Entries Tagged 'Labour Party' ↓

David Singleton from PR Week. If this kind of rubbish is considered worthy of a broadsheet’s attention then please can I have a job? I can actually do research me.

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The other day I picked up on a post from Tom Watson MP relating to his list of Labour Party MP’s who have some form of web presence, be it site or blog.

He was asking if there was a better way to organise such a list and it got me thinking.

The last few weeks have been a time of reflection for me. I think what sparked it off was attending WordCampUK in Birmingham and running into this chap.

I think it’s easy to get into mired down in the party political confrontational aspects of the blogosphere but that detracts from what is possible. Not that it isn’t a good bit of fun from time to time but like other aspects of our democratic culture in the UK it represents a disproportionate element, both in profile and public perception of the political discourse than it actually does or indeed should.

That is not necessarily to blame politicians directly, our media feeds on conflict. Where great swathes of policy that affect our lives are really beaten out, in the Committee stages, they are next to never featured on the evening news.

They’re not featured because, well, they’re boring and this is where the problem lies. Politics is boring, especially when it’s done right.

Every now and then, usually after a poor turnout in (insert election) you get a raft of politicians of all colours cropping up saying we have to try and inspire the electorate to vote. There’s usually the obligatory reference to ‘young people’ because they just don’t do this whole voting thing and we obviously need to make it sexy and exciting for them.

The problem is, politics isn’t sexy and exciting. To go down that route of trying to make it appeal to people on the basis of preconsidered views of what they want is the wrong approach.

We shouldn’t go about trying to change ‘politics’ to tailor it to a post-ish MTV generation, constantly in need of new fresh ever changing messages because it simply isn’t sustainable in the long term and will contribute even more towards a disillusionment in politics as a whole.

We should be honest, say that yes, politics is boring, it’s not some simplistic sound bite that will make everything better, its policy, all with their pro’s and con’s that need thrashing out to achieve a better outcome. It doesn’t happen the next day or even the next week and guess what, you may not see the benefits for years or even a generation or two down the line but it’s important.

Returning to where this post started.

There’s a lot that can be done, whether it be directly through the body politic, through a political party, as a community, a group with shared interests or simply as an individual that can have a positive impact on society, the local community or another individual’s life as a whole.

That’s what really matters, not who ‘beat’ who at the dispatch box. I ‘do’ politics but if I’ve watched half a dozen PMQ’s in the last 15 years then that’s probably about it because it doesn’t matter and is a distraction from real politics.

Politics can be a strong catalyst for change but the political system falls into the trap of pandering to an agenda not set by itself, or indeed the people who elect our representatives but an agenda set out by those who’s vested interests are a population of willing consumers, cynical of those who seek to improve the lives of others and pandering to the simplest instincts of base selfishness.

There’s a lot that can be done and I’m really excited about how various uses of data manipulation and interaction can bring about positive change and even the littlest things or resources available contribute to that.

So back to that list of MP’s for the Labour Party that’s been doddering around Tom Watson’s site since the year dot. It doesn’t matter how it’s implemented, if it remains nothing more than a simple list of HTML links. If out there somewhere, there’s a few people that find it useful and it helps them to do something or aid a bit of work then it’s fine and worth keeping. Not so sure about the ‘teens’ section though, that probably is past its sell by date.

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If you’re a member of the Labour Party in the West Midlands then you’ll already have had your ballot papers to select who is going to stand in next year’s European elections. It’s a list system and the papers are split between sitting MEP’s and others.

That means we have to decide in an order of preference who to place number one and number two of the current two sitting MEP’s Michael Cashman and Neena Gill which will determine who comes top on the final regional ballot paper.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I haven’t exactly took as much of an interest in the procedure as I have in previous years primarily due to being too busy doing other things but the ballot papers need filling in and sending off.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Neena Gill. I’m presuming that I’ll get others from the other candidates and that the party is allowing them to send out their message to the members but I haven’t had anything from any other candidate yet. Apart from that, all I’ve had is an admittedly good quality leaflet from Michael Cashman and something today about some of the other candidates.

On the basis of the two, and bear in mind that I do take a keen interest in marketing and campaigning then I’d probably put Michael Cashman as my number one choice.

