One of the worst things about being in opposition, apart from the crushing sense of uselessness and impotence, is the lack of resources. Money follows power. Out of power, and the money melts away. I’m not saying that the millionaire donors who helped Labour in the 1990s and 2000s were anything other than committed socialists; it just seems there are far fewer of them now we’re not in government.
Fundraising must be one of the top priorities for the party. The influx of new members helps, but only if we retain them for more than a year or two. The unions’ cash remains the bedrock, but total reliance on one source of funds is never very healthy. We need to attract some more ‘high level donors’, which means we need a Lord Levy-type figure to organise the private dinners and discreet get-togethers. The 1000 Club, which had its reception this week, needs to be expanded. Each shadow minister should be given a fundraising target. As more Labour councillors are elected, as are police commissioners, mayors and members of other assemblies, we need a proper system of levies on their new-found incomes and allowances. A Labour police commissioner after next November’s elections may be on a £80,000 a year. Ten per cent should come straight to the party.
But it’s not just about money. The Labour party is like a tribe which has been scattered across the continents. The diaspora includes many hundreds who have served as councillors and MPs, as cabinet ministers, as senior members of staff and advisers, and as local activists. Yet as a national party we ignore them. Once you’ve been through the mill, it seems there’s no way back. A former MP and minister failed even to be shortlisted for the Feltham and Heston by-election. The worlds of public relations, lobbying, business and charities are chock-full of Labour loyalists without any route back to the party that once they worked for.
In the lead-up to the 2010 election I had the crazy idea of issuing ‘call-up’ papers to anyone who had ever worked for the party. It would be a kind of political Home Guard – the final line of defence against the Tories – comprising veterans of campaigns past. They would be asked to present themselves to Victoria Street at 9.00am on a Monday morning, and told which CLP to go and help.
In opposition, the idea is not so crazy. We are, after all, a voluntary party, utterly reliant on people giving their time for free. Victoria Street is undergoing a radical restructuring, with a new, flatter system of management, and new posts created to cover campaigns, fundraising and so on. The new people appointed by the NEC to those posts should be able to call on senior counsel them those that have gone before. A new campaigns director would have much to learn from someone who’s done the job before such as David Hill. Anyone in charge of rebuttal and policy could listen to Matthew Taylor.
The same is true of the shadow cabinet. Each shadow minister should assemble a team of advisers drawn from the ranks of those who have done the job in opposition or government before them, or who offer an expertise. We have a House of Lords which includes ministers under Wilson and Callaghan, as well as the people – Healey, Kinnock, Hattersley, Ann Taylor, Jack Cunningham, Larry Whitty, Tom Sawyer, Joyce Gould – who helped the party survive the long night of opposition after 1979. We need whatever advice and support they are prepared to offer.
The main problem I hear time and time again from MPs and others at the centre is that Labour is behaving in opposition as though it is still in government. There’s still a hierarchical gap between, let’s say, Labour ‘policy advisers’ and ‘parliamentary assistants’, and between frontbenchers and talented and energetic backbenchers. These ‘shadow minister’ jobs are next-to-meaningless. They’re not even jobs, just titles. Those doing them will tell you they carry little status, just lots of hard work.
So we need an Opposition of All the Talents. We need ‘OATS’ – a range of people to step forward to help Labour win again. We can’t afford to be precious about who’s in and who’s out. It’s time for all hands on deck between now and 2015. Let’s start with that young man who made such an excellent speech from the backbenches this week on the economy. What was his name?
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Paul Richards is a former special adviser and writes a weekly column for Progress, Paul’s week in politics
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Credit: Louisa Thomson
Paul – what about the gap between Labour supporters in the wider Labour movement and the same people. We could do with a genuine version of the Labour listens concept where teams of MPs, staffers, advisers go out and about and just listen to people on some key issues…they may learn something as well. Another issue is where do people who may have significant expertise and knowledge on issues but are not paid Labour insiders go with their knowledge and ideas (especially where in some cases that knowledge and experience has been acquired on the inside and simply writing about it somewhere isn’t an option or realisitic?
Interesting comment- and true. With twelve years experience on two councils- and defeated by a boundary change from hell I am sidelined. Twelve years of experience of progressive local government change, chairing major committees, of development, planning, culture media and sport promotion and now just contacted to shove out leaflets or rattle a can. I sit here on line reading about ‘new ideas’ that are full of policy mantraps that I have in the past successfully circumvented- and mistakes that I have fallen for.
We need to look at ‘grey hair’ as our biggest untapped resource
Paul, the onus is also on the ex-MPs, SPADs, staffers etc to do what every single party member should do – turn up to their branch meetings where they live, get on their GC if their CLP still has a delegate structure, turn up and canvass and leaflet regularly. No one should be too grand to do that, or need to be asked. The route back in for retreads is the same as the first route in: hard work at a grassroots level.
More than OATS we need IEGCOEA (Independent Economists Giving Credibility to Our Economic Analysis ) – sorry this doesn’t produce a catchy acronym.
The next election will hinge who wins the argument on what caused the financial crisis and what should have been done and be done to deal with it. Up till now Labour has lost the argument miserably, not because we have got it wrong but because the public at large just do not believe what we’re saying. That in turn is because people are extremely wary of what Oppositions say (“They were there when things went wrong and they’ll say anything to get back into power”).
The answer is to track down all the eminent economists who subscribe to our analysis, get them to sign a statement to this effect, present the statement at a high-profile press conference, and follow this up with an ongoing campaign to get the message across at all levels. The more the economy collapses the more the public might be open to what independent, accepted economic experts are saying in support of what we are saying. Just repeating them ourselves will not carry sufficient weight.
You will not get all the talents if the party is the only institution from which they can engage and contribute. If Miliband is to become Prime Minster then it will not be achieved by the Labour Party winning the next election, it will be achieved by a broader movement winning the next election that decides its shared interests will best be realised by backing the Labour Party and Miliband. The party needs to think in terms of the broader ecology of this movement, the talents within it and the narrative it can share with the party.