TWO PRESCRIPTIONS FOR LABOUR’S ILLS
Ray Davison reviews Jon Cruddas’ and John Harris’ Fit for Purpose – a programme for Labour Party renewal. Compass, 2006 pp. 1-34 and Renewal – a two-way process for the 21st century, an Interim Report 2007 from LabOUR, an independent commission on Accountability, Party and Parliamentary Democracy, LabOUR Commission, 2007, pp. (ii)-59.

Those who metaphorically donate their organs and life-blood in the service of the Party, its historic vision and values, will find significant interest in these two pamphlets seeking the prescriptions of renewal and revival for a Labour Party not in the best of health. The symptoms are there for all to see: dramatic haemorrhaging of its membership, down by over 50% since 1997, widespread inertia and atrophy of its vital limbs - its branches and GMCs - chronic abulia, disaffection and alienation of its once active and engaged body of members and supporters. Both documents examine the ailing organs with acuity, pointing out the areas of degeneration and failure like Rembrandt’s Anatomist. Fit for Purpose ranges freely over the Party’s history as an organisation born to fight for the industrial working class and uses a compelling blend of sociology, philosophy and general cultural perspectives to identify the challenges facing Labour policy makers in a post-industrial social order with a much more fluid class base and where politics is centred on a terrain much wider than the workplace.
LabOUR’s Renewal constructs its not dissimilar arguments in a more down to earth language, making really good use of what it calls ‘an evidenced based approach’ information gleaned from focus groups supervised by Professor Stuart Weir of the Democratic Audit, University of Essex and commissioned LabOUR /You Gov polls of members and lapsed members. Both pamphlets emphasise the negative and morale- breaking effects of New Labour’s top-down authoritarian model of policy–making and control freakery; both dwell on the imperfection and sometimes inanities of Partnership in Power; both, of course, have a lot to say about the Party’s financial management and our government’s relationship with money.
Finding the antidotes to our Party’s multitude of afflictions is the pivotal aim of these contributions but there is not going to be an easy answer and certainly no systemic viagra to revitalise, re-engage, renew and even resuscitate. Both works want to retain the federal structure of the Party and keep Conference as its sovereign body; both want to reform the NPF and have its CLP delegates elected by OMOV regionally; both want to empower members and end the era of imposed, monological policy formulation ( LabOUR even advances the idea of a Charter of Members Right to enhance and give a quasi statutory authority to the voice of members); both, crucially, recognise the determining role of egalitarianism, redistribution and democratic procedure in the motivation and political aspirations of members of the Party.
It is to be noted that both these documents pre-date the Brown Coronation and the launch of the new Leader’s own initiative, the so-called consultation Extending and Renewing Party Democracy. The words of the Brown invitation make one wish for an additional section to each contribution, although LabOUR’s report is only interim, so a supplement will come. Timeo Gordonum ac dona ferentum! Like a cunning Dr Finlay with a casebook, Gordon sends us a welcome chance to get better but like that other equine structure, we must beware the swollen underbelly, potentially full of bowmen with their arrows pointed at Labour’s primary organ, its heart. *

*This review was written for Campaign Briefing70, which is the Newsletter of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. The Newsletter is prepared annually for distribution at the Labour Party’s National Conference, which was in Bournemouth this year (go to CLPD.org.uk for current edition). Brown’s proposals were heavily endorsed at the Conference, thus what was left of the sovereign voice of Conference has now been abolished and the annual event has become a rally and fan-club for the Labour government. Attendance levels and payment of exorbitant attendance fees are likely to shrink. Why pay for no say? Also, if the Latin bothers you, think of Trojan horses and suspicious Greeks bearing gifts.

MING TO THE KNACKER
Cursed are the merciless for they shall receive no mercy. He that profiteth from alcohol abuse shall be soberly dispatched. Like poor, exhausted Boxer in Animal Farm, the tired old cadaver to be of the sweet and dignified Ming was unceremoniously sent to the knacker. What a sorry sight was this. This frail and venerable gentleman, with failing teeth and pipe-cleaner limbs, a pitiful shadow of those doric Olympian legs of yore which scorched the very earth they barely touched, was untimely plucked from his dotage. Where there should have been affection, warmth and respect, a celebration of wisdom and experience, there was only a cold steel arrow pointing to a cold coffin. Will Ming now join Gordon’s big tentism to end his days away from the Kafkaesque jackals and ghouls of Liberal Democracy? Proposal for a Sun headline: It's the socks what did it.

