West Ham Labour Party AGM 2013 results

Picture is from the end of tonight's West Ham CLP AGM and of some of the new "dream team" Executive also celebrating the 65th birthday of the NHS.

58 delegates crowded into the Party rooms at 306 High Street, Stratford, E15. Best attendance since 1980s according to one delegate.

Can't think why? :)

For contested positions we had one minute hustings then ballot. It all went pretty smoothly.

From left - Julianne Marriot, new vice Chair Campaigns & Communications; Terry Paul, re-elected Assistant Secretary; Gordon Miller, re-elected Agent and new Vice Chair membership, Charlene McLean, re-elected Chair; Alan Griffiths, re-elected Secretary and Anne Easter, new Women's officer.

Not in photo was John Saunders, re-elected Treasurer; John Whitworth, re-elected political officer;   Winston Vaughan, re-elected as Equalities Officer; Kim Silver, re-elected as Trade Union Liaison officer; Ahmed Noor, re-elected as Social officer. Apologies if I have missed anyone out?

Kim and I were also re-elected to the Executive Committee as 2 of the 4 trade union delegates.

The quiet & retiring Pete Willsman speaks to West Ham GC

Each month West Ham Labour Party invites a guest political speaker to our General Committee meeting. All party members are also invited to attend (non voting).

Our speaker last month was the secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) Pete Willsman.

It is the 40th anniversary of the CLPD. He promoted the 3 websites that they run including Left Futures. Which he claimed was not only for "lefties" but admitted that not many contributors were from Progress!  Mind you he praised Peter Mandelson for his loyalty to the Party.

He promoted CLPD rule changes for the 2013 Labour Party conference including making political levy payers full members of the Party (they use to be), an electoral collage to elect local Labour Group leaders, the Party should have an independent ombudsman to investigate complaints and the right of members to select who are their Parliamentary candidates.

Pete predicted that after the next general election there may be a split in political parties and that Cameron Tories, Orange Book Liberals and Progress will break away and join up together. He finished his barnstorming speech by asking the Blarities currently criticising the Party to all "shut their mouths"!

Pete gave a hugely entertaining, tub thumping and colourful speech which demonstrated his lifelong passion and commitment to the Party even though I am not that sure how many in the room he persuaded to actually join up.

(Picture Pete, Chair Charlene and Ali G)

West Ham Labour London Euro MEP hustings 2013

Picture is from the hustings that took place on Tuesday evening at the Vicarage Lane Community Centre in Newham. The event was organised by West Ham Labour Party (sponsored by London UNISON Labour Link). Chaired by Charlene McLean (middle)

All Labour Party members have by now been sent by email how to ballot on line and I believe next week they will receive postal ballot papers to use if they prefer.

London UNISON Labour Link have endorsed our members Sanchia Alasia (first left) and Ivana Bartoletti (2nd left). So we recommend you vote for either - 1st or 2nd choice on ballot paper. Other candidates are Andrea Biondi, Seb Dance, Lucy Anderson and Kamaljett Jandu.

I was away and couldn't make the event which is a real shame. Hat tip picture Ali G.

Dan Hodges at West Ham CLP

West Ham Labour Party like many active CLPs prides itself on its political debates. We regularly invite controveral guest speakers to our General Management Committee meetings (GC) which are open to all members to attend.

At GC last week, our Political Education officer had arranged for Labour Blogger and Daily Telegraph columnist, Dan Hodges, to be our guest speaker. See Dan speaking in picture next to the "tweeting" minutes secretary Terry Paul and our Chair, Charlene McLean.

Dan, is let me say, quite a "controversial figure" in the Labour Movement. His mum is former Labour MP and Hollywood actress, Glenda Jackson. He has worked in the past for the Labour Party and the GMB. But he is widely derided as the "Blairite Cuckoo in the Miliband camp". He has been a ferocious critic of the Labour leader, Ed Miliband and a strong supporter of his brother David.

You can check out my twitter comments here (25 October) on his speech and the Q&A. Afterwards the usual suspects took Dan off to "The Goose" in Stratford Broadway to continue the debate.

Dan had made a number of valid points about how fragile the Labour lead in the polls and that we should not at all take victory for granted in any future election (he thinks that unless we change, and change our leader, we will lose). He was willing to take the mick out of himself and be polite and measured in his responses to fairly direct questions and comments.

Yet I think that most people felt he is just plain wrong in his views. I must admit that he reminded me of personable figures on the "ultra left" who you listen to while quietly thinking "Yes, but, no but, but this is nonsense". I don't think the right wing of our Party (and of course we have a right wing and there is nothing per se to be scared of that) understand that the world has changed since 2008 and that we will not achieve what we frankly all want in our society without radically changing the way we run our economy.

Update: apologies but of course Glenda is still a MP (thank you Alex Sobel) and Dan has tweeted that "nice blog" but he didn't say that unless we changed our Party leader we would lose.