Labour's Electoral Collage

The technicolor collage created by Labour's electoral college is so much fun, it beats democracy for entertainment value.

Let's point out the basics first: the Labour Party elects by one member one vote in the sense that each member has one vote but they don't decide the election. The college is divided into three equal parts: Parliamentarians, rank-and-file members, and 'affiliates' which opens up the election to trade union members and to associations linked to the Labour Party, like the Fabians.

It does mean that Labour is saved from the decision being who is the members' favourite: if they had, after the distributions under the AV system, Miliband D. would now be their Leader.

It also means that a Parliamentarian's vote is more valuable than any other member's by a factor of somewhere in the region of 450.

It also means that those who are members of the party and members of a trade union can vote more than once. Each member gets one vote, but some get more than one. (And some who are not members and who can't stand the party got to vote. More than once).

And all that said, here are some interesting facts:

* 'socialists' in health and education will be breaking open the asti spumante, as they strongly backed the winner

* the BME caucus had a bad day, heavily backing Miliband D.

* musicians will be playing a funeral march with their favoured candidate coming last

* Christians preferred D., Jews preferred E. (results from Christian Socialist Movement and Jewish Labour Movement)

* more Unite members spoilt their ballot papers than voted for Balls and Burnham combined

* members of one union -- Unite -- cast nearly half of the votes in the 'Section 3' affiliates, and heavily for Miliband E.

* about nine in every ten trade unionists were bored rigid by the whole process and did not return their ballot papers

What a system, what a result.

Thanks, Trade Unions

I needed a bit of mirth to improve my day, so thank you, thank you so much, Trade Unions. Miliband (D.) wins the overwhelming support of the members of the party, Miliband (E.) edges ahead thanks to the robust support of the closed shop comrades.

What a delight. Not that the young leader of the Labour Party is personally to be disdained: from his pronouncements to date, he has learnt that lesson that a new incumbent can and must break with the mistakes of the past. So, belated opposition to Iraq and at last a leader who appreciates that if you want to begin to be progressive, don't think of introducing ID cards.

But the method of election, with the 'electoral college' being like something out of the old Ealing Comedy, School for Scoundrels, really does give the lie to Mr Blair's claim that he introduced democracy to his party. One trade unionist colleague of mine was eligible to four votes. So, can you take three off Diane Abbott's total, please?

And, when the election parties are over (will victorious Remus invite Romulus to his side of the wall?), tomorrow's hangover won't be a pretty sight. Working out how to present Miliband Junior to the public will be a challenge even Mr Campbell wouldn't relish, one would have thought. As he well knows, you can have a whole raft of good ideas, but if you can't present them adeptly, there's not much point in being in politics. And so the heir to Blair starts with something of a disadvantage.

Oh, and by the way: when will they elect a new Deputy Leader? Can they keep it in the family?

Laughable Leaflets Mark 1

Election season is silly season this year. The race has started (sort of) and Labour are off -- running in clown costume, It's a Knock-Out style, with a knock-about leaflet as their baton.

Glossy card, one side assuring the people of key LibDem / Labour marginal Oxford East that only the party that invaded Iraq and began the dismantling of the NHS can 'beat the Tories' here. The pithy prose comes complete with bar-chart. That claim, you would think, would make the other side redundant: a pleasing orange colour, but with a picture of la bete bleu of British politics, snatcher Thatcher. The purpose is to purport a link between the LibDems and the Tories in their heyday. Why waste their money on that assertion when they want to claim we're irrelevant?

What makes it all the more a work of genius is the attention to detail: Thatcher wears a Labour-looking red rose, a subliminal reminder of how Messrs Blair and Brown continued so many Tory policies. And they credit the attack on Clegg with a newspaper quotation -- from the Daily Mail. I am sure the present MP for Oxford East believes everything he reads in that source.

I have a sense this is going to be the first in a series of amusing election communications.

Can they really be Labour's saviours?

Congratulations go to my friends in Oxford City Council's Labour ranks, Cllrs Turner, McManners, Bance and Baxter. They all gained national recognition yesterday in an ever-so-unbiased article in The Guardian, on the subject of Can Oxford save Labour?

