The South West: United, Organised and Ready to Win

Darren Jones returns from Labour's south west conference confident the party is ready to make gains this May.

I had the pleasure this weekend of going back to my university town of Plymouth to attend the Labour South West regional party conference. Hosted in one of the two universities in Plymouth the conference welcomed delegates from across the width and breadth of the South West region- a region that many forget travels from Gloucester to Penzance and from Dorset to Barnstaple (and further still!).

The South West is a unique region for Labour party activists – encompassing the urban hubs of Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and Truro along the M5/A38 corridor surrounded by some of the most highly concentrated agricultural land in the country.

The conference, which was highly attended with delegates from far and near, was a huge success. One might expect the post-General Election conference (in a region with only four Labour MPs, no Labour MEP and no army of Labour controlled councils) to be far from positive but indeed it was.

Whilst there were genuine concerns about the length of time it's taking the national party to reorganise itself in both policy and structure the major feeling I felt from the conference hall was a room full of committed activists ready to get back on the doorstep. As Harriet Harman MP quite rightly proclaimed, “we need a new army of Labour councillors in the South West” and I for one will do my bit to make sure this is the case.

The conference was opened by Jan Royall – who will now take a shadow cabinet role for championing the South West region – and Alison Seabeck MP who provided the conference starter to a challenging but vitally important session by Cllr Patrick Diamond and Ben Bradshaw MP. The session, entitled “Southern Discomfort Again?” was focused on the research of the same name, highlighting the reasons why Labour lost so badly in the last election in the South West. The data showed that Labour has much work to do to regain trust and credibility (especially on tax and the economy) but that, even in less than a year, poll ratings show a resurgence of Labour support.

Whilst the 2015 General Election is already on the horizon delegates knew only too well the importance of both the local elections in only a few weeks and the European elections in a few years. Both sets of elections being not only important for electoral purposes but because of the real issues affecting people in our region. Be it the need for regional investment, such as in better rail and transport provision, or reform of European agricultural and fishery policies or ensuring the voices of labour people – both in urban and rural areas – are heard in the Liberal Democrat and Tory controlled councils of the South West, people knew what needs to be done and they seems ready to do it.

When not in the conference hall delegates attended aptly organised fringes – on public sector jobs in the South West and on the challenge the region has in the run up to the European Elections in 2014 – as well training sessions provided by the Labour Party 'Train to Win' programme in areas such as local media, canvassing and election organising. The pervasive theme of all of these being the readiness with which delegates were keen to learn new skills to take back to their communities to win on the very issue of public sector cuts and in regaining a European representative(s) in the years to come.

But the conference wasn't just about the committed activists we already have. The region has gained over 3370 new members since May 2010 (a third of which being disgruntled Liberal Democrats) and the conference ended with a discussion with NEC representative Ellie Reeves and the South West members of the NPF, focused on the party structural and policy reviews currently taking place.

The South West sometimes gets overlooked when it comes to the Labour movement but what was clear to me – with a plethora of delegates from Labour, Co-op and Trade Union movements – was that, whilst still in a period of rejuvenation, the people that form our party are motivated, talented and ready to bring the Labour message back to doorsteps across the South West in the vitally important years to come; and that further still, the strong bonds we hold with the Trade Union and Co-operative movements in the region, mean that together we can achieve more than we can achieve alone.

Darren Jones was Labour's parliamentary candidate in Torridge & West Devon in 2010. He blogs at www.theadvocatesocialist.wordpress.com/

Renewing in the South West

Ahead of tomorrow's South West Regional conference, Glenis Willmott MEP and Cllr David Sparks consider the future challenges and opportunities facing Labour in the south west

At Labour Party South West Regional Conference the , the LGA Labour Group and the Labour Movement for Europe will bring together campaigners from the Labour movement across the region to discuss how Labour campaigns to win back council, parliamentary and a European seat for Labour in the South West. The meeting will also discuss how engaging at European level can bring economic benefits to the region.

The South West has traditionally been Labour's most difficult area. With 197 parliamentary constituencies across the South Labour returned only 10 MPs in 2010, just four of them in the South West. Labour's difficulties however, have been most noticeably in local government and in European Elections. In the 2009 European elections, we finished 5th behind the Tories, UKIP, Lib Dems and even the Greens, bringing home a 7.7% share of the vote, our lowest regional share. Looking back in other European Elections in 1999 we finished in second place and were fourth in 2004, proving we don't always need to lose in the South West.

At local council level there are 70 councils across the South where there are no Labour councillors at all. But we are winning back local election seats. Jude Robinson in Camborne and recent wins in Exeter prove people are coming back to Labour in the South West.

Key issues relevant to our voters such as jobs, economic stability and equality require Labour to stand up for Britain in Europe through active engagement, not isolation and with values routed in the communities we serve. The South West has specific needs at European level, benefiting from of £230 million of European Union structural and regional funding across the region between 2009 and 2011.

From the recent case of the Cornish Pasty being awarded Protected Geographical Status, to coastal erosion, fisheries policy and the need for development of transport and communications infrastructure, joined up thinking from local councillors and representation in the European Parliament is essential. Labour is the best placed party to achieve this, placing the values of fairness and equality at the heart of local government and our work in Brussels.

We know that working together the Labour movement can continue our renewal in the South West, winning back council seats and returning a Labour MEP to the European Parliament in 2014.

