Young Fabians nationwide participating in new policy development

Building upon the success of 2009’s YF Policy Forums, Young Fabian Vice Chair, Adrian Prandle, established four new Policy Development Groups to answer some of the key questions the centre-left needs to address in order to retool following Labour’s general election defeat. 

If the Fabian Society is about ideas, and the Young Fabians is about the next generation, then the YF Policy Development Groups (PDGs) are about realising that there is no time to waste. The context of a Conservative-led government and the first competitive Labour leadership election since today’s oldest Young Fabian members were at school offers a huge opportunity for centre-left ideas on domestic policy, Britain’s policy abroad, and even the way the Labour Party organises and presents itself.

The four groups – Livelihoods & Resource Security (looking at development and foreign policy); Work & Families; Aspiration & Equality (focusing on education policy); and a special project group, Transforming Our Party – have Young Fabian members, with a range of interests, expertises and experiences,  signed up in their hundreds.

The PDGs are seeking new policy ideas with the aim of developing these collectively to inform decision-makers and senior party figures as well as other Young Fabian and/or Labour Party members. Published outcomes from the PDGs predecessor in 2009 have been cited from the top table at leadership hustings and 2010’s work promises to be just as important and influential.

But they’re not just about influence. The strength of the PDGs lies within our membership. Recognising the need to harness the talents of all of our members, we have redoubled efforts to involve and empower and have utilised web-based resources to make this easier for Young Fabians across the country. Members have been encouraged to participate by email, blogging, joining a Facebook group, and accessing the many resources in the PDGs hub on the Young Fabian website, as well as attending meetings in person.

And the PDGs have hosted a first for the Young Fabians – online meetings. We’re not using webcams just yet, but members are finding the chatroom software both productive and easy to use. Plus the work of the groups benefits: the breaking of geographic boundaries brings in wider perspectives from the length and breadth of Britain than meetings in London often allow.

We are looking into using wikis for policy development and remain open to other ideas members want to suggest. Young Fabians are getting involved in whichever ways suit them best – members in Manchester have organised their own meeting to feed into the discussions of the Transforming Our Party PDG.

The PDGs will report later in the year so it’s not too late to join in. If you’d like to participate in any one of the PDGs, or would like to find out more about their latest work then please email Adrian, aprandle@youngfabians.org.uk, or visit the PDGs hub on the Young Fabian website: http://tiny.cc/yfpdgs.

Join us for the final leaders’ debate

Tonight we have events in London and Manchester where live screenings of the final Leaders’ debate will take place.

As with the last two debates, if you can’t make it along to one of our live screenings, then please contribute your thoughts on the Leaders and their responses to the public