It is sad to see process overtaking politics in the Labour leadership debate, especially because the campaign had at least contained something about visions and policies and how best to deliver on them.
That is what has engaged the thousands who have turned out to hear Corbyn. Many of them are young and have been enlivened by a political debate on austerity that has been completely missing from the mainstream (except perhaps in Scotland but even there we detect a gradual awakening that SNP rhetoric and policy on that issue are two different things).
Engaging so many people in that debate surely can’t be a bad thing. So has it re-engaged disaffected Labour supporters?
Andy Burnham has expressed concerns that Tories may have been given votes in the Labour leadership election and many in Corbyn’s camp have been quick to dismiss this as scaremongering, or as means to invalidate the election outcome. Parking politics to one side this election has turned into a very curious way to run a ballot.
I work with an former Tory councillor who has received several mail shots from candidates as a ‘registered supporter’. He hasn’t been mischievous about this but his name for one reason or another over the years got onto Labour mailing lists. He jokingly quipped that he could have registered three votes using different email addresses, family names and accounts if he could be bothered – because it really is that easy to register as a supporter.
Whilst the impact of UKIP splitting both the Conservative and Labour vote is still rippling through politics at large the Local Government Association (LGA) is busy assessing its own structural make-up, with the much anticipated swing back to a Labour led LGA. It is a strange world indeed for the umbrella governance of local authorities. More often than not the LGA is out of sync with the colour of the national government and these latest changes will be no exception to that rule. One might be tempted to say that these means Mr Pickles is about to stop listening to the LGA but the truth he is didn’t anyway - even whilst under Tory control. And to the credit of Sir Merrick Cockell he at times has been a far more effective opponent of cuts to local government than the frontbench team of Ed Miliband.
http://www.local.gov.uk/web/guest/media-releases/-/journal_content/56/10180/6209503/NEWS
One should not imagine that the proposal from the Collins Review, that members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) are to have their section of the Party's Electoral College removed means a significant reduction in their influence over who the leader of the Labour Party will be. That power remains largely intact due to the fact that the PLP are to retain sole control over leadership nominations, as well as the figure where Collins proposes the threshold is to be set.
#TUC13 Detractors of unions often make reference to low voting levels to imply a lack of mandate for industrial action or to undermine the credibility of elected leaders. The fundamental problem of course is the imposition of postal ballots to preferred addresses (home addresses by default) which prevents participation in union democracy at work and requires the modern day hassle of returning ballot papers by post. An important debate at this week's TUC Congress proposed changes to trade union law to allow online voting. It was unanimously supported but will require legislation before it can be implemented for statutory elections - GS and NEC elections - as well as industrial action ballots.
http://ersblog.com/2013/09/13/trade-unions-ers-at-tuc-congress-2013/
'It takes quite a lot of gall to be accusing the unions of trying to fix Labour parliamentary selections when you yourself have been engaged on doing exactly that for the last 20 years' writes Michael Meacher about Peter Mandelson's complaint that unions are exercising too much influence on Labour Party candidate selection processes:
http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2013/05/mandelsons-got-a-nerve/
Michael Meacher MP reviews last week’s local elections in England’s shire counties, and calls for ‘two or three key exciting ideas which really resonate with the public and set the pulse racing a bit.’ How about this for a Labour 2015 General Election pledge card?