Glenis Willmott is Labour MEP for the East Midlands and Labour's Leader in the European Parliament.
Cllr David Sparks is a Labour Councillor in Dudley and Leader of the Labour Group on the LGA.

Life in the Slow Lane? Don't forget the South West in the campaign for High Speed Rail

Darren Jones explains why Labour’s campaign in support of High Speed Rail should remember that not all trains out of London travel north.

This week Lord Adonis, the former Secretary of State for Transport who launched High Speed Rail (HSR) plans in the last Government, launched a joint campaign with Progress and SERA to lobby the Government of today on its plans for HSR, due to be consulted on in the next month.

The ‘Labour 4 High Speed 2′ campaign aims to urge the Labour party to continue its policy commitment to HSR in order to use its position in opposition to lobby the Government to reconsider a country-wide HSR policy and not just a London – Birmingham line, as is currently proposed.

This is an important campaign and anyone who cares not just about economic growth and regional development but also the environment should pledge to help the campaign.

Whilst this is an admirable campaign I find myself somewhat confused, a state of confusion induced by my inability to find any mention whatsoever about the South West. There now seems to be some repetition in my need to ask people not to forget about the South West but I find myself once again pleading the case for the region I live, work and campaign in.

It is true that Bristol has good train connections to London but anyone wishing to travel past Bristol will find life a little, well, slower. Whilst the South West has a well deserved reputation for natural beauty, holiday destinations and perhaps a slower pace of life it has an undeserved assumption that it isn’t important.

The Cornish economy is ripe for development, academic research and development in Plymouth, Exeter and Bristol is world leading and the regions positioning to benefit from the ‘green’ economy – with its cycle cities, wind farms, wave hubs and eco-towns – is perfect. Perfect that is, apart from its poor transport links and low speed internet (internet being a story for another time). Anyone who has travelled from London Paddington to Plymouth or indeed Penzance will have experienced the well know “post-Bristol lag”.

The South West has urban hubs jumping at the chance of driving development but they continually find themselves unable to do so – they need infrastructure, economic incentive and central support to secure a prosperous tomorrow for its communities. This lack of development has even produced slogans with the so-called “South West Brain Drain” (representing the movement of educated graduates out of the region in search of jobs) being a prime example. Further still, when I was the parliamentary candidate in Torridge & West Devon, I was amazed to see that the few train lines there were literally stopped on the border of the constituency. With slow or non-existent rail, no motorway after Exeter and little or no air-connections, transport becomes without question a major issue to people in the South West, both in urban and rural areas.

In this age of austerity and Tory-led cuts-only policy the South West is forced into a vulnerable position. The disbanding of the South West Regional Development Agency and the potential loss of EU convergence funding for Cornwall due to removal of Government match funding, as well as the smaller but equally as important infrastructure losses (such as the Plymouth-to-London city airport flight), makes the region in vital need of support. The Financial Times reported that an over-reliance on public sector employment makes the region ready to suffer the most from public spending cuts and the removal of EMA will prevent hundreds of young people from being able to afford transport to education providers. Support for innovation, enterprise and growth is crucial. Support for small businesses, families and young people is vital.

Whilst I fully support the Labour 4 High Speed 2 campaign I urge people to not forget the South West and to take the region seriously in consideration for development. I live in one of the most wonderful regions of our country and I can only hope that the region is supported to grow into its future potential and, most importantly of all, not forgotten.

For more information on the ‘Labour 4 High Speed 2′ campaign visit here

Darren Jones was Labour's parliamentary candidate in Torridge & West Devon in 2010. He blogs at http://www.theadvocatesocialist.wordpress.com/

Don't forget about Kent

Richard Angell visits the Labour Club at Kent University and reflects on why Labour needs to spend more time talking to voters in the south

Last night I was with the Labour club at Kent University, a great group of people keen to win back their local council for Labour and fighting to keep us on the southern political landscape. What struck me on my fifth visit to Kent since we lost the general election, is how few others have made the same journey.

Those seats Labour lost in the Midlands and the M4 corridor have scores of Labour MPs travelling through them as they return to our heartlands. If Swindon, Burton or Sherwood are holding a CLP meeting, fundraiser or campaign day, numerous shadow cabinet members let alone backbench colleagues will be travelling through or very near twice a week as they visit their constituencies in Scotland, Wales and northern England. The challenge we face in many of the seats that we must win back at the next election, places like Crawley, Brighton, Hove, and all those in Kent (from Medway to Dover), Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, is compounded by the fact that they have no Labour MP who travels past (or even near) on a regular basis.

Until we recognise this and our parliamentary team take a different approach we will never be match fit and ready to take out this odious coalition.
The next election is going to be Labour's hardest for a generation - far harder than 2010 as so many Labour people espouse. In Labour's history, every time we lose power - bar one - we lose more seats the election after. 1983 was worse than 1979.

Winning back is never easy for Labour. This was made abundantly clear by Joan Ryan's piece for Progress magazine, 'The hidden landslide' . In many seats that Labour won and held since 1997, we are now in third place. In more, Tory majorities make them look more like safe seats than the battlegrounds seats we need them to be.

One simple explanation for the massive swing against Labour in these seats is the advantage of incumbency lost by Labour and gained by its new Tory master. If this happens again in the 94 seats we lost in 2010 we could look further rather than nearer from government on 7 May 2015. When you add this to the fact that none of our 2005 losses are in our top 100 targets - the challenge seems even greater!

