eroding wages and it was a way in which people could bind together and argue for better terms and conditions.

"I would start with retail and hospitality where so many workers, in particular women, are often working in insecure circumstances on low wages and often on zero hours contracts.

“Other countries have these still, Germany has them, Sweden has them.

“They are very powerful way in which you have an independent debate about the right wage levels and argue in that forum for better terms and conditions.”

The Welsh MP, who has pledged to bring back the 50p tax rate for high earners, also said he would transform the way people are taxed. He added: “We need to go further than that [the 50p higher rate]. We need to ­overhaul our tax system.

“The last Labour government was too timid in looking at taxation – we haven’t had a major overhaul of tax in this country for many, many generations.”

On the current Leader -

“[Jeremy]  left Labour sidelined in the debate. We are not thought of as being a government in waiting. We are not thought of as being a credible government and that is a dereliction of duty on his behalf because we have to be about winning power in order to put our principles and values into practices.”

Mr Smith insisted he could continue carrying Mr Corbyn’s torch of fighting for social justice and economic reform while also being able to “heal the party.”

And in a dig at the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown years, Mr Smith said there would be none of the “nuance and timidity” of recent Labour governments.

He said: “We can’t just say we are anti-austerity, what does it mean to be pro-prosperity? For me that means a Labour government doing traditional Labour things: investing in our communities, investing in public services, investing in the infrastructure we need – schools, hospitals, new roads.

“It’s not rocket science, it’s a traditional Labour platform I am standing on. If we can get back to that without some of the nuance and timidity we have seen in the Labour Party, the managerialism that has held us back from being radical in the past, then we can have a new Labour offer to the country that people would realise is properly Labour but fit for the 21st century.”

What now for Labour?

The Conservatives have a new Prime Minister - who could remain in power until (and beyond?) a General Election in May 2020. She could also engineer an early General Election. Most ministerial posts are now filled - and Parliament is about to head off the summer.

Labour faces a less certain future. Their current leader has lost the confidence of almost 80% of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Opinion polls suggest that he commands the confidence of only a small part of the electorate. An election for the party leadership is now underway.

MPs will meet to put nominations, as Constituency Labour Parties - either have done, or will do in the next few days.

You will have access to many opinions and news stories in the coming days. I will happily share my views with you - and my reasons. But today I want to street something that is often overlooked.

The value of looking at history - 

No leader of ANY political party has had an easy time of leading their party. I've heard many friends in the Labour Party wish that we could return to the days when leaders could command the support of all members of the parliamentary party. Those days NEVER existed. Attlee had to manage conflicting egos (and boy were some of those huge - Bevin, Bevan, Morrison, Cripps - to name just a few) and very different policy preferences during his premiership. Wilson was a skilled operator, but his ability to manage was severely tested. Callaghan struggled (and he was a very skilled operator!) with a fractious party and a majority that disappeared. Blair and Brown faced rebellions from the very start of their premierships. They could all describe their challenges - in fact they have. We have a wealth of Prime Ministerial and ministerial memoirs and diaries. If nothing else is to be gained from reading these, we can at least begin to appreciate the extraordinary skills demanded of anyone who hopes to lead the main Opposition party; or to be Prime Minister.

No one can please all the people, all of the time. But to step into Downing Street as Prime Minister requires that the party leader can enthuse sufficient people to vote for their party. If Labour want to take power - and have the opportunity to fulfil their manifesto promises - they must win 13 million votes. That means appealing to a wide range of views. There are detailed election studies showing what attracted and what repealed voters. A study of those can be useful.