Obviously, Oxford is a key battleground between Labour and LibDems, and this article attempts to set the parameters of the debate. Labour is presented here as the party of social justice -- yes, that's right, of social justice.

I don't eat cornflakes, so I didn't choke (sorry to disappoint you, Antonia & Ed). But here is the fault-line: I'm sure they joined Labour because they genuinely imagined it could be a party of social justice; I joined the LibDems precisely because I see it as the only party of social justice. How could one or other get it so wrong?

I'd bring to your attention evidence from the recent elections. Labour didn't like us fighting it on wanting a lower Council Tax -- when we did that precisely because that unfair tax hits some of the worst-off hardest. Perhaps Labour's response would be that anyone who can own a house doesn't deserve support, but that would be grossly to overestimate the wealth of some who have struggled to buy and stay in their own home, especially in an over-heated market like Oxford.

The blogs recently have also highlighted another blindspot in Labour's thinking. They attacked one of our candidates by quoting his blog in favour of reform of the drug laws, implicitly presenting themselves as in favour of the present drug regime. How can they imagine this sits with any assertion of support for social justice? I worry that they wouldn't even understand that question.

Labour in Oxford has also seen environmental concerns as somehow a distraction from social justice. True enough, one sets challenges for the other - but we should be finding ways to wed our actions on the environment with helping those worst-off. It's no good saving the planet, if the society left is not worth living in, but it's equally no use planning to build a New Jerusalem if the site is in the flood plain -- in other words, without a planet, there's no society.

These are only a few examples of the ways in which my friends on the opposite benches seem misguided in the claim that they belong to a progressive party. But, frankly, if they really want future elections in Oxford fought on grounds of social justice, rather than the mean-spirited campaign Labour recently run, my response is: bring it on. We will be more than happy to fight you on our home territory.

Fears for Two Tiers

So, I’ve been away for a few weeks and return to find there are not many happy Labour faces round the Town Hall. They’ve been let down by their own government, again.

What was at stake? Some would say nothing other than the future of Oxford. The City Council had put in a bid for Oxford to become a unitary authority. The hope of breaking free of County Hall shimmered like a glimpse of the Promised Land. But, last week, the hope lost its gloss as Ms Kelly announced that we had not made the shortlist of contenders for unitary status.

Others have already had their say on the decision itself. I want to concentrate on its political fallout. For there are, indeed, good reasons for Labour to be glum.

The most obvious reason is one that we all can share: if the big chiefs of New Labour continue to be bent on wrecking the two tier system of local government, then further down the line might we end up with a unitary Oxfordshire County Council? Shudder at the thought: County Hall is so out of touch with the needs and desires of the county’s capital, their march on the city would be less welcome than the arrival of the Greeks at the gates of Troy.

But councillors of the New Labour persuasion aren’t worried just about that. The disappointment of the decision is more bitter for them because they were so convinced that their friends in high places would be able to win the day for our bid. They must feel let down not just by their own government but even by their own MP. Ex-cabinet minister Andrew Smith had, it is clear, offered to act the Fairy God-Mother, promised they could all go to the ball, waved his wand – and failed to work any magic. Looked at objectively, a failure of persuasive skills on Smith’s part is hardly revelation of a previously unnoticed character flaw, but Labour locally seemed to have unbending faith in him right up to the last minute.

But it wasn’t just idealism that led them to share our support for the bid. I hope they won’t mind me mentioning that they saw it as part of their political gameplan. They anticipate a general election in 2008 and hoped for all-out elections for the new unitary on the same day as the parliamentary vote. They have reached a conclusion which recent electoral history makes unavoidable: to achieve an outright majority in Oxford’s council demands all seats being up at one time. The political map of Oxford is too complex to hold out much hope of Labour being able to sweep the board when only half the seats on the council are contested. To jump from 18 to at least 25 councillors in one election of 24 seats would demand that all the other parties had a very bad day. On the other hand, if all seats were up at the same time, with the increased turn-out of a general election, then maybe, just maybe (Labour thought) they may be able to return to their unfettered majority of 2002.