Currently the Labour party is weaning itself away from its obsession with the Liberal end of this Tory-led coalition - but there is still more to do. The Labour party is acting like a 'woman scorned', as if the Liberals are having some kind of illicit affair. While none of us likes the choice they made, we cannot be led by our hearts and must campaign with our heads. It will be fun to watch us win Sheffield, Newcastle and other northern cities from the Liberal Democrats, but ultimately it is votes won from Tories in the south and midlands, that hold the only prize worth winning in 2015 - Labour back in government.

This needs to be our challenge. Now the Lib Dem vote has collapsed, Labour has two equally important. Firstly to give those people a reason to vote Labour (this will be slightly delayed by our policy review) and secondly to stop them going to the Tories. Every cut blamed on the Conservatives, every choice defined against Cameron, and every policy a dividing line with the majority stake in this coalition of cuts.

As Peter Kellner points out there will be no magic formula for this. However, New Labour does provide the best template for going forward. At its best, it separates our ideological attachment to ends and focused heavily on what would deliver the social justice we desire in a way that embraces modernity and is seen to be on the public's side. We know how to win the arguments on economic competence, crime, and public service reform, but we now need to make sure that we are out there every day, in places like Great Yarmouth, Gillingham and Hove, making that case until May 2015.

This article was first published here on Progress Online.

Richard Angell is the Deputy Director of Progress

South coast swing - How to turn back the tide

Lord Knight of Weymouth outlines what Labour needs to do to win again in the crucial seaside constituencies along the south coast.

I remain the last Labour gain from the Tories – the only one so far this century - when I gained South Dorset in 2001. I was also the closest loser in 1997, missing out on the massive South Coast swing by just 77 votes. That swing saw us gain seats in Falmouth, Plymouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Hastings, Brighton, Dover, the Medway towns, Harwich, Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. All we now have left on the coast are three seats in Plymouth and Southampton as the pendulum swung back just as decisively last year, costing us over a dozen seats.

So where do we go now in these crucial seaside constituencies with such volatile electorates?

First we must understand the dynamics of seaside seats.

The demographics are striking. The high proportion of asset-rich retirees hides considerable deprivation amongst families of working age. The working population is more likely to be in public sector employment, or in low paid private sector jobs in care and hospitality. The best paid jobs were largely in defence and science.

What particularly characterises seaside towns are the areas, normally near the railways station, with large numbers of bedsits, and B&Bs. These are the neighbourhoods that swell in size in the summer with tourists, seasonal workers and vagrants. They are often highly deprived residents, unemployed and unregistered to vote.

In political terms I was always careful to look after the pensioner vote but not be too distracted by it. They were the bedrock of the solid Tory vote alongside the members of the Chamber of Trade. The core Labour vote live in the social housing estates and needed nurturing and their concerns around jobs, immigration, housing and “scroungers” needed a better response. But the swing voters were elsewhere.

These are largely in private sector housing – most as owner occupiers pressured by large borrowing for their housing, their car and on their credit cards. They need a double income and feel self reliant and struggling. They mostly vote, they may have some in-work benefit and rely on universal benefits like child benefit. They are ambitious for their kids and need decent public services. They worry about, more than worry for, the poor people living around the station.

The swing voters are the “squeezed middle”. This unhelpful phrase implies the bottom is not being squeezed – when it is disproportionately being hit by £18 billion of pain. And I can not think of anyone who would call themselves one of the “squeezed middle”, but they would identify themselves as one of the squeezed majority.

How do we then win them back?

Like elsewhere it is first and foremost where will the jobs come from? What happens if you lose your job? How can we give the kids a future without them leaving and going to the cities?

These towns are by definition on the periphery. Sometimes there is port business, like in Dover and Southampton, but they are otherwise not going to be a first choice for location sensitive businesses. There is a need for government intervention in these areas in the supply side of the economy. We need re-skilling and we need high bandwidth broadband – neither will come in response to the market. Quality of life is great. Crime is very low. Schools and the NHS perform well. But we don’t have the high wage jobs. Our future is in attracting higher wage footloose industries in the digital economy, in both the high technology and creative industries – if we can offer the skills.

Beyond the economy we need policies on housing, transport and sustaining high quality public services. Until we raise the average wage significantly we need some rapid solutions on affordable housing. Seaside towns attract a lot of seasonal homelessness. There is too much sofa surfing as young couples struggle to leave home and set up on their own. We did too little too late on housing when in office, and we now need new solutions in the towns of the periphery that rarely offer the big regeneration possibilities of the cities.

The periphery is also dependent on transport. The train I catch every week to Weymouth from London is slower than the Newcastle service. The roads are just as bad and the economic case for us, compared to connecting the big cities, is a near impossibility. At worst we need rail franchise that guarantee consistent quality services along the whole length of the line.

And as for public services? Forget choice based reform for us. If you live in Swanage the nearest secondary school is a 30 minute bus ride in Wareham or a 45 minute journey by ferry to Poole. For many services the only choice is “take it or leave it”. Incidentally, forget the Big Society. Swing voters are under pressure of time as well as money. They just want the local school and hospital to keep improving and a half decent response from the blue light services. They certainly don’t want to run them themselves.

We shouldn’t therefore fall in to the trap of simply being the ideological defender of big government; voters are as turned off by that as by ideological privatisation. Instead we need a pragmatism that starts with local accountability and then has incentives to collaborate rather than be autonomous. If we were really brave we would design policy starting in the peripheral parts of the country, because if it works without scale it is very likely to work with scale in large urban areas.

