‘Progress is easily the most effective of the organisations seeking to influence Labour’, write Francis Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan in Blair Inc. While I think my colleagues and I do a excellent job – promoting debate, published an excellent magazine and hosting first-class events and campaigning for Labour – the starting claim rings a little hollow when you consider we campaigned for David Miliband and Oona King, were instrumental in the Alternative Vote campaign and called for Ed Miliband not to reject New Labour in the way that he has.
Progress, Labour’s new mainstream, has spent the last five years trying to get a Labour government re-elected. In this period we have campaigned in 78 of Labour’s 106 target seats, published 50 magazines, 16 pamphlets, organised 66 events in 35 cities outside London, 74 in Westminster and 48 at Labour party conference.
We have made a huge intellectual contribution to the party we love through our magazine, pamphlets and website publishing as we have tried to renew a British version of the third way, not for the 1990s, but for the world Miliband will inherit when he hopefully takes office in just over a month’s time. The central premise of The Purple Book – for Labour to rediscover its early devolving instincts – has gathered serious pace, but some of the particular policy ideas are yet to be adopted as Labour policy. We have championed the role of community organising as well as promoting alternative and refining traditional models of winning elections. We have polled voters and organised vital focus groups with the kind of voters Labour needs to win back to get the Tories out of power.
The account of Progress in Blair Inc – Beckett and Hencke’s second hatchet job on Labour electorally most successful leader and Britain’s, in my humble opinion, best prime minister – does not follow with the same set of compliments its initial statement suggests. There are three preposterous claims:
First, that those of us who work for Progress are some how difficult to get hold of.
This is just brilliant. Apparently our ‘sophisticated website’ makes it ‘hard to get it touch. There are no phone numbers and email addresses.’ This didn’t seem to stop someone, who had read Blair Inc, emailing my colleague, who is in their early 20s, just last week with the subject ‘Blairite scum’. The authors say that we can be followed ‘on Twitter, or on LinkedIn, but you cannot write to them’. Let me set the record straight. Our ‘Contact’ and ‘The Progress team’ pages are available from the front page of the site. On the ‘contact’ page – available from the site footer – you can find our postal address, phone number, standard email address (office[at]progressonline.org.uk). Feel free to get in touch. Many do. The email addresses for each staff member are not written out anywhere but if you click the hyperlinks on ‘The Progress team’ page it generates the email of my colleagues – this is simply an anti-spam device, commonly used. They write in their book that they emailed me in November 2013. Neither I, nor a very clever computer guy we purchase the services of, can find this email. For the avoidance of any doubt, they can email me on richard[at]progressonline.org.uk (If you substitute the [at] for an ‘@’ sign, this will be a complete email address. Just another anti-spam initiative).
Not only is this claim untrue, they attribute motive to this mythical inaction on our part. This is that ‘most political organisations … make it as easy as possible to get in touch with them, because they are always on the scrounge. They need money. They are run on a shoestring. Progress is the opposite’. This will be news to our members and those who have subscribed to our daily email. Our members and supporters have funded events – our first series of regional conference events, for example, contributed to the costs of Operation Flight or the three seats challenge. We regularly migrate members to the Progress 100 club for those who want to give more than £120 a year – you can join here. The simple fact is that it is rude to ask people you do not know for money, and it is a very unlikely situation where someone goes from having no interaction with your organisation to giving you thousands of pounds. If there is anyone out there who is a Labour party member who would like to give us money please do get in touch or feel free to go to our donate page.
Second, they claim that we have more money than you can shake a stick at and that we get some of that money from terrible people and organisations.
My favourite claim is that we have ‘more money than the Green party, Scottish Labour or Plaid Cymru’. This does not take close inspection to work out this is just not true. The Green party alone lost its deposits in 327 seats in 2010, therefore losing £163,500. Its accounts filed with the Electoral Commission, for the year ending 31 December 2010, show that the party had an income of £770,495 with expenditure of £889,867. An election year, granted, but double anything Progress has. In 2014, the Greens received £661,410 in donations over £7,500. Scottish Labour has a core staff bigger than Progress’ mere six full-time equivalents and fields candidates in nationwide elections (Scottish parliament, 2011; local councils, 2012; European, 2014; and now general, 2015). The bill for organisers covering even a fraction of the 32 councils, 73 Scottish parliament constituency seats and 59 Westminster seats Scottish Labour contests will dwarf Progress’ income and expenditure. And Plaid Cymru received in 2012-13 alone £151,509 from the Electoral Commission’s ‘Policy development grants’ before adding in the Short money it receives (£73,288) and the money they get from the Welsh assembly to employ staff (£222,326). In addition it received £139,952 in 2013 from those giving more than £7,500. Further still, I would assume subscription income from their 8,000 membership and revenue from their conference (where the Countryside Alliance, Federation of Small Businesses and others pay for fringes).