Within the context of purely their marketing approach, Cashman seems far more professional. I may still get some wonderfully professional looking piece of literature from Neena Gill but that will be too late because the ballot papers will be done tonight.

As I said, I take a keen interest in marketing, not simply just the message which is of course the most important part but style is equally important. The e-mail in question that I received was a simple plain text based e-mail which if you compare to the normal very professional looking HTML encoded e-mails that party members are used to receiving from the national party, it looked, well, just a bit crap. Incidentally the message didn’t say anything that appealed to me either and looked like it had been written as an afterthought following a night out on the lash.

One thing that did strike me though was the instruction and link at the bottom. In a vain hope that Neena might be getting down a jiggy with new technology it instructs you to go to YouTube and type ‘Neena Gill’ in the search. This of course I dutifully did and it returns only one result that is actually Neena Gill as in the MEP. Last night it had a grand total of 8 views which is now up to 50 odd so presumably a few other people have done the same.

I did watch the video. It didn’t exactly inspire me to vote for her either as the delivery was poor, wooden and still didn’t really talk about the issues that are important to me in a European context. Incidentally, here’s the video.

Me being the nosy sod that I am noticed that it had been posted by a user called ‘cafferty’ and was the sole video that he/she had posted to YouTube. Again being nosy I had a look at their profile and it reads as:

Name: caffie
Age: 21
City: Birmingham
Country: United Kingdom
Occupation: lazy-ass law student, professional slacker

Note to Neena. When embarking on an attempt at harnessing the marketing potential of the internet try to get someone who actually knows what they’re doing and not someone who lists their occupation as a ‘lazy-ass law student, professional slacker’ from Birmingham. It doesn’t quite give the right impression now does it?

Wondering then if Michael Cashman was on Youtube I dropped in a search for him. He doesn’t appear to have tried any kind of marketing approach as regards the use of new media (although he may yet e-mail all the members, who knows but it would seem a bit late to set up any kind of web based campaign) but there’s certainly nothing specific on YouTube. What there are though are a few examples posted by other people.

The first up is this one which at least to me comes across as a lot more fluid and professional a delivery on a subject that I do find important.

Incidentally, it’s been on YouTube a bit longer but has had nearly 4,000 views which isn’t exactly bad.

Yes, Cashman does have an advantage over Neena in terms of delivery on account of his previous profession before entering politics and just for you delectation here’s a snippet from his past.

Right, that seals it, anyone who goes to deck Pete in the Queen Vic gets my number one vote.

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While I’m thinking of my young virile mate Paul Macmanomy I’ll just note that he has been removed from my blogroll. For no other reason than Paul appears to have gone blogging AWOL again and the URL of his site has been picked up by what appears to be one of those horrible blog advertising sites. Therefore I have no desire whatsoever to give it linkage for which I’d advise other colleagues to do likewise.

Paul, if you come back let us know and back up you go.

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I’m starting to warm to David Cameron. He’s single-handedly doing more to boost the prospects of the Labour Party through his flagrant opportunism and lack of background research than any amount of work we could do on our own side.

Hat tip to Sunny over at Pickled Politics for this one as he was obviously up later last night than I was. News that Labour Councillor Gurcharan Singh is due to defect to the Tories and you can bet Davey boy has lined up a big media event to welcome him into their ranks.

Sadly though, at least for Cameron is that he may well have jumped before looking, asking some questions and doing his research on his new found recruit. Gurcharan Singh was unsuccessful in obtaining the nomination to be the Labour candidate in the by-election which begs the question of his own opportunism? Perhaps, just perhaps there’s a reason that the Labour Party didn’t select him to stand as our candidate in the Ealing Southall by-election?

I don’t normally do speculation as you know, but according to some good friends from down that neck of the woods, they’ll be very glad to get shot of him and you never know, he may just take a few others with him. Good old Davey boy, you’ve done us all a favour.

[Update] The post over at Pickled Politics seems to have disappeared for some reason. Good job I saved it just in case.

[Update] post back up on Pickled Politics.