If Labour is going to have a workable majority, particularly after boundary reorganisations, then we must win back the south coast. That means campaigning hard, understanding the background of big swings that make them all winnable, and policies around jobs in the digital economy, affordable housing, higher standards of transport and quality public services.

Jim Knight was Labour MP for Dorset South from 2001 to 2010 and now sits as a Labour Peer in the House of Lords.

Have your say on policy in the south east

Here the South East's elected representatives on Labour's National Policy Forum invite you to submit your policy proposals for a stronger economy

After the General Election, we need to review the policies of the Labour Party and start to build the ideas that will win the next election. The party's policy-making process is being reviewed, and so there are not any formal consultation documents available yet. As NPF reps, we think the party needs to develop strong policies as quickly as possible, and so we will be sending out a series of emails over the next few months to ask your views as local parties and individual members on a range of specific policy areas - the subjects are the ones you told us were the highest priorities when we asked you a month or so ago.

Your highest priority was policy to create good jobs to rebalance the economy and to start economic growth. Below is a list of questions that we'd like to know your answers to and that we hope will help discussions. Please use them in your local party debates and tell us what the outcome is, or send us your own views directly. You don't have to answer all the questions, and please add thoughts on issues we haven't mentioned.

How can we get the economy moving again and get people into good jobs?

• What should be our key message to the public on the economy?
• How can we help businesses to start creating jobs?
• Are there any particular types of businesses we should focus our support on?
• How can we create more good, sustainable, high wage, high skill jobs?
• How can we help to boost exports?
• How can we make the economy less dependent on financial services and retail?
• Do we have the balance right between regulation and support of businesses?
• How should we reform the financial services and banking sectors?
• How can we encourage more small businesses?
• How can we encourage more co-operative and mutual businesses? Should we focus on the financial sector for these, or can they be used in the wider economy?
• What should we do to tackle corporate tax avoidance and evasion?

We will take your views forward to the policy commissions and full NPF meetings. Martin is a member of the Prosperity and Work Commission, and so will use your feedback directly in the work of that commission.

If you want any of us to come to one of your meetings, please email us.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Simon Burgess, Dan Chapman, Deborah Gardiner, Karen Landles and Martin Phillips (Elected NPF reps for the South East CLPs 2010-12)

PS Don't forget our website http://www.npf-se.org.uk/ . We've added a new section about Coalition cuts and how to fight them - we hope this information is useful for your local campaigns. There are also two NPF reps elected by the South East Regional Conference (Michael Hassell and Carol Hayton) as well as union, socialist society and co-op NPF reps

John Healey MP to lead Labour’s campaign in the South East

Southern Front can reveal that John Healey MP is to lead Labour’s election campaign in the south east in the run up to May’s local elections. Earlier this month Southern Front was able to disclose that Ed Balls has been asked to fulfill a similar role in the east of England.

Shadow Health Secretary John Healey told SouthernFront: “I am delighted to have been asked to lead Labour’s campaign for the South East.”

“Labour’s road back to Government must pass through the South East of England. To earn the right to govern again we’re going to have win back seats like Milton Keynes, Reading and Hove, and also Gravesham where I visited last week . People across the South East – and the south more widely - need to know Labour is listening to their concerns and that we want to help them realise their aspirations. They need to know we’re on their side.”

Forest sell off - Stand fast and gear up

Luke Pollard explains why the forest sell off fight is far from over

Last week's announcement the environment secretary that the government is pausing plans to sell 15% of the Forestry Commission's woodlands is welcome news. But let’s also be clear, this is only the first sign Labour's campaign is having an impact - but it's not the death of this damaging, ill-conceived and ideological-driven policy effort .

The rationale for flogging off our nation’s publicly owned forests has been crumbling from the day the news broke. The economic rationale has been shown to be hollow by the government’s own figures and the government has retreated to admitting that the sale is ideological in its design.

This is why I am suspicious of this announcement. Ideological conviction often trumps public outrage as successive Tory policies over the years illustrate starkly. This government just likes sugar-coating ideological cuts to make them sound more palatable to the reasonable middle.

We should also read the words of the announcement closely – the phraseology "whilst the criteria for sale are re-examined" used in the media does not mean all the forests are safe. Indeed, it might only mean that they bolt on a form of words that sounds a little bit tougher on access rights and carry on the same. We should not fall for this classic delaying tactic.

You have to have some sympathy for Caroline Spellman, the beleaguered environment secretary, on this issue. She has been handed a hospital-pass by Francis Maude, the chief architect of the Public Bodies Bill, who seems to be escaping all the blame as if he’s been dipped in Teflon and has suddenly become non-stick. Caroline Spellman may well want some respite from forest sale lobbying and this pause is designed to offer that cooling-off opportunity, but Labour should not give her that breathing room. With so many cuts happening it would be too easy for the whole issue to drop off the media agenda and with it the all important momentum we need to sink this policy.

In the past two months protest movements across the country have formed to defend their local woodland from being sold by the government. These anti-sell off groups are a wonderful alliance of individuals, groups, unions, communities and political movements. Advocates of the "Big Society" are no doubt trumpeting this as an example of how their post-bureaucratic age philosophy is taking hold. Perhaps. But it might also be a sign that the Tory policy of robbing future generations of free to access woodlands is a bad idea that neither stands up to scrutiny nor carries public support.