A BODY FULL OF THREE CHEESE PIZZAS
This latest and possibly last issue of Tony Benn’s unfailingly readable diaries (More Time For Politics, 2001-2007) tells us many personal things about this unusual man, now in his eighties: his love of Caroline, his pride in his extensive family and in the achievements of Hilary whose politics he in no way shares, the curiously chaotic domestic infrastructure that accompanies a life political so relentlessly busy and engaged that it could be that of six pathological activists of the left. He complains of tiredness and aching limbs on occasions but that doesn’t stop him. And all this is fuelled by a thrice –daily intake of three cheese pizzas, an addiction to which he cannot overcome despite the occasional attempt to do so. Look at this entry for Saturday December 27 2003:
‘In 2003 I delivered 142 speeches in forty-six towns and cities, including Baghdad and Cairo. I did thirty-three press interviews, 385 broadcasts (235 radio and 150 television), to thirty foreign countries. I published a hardback, Free Radical, a paperback, Free at Last!, and I must have written sixty, seventy, eighty articles. So that’s not a bad record for a man of seventy-eight.’ I hope Ming will read these diaries and get to the nearest Pizza House for that is certainly my next stop.

A MAJOR BODY SHOCK FOR ALASTAIR
Alastair Campbell knows a thing or two about the libidinal impulses of the body politic and his diaries (The Blair Years) shows how quick on the uptake he is about the Robin Cook dalliance. Yet even this formidable press secretary is thrown into a moment of high lyricism on Saturday September 28, 2002: ‘Woke up to one of those rare and totally gobsmacking revelations that newspapers very occasionally produce, namely that John Major had a four-year affair with Edwina Currie. It was one of those ‘cor fuck me’ jaw-dropping moments. How on earth did he get away with it?’

AN UNWANTED BODY
‘Fair, kind and true: a simply wonderful socialist and an inspiration to all who love peace and progress.’

Ray Davison, Secretary of East Devon Constituency Labour Party, salutes the memory of Norman Stevens, life-long socialist and Labour Party member who died on Tuesday October 30th at the age of 93. His funeral will take place on Friday November 16 at 2.30pm at Exeter Crematorium and after at Buckerell Lodge.

Norman Stevens invites superlatives: he was the kindest and most considerate of people, always ultra polite and courteous, always full of cheer and positive. He was a real gentleman with a playful and enduringly youthful humour, a sparkling wit and a life-enhancing warmth and generosity of spirit which extended to everybody, whatever their politics.
These qualities were evident in all that he did in a very long and full life: as a Labour Councillor for Withycombe Urban Ward and Chair of the Council; as a member of the Cooperative Party and Movement and as an employee of the Cooperative Union; as a passionate supporter of the German Democratic Republic: as a pacifist, conscientious objector and member of the Society of Friends. He embodied in his social and political life values and principles which represented, particularly for us in the Labour Party, but also no doubt for the many who knew him outside the Party, the very essence of the human, the benevolent and the civilised.
These values and principles underpinned too his private life: Norman was a devoted husband to Margaret to whom he was married for sixty years. Margaret predeceased him in 2006, spending the last part of her life in a nursing home, where Norman visited her daily
We were proud in the Labour Party to have Norman as our Constituency President until March this year. He was a fine public speaker who could readily draw on his deep knowledge of the history of our Party, including even the odd ribald story with delicious bits of gossip and hints of scandal .
You might have thought that after 76 years of unbroken membership of our Party, Norman would want a bit of a rest from politics, but there was no sign of that when I visited him in his nursing home shortly before he died. Despite his evident frailty, there was a robustness and resolution in his conversation, and indeed a moving stoical acceptance in the way he lived his own declining health. Politically, Norman was a Bennite (it was Tony Benn who presented Norman with a Party Merit Award in 1987) and Bennites stay the course. At the same time Norman was a Bennite who knew you had to carry the people with you to secure a mandate and that took time and patience.
Such qualities of strength and endurance in a person of so open and friendly disposition made for a powerful and persuasive commitment. He was a person fair, kind and true: a simply wonderful socialist and an inspiration to all who love peace and progress. And it was a privilege and a pleasure for those who met him, and for me from 1980 onwards, when I came to Exmouth, to know him and to share the earth with him. His legacy is a challenge to us to match his purpose and sincerity.