What will be the key differences in our message between the 1997 and 2001 General Elections, and how will we get that message across?
In 1997 people voted to get rid of the Conservatives and we persuaded them to trust us because we had learned from our previous mistakes. In this election we need to communicate our achievements, explain why we’ve concentrated on the issues we have, for example bringing stability to the economy as the foundation for future investment, and set out the real choice between us and the Conservatives. We’ve just launched the largest media campaign since the 1997 General Election to get across to people that it’s by virtue of the fact that they voted Labour in 1997 that they’ve got inflation at a thirty year low, that they’ve put a million new jobs into the economy, that class sizes are lower. All those achievements aren’t there by accident – they are a result of people voting for change. However, we’ll also be acknowledging how much there is still to do. For example, in education, now that David Blunkett has done such a brilliant job in improving standards in primary schools, we need another term so we can make similar advancements in secondary schools. So, that’s the starting point for the election campaign – to say to people thank you, and to show things didn’t just happen. The public brought them about by voting Labour in 1997. We’ll also be setting out what the Tories would do if they got back – what people will bring about by voting Tory or by not voting at all – an economy run for the few and not the many, inflation and interest rates rising, recession and negative equity and under-investment in health and education.
In terms of the campaign itself, can we realistically fight to hold every seat?
Absolutely. All the constituencies we won in 1997 will be priority seats and we will help all constituencies. If you have done something once you can do it again so long as you remember how you did it. In this case, we built the trust of the British people and inspired them to believe they could bring about change. The big battle at this election will be to fight cynicism. The Tories say nothing can change, all politicians are as bad as each other, which eats into the very fabric of what being a Labour supporter and party member is all about. It is the most pernicious weapon the Tories have against us and we will only be able to defeat it successfully if we all work together. Particularly, we need to help the 66 seats that we didn’t expect to win to bring them up to the level of organisation in our 1997 key seats. If any reader of Progress wants to know where to help, that’s where they should go to make a real difference!
And what’s your message to those seats where we don’t have Labour MPs? Particularly to those who are torn between wanting to help in seats we hold but also wanting to build up support in their own seats where, for example, they may be winning in local elections?
Well, we all joined the Labour Party to make Britain a better place and we need a Labour government to do that. And whichever constituency you live in, you will want to be part of achieving that. So, I would say that constituencies should sit down and think about how they could help with a priority seat but also discuss what they want to achieve in their own seat and agree a division of time. For the priority seats, you may decide to send some canvassers over once a week, you may do a fundraising dinner for them, you may decide to help with telephone canvassing so you don’t have to leave your own constituency. In your own seat, you should set a clear objective which may be to target one local government ward that you hope to win at the next local election or to increase membership.
Are we hoping to gain any seats at the General Election?
We have certainly identified some Tory-held seats which we believe it is possible for us to win.
And how is the selection of candidates going? How are we doing in terms of selecting women?
We are in the same position as 1997 when we made the greatest step forward in the number of Labour women MPs: 101 were elected, making up 23 percent of the Parliamentary Labour Party. It was a great improvement but we need to do more. I’m very clear that a political party must be able to decide for itself whom its candidates are. If women are under-represented, it must be able to decide to have all-women shortlists. The law should not prevent us as it did in 1997.
What’s your feeling about the steps we’ve taken to clean up party funding? Would you support going further and introducing state funding for political parties?
In 1997 we came the nearest we ever have to matching the Tory spending but even then we were £2 million behind. We’ve now introduced legislation to fulfil our manifesto commitment to make party funding more transparent and to introduce spending limits. This should now lead to greater parity between the parties. I believe the public want spending limits so our politics does not become like it is in America where they spent £3 billion on the presidential elections. Most people see such amounts as immoral. People have different views on the subject and I think that there is a persuasive argument for state funding of political parties but it worries me that we would lose touch with our members and our supporters. Either way, I don’t think it would have been right after twenty years of under-investment in health and education that the first thing we did was to vote for money to go to political parties. Even if you introduced state funding for political parties there would always be a need to fund-raise because we always want to do more and more. There is no short-cut for the Labour Party, it will always be a hard slog. We need to encourage more people to donate to us. It is actually good to give to the Labour Party. Many people give to charities and while that is good, charities over the last twenty years have had to deal with the results of under-investment by the Tories. People who support the Labour Party are helping to prevent the damage that otherwise has to be sorted out later on.
How do we maintain and recruit members now we are in power?
The big motivation to join Labour before the last election was to help get the Tories out. I think it’s important for people to realise that that was the beginning of the journey and not the end. It wasn’t just about getting elected, it was about what we could do for people once we got there. We need a healthy party, we need to continue to bring in people who can be our future councillors, MPs and ministers. So it’s really important that we renew ourselves constantly. That’s what the Tories failed to do in the 1980s and it’s what hurt them in the 1990s. We’ve got to learn those lessons. I’m sure there’s someone we all know who’s not a member of the Labour Party, but who supports Labour. We just have to ask them to join. What’s happened to our membership is what you’d expect, given that we stopped talking about membership. Our retention levels are quite good but we’ve stopped bringing in new members. But you can see the signs of change. For example, Labour Students doubled the number of members they recruited at fresher fairs this year and something like 2,000 people joined the Labour Party after our conference this year and we hope to use the next general election campaign to recruit new members to the party. But, it won’t happen unless each of us recruits somebody new.