Labour should not let up. In fact, we should redouble our efforts to save the forests. The Public Bodies Bill with its two sections authorizing the secretary of state to sell the Forestry Commission’s entire estate is still making its way through parliament and until those clauses are deleted, and the government is shamed into never again considering forest sales, the risk to our woods remain.

We should also not lose sight of a larger political opportunity with this campaign – that by mobilising local communities to protect their woods and forests we are also opening their eyes to the other cuts the Tory-led coalition is pushing through. There is a real danger for the two coalition parties that the forest issue will act as a catalyst for closer scrutiny of education, health, police and housing cuts. Once you’ve learnt how to print leaflets, hold public meetings, write petitions and link with the local media these skills do not go away.

The government may well want to portray student demonstrations and trade union activism as extremist sentiment to be shunned by the mainstream, but in this forest campaign a new middle-class fighting force is emerging. The I’m working on in Plymouth is a case in point. It may be lead by Labour but the woodland defenders are not class warriors nor necessarily from the political classes – they’re just local people angry at the sale – the new broad canopy opposition, the ‘squeezed middle’ if you will, Labour needs to mobilise.

We should not let up because the fight is not yet won and the catalyst effect of this campaign is potentially too great to concede hard-won ground too early. So, after reading this, sign the Labour petition , sign the 38 degrees petition , sign your local petition like this one for Cann Woods, and continue to push on because once the forests are sold, they’re gone forever.

Luke Pollard was Labour’s candidate in South West Devon at the last General Election. He runs the Save Cann Woods campaign in Plymouth.

Labour's Debt

Stuart King explains why Labour's problem with debt is more serious than we think.

However much we may believe that Labour took the right decisions in response to the global recession, it seems indisputable that we have failed to stop the Conservatives from successfully painting us as the party that saddled the country with a public sector debt the scale of which has not been since the Depression.

It’s a political disaster that Labour should (again) find itself seen as the party that would have Government live outside the country’s means. Labour’s Polling Queen, Deborah Mattinson, has re-formed her focus groups and the verdict from Harlow (& elsewhere) is stark: Labour’s reputation for economic competence – so hard fought for in the 90s, is now “in tatters”.

Is it any wonder? Sure, the economic whirlwind that hit our shores, also hit the shores of many other countries. Yes, it was a global recession - made in America and carried to the four corners of the world. But when you consider that it is primarily Labour’s own core voters who are often, through necessity, those in society living on the tightest budgets, is it any wonder the public baulked at our bailouts and the bankers’ bonuses that followed them.

The Keynesian response we adopted, whilst right, was counter intuitive to the average voter. Turning on the spending taps at a time when your own income has fallen so dramatically is pretty much the last course of action a household in such a circumstance would take. And yet that is essentially what we did. The result: massive debt and an almost universal acceptance by the public that the debt had to be paid back.

Most people cannot imagine being Chancellor of the Exchequer but they do know what it’s like to balance the family’s budget. We should have framed the Conservative policy of cutting the national debt much more sharply than we would have done, as the equivalent of demanding a mortgage be paid off in one year rather than 20.

The Conservatives have cornered the market in prudence precisely because – ever since Margaret Thatcher made a political narrative out of being a grocer’s daughter, they have been able to frame the national economic debate in terms that resonate with people’s own experience of household economics. Odd really, given it is unlikely that there will be many similarities between the belt-tightening decisions in the millionaire households of the cabinet and those the rest of us are faced with.

Families understand the difference between “good” debt and “bad” debt. Being indebted for a sum equal to ten times your annual income is a worrying, but is seen as entirely acceptable if that debt is the mortgage for your family home. Racking up debts on a credit card fuelled spending spree is a short cut to financial ruin. By the end of the debate the public saw us armed with the nation’s credit card, not its mortgage statement.

Labour cannot duck the problem it has with debt. And it can no longer choose the easy option of spending rather than living within our means: debt has become, for this generation of Labour, what unilateral disarmament was for our predecessors in the eighties. It is a sign that we are out of tune with public concern. Anger and disquiet about the coalition’s cuts are genuine and deeply felt. But we would be wrong to assume that they mean the public don’t want the debt paid down. A shadow cabinet that rightly articulates the case against individual cuts that will generate the greatest social harm must also say more about the cuts we support.

Anger and resentment towards the coalition means that Labour ought to be able to look forward to some positive local election results this May. We can hope that this will see more councils led and run by Labour, even here in the south. That presents us with an opportunity: the chance to show that Labour is not just about shouting down the cuts, but that we are also credible on paying back the debt. Quality services do matter. Putting right the worst of the impact of the Coalition’s cuts locally is the right thing to do. But Labour could do much more on each of these fronts if councils were debt free. And if Labour is doing just that at a local level it will be much easier for Labour’s national team to argue that it will do likewise if we are returned to office.

This is Labour’s critical challenge – especially in the south – where voters tend to be more affluent, less reliant on public services and like politicians who they identify with value for money and prudent spending. Just as British voters have to watch the pennies, so too, should Labour.

Stuart King is a former Labour parliamentary candidate and founder of www.southernfront.org.uk

Winning in the South: Labour's relationship challenge

Kathryn Perera explains why building a meaningful relationship with local communities over the long term is the key to success for Labour in the South

Labour in the south faces a long, hard road. The tasks of restoring a reputation for economic competence; of finding the language to appeal to people’s aspirations as well as their fears; of actually listening to people’s views on immigration, jobs and housing – these are just some of the challenges which lie ahead. But to win again in the south, Labour must also focus on the ‘how’, not just the ‘what’. It is not enough to undertake policy reviews, to identify voters’ key concerns and to find useful labels and phrases. Without the ability to communicate our messages at a local level within myriad communities, Labour cannot win again.