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Hmm, well could have been worse, Alan Johnson could have won. However given a difference of 0.8% in the result it was very much a close one. Good on Jon Cruddas to come in third he wasn’t that far off in the end. Hopefully Gordon can fit him into a campaigning role for the party in the future.

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I’ve not posted much for the last few days. Actually nothing as I’ve been doing a few other things so I thought I’d do a little bit of a round up of events/issues.

On Tuesday the Penguin household braved the border patrols and sneaked into the Sandwell Borough to attend the launch of the Jon Cruddas Deputy Leadership campaign. Bob Piper did a good summing up of the event and in truly photographic genius style, managed to get the backs of the whole Penguin household in the frame. I learned one thing from that; I need a hair cut.

On the serious side it was refreshing to see Cruddas talk about issues that seem to have not got the attention they deserve in recent years, primarily that of social housing. The problems have been brewing for a generation but even if the debate is finally up there where it belongs, then perhaps we can start address an issue that affects many on lower incomes.

Following on from that, and it does beg the question: “where do we get these people from”, the comments made by Margaret Hodge. Short of making a play for the Leadership of the BNP, it makes you wonder how some people get to where they are on the basis of such awful political nouse. Perhaps it’s a lack of imagination but her comments have been rightfully condemned by many as they should. If she is concerned about the gains made by the BNP in her own constituency, not helped of course by her own last rash of daft comments then she should learn at least one thing of which I would have thought someone who has got the position of being an MP should already know.

You cannot win on the basis of using the argument of the opposition. Especially when that opposition are the horrid bunch of toe-rags that the BNP are. You cannot appropriate the blame for a lack of social housing by accepting the arguments from the far-right that it’s all these naughty East Europeans invading the country. She should know, unless Barking is a very strange place indeed that migrants rarely end up in council houses. The vast majority end up in low quality private sector accommodation or the equivalent of shared dorms of workers. They’re not holed up in nice 3 and 4 bedroom council semi’s because although if they are in the UK, earning and paying tax then they should be entitled, there’s a shitload more people ahead of them on the waiting lists who’ve been there for years and short of a very exceptional circumstance, they ain’t going to be able to jump the queues.

She would have been far more productive in addressing the reasons for this lack of housing and it’s underlying causes, rather than effectively writing the BNP’s next leaflet campaign in Barking for them.

I spotted this during the week too. I just have a few thoughts on this, none of them complimentary towards Microsoft as regular readers will have probably guessed. So here’s the scenario, Microsoft want there to be a professional body for IT people in the UK because there’s too many out there doing dodgy fixes or bodged jobs on systems.

First point being that this is a bit rich given the output of Microsoft in terms of ‘good’ programming is laughable. They release software with bugs in them, highly unsecure systems and quite frankly are not the people to lecture others about high levels of competence.

Secondly, they’ve helpfully inferred that their own Microsoft accreditation programme would be very useful in assessing and registering IT ‘professionals’. Well, no it woudn’t, it would tell people that they know how to use one of a myriad of different systems available, and the poorest of those to boot. Are they seriously thinking that the UK Government would fall for what is patently an attempt to sew up the market by being supplier and effective registrar of those who work in the industry. Come on, no Government Minister is going to fall for that one. On the other hand this is IT so it’s always possible, but thankfully it appears the Government is very cool to this idea of a professional body anyway.

Thirdly, and finally, I’ll admit it, I’m a bodger. Not so much these days but in a past life of being surrounded by Microsoft’s products at work. There’s two reasons you have to bodge around with systems. It has nothing to do with your level of expertise and everything to do with Microsoft. Apart from the software they produce being unstable and a complete security nightmare at times (yes I do remember manually having to hack a rather pernicious virus of computers across the UK via remote access and manually having to do every machines registry system because none of the tools that were supposed to work did, or they allowed the machines to re-infect each other before you could isolate them) but as with everything with Microsoft, you never 100% know what you’re dealing with. I can happily mess about the registry of a system, that thing they tell you never to touch because a character in the wrong place can happily kill a machine but despite this knowledge, I still don’t know exactly how Windows works. Why? Well, because they don’t release the code, it’s all secret so at best you’re dealing with educated guesswork or previous experience. You can never know exactly what’s going on because it doesn’t get outside of a building in Redmond.