So, if you pass a Labour councillor and see a tear in their eye, don’t be perplexed: Mr Smith’s failure and Ms Kelly’s decision have, on Labour’s calculations, condemned Oxford to a future of hung councils. It’s brought them down to earth with a bump as painful as the heaviest drunken slip on the stairs.

I stand accused

I'm under attack. Or, at least, I would be if they hadn't fluffed their lines. What my opposite number in the Labour group, Ed Turner -- a hard-working councillor, by the way, and an asset to the Town Hall -- intended to say in Council today was something like: see that man sitting there ouzing insouciance when we can make him tremble with the revelation that tergiversation would most aptly be his nom-de-guerre.

Perhaps I haven't quite caught Ed's tone, but you get what he meant. I stand accused of changing my mind. What is more, they say they have the evidence to prove it, brandishing a copy of a Focus leaflet from last spring.

Let's pause for a moment to reflect: what benighted soul was set on duty going through the back-catalogue of Stephen Tall's website to unearth this gem? Have they outsourced it to some god-forsaken corner of the country where there is nothing to do in the evenings except to surf virtually, presumably in the hope of finding soft porn and having to be satisfied with Headington residents' surveys instead? And do they really think that if we post something on-line, we don't want people ever to see it?

That aside, I should also say that, in principle, I'm in favour of changing my mind. It's good gymnastics for the intellect; it's evidence of being at least slightly more alive than brain-dead; it's something we should all, everyone of us, try now and again. The problem for Labour is that, in this case, no about- turn, no volte-face has occurred.

The detail, it will not surprise the more avid reader(s), relates to recycling. In the leaflet, I am quoted as saying:
We do not believe wheelie bins will be suitable in all parts of the city –
especially in areas like New Headington with a lot of terraced
housing opening out straight onto the street. Every household
should have a choice between a wheelie bin and sacks.
According to my accusers, those sentences can not accord with the policy the LibDem Council is now implementing. To which I respond: I stand by what I said and I stand by what we're doing. It's only someone who really hasn't been listening -- or only listens to their own voice -- who could imagine there's any conflict.

As I have written recently, the policy we have is to encourage as many people as possible to take a wheelie bin as the safest and best receptacle for waste but, at the same time, the Council is being flexible. We know that there are some houses where it might be difficult -- like the terraces facing straight onto the street that the leaflet mentions. Some residents living in those houses have actually chosen to take a bin to sit out the back; others have elected to take sacks. There is an element of choice -- something which was lacking when Labour first proposed the new scheme and when this leaflet appeared.

It must be said that local Labour's godfather across the water has insisted that they changed their mind from their early policy of imposition. If so, that's all to the good -- there's very little from what they're saying and what we're doing. The only difference is that I, for one, never envisaged the 'aesthetics' of a bin being a reasonable basis on which to want to refuse to join the recycling revolution. That's the banner under which Labour are now fighting. The defence of sensitive aesthetes is fast becoming the workers' party's clarion call, Labour's only USP on this issue.

In the end, Labour must be desperate if they dig out old Focuses and try to point up a contradiction when there is none. I suppose at least they are showing an aptitude at some sort of recycling. Let's hope this mastery of recycling proves a transferable skill and they actually start helping the real thing. Then they might actually prove that their support for the scheme is not just fine words belied by their actions -- and I could gladly change my mind about them.

Is this the way to oppose recycling?

Oxford is a battleground. There’s a war on waste but there’s also a war about the war. While recycling sounds like a cause akin to loving Mandela and wanting world peace – a progressive’s no-brainer – it has become in this city a cause for the barricades. Yes, in Oxford, which prides itself on its intellectual and liberal credentials, even here there’s a backlash against raising the city’s appallingly low rate of recycling by the tried-and-tested method of wheelie bins and alternate weekly collections. For anybody who’s interested in how a political dog-fight can threaten to derail even the most uncontentious of causes, it’s a salutary tale.

A couple of things need to be made clear at the outset. First, there has long been a significant majority in this city for the introduction of recycling. It’s been advocated for years by both LibDems and Greens and, last municipal year, Labour came on board. But – and this is the second point – there are a few Labour councillors who have become champions for the claim that they are in favour of ‘choice’ instead of ‘forcing’ people to recycle.