I stood as Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Aylesbury, a Tory stronghold with a strong Lib Dem presence on the local councils. Labour used to have councillors here. Labour used to be a political force here. Labour used to run the Conservatives a respectable second in parliamentary elections. Now the local party is a far more modest organisation, with a growing base of young activists but no sitting councillors at any level. Aylesbury is a prime example of what Jim Murphy MP meant when he said there’s a risk that it’s becoming “counter-cultural” to vote Labour in the south. Running a parliamentary campaign on a tiny budget with very few activists, I learned a great deal in the months building up to May 2010. It helped that I grew up in the constituency – longstanding issues, current concerns, even the local personalities, were all familiar to me. But I still came up against two realities which I believe define campaigns in these southern seats. One: it takes a lot of time and effort to build the kind of relationships with constituents that will change their voting habits and culture. And two: without a vibrant local party which invests that time and effort year-round, regardless of the electoral cycle, very little is going to change.

That gives Labour in the south a dual challenge. First, local party members must focus on building meaningful relationships within our local communities. At the very least, I believe that means running campaigns which take a long-view rather than ones which are fixated with winning. This may sound perverse given the scale of Labour’s challenge in the south, but at its heart it requires us to listen to people, involve as many people as possible and then give them reasons to work with local Labour candidates for change. Winning elections is an important (and likely) result of this kind of politics, but it is not the main focus of the campaign. Once the fixation on short-term electoral success ceases to dominate the picture, it’s possible to contemplate a ten-year strategy (even fifteen years in some seats) in which local campaigns foster growing support in local elections, and activists then use that base to push for national electoral success.

Second, in order to build those meaningful relationships we need to start by focusing within our CLPs. Too many CLPs in the south have a small handful of committed party members but lack the kind of network of activists that they need in order to form an effective political machine. Our relationships must start with each other: making concerted efforts to welcome and involve new members (before they attend meetings); delegating activists to meet with all members of the CLP individually to discover what motivates them and how (big or small) they can make a contribution; holding campaigns-focused meetings which agree actions, rather than committees which deal solely with administrative tasks; and spreading the load so that no one member becomes a central cog without which the local party cannot survive.

From the building blocks of this work will grow successful campaigns. My experiences suggest those campaigns will need to be deeply embedded in local issues, with messages delivered by local activists who have a detailed understanding of how campaigning works. That’s why I’m excited by the potential of Movement for Change, the grassroots community organisation which grew out of the leadership contest and which Ed Miliband has committed to supporting as part of his reform agenda. Its principles of community organising are not new to Labour – indeed, that realisation is central to understanding its place within the Labour movement. Yet its emphasis on building relationships which increase Labour’s relevance at a local level is both refreshing and urgently needed. It is the antithesis of Cameron’s top-down, tightly orchestrated and deeply flawed Big Society. It is an approach which does not condescend to those people, up and down this country, who are already volunteering their time and investing in their communities. Rather, it seeks to bring the Labour movement into that work, accepting that we may have far more to learn from existing community activism than we would ever presume to teach. Labour does have a long, hard road ahead in the south. But the attitude and culture we bring to the task of walking that road will define our future success.


Kathryn Perera is the National Communications Officer of the Labour Women’s Network. She stood as the parliamentary candidate in her hometown of Aylesbury in May 2010.

Ed Balls to lead Labour's campaign in East of England

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls is to lead Labour's local election campaigns in the East of England. The move signals the importance attached by the party to performing well in key council contests across the political south. The region is home to a number of key marginal parliamentary seats and May's local elections represents an important test for Labour.

The appointment was announced to the NEC earlier this month by Deputy Leader Harriet Harman. Labour only runs three local authorities in the east of England - Luton, Thurrock & Stevenage councils; howevever, it is targeting a number of authorities where Labour is well placed to take control of the council. Targets are though to include Norwich, Ipswich, Waveney & Great Yarmouth.

Defining the Squeezed Middle

Peter Dixon, Chelmsford’s parliamentary candidate in 2010, attempts to define the Squeezed Middle in British politics.

In modern Britain, it’s impossible to put everyone in a social position based purely on income or assets because there are so many variations. Some will assume that the middle refers to middle income or homeowners or even stereotypical families with 2.4 children but it is none of these things.

It is people who are doing ok but feel they could be doing better or who fear that things might take a turn for the worse if they’re not careful or maybe through events beyond their control. I think the ‘squeezed middle’ covers both the ‘frustrated aspirational’ and the ‘fearful comfortable’.

It is also people who are too well off to qualify for overt assistance but are still struggling with family budgets. Some are better off than the wildest dreams of working classes of the past but struggle to match the lifestyles of the high flyers that walk among them. It may be people who look at others and can’t work out why they can afford things that they cannot. They may earn enough to have to pay back student loans if they have them but do not consider themselves wealthy.