I think that’s pretty much it for the weekly review. Apart from Mrs Penguin has nicked my ‘good’ computer, I’ve spent a lot of time enjoying watching my son learn to run and I’m looking forward to my first trip to the cinema to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 since I went to see Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith, from which you can deduce I don’t go to the cinema very often. I’ve also took advantage of the brief bit of good weather to do some of the jobs I haven’t been able to do outside or that require sunshine. Sadly this opportunity seems short-lived as it’s decidedly pissing it down again. Good night to one and all.

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With the impending resignation due today of the Leader of the Labour Party I thought it apt to pin my colours to the mast which is plainly obvious by the new little graphic I’ve added below the main site menu.

The choice for leader has always been simple for me. For more reasons than I care to mention I will be supporting Gordon Brown.

For deputy it has been a little more complicated for which I’ve deliberated over before. However I’ve decided to support Jon Cruddas because I both value Peter Hain more for the talents and abilities that he could offer as a Government Minister and that I agree with the separation of the roles of Deputy Leader of the Party and Deputy Prime Minister.

We need a Deputy who isn’t about having a Cabinet brief but about working to revitalise the party and both re-engage and motivate the grass-roots activists to work harder than ever before to ensure that everything we have achieved in Government isn’t wrecked by the election of a Tory administration. Of all the candidates who’ve declared an interest I see him as the most able and dedicated to achieve that so that’s where my vote will be going.

Quick note: Anyone wishing to use the graphic for their own site is quite welcome to it. Feel free to copy and download it or drop me a line and I can mail the original, although it’s no bigger than the one here as I designed it specifically for its current dimensions.

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It’s been interesting in Walsall, and I’ll try to say a bit more about the matter than my young fresh faced and chipper mate Paul Mac.

I’ll start with a brief reflection on my own humble predictions that I made in the last post. Not far out but not spot on either which is always annoying as I’m usually quite good at this stuff. However it begs a few questions and perhaps a little more analysis of what was actually going on in specific wards.

I happily got it wrong on the positioning of the parties in Short Heath, the BNP didn’t come second as it seems for some reason their vote across the whole of the West Midlands seems to a petered out and fallen back. Hopefully this is a pattern that will continue ad perhaps the electorate have started to realise what they really are as a party.

I got the jitters on polling day about Blakenall, Darlaston South and Brownhills. Thankfully in the case Brownhills they were uncalled for and an excellent hard working local Labour Councillor was returned. Sadly in the case of Blakenall and Darlaston South those jitters turned out to be well founded.

In Blakenall we lost to the DLP (Democratic Labour Party) by 15 votes. The DLP have been targeting this ward for years. On paper Blakenall should be the safest Labour ward in the Borough, although it vies closely with a couple of other wards who should also be far safer than they actually are. All I can say is if anything it should have been last year that the DLP would have seemed likely to gain this seat, put off by a very good campaign then. Why this year? Well, I wasn’t involved in the campaign this year so I have no clue how well or badly it was run but the margin is of course very slim. I’ve been conveyed two versions of the events at the count, the first that a recount was not allowed because staff were tired and the second that the Labour candidate decided not to have a recount because he thought the staff were tired. If the former then I’m sorry, this is democracy and whether the staff are tired or not is irrelevant. If the second account is true then the Labour candidate is a complete and total tit. If it’s a case of only 15 votes then it’s a recount and tough if the staff are tired or not.

On Darlaston South which rightly did go to a recount the margin was even less at 11 votes where the Independent defeated the sitting local Councillor. It wouldn’t have been for any lack of trying on our part as the campaign there was probably the best run and organised in the Borough which the result shows given how far off the mark we were last year when the Independent was returned. This time it was his wife up and plain and simple, they won. Did they deserve it? Well no and Darlaston South is all the worse off for losing probably their most active and dedicated Councillor for someone who I’d have a good bet will do sod all for the area.

The one I missed was Pleck. This was the only loss by Labour to the Tories in Walsall and in some respects needs a little more explanation.

