Dear Progress
The views aired by David Lammy in the
most recent edition of your magazine
sum up exactly how I feel about politics and
the Labour movement.
The words about socialism at the end of
the interview held particular resonance: I feel immensely proud to be known as a Socialist.
It doesn’t mean that I believe in the ‘good old Communist days’, but is a conviction that we have a duty to address the inequalities in society.
Matthew Bryant, Dartford CLP
Dear Progress
So another round of NEC elections are upon us. Being on the NEC is one of the most important jobs that lay members can do within the Labour Party. It is thanks to the recent reforms that ordinary party members (ie. not just MPs) can sit on the NEC as constituency members. Unfortunately, as in so many elections, the turnout will probably be low and the interest confined to those who routinely turn out to nominate these people at their GCs. We need a continuing dialogue with grassroots members. But to realise this we need to turn the whole process outwards to ensure that all party members are interested
in it, not just a meeting-going elite. Answers on a postcard please.
Andrew Stevens, Greenwich and Woolwich CLP
Dear Progress
As youth officer for my CLP, it is my job to
try and engage the youth in politics. But when it comes to election time, am I able to have a go or encourage others to have the experience of standing in local council elections and partake in local democracy? No. Can I argue to younger members of the public, who may even be at work and paying tax, that
their voice matters? No. As a forward-thinking party we must review the voting age and age of candidacy in this country. There’s no use banging on about re-engaging young people until you give them a voice in politics and lower the age of majority to sixteen.
Alon Or-bach, Finchley and Golders Green CLP
Dear Progress
Devolution has been a manifesto commitment from the Labour Party for many years and since 1998 has finally become a welcome reality for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. But out of the 177 manifesto promises in 1997, the commitment
to help establish elected assemblies for the regions is one of only two pledges not to
have been delivered by the government.
The case for full regional devolution is clear. There are already hidden tiers of unaccountable regional bureaucracy in the form of government regional offices, RDAs and quangos. These all make powerful decisions affecting citizens’ lives with neither check nor balance. We have already conceded that Whitehall cannot fully deliver for areas such as Scotland and Wales, so why is the same logic not applied to the rest of the UK’s regions?
With a second term which promises to be more radical than the first, the government has got a one and only chance to change the balance of power in Britain away from the hands of faceless bureaucrats in Whitehall to bodies which are truly accountable to citizens.
Jessica Asato, Highgate and Hampstead CLP
Dear Progress
Estelle Morris gave an excellent account of how the government’s education and skills programme is tackling poverty (A lesson in action, Progress, February 2002). But what about the role our education system should be taking in addressing inequality of opportunity and breaking down barriers between groups of people (whether class, religious or ethnically based) that contribute to social disharmony and prejudice in the UK?
I believe that the government’s policy on faith schools and specialist schools that can select their pupils is wrong. Only comprehensive schools, which serve all of their local community, can provide equality of opportunity for every child and help build the fair, socially inclusive and class free Britain that Labour in government should be working towards.
Cllr Linda Smith, Hackney North and Stoke Newington CLP