The ‘squeezed middle’ are under pressure from modern life even if it’s the pressure of modern shopping centres, prime-time TV or spoiled children. They worry about house prices- whether wanting their own to appreciate or the starter homes they want their children to buy to become affordable. They worry about their pensions, their local schools if they have children, about inflation and unregulated banks and financial services in control of their money. They feel pressure to keep up with the Joneses but are struggling to transport themselves to work or school-runs without costs rising out of control. Many will be ‘sandwich carers’ with dependent children and elderly or infirm parents but also want time for themselves, perhaps to maintain a happy marriage or to recover from a broken one. Ultimately, everyone feels pressure when the national economy declines and we are told that we owe hundreds of billions of pounds.

So what can government do for the ‘squeezed middle’? Everything comes down to good planning with a clear direction. It is something the Tories cannot do with their belief in small government and free-market economy. Although, all western messages are against it and most models have failed, the idea of not planning something as important as the economy is illogical. We have to get the mixed economy right. Financial security and stability are crucial for the squeezed middle as well as business so we need to keep up the things we did well under Blair and Brown- low inflation, low interest rates, steady growth but we need to make it stronger to withstand the attacks from the markets and to regulate capitalist institutions so that the market serves the communities not the other way around. This will require attention to detail and good management.

We need to deal with the pension imbalances and make sure that no-one is being ripped off and facing an uncertain old age. If government wants more people to invest in their pensions, it needs to be much clearer and more certain what the customer will get at the end of it. One of the most uncertain things is the environment with crises of land, food and water supply looming and we need to lead the world in finding real solutions. We need to sort out public transport so that workers are not held to ransom by profiteering privatised train companies or priced out of bus travel as working people are now. Thus communities would be less dependent on the oil markets and road network. This will require attention to detail and good management.

However much people may be caught up in their own life struggle, there is always a chance of emphasising the needs of their children’s generation. Better education for all is any easy starting point but this also needs proper planning and creative ideas. More difficult to sell will be the idea that more homes need to be built for the new generation and we need to be interested in town planning as well as housing budgets. Future fairness also requires that citizens recognise the imbalances caused by cheap inheritance and alternative approaches found. This will require attention to detail and good management.

Health and social security will need to remain top priorities and be produced better and more efficiently. People who cheat the system will also have to be dealt with more effectively. This will require attention to detail and good management.

It is not going to be easy even to produce a manifesto for the ‘squeezed middle’ let alone deliver improvements. But with all the pressures they are under, it is something we have to work hard at. They are the modern ‘working class’ (even though they are much better off than the working class of Marx or even Crosland’s day) and very much come under our responsibility.

Peter Dixon was Labour’s candidate in Chelmsford in 2010

Second stunning by election victory of 2011

Labour won its second high profile by election gain in 2011 last night, when Brian Oosthuysen (right) was elected in the Rodborough division on Gloucestershire County Council. The victory was declared following a nailbiting re-count. Oosthuysen took Labour from its fourth place finish in 2009 to a narrow three vote victory on a swing of almost 20%. It is understood that Labour's increase in votes came mostly from a slump in the green vote, but falls in both the Lib Dem and Conservative votes suggests some voters switched from those parties direct to Labour.

The result is particularly good for the party as the ward is located in the marginal parliamentary constituency of Stroud, held by Labour's David Drew from 1997-2010. Stroud is one of the 18 southern seats approved by the NEC for early selection. Whoever is successful in being selected as Labour's candidate will take great heart from yesterday's result.

You've read Karl Marx & you've taught yourself to dance

Julian Ware-Lane warns against drawing a false sense of comfort from Labour's recent run of good polls. The party has much more to do to if it is to become electable again.

Good polling between elections gives succour only to the delusional. Whilst everyone enjoys seeing their party ahead mid-term, being ahead at the business end of the electoral cycle is what matters. I state this as I look back at events nine months ago, to a defeat and to reflections on what went wrong. It is tempting, looking at poll leads that would translate into healthy majorities if maintained at a General Election, to argue that not much is wrong with my Party. Yet, I repeat, taking comfort from mid-term polling is delusional.

In 1997 New Labour took us into dreamland with a whopping majority and left a Conservative Party in disarray. Subsequent elections saw the erosion of our support that finally delivered victory to our opponents. The Conservative victory, if you can really call it that, was less to do with their resurgence and more to do with our unpopularity. I put the reversal in recent polling more down to the Coalitions unpopularity than to the electorate falling back in love with Labour, again.

So why did it all turn sour? From its inception in 1994, New Labour were saying and doing all the right things. They reached out to areas of the electorate that had previously been immune to the charms of democratic socialism. Perhaps it was this wooing that allowed traditional supporters to feel neglected, although some disastrous policy decisions were unhelpful.

A party really is doomed when it believes it is right and the electorate is wrong. Labour's refusal to acknowledge the disaster that was Iraq had hubris written all over it. Choosing a leader without election (and I was a Brown supporter) smacked of control freakery. The ten pence tax fiasco and the realisation that our MPs could be as avaricious as anyone (as exposed in the expenses scandal) all helped destroy the special relationship that Labour had with ordinary working people.

All the very good things we did somehow shone less brightly than our mistakes.

Labour has become, or appears to have become in its Westminster incarnation, a party of professional politicians for whom life experience is what other people have. To get on, it would seem, is to only have worked in a political environment. Is it any wonder that ordinary people have no empathy with MPs? It is all fine and dandy to impose AWS, but this is a useless exercise if the chosen female is already one of the club.

Our campaigning methods, brilliant in the run-up to that glorious May Day in 1997, refused to acknowledge the reality of election results that saw our support resemble islands in the Pacific. See the two maps at http://www.southernfront.org.uk/p/southern-councils_12.html. One reason the Alternative Vote is vital to us in the south is that this will force a change in the way we run elections.