The Labour candidate was new in that the sitting Labour Councillor was stepping down. That sitting Labour Councillor was the Muslim Councillor who after winning in 2004 crossed the floor from the Tories. He’d got there on a communal vote as a Muslim and simply the Tories put up another Muslim and pulled in enough of that communal vote again to take the seat back. I won’t complain because we won the Palfrey Ward last year from the Tories on pretty much the same basis but from my own personal perspective, I’m not a lover of communal politics and although I could write a dissertation on the subject I’ll just note that I recognise that in so far as building strong local democracy, I believe that communal politics has the potential to do more harm than good.

So there you go, apart from that my predictions were pretty much on the money. It was particularly nice to see the LibDem Nadia Fazel get completely shafted in my own ward even if it was by a much higher margin than even I’d dare to commit to. All in all not really a lot changed in Walsall, we’re still in opposition, we stand next to no chance of winning the council back any soon and despite what a complete and utter shambles the Tories are making of the place they can sit pretty for a fair while yet.

I am thinking of another post regarding this issue, concentrating more on the broader view of strategy and interpretation of how the political dynamics are working in Walsall but I shall desist for now as I’ve been to two counts in the last 24 hours, not slept much, am overly tired to concentrate to the extent that the subject matter requires and simply can’t be bother right now, I’d rather do something not remotely linked to politics for the next few hours.

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I’m going to stick my neck out here and do a bit of election result prediction. Feel free to shoot me down should I get things spectacularly wrong but give me credit that at least I’ve got the bottle to put myself up for a potential right drumming.

Just for information I penned this article on April 28th 2007 in the early hours of the morning. I’ll be releasing it around about the close of polls on election day. There may be an hours discrepancy in terms of the time stamp as I can’t be bothered to adjust my sites times to BST but you’ll see it definitely went up before the votes were counted and feel free to save it but I promise not to try and pull a fast one by retro-editing it simply to make myself look good or get out of the shit if I get it spectacularly wrong.

So here’s how I think the make-up of Walsall will look come next Friday.

Tories 32
Labour 21
Independent 1
LibDems 6

Which is actually how it stood before the election.

In fairness it could be anything between:

Tories 34
Labour 18
Independent 2
LibDems 6

and:

Tories 30
Labour 22
Independent 1
LibDems 6

So anyway, for you delectation I give you a quick run down on what’s going to happen in Walsall. It’s by no means exhaustive and of course there’s things I know and factors at work in some cases that I have no wish to put into the public domain for use by other parties against us but just for a bit of fun and for Paul Macmanomy to take the piss out of me when I get it spectacularly wrong here we go:

Birchills Leamore: Lab Hold

This on paper should be one of the safest Labour seats in the borough yet last year the majority over the Tories got down to 80 something (can’t be bothered to look it up). The reason for this was that the Labour Councillor at the time Carol Rose defected to the Tories, strangely enough she did this a week or so after she failed to get selected to stand for Stourbridge in the 2005 General election after she was flaunting her wares as a committed Labour person so she obviously thought the Tories were a better prospect for her future. She’s standing again but against Tim Oliver the current leader of the Labour group she doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Blakenall: Lab Hold

Again another seat that should be one of Labour’s safest in the borough. Complicated by a very active Democratic Labour Party candidate but despite that Labour should hold it. If we don’t then there should be some very serious questions asked.

Bloxwich East: Tory Hold

Labour held this seat last year by seven votes if memory serves me correctly, anyway not more than ten. That was with a local candidate who’s well known. This year, not a chance of picking up this seat, Tories will walk it.

Bloxwich West: Tory Hold

Labour have an excellent local candidate here and former Councillor who works hard in the area. Despite that the Tories have a far superior organisational structure in terms of campaigning in Bloxwich which accounts for them holding five out of the six seats in a town that on paper should be completely Labour and as above, our one seat is very tenuous.

Short Heath: LibDem Hold

I’m going to really stick my neck out here and give the positions of the parties.

1.LibDem
2.BNP
3.Tory
4.Labour

I’m not going to go into the reasons but Labour will get slaughtered in this ward and the BNP will pick up a considerable amount of votes and clearly be second.

