London Labour Party Biennial Conference 2013

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Today was the London Regional Conference of the Labour Party at the Old Town Hall in Stratford, E15.

I had my ward surgery beforehand and missed the opening speeches and arrived towards the end of the plenary Housing debate.

The main hall of the Town Hall was packed with delegates. Standing room only.

Activist Jeffrey Blay, 62 years a Party member received an award from Iain McNicol, the General Secretary of the Labour Party as did the former London Regional secretary, Ken Clarke.

Iain addressed Conference next. The last time he had been in this hall he had  "piped in the haggis" for the Newham Burns Night (I saw him do this in 2012. I wonder if any other political party has a bagpipe player and black belt in Karate as its GS). He reminded everyone that the Labour Party started in this town hall with the election of Kier Hardie in 1892. Sadiq Khan MP, in his first outing as Shadow Minister for London spoke next and praised the Party links with hard working people through the trade unions and slams the London Tory record on housing. London faces a catastrophic housing crisis & social cleansing.

The morning session finished with the debate on the NHS. Picture above of Maggi Ferncombe from UNISON moving the motion on defending London's NHS.  

I didn't go to any of the lunchtime fringes due to a meeting but after the end of the NHS (no pun intended) and the London economy debate, I attended the workshop on Trade Unions and Labour Party Liaison.  Chaired by Fiona Twycross with UNISON Regional Secretary and Vice Chair Labour Board Linda Perks, Labour Party Regional Secretary Alan Olive and Alan Tate from CWU.

A delegate got herself into a little bit of a pickle when she realised that there could be a double meaning to her claim that the Labour Party is always looking at Scandinavian models! In the Q&A I mentioned the successful London training events London UNISON has run for branch Labour Link officers and that you can arrange union meetings at the House of Commons with friendly Labour MPs to attract rank and file members who would never normally attend any union or political meetings. 

My second workshop was led Margaret McDonagh and John Braggins on "Winning in low turnout areas and building our winning alliance". A key point was that we should "Stop Voter ID Now" (which will upset our organiser!).  Instead of asking people to do something for us (go out and vote Labour) we should be asking them what we can do for them. Makes sense to me.

After the motion on the London Economy there were emergency motions on the plans by Tory Mayor Boris Johnson to slash the fire service in London and the threat to our education services from the so called "Free Schools". I seconded the motion against Free Schools and will post my speech later. I then had to run off to another commitment and missed the election results, the close and the singing of the Red Flag and Jerusalem.

Newham Council supports TUC March and calls for alternative economic policy

On Monday evening Newham Council supported unanimously a motion to support the TUC anti-austerity March on Saturday October 20th and for the next Labour Government to deliver an
alternative economic policy for a future that works.

I moved the motion and below is the speech I gave. This was not a call for a return to the days of the loony left but to rebalance our economy and bring about growth and jobs. 

"Council, next month on Saturday 20 October, the Trade Union Congress has organised national marches and rallies in central London and Glasgow against the failure of this Tory led coalition government to deal with the current economic crisis and get our country on the road to recovery.

This motion calls on the Council to support the March and to encourage local residents, Labour Party members and trade union affiliates to attend and take part. As we did for last year’s TUC March  where over 400,000 people took part in a demonstration in London. 

 

This included a proud contingent from Newham who gathered beforehand outside Stratford station and went together behind our local Labour Party banners, our Labour Mayor, our Labour Councillors and labour trade union affiliates.

 

While our marching and demonstrating peacefully against the misery of this Government’s policies is vital and important, marching is not just an end in itself. It is an act of solidarity and a symbol of our opposition to this cabinet of millionaires and their attempt to make the poor and vulnerable pay for the greed and thievery of the rich. 

Let us never ever forget, that it wasn’t over paid lollipop ladies, nurses or town hall cleaners who brought about this recession. It was corrupt bankers and financiers who had long argued that the market alone knew best, deregulation worked and the so-called “invisible hand” would keep us safe and prosperous.

This turned out to be at best wrong and at worse a deceit. We need to learn from this experience. That is why the motion also calls on us to make sure that we not only do our bit by marching on October 20th but also advancing the arguments for change to our economy.  

Not only for a Plan B but for the next Labour Government to adopt the kind of policies that think it is economic illiteracy to pay building workers to stay at home on the dole while we have a massive housing shortage. It is economic madness that the wealthy who tend to save not spend get tax cuts while the working poor who will spend lose benefits.

An economy where people are in work, making things, selling things, paying taxes and earning money that they will then spend into the local economy and create more demand for jobs and services.

It is not as if this hasn’t been done before.  In 1948 we had to recover from 6 years of total war and had truly massive levels of debt, far, far higher than today yet we were still able to pay for a huge house building programmes, create the welfare state and the NHS.

 

Council, we need an alternative economic programme. We need to not only firefight this current recession with a programme to get people back into work. We also need to think about where we want our society to go?

Do we want to move towards an American model of an increasingly polarised society with an ever smaller number of super rich and huge numbers of desperate poor, or do we move towards a society that prides itself at its levels of income equality. A more equal and fairer society that all the evidence shows benefits the wealthy as well as the poor.

Council, this year is the 120th anniversary of the first ever elected Labour MP, Keir Hardie, in our own borough. Let us not only celebrate this historic advance of working class people into the mother of all Parliaments and let us show solitary with the ideals of Keir on October 20th by marching but also let us so “get” that October 20th is also about politics and economics.

 

There is a battle of ideas raging out there that the left lost in the past but which we now must win.  Council, we desperately need an economic Future that Works.  Council support the motion, I move."

James Keir Hardie: 120 Years

This evening Labour MP, Hilary Benn, shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, opened an exhibition at the Old Town
Hall in Stratford on the life of Keir Hardie.

This was to mark the 120th anniversary of Keir being elected for West Ham as the first ever independent Labour MP.

A 11 page pamphlet (see cover) was also distributed.

Hilary spoke to members of the Newham Labour Group before the Full Council meeting. He reminded us that this historic town hall was the scene of Hardie's famous victory in 1892.

He also pointed out that many of the things that Hardie had fought for in his time were delivered by Labour.

He quoted the interesting advice that Hardie gave to a younger colleague that he "should drink less, read more and think longer".

After opening the exhibition Hilary also gave a speech to Labour Group (below) about current political issues and problems followed by a Q&A.

He told a nice story about how in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis the Labour Government were forced to nationalise the Bank, Northern Rock.

He rang his father, Tony Benn and said "you know Dad that you were always in favour of nationalising the Banks? Well, guess what we'd done....". (Hat tip photo Ali G)