1. End austerity
2. Tax the hyper-rich
3. A massive programme of social housing construction
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/132529
The main pitch of Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of today's local elections in England's shire counties, was to stress that more Conservative run councils had taken advantage of Whitehall subsidies to freeze council tax in the past three years than councils controlled by other parties. This populist appeal to self interest is echoed by Scotland's governing Scottish National Party. UNISON Scotland has published important research demonstrating the socially regressive and unfair impact of a council tax freeze at a time of massive central government cuts:
http://www.ukwirednews.com/news.php/1481753-Unison-claims-council-tax-freeze-benefits-the-wealthy
#PSICongress2012 The UNISON delegation has agreed to support the leadership challenge of Rosa Pavanelli, of the Italian FP-CGIL union, in the General Secretary ballot which will take place tomorrow at the Durban World Congress:
http://www.rosapavanelli.net/
SEIU President Mary Kay Henry has hailed the re-election of Barack Obama as a 'victory for working people, whose voices were heard despite some of the most coordinated and insidious obstacles to their participation in our democracy in history. When the right wing flooded our electoral process with obscene amounts of money, working people mobilized to energise voters around a better vision for America. When extremist state legislators tried to suppress the votes of broad swathes of Americans, working people responded by standing up for their constitutional right to cast their votes.' Over 100,000 SEIU members took part in canvassing for Obama - making a decisive intervention in swing states behind a union agenda of 'creating good jobs now, requiring the rich and corporations to pay their fair share, to invest in healthcare, education and other vital services and by creating a pathway to citizenship for immigrants'
http://www.seiu.org/2012/11/tonight-is-a-victory-for-working-people-everywhere.php
Given that political elites and the main political parties in the US (and across the western world) accept the neoliberal paradigm of markets, deregulation, militarism and the supremacy of the private sector, it is easy to be cynical about the upcoming US Presidential election. Yet a CBS analysis of the different attitudes to organised labour and workers’ rights of candidates Obama and Romney confirms that no matter how small the differences between them in the general scheme of things, they matter a lot to unions struggling to survive in imperialism’s heartland:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57528545/why-it-matters-labor/?tag=mncol;lst;1
Today Venezuela will vote in their Presidential election. In total there are seven candidates but the main choice is between the Hugo Chavez, backed by a coalition of parties of the left and Henrique Capriles Radonski, a state governor backed by a number of right-wing parties in a coalition known as the M.U.D.
Below are 10 key facts for all interested in Venezuela’s presidential vote.
Rosa Pavenelli of Italy’s Funzione Pubblica CGIL trade union has gained decisive momentum in her bid to unseat incumbent Peter Waldorff in the General Secretary election at Public Services International (PSI). As well as securing the collective support of a group of leading European unions including ver.di (Germany), CCOO (Spain) and ABVAKABO FNV (Netherlands), Pavenelli is being backed by the massive Japanese public service trade union Jichiro.
http://www.rosapavanelli.net/
In 2007 at the Public Services International (PSI) Vienna Congress, Peter Waldorff, of the Danish trade union HK/Stat, narrowly defeated UNISON candidate Keith Sonnet in the election for PSI General Secretary. Five years on and Waldorff (pictured centre left) is facing a formidable challenge from Rosa Pavenelli (pictured centre) President of Italy’s FP CGIL trade union. UNISON will have a delegation at the PSI's upcoming Durban Congress (27-30 November) but is yet to nominate a candidate in the General Secretary election. PSI is a global trade union federation representing 20 million public service workers.
http://waldorff.org/endorsments/ |
http://www.rosapavanelli.net/
http://congress.world-psi.org/about
Labour’s success in England and Wales is something to celebrate, but it is not a ringing endorsement of the direction of travel of Labour. The vote, like all local elections, is a litmus test on national politics.
Today in 10 English Cities there will be a Government imposed referendum on the adoption of a Directly-Elected Mayor - a system which has been described as the 'optimal internal management arrangement for privatised local government sevices'. UNISON branches have been campaigning against the change which will remove powers from elected Councillors. A statement issued by Manchester local government branch is reprinted below:
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17299196
UNISON’s General Political Fund is running a high profile campaign in defence of public services in the run up to next month’s local elections. A range of billboard posters have been funded in selected London Boroughs, Birmingham and Southampton – areas where ‘best value’ Tory administrations have been decimating services and attacking workers’ rights. In addition, UNISON adverts will be placed in national and local newspapers in the week of the elections:
http://www.unison.org.uk/stopTheThreats/
