It’s the Manifesto Stupid!

According to the press it’s a tough week for Ed Miliband as Labour’s manifesto coordinator. Yesterday’s Times said that Alistair Darling’s tight purse strings are hampering Ed’s efforts to write a bold manifesto, and other papers have been less kind to Ed suggesting he has been asked to work magic on the Party’s fortunes.

So we’ve decided to cheer Ed up a bit and send him the best Young Fabian ideas for the manifesto.

The Young Fabians are offering all our members the chance to send their manifesto ideas to Ed this week through our blog. If you have a bold policy suggestion which you think deserves to make it into Labour’s 2010 election manifesto then email your 100 word idea to me, David Chaplin, on dchaplin@youngfabians.org.uk or register as a YF Blogger on this page and post it yourself.

All your manifesto ideas will be posted onto our Blog, and at the end of the week a panel of judges including Jess Asato from Progress, and Sunder Katwala from the Fabian Society will choose the best manifesto idea to be sent onto Ed Miliband.

Get thinking and get blogging!

There’s no substitute for policy thinking and campaigning

As we move closer to election day and the polls begin to tighten one thing is increasingly clear. There is no substitute for good policy thinking. You can spend money on billboards, pollsters, glossy leaflets and even gimmicks, but if you haven’t done the graft and got the ideas and arguments together, you run the risk of the press tearing you apart quicker than voters put the leaflets in the shred pile.

As Labour begins to put the detail on top of the core narrative of securing the recovery, protecting frontline services and building the new industries of the future, we are already starting to see a Tory party run fast out of ideas as well as direction.

For Young Fabians, sometimes unfairly derided as being a little shy to campaign on the ground, this is a time to step in and do some scrutiny of the Tory parties policy and detail. That’s why we’re re launching, Young Fabian Policy News and have included a brand new feature ‘Opposition Policy Watch’ to look at some of the thinking coming from the Tory right and put it to the test.

If you’d like to contribute to future editions of Young Fabian Policy News please get in touch and if you’d like to receive further information from the Young Fabians, you only need to join.

The press are right to say that this election will be a big choice, a big battle of competing ideas and visions. I think Labour has done the thinking and the graft in policy terms, I don’t think that the Tories have and it’s up to all of us to expose that.

But whilst it is true to say that Labour is winning the battle of ideas, we must also win the argument on the doorstep. There is no substitute for hard graft and thinking in the policy sphere, but there is also no substitute for knocking on doors and speaking to voters to communicate those ideas and I know that Young Fabians across the country will be helping Labour campaign on the ground as well as win the battle of ideas.

Even after the “change” election, Parliament will remain unrepresentative

Though much has been made of the lack of female MPs – which, despite being significantly higher now (126) than when Labour took office (60) is still 200 short of 50 per cent of the Commons – the lack of ethnic minority MPs and candidates has often been overlooked.

There are currently only 15 ethnic minority MPs, 13 Labour and two Conservative; 13 male and only two female; no female Asian MPs; and no Liberal Democrat non-white MPs.

That number is expected to rise following the election, albeit slightly. After polling day, a report on Tuesday’s Daily Politics revealed, there could be double the current figure.

If the result is the same as in 2005, the DP calculated there would be 30 ethnic minority MPs – 21 Labour, eight Conservative and one Respect.

However, if there was a 6.9 per cent swing to the Conservatives – the swing required for a bare majority – there would be 23 ethnic minority MPs, 13 Labour, nine Tory, one Respect and once again no Lib Dems.

Watch the clip on YouTube:

So keep an eye out for the likes of Rushanara Ali, PPC for Bethnal Green and Bow, and Streatham candidate Chuka Umunna, two of Insight PA’s “Parliamentary Candidates to Watch”, two of a slightly-less-small number of non-white MPs, and in the case of Rushanara, potentially Britain’s first female Asian MP.

Sources:

• Social background of MPs, House of Commons Library, November 2005

• Ethnic Minorities in Politics, Government and Public Life, House of Commons Library, November 2008

• Frequently Asked Questions: MPs, House of Commons, February 2010

Healey says Young Fabians ‘Labour’s future’

Our new members’ reception last night followed some work at Labour HQ ringing first time voters ahead of the – now very near – general election.

Guest speaker was Rt Hon John Healey MP, Cabinet minister for housing and planning. After taking his turn trying to sell fundraising raffle tickets, Healey highlighted the Young Fabians’ span of appeal and the ‘fresh energy’ we bring with our ‘combination of organisation and ideology’.

His view that it’s not what Labour has done but ‘why we’ve done it’ that matters is sound. So we’re about more than just managing Britain through global recession: we’re about a focus on people – their lives, their jobs, their homes, and their families. Which is how, despite a deeper recession, we’ve seen half the business failures experienced in the previous recession during the last Tory government.