Willenhall North: LibDem Hold

Change of candidate for the LibDems here. They’ve put up the bloke who stood in Willenhall South last year who was so committed to us, so much so that he’s buggered off to a nice cushy safe LibDem seat.

Willenhall South: Lab Hold

Much to the contrary of Colin Ross and Paul Macmanomy saying this one’s too close to call I’ll go into numbers and predict at least a 200 Labour majority over the LibDems, Tories coming third and the Democratic Labour Party struggling to get over 100 votes if that. Simple analysis, Labour has the strong local candidate who lives in the ward, works very much on local issues and getting things done for people round here. The LibDems have put up that woman who used to be a member of the Labour Party, then joined Respect and has now ended up with them. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for candidates is putting it mildly.

Aldridge Central South, Aldridge North and Walsall Wood, Streetly, Rushall Shelfield and Pelsall: Tory Hold.

I’ve done these wards together because they make up the constituency of Aldridge Brownhills. It’s plain and simple, the Labour Party is next to non-existent in this bit of the world, we stand no chance of winning anything however you’ll note I left the Brownhills ward out which I’ll do next. The only ward to watch would be Rushall Shelfield, one of the BNP’s two target wards in Walsall. They’ll do well here, almost certainly come second but overturn the Tories? Almost certainly not.

Brownhills: Lab Hold

This one’s very tricky. If I was to play it safe I’d say Tory gain but I think Labour might just hold on. Electorally Brownhills is a funny ward. In the all-up election in 2004 it returned two Tories and one Labour although it was narrow between the second Labour candidate and the second Tory. Labour failed to gain it last year by a very narrow margin despite having an excellent campaign and a hard working candidate. It is also complicated by being one of the two focus wards for the BNP in Walsall that has almost turned it into a three way tie between Tory, Labour and the BNP. The BNP might pick it up but I think that the combination of a well known local Labour candidate who works hard in the ward may just see her through with those extra few ‘personal’ votes that such candidates get.

Pheasey Park Farm: Tory Hold

Nothing much to say, the Tories will win.

Bentley Darlaston North: Lab Hold

A presumed safe Labour seat and with the candidate who both works and campaigns hard in the area there shouldn’t be a problem in winning it.

Darlaston South: Lab Hold

Another ward with a hard working Labour Councillor up for re-election. Probably has the best run campaign of any in the borough. There’s a threat from an Independent, the wife of the current Independent councillor for the ward who won last year for very special reasons but against the Labour candidate combined with her formidable campaigning approach (at least compared to the rest of the Labour campaign in Walsall) this should hopefully be a Labour Hold.

Paddock: Tory Hold

Not much to say. The Tories will hold it.

Palfrey: Tory Hold

Another funny ward. A lot of Muslim community politics goes down in this neck of the woods. Last year it was a Labour gain and potentially could be a gain this year but I doubt it.

Pleck: Labour Hold

Again a bit funny due to some Muslim politics which saw a Muslim Tory elected in the all-up election of 2005 who then defected to Labour and decided not to stand this year so it’s a fresh Labour candidate but someone who’s known very well locally and works hard so he’ll probably get through.

St. Matthews: Tory Hold

I’m biased on this one as the candidate is the one who stood last year in Brownhills. He’s an excellent campaigner and was prior to the 2005 all-up election, the Councillor for this ward. Following the boundary changes this ward changed considerably. To the cries of gerrymandering and such, a large area with a good thousand or so Tory voters got shifted into this ward and effectively wiped Labour out. Is it possible to regain the ward? Sadly probably not and the Labour Group would be all the worse for the lack of the presence of it’s candidate in this ward sitting on the benches.

So there you go. My prediction for Walsall despite all the bad press, investigations, auditors reports (nicely delayed until after the elections), referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service, the background of what amounts to a completely crap Tory run council and I doubt they’ll be any change whatsoever and if anything maybe a Tory gain of one or two.

feel free to take the piss out of me if I get it completely wrong though.

[Update] As it’s polling day I’m going to stick pretty much with the predictions above but with some rather dodgy feelings regarding the Blakenall, Brownhills and Darlaston South wards.

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