I have witnessed the law of diminishing returns in our canvassing methods, allowing whole swathes of our towns and countryside to be given over to our opponents, virtually unchallenged. My horror at marching past row upon row of houses to reach the isolated 'promises' was pooh-poohed as unrealistic. Yet our data was not always accurate, and we allowed those houses and their voters to only speak to other parties.

Of course, there is the electoral tide as well. I do not see the British as likely to elect a Government in perpetuity. Defeat, at some point, was always going to happen. Thirteen years is a long time to store up grudges. The declining turnout was in part down to our support finding enough reasons to be busy last May 6th.

If there is any crumb of comfort in defeat it is that we are not riven with splits, that we did achieve a better return of MPs than looked possible at one point, that we have a new leader who looks like he wants to listen to his party, and we have a government who has ended its honeymoon in double quick time.

History suggests that we will not win the next election; one-term governments are unusual. However, this is not written in stone, and if we can restore our activist base, get back in touch with ordinary voters, choose real people as candidates, and adopt some humility when we clearly get it wrong then victory will come.

Julian Ware-Lane was Labour's parliamentary candidate for Castle Point in 2010. He blogs at http://warelane.wordpress.com

The Truth about Basingstoke

Basingstoke & Deane councillor, Andrew McCormick, responds to Adam Gray's recent article on why Labour doesn't win in certain southern seats.

As someone who was born in the town, grew up in the town, and having spent the past 9 years as a Labour councillor in the town, I'd like to set the record straight.

Adam Gray opines on Basingstoke when it appears the closest he's got is looking out of the train window. It’s painfully easy these days to over-analyse Labour’s success in the North and lack of it in the South.
I have a simpler explanation for why our support fell away: resources. Here in Basingstoke, we have a Conservative Association with over 400 members that turns over £75k a year. Our CLP has barely half the members and a third of the money.

In 2010, Labour did best where it was most active and had the highest contact rates. This was especially true in London and Scotland, where our votes increased. A quick glance at London's membership reveals huge CLPs like Holborn and St Pancras with over 1,000 members. Such resources would give us a Labour MP and majority control of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council. The same is also true of the more successful parts of the South, e.g. Slough.

I was privileged to be a part of the hugely successful 1997 General Election campaign in Reading which returned two Labour MPs - the first time Reading had elected a Labour MP since the 1960's. This success was down to hard work on the doorstep, with many thousands of contacts and over a million leaflets dropped in both constituencies during the campaign.

I was also privileged to be part of the 2001 General Election campaign in Basingstoke. Working closely with the PPC, Jon Hartley, we caned the constituency, and thought we might have won it. As I recall, we were ahead until the last ballot box (which I think was from rural Silchester). We lost by just 890 votes. I still feel the pain to this day.

Since then, we saw our membership decline by over 60%. This was mirrored across the nation, and had numerous implications. Not only did we lose activists, we lost new candidates, and the existing ones who were councillors became older and less energised. At parliamentary level, the number and quality of candidates suffered as well. Our 2010 parliamentary candidate wouldn't have made the 2005 shortlist.

Losing activists meant we lost council seats. In 2004 we defended 7 seats and lost 3 councillors. Reading didn't lose any. This was down to resources. We had the same issues, like Iraq, and a crackpot anti-EU vote to contend with. The national mood was so toxic that anyone mounting an effective campaign against us won. In 2003 I won my seat with 62% of the vote. In 2004 my running-mate lost. We did not have the foot soldiers to take our message to the electorate and counteract the propaganda from the media and other political parties.

To minimise any future losses we concentrated on our safest seats and campaigned on local issues. But even that couldn’t prevent us losing another seat in a by-election on 21 December 2006 and a further two in all-out elections in 2008, Labour’s worst results for 40 years. We lost seats where the Tories concentrated their considerable resources, backed by the national mood. 2009 saw our worst results in 80 years: we held onto just one county seat, whereas in 2005, boosted by a General Election turnout, we won two and came close in another two.

Where we maintained the dialogue with our electorate, we kept seats. Those seats we pulled out of saw our vote fall away dramatically. In 2010, we held all our council seats, but suffered our worst parliamentary result since 1931. Analysis of the votes showed two-thirds of our votes were in the six council seats we actively campaigned in, with just 3500 votes in the other ten.

There is a danger to pulling out of seats and breaking off the voter dialogue: it's very hard to come back. Now the national mood is with us again, the opportunities we have in 2011 are tremendous. Even though our membership is up 30% on last year, our resources are nowhere near enough to do justice to the potential. A good result for us in 2011 would be to win three seats. But with the Lib Dems trailing at 10% in the polls, we should be wiping them out.

That is why the work of Third Place First is so important. We must fight back on as wide a front as possible. We need to take the message out to the voters, wherever they are, and not be afraid to do it, even with a shoestring campaign and a team of one.

I don’t buy this idea that Labour isn’t “for” the South. After 1997, the local Tories had to win votes back when many of their “traditional” voters had lost jobs or were threatened with repossession in the appalling Major Government of the 1990’s. Tony Blair gave them a better alternative. We have to give them something better to vote for than the coalition cuts, with relentless campaigning on the doorstep, in the letter box, in the local press, and in the blogosphere.

Councillor Andrew McCormick has been a Labour councillor on Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council since 2002.