He ended with a question, perhaps a challenge. It came from a constituent of his in a supermarket in his south Yorkshire seat: “Mr Healey, Mr Healey – what are you doing to keep the Tories out?”

This is about taking responsibility and doing something. We win the trust, respect and support of people by – as Healey said – combining our ideas and our action. Labour can play to the strengths of its leadership here. It’s not polished presentation that is craved but it is principled action that people see missing elsewhere. As one first time voter, a 20-year-old female studying an FE course, told me on the phone tonight, “Get off my telly, Cameron – why as an MP aren’t you doing something for the country?”

Listen to a podcast of John Healey’s speech plus comments from Young Fabian members at tonight’s reception here.

How Labour can make EU Policy ‘Back Young Britain’

The recent edition of Anticipations contains an article from Catherine Stihler, one of the Labour MEPs for Scotland.

Catherine argues that Britain must collaborate with EU states both to forge a stable recovery and to build a sustainable social market economy by 2020. The latter is the EU’s response to the Lisbon Agenda (to make the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy by 2010).

Vital to achieving this goal is the investment in education and skills by domestic governments to equip tomorrow’s work force with the skills for a global economy. This is the very nub of the interaction between the national and the international in policy making. Investment in the skills of its citizens by a national government will allow its workforce to compete for the high skilled jobs of a global marketplace.

Labour has a record of a sustained investment in schools, skills, universities, research and development running hand in hand with a jobs and growth strategy that is beyond Britain’s borders to ensure we look for the jobs of tomorrow.

We should continue this in the next election manifesto as we look beyond our borders for growth, jobs and trade. Labour should continue to make a commitment to young people to allow us to achieve our full potential in the economy of tomorrow. I believe the Backing Young Britain campaign should continue beyond the recession as a positive way of investing in our future to bring high quality jobs to Britain and allow us to compete internationally. Labour can co-ordinate our policies in Westminster and in Brussels to keep European policy working for young Britain and building for our future.

Don’t Belize all you read

I met up last night with Kunal Khatri, formerly of the YF Executive Committee, who readers will remember as the excellent organiser and host of our pub quizzes last year. Hard to escape, we discussed the election and the potential impact the outcome could have on our respective day jobs. Amongst other things, we talked a bit about the polls, which have improved in the last couple of weeks in a much more convincing way than the Labour boost towards the end of last year.

I’m pleased with the direction of travel of the national voting intentions. But the point I made to Kunal was that the media are reporting a minimal amount of data from the marginal seats in comparison to these headline figures, coupled with comments about uniform swing and the likely balance of seats in the next parliament. The reality is that Labour can be narrowing the overall gap in intentions but that it could be making little difference to the outcome of the election if those people aren’t living in the right constituencies. My hunch was that were we to see more polling from the key seats, we’d probably find the Tories with a wider gap than the 7/8 per cent that has been accepted right now as roughly the difference nationally. Morale-wise, this close to the election – and given how the parliamentary party in particular has reacted to polls in recent years – it’s perhaps best that we don’t see such polls and stay focused on the task in hand …

However, there are some out there and today I’ve come across an interesting analysis by Anthony Wells for UK Polling Report of Ipsos-MORI’s aggregated data for 2009 (that is, all their polls combined), followed up on by Andrew Sparrow. What we see is the Tories – last year, so not accounting for the recent downturn in their fortunes – having a 5% larger lead (a somewhat formidable 21% lead) in Lab-Con marginals. The swing to the Tories in these seats is greater than the swing in safe Labour seats and quite significantly better than that in safe Tory seats.

In other words, they appear to be winning over voters where it matters. There’s one reason for that: a certain Lord Ashcroft. Which is why it’s so important his personal tax situation is clarified.

The lesson is that we mustn’t get complacent about the direction of travel and about the electoral system working in our favour. And we mustn’t stop the fight.

UPDATE: I forgot to include a link to some recent ICM polling of marginals for the News of the World.

Labour should build on trade, Europe and a revised interventionism for a fairer world

This article was originally published here for Progress on the 15th January 2010.

A Labour campaign on foreign policy should argue that the values which define our party should also define our international agenda. Values of internationalism, a global solidarity with those in greatest need, and the need to protect those who are vulnerable and suffering are traditional Labour values which we apply at home and should apply abroad. These are the cornerstone of our movement. They define our approach to all policy areas and separate us from our opponents.