Some background is necessary. It is simply not the case that Oxford’s recycling scheme forces everyone to have a wheelie bin: if a house can’t cope with a bin, then the council’s staff will arrange for the inhabitants to have waste collected in sacks; if a resident can’t cope with moving their bin, then fortnightly assistance will be arranged. It is a flexible policy, more so than in many cities. But that’s not enough for some councillors. A recent Council motion, proposed by a Labour councillor, asked the administration not to ‘force’ people to have a wheelie bin. The Greens presented a helpful amendment outlining what is present policy: that if there are ‘access, storage or safety concerns’ at a property, then alternatives to a wheelie bin are available. As the LibDems supported this phrasing, it seemed as if there might be a consensus. But the dealbreaker came from the proposer of the motion: he would only accept the amendment if it also envisaged residents rejecting a bin on ‘aesthetic’ grounds. It’s on this that the debate about ‘choice’ revolves: whether you can stand in the way of recycling if you can’t stand the colour green.

The mantra of ‘choice’, so beloved of New Labour and fresh-faced Tory policy wonks, is a smokescreen: waft it aside and what you find is a threat to recycling itself. I am not saying that’s the intention of the Labour councillors, but there’s no doubt that would be the impact. The system works, of course, on the change of habits which comes with alternate weekly collections, encouraging all of us to reconsider how we deal with different elements of our waste. In turn, alternate weekly collections only work if residual waste can be safely stored and that is possible in wheelie bins: the more sacks you have, the more you have a danger of a public health risk – and, as we already know, Oxford is like any other city in sharing its space with a population of rats. As we are running a flexible policy, the percentage of sacks is already high. If you added to that a wrecker’s charter, allowing anyone to reject on a whim a wheelie bin, then you would undermine the practability of the system. The ‘aesthetes’ would consider landfill taxes and pollution preferable to a green bin in their own garden.

As I said, I’m not convinced this is what those clamouring for fewer wheelie bins actually want, if they stopped to think about it. And this is where it gets interesting, for the politicians are not in control of the issue, instead the momentum has taken hold of them. There are two councillors who are pushing this cause. They are ward colleagues and are doing so because their patch includes streets where there do seem to have been more difficulties than elsewhere. Some of us would think the answer is not a change of policy but everyone – including local councillors – working together to alleviate problems and to reassure residents, rather than stoke their concerns. Of those two, one has been heard to say it is a pity to have introduced recycling now when it could have waited a couple of years. But, while neither is the most ardent advocate of the environment, the stance of both of them seems to me to be formed by assumptions, however mistaken, about what is best for their small patch.

What’s made this larger than a ward issue is that the Labour leadership have jumped on it as if were political gold-dust. They have their reasons to do so: it trumpets their New Labour credentials with the catchword ‘choice’, at the same time painting the LibDems against type as they would describe us as usually preaching individual freedom at the expense (they would say) of collective responsibility. It also might not be a coincidence that the tempo has quickened in the days following the budget session where Labour felt that had lost out in the negotiations. (They are wrong on that, as I’ve said before, but that’s by the bye).

And then there’s the matter of the Greens. On this I differ from my learned friend, the other councillor for Headington. I hear that elsewhere, in Reading, the Greens have decided to oppose alternate weekly collections, but I don’t sense the same inclination here in Oxford. If anything, they find themselves in a quandary, in principle in favour of the scheme, but worried about its impact in what passes for their heartland, where there are many students and terraced houses. It’s an understandable dilemma, but my money would be on principle winning out this time.

To return to Labour: what fascinates me is what a gamble their stance is. Promoted by a couple of backbenchers and adopted as a group line, it has a real disadvantage for them. Labour’s environmental credentials have never been strong but this is liable to weaken them further. Already the press are painting their position as a route to madness and lower recycling. The longer they allow the issue to run – and they show no desire to end it – the more likely it is that the public will rumble their rhetoric and write them off as anti-recycling. There are few votes in that, let alone any good sense. If that’s the battle they want to have, we’re up for it. But I’d much prefer it didn’t have to be a battle. I, for one, hope saner counsel prevails amongst their ranks.