What's Next?

Ann Black is a constituency representative on the Labour Party National Executive Committee. Her reports are available from annblack50@btinternet.com, and at www.annblack.com

Following Mayday the most tempting reactions are gloomy introspection and frantic activity.  Both should be resisted.  Instead, government and party should pause, develop coherent policies around core principles, and take the fight to the Tories. 

First, sorting out the 10% tax band mess.  Old and New Labour members and supporters are equally committed to tackling poverty, and this could yet be turned to unite the party.  The prime minister’s promise to Frank Field to compensate millions of young, low-paid childless workers and pensioners must be met in full and backdated.  Not because cutting their pay on 30th April and asking for their vote on 1st May was always crazy, but because it is the right thing to do.

The national policy forum documents are now available on the party website, and constituencies have until 20 June to propose amendments.  Prosperity and Work shows signs of recent hasty rewriting, but needs further changes.  I would start from lines 19-20 on page 13:  “Labour’s tax and benefit package is designed so that the biggest gains go to the poorest 30 per cent”, and replace the costly and ill-targeted mishmash of winter fuel allowance, tax credit changes and minimum wage reviews which follows.  Please send coherent alternatives to annblack50@btinternet.com so I can take them forward.

While the cabinet claim not to have understood the impact of the 2007 budget, plenty of ordinary members did.   Dorchester branch wrote repeatedly, and were ignored.  Bethnal Green & Bow, Poplar & Limehouse, Rochester & Strood submitted resolutions to last year’s conference, but these were dismissed as “not contemporary”.   Since 1997, under “Partnership in Power”, only the conference arrangements committee sees resolutions.  If all resolutions were again published, ministers might pick up such early warnings in future. 

Second, security.  Economic circumstances are only partly under national control, but fuel and food prices, debts and housing difficulties are real.  Preaching about average prosperity gives little comfort to the unlucky, who need effective support.  Physical safety should be enhanced by building on the excellent neighbourhood policing initiatives to meet public desire for more visible law enforcement.

Showdowns over 42-day detention are a distraction.  Reclassifying cannabis, considered irrelevant by the police, is pure gesture politics, and so are weird ideas for more military training in schools.  And when a rogue prison officer claimed that inmates were too comfortable to want to escape, why did no-one respond “so how come hundreds commit suicide each year”?  Instead the prime minister allegedly vetoed a rise in prisoners’ wages from £4 a week to £5.50, and yes that is per week, not per hour.  We have to refocus away from media-driven trivia, and indeed from abstract debates about Britishness, towards concrete improvements in people’s lives. 

And Labour has made a difference.  Two recent letters from my local paper show the NHS in its true light:

“A big thank-you for the 12 days I spent in the John Radcliffe Hospital.  I had the most wonderful treatment – nothing was too much trouble for the staff.  Everything was so lovely.  Bed sheets and pillowcases were changed every day, I had clean towels and nightdresses every day too, floors and tops were cleaned twice a day.  The food was very good – lots of choice and served up nicely by very pleasant staff.  Thanks to everyone I am much better now.”  (HB, Oxford Mail, 12 April 2008)

“I have recently been discharged from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, following a total knee replacement.  May I publicly thank all those involved for the excellent care, including surgery, nursing, cleaning and catering?  It is hard to imagine that any higher standard could possibly be achieved.  Each individual afforded me the utmost kindness and respect, making my stay in hospital as pleasant as such an experience can be.” (CMJ, Oxford Mail, 3 May 2008)

Finally, we’ve made many demands on our own government in the past 11 years, but been too soft on the alternatives.  We should press David Cameron’s Conservatives, and the LibDems, on what they would do for temporary and agency workers, trade union rights, public service pay and pensions, and how they would fund their promises of jam for everybody.  Otherwise we’ll find out the hard way.