We should focus on three key aspects in Labour foreign policy campaigns. Firstly, we should continue to use foreign policy as a vehicle for economic growth within our nation and beyond our borders. Secondly, we should commit to drawing up a new doctrine for intervention and, thirdly, we should not being afraid of leading in Europe and in other international institutions.

To take the first strand, Britain is a trading nation and needs access to the wider European market. As we move from recession to recovery our agenda for growth will require continued access to the global market to secure jobs and prosperity at home.

In the second instance, there is a need to reassess how and when interventionism occurs, and place it in a consistent framework. This should be founded on a clear relationship between morality and the rule of law. Interventionism cannot be founded upon hubris, neocolonial ambition or economic aspiration. The burden of intervention must also be carried by those who can share it, using international action for military and humanitarian causes.

And lastly, a key component of Labour’s international policy has been to recognise that the EU is more than just a market to trade with and should be used to strengthen Britain’s role in the world. However, there is a need to settle the economic argument that EU membership costs Britain more than we get in return. We must also defeat the political argument that pooling our strength leaves us weaker rather than stronger. In this international context Labour should continue to argue for reform of our global institutions such as the IMF and World Bank in order to secure a stronger system for global economics and build a more equal world.

British voters stand much to lose if a Tory government were to represent Britain in Europe again. Many of today’s Tories are obsessed by ‘process Europe’ and rarely by ‘policy Europe.’ We understand that Britain is strongest at the heart of Europe.

Labour has shown strong influence on the international stage. Those who want to tackle our energy and climate policies, to forge a fair way out of the economic crisis, to protect us from threats of terrorism, to continue to build a European economic area of shared prosperity and stable growth, and promote a positive agenda for the developing world know that Labour has delivered and will continue to do so.

The Tories meanwhile are isolated, alienated and on the wrong side of the argument. Hague’s liberal Conservative approach would result in a disastrous marriage of isolationism and inaction, a policy that leaves Britain vulnerable and alone, and the world a less fair place.

Labour recognises that the world has changed since the fall of the empires. It is Labour that understands that to achieve for one nation you have to work with others. Labour’s foreign policy is an agenda for a better Britain and a fairer world and that’s a cause well worth fighting for.

This is an abridged version of the international policy chapter from the Young Fabian report ‘Fast forward: The next generation of progressive politics’

Brian Duggan and Marie Loewe are, respectively, international officer and equalities officer of the Young Fabians

Labour Campaign for International Development

A number of Young Fabians have been involved in the establishment of the new Labour Campaign for International Development. Here, LCID Chair, David Taylor tells us what the organisation is about, and invites all YF members to the official launch with Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP.

Labour has transformed the lives of many people in the last decade, and nowhere has the impact of a Labour Government been more acutely felt than in international development. For many of us, eradicating poverty is the reason we joined the Labour Party, and there is much to be proud of.

Since 1997, Labour has helped lift 3 million permanently out of poverty each year. We’ve helped get some 40 million children into school. Polio is on the verge of being eradicated and 3 million are now able to access life-preserving drugs for HIV and AIDS. 1.5 million people have improved water and sanitation services.

Tackling global poverty has been high on the agenda of our Party, and we want to keep it that way. That’s why we, a group of Labour activists, have recently set up Labour Campaign for International Development.

We want to keep international development high on Labour’s agenda, and to push our Government to build on its success and be bolder and go further still, in a similar way to our fraternal friends at SERA do on the environment.

We also want to use it as a vehicle to bring people who care about global poverty and other single issues in to the Labour Party. Be they young people engaging in politics for the first time, or former members who’ve turned away from party politics, we want to engage them.

First and foremost, we need them to vote Labour. In the lead up to the election, we’ll be scrutinising the Conservatives to show just how much damage they would do to everything we’ve fought for over the last decade. Even if their promise to match our pledge to spend 0.7% on aid could be believed, it is what they would spend our aid money on that is most damaging – the same failed private sector solutions that failed in the 1980s. No one must be complacent of the Tory threat, or think that a vote for the Greens or Lib Dems will bring any more than a Tory Government.

But we can and will be more positive than that. We’ve got a proud record on development and we intend to shout about it to anti-poverty campaigners. By encouraging them into the Party, we can gain from their skills and energy and, we hope, help invigorate the Party in the process.

LCID is a growing organisation, and we’d love to have your involvement. We’ve set up a blog with regular news and comment at LCID.org.uk, and you can become a fan of our Facebook page to get regular updates.

To formally launch LCID, the Rt Hon Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, will be speaking at an event in the House of Commons on 02 February at 7pm. Please visit our website to RSVP.

We look forward to working with everyone in the Party over the coming weeks and months to keep Labour in Government transforming people’s lives and lifting millions out of poverty.

by David Taylor, Chair, Labour Campaign for International Development