They insinuate that Lord Sainsbury has somehow transferred money otherwise given to the Labour party to Progress – others have made this claim outright. It is just untrue. Our funding moved from £250,000 per annum to £260,000 per annum in April 2010 and has remained constant ever since. Way before the leadership election had started, let alone any results were known. The Electoral Commission reports confirm this – as the authors will know. We are proud to be funded by Britain’s most successful minister for science and appreciate his ongoing and generous support.
They note that in the past we have received funds from Bell Pottinger and the European Azerbaijan Society. The former was sponsorship of a reception at Progress political weekend and the latter at three Labour party conferences (in 2009, 2010 and 2011). Each year amounts to less than £5,000 and for events that have considerable costs attached (it is a party conference after all). More importantly, the authors do not know this information from any investigative journalism but from that ‘sophisticated website’ that is so hard to navigate. We publish all donations we receive over £5,000 and report to the Electoral Commission the amounts over £7,500. We record all organisations we partner with, whether or not the basis of that relationship is financial. We have always registered all income over £7,500, regardless of the costs associated and the relative proportions that are ‘profit’ to the Electoral Commission to keep with the spirit as well as the letter of the law. The commission website signifies where the money is a donation or sponsorship; the authors of Blair Inc do not make this distinction. For these and other reasons, Progress has received an annual ‘A’ transparency rating from Who Funds You for all three years since its creation; please take a look.
They also claim we are the ‘richest’ of our ilk. They ignore that the Fabian Society had a total annual income of £745,350 in 2014 and that the Cooperative party is currently fighting to defend the £625,000 block grant it receives from the Cooperative group. Both of these organisations can make supporting nominations to candidates for parliamentary selection and internal elections to the National Executive Committee, National Policy Forum and beyond. If fact both of their general secretaries sit ex offico on NPF whether or not they get formally elected throughout the Socialist Societies’ places made available in the party constitution.
Finally there is the claim that we use vast resources not to campaign in 78 of Labour’s 106 target seats, to publish 50 magazines and 16 pamphlets, to organise 66 events in 35 cities outside London, and 74 in Westminster, but to manipulate Labour’s internal selections.
This is more embarrassing that is it is untrue. The great example they cite is Jess Asato, candidate for Norwich North, who, because of other things I was doing at the time, I was unable to help. This did not affect her chances as Marcus Roberts, then deputy general secretary of the Fabian Society, was on hand and did an excellent job. I think even he would acknowledge that the lion’s share was done by Jess herself. Anyone who has campaigned alongside her will know she is a force of nature, and the House of Commons will be better for having her there. Simply put, Progress does not financially support candidates, nor run their campaigns unless Progress staff wish from time to time to do this in their own time, like any other member of the Labour party. We do, however, run training (these take place at openly advertised events) and mentoring for those going through the process. All of this is outlined on our website. The Progress strategy board has oversight of this and anyone can email the subcommittee if they have any concerns: selections[at]progressonline.org.uk. More importantly, this is open to all Progress members (any Labour party member willing to pay £25). There is no ideological test and those who would openly disagree with Progress have attended. I was particularly surprised when Clive Lewis attended one, but he is now selected and we wish him well in Norwich South and look forward to working with him from 8 May onwards.
There are more. I could go on and on. The whole book is littered with inaccuracies. The authors print the headline of one of Progress 240 daily emails a year, ‘New Labour’s Unfinished Business’ as if this is a strategy leak. In fact, it is a well-argued piece by Stephen Bush, now at the New Statesman about policing policy). They seem to believe they have uncovered a plot organised between Progress and ‘Chukka Umunna’ (sic). It would just be nice that they spelt his name correctly if they are going to make such outrageous claims.
I have worked for Progress on two occasions in three different roles. I am incredibly proud of the work we have done since our creation in 1996. The fact that the current leader of the Labour party is a former vice-chair, as was Andy Burnham with Yvette Cooper a former patron – both of these tipped as potential successors to Miliband – and that every member of the current shadow cabinet (minus the chief whip and shadow attorney general – sorry, although Willie Bach’s predecessor Emily Thornberry did speak at one of our conference events) have spoken at our events or written for our magazine this parliament suggests not control of our party but that Progress is Labour’s new mainstream, and, agree or disagree, Progress is the best place to have the debate.
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Richard Angell is director of Progress