Do you think that the party could do more to keep in touch with members?
Yes, and we have already started. We’ve got the weekly briefs which members can get from their local parties or from the party’s website – www.labour.org.uk. The website gives members direct access to an unprecedented amount of information about the party. Every member also receives a quarterly edition of Inside Labour, our magazine for members. Over the coming months we will be doing a lot more briefing and training events with candidates, election agents and individual members around the country. We’ve recently completed a number of major IT projects. These include a new membership system to which CLPs have on-line access. It also gives us the ability to email members direct with big announcements, such as the Pre-Budget Report – provided members let us have their email address, which they can do by emailing it to [email protected]. They can also receive weekly campaign and policy material by email by entering their email address in any one of the yellow boxes on our web site. We are also about to launch a password-protected area on the website which will make campaign and strategy tools available to members. They just need to complete the registration form on the website. We did have some initial problems with the new IT system, due to the complexity of introducing such major changes, and we are very sorry for any delays that members experienced. However, these have now been resolved and the system is running smoothly.
Partnership in Power has now finished its first cycle. What’s your assessment of how that process has gone?
I think that any member who’s gone along to a policy forum, whether at a local, regional or national level, has found it extremely useful and enjoyable. We can, of course, always improve upon things and I’d say two things. First, the members that go to local policy forums need much more information on what happens to their submission afterwards. I don’t think people really understand that ministers go through submissions that are made. And the second thing we’ve got to get cracked is that a number of members do not want to go out to all-day events and we’ve got to find a way of including their views.
Are there any plans, separate to the policy forums, to get ministers out to members and listen to their views more generally?
Yes. We’re doing Q&As with ministers and MPs. Since the summer we’ve held 177 Q&As attended by 40,000 members. These have been organised by Hazel Blears MP and her parliamentary campaign team. If any CLP or branch would like advice on organising one of these events, they should contact Angela Wilkins, the PLP Campaign Officer, on 020 7219 4852.
This year’s Labour Party Conference was the first to see votes on alternate positions in policy papers. Do you think the policy-making process can be credible when the Government can ignore votes that go against them?
I think that the party can take a stance on an issue, but the Government has to make decisions for all the country against competing priorities. So while the party works on policies for the next manifesto, the Government has to implement the previous manifesto. I think the Government does listen to the general thrust of what the party is saying and what the party said on pensions was that 75 pence was not enough and it wanted pensioners to get a bigger increase. Gordon Brown addressed this in the Pre-Budget Report.
What lessons do you think we’ve learned from the selections of our candidates for the European Parliamentary elections and the positions of First Minister of the Welsh Assembly and London Mayor?
When we got elected in 1997 we faced a number of new elections that we were thrust into very quickly: the referendum campaigns; the European elections which were held under a new PR system; the elections to the Scottish Parliament; Welsh Assembly and to the London Assembly and, of course, the London Mayor. We didn’t have time to plan. In hindsight, I’d say the biggest lesson is that we have to agree the process for selection of candidates long before we begin selecting our candidates. I think that in the future we must also make it clear when we are going to use an electoral college and when we will use OMOV. And all sections of the electoral college ballot and split their vote. In terms of the European selections, we had a transitional process last time but we are already committed to OMOV this time. Members and constituency parties must feel ownership of the selection process. People have to feel that they’re fair. The NEC took a consultation paper to Conference this year which has now gone back to the party and will be considered again at conference in 2001. So, what I’d say to members is please discuss this at your branches and in your constituencies, and let us know how we can ensure we get it right next time. If you need a copy of the consultation paper, call the Labour Party on 08705 900 200.
What is the purpose of the 21st Century Party proposals?
These proposals look at the different ways in which we could run constituency parties to see if we can make the structures of the party work better for members. There’s an awful lot of duplication in the organisation – activists spend a huge amount of their time supporting the structure of the Labour Party as opposed to discussing policy, campaigning, or reaching out to voters and getting new members in. And that’s the purpose of 21st Century Party. We put a paper to the recent Conference which was agreed, and we’re now running pilot schemes before reporting back to next year’s conference. Something would be seriously wrong if after 100 years we felt there was nothing we could do to modernise our structures and make ourselves more effective.
Party Conference and the National Policy Forum showed the real influence the trade unions have over party policy. How do we balance their right to have an influence while protecting the rights of constituency parties and individual members of the party?
I think that trade union input to the Labour Party is an important one. However, if any group in the organisation has an unfair advantage or has so much influence that other people’s voices are drowned out then we have got to address it. I think that trade unions are up for that conversation. I know at Conference trade unions were very concerned to ensure that constituencies got their issues debated. Under the new Partnership in Power arrangements this should not be a problem as policy is first discussed at a local level and constituencies have guaranteed places on the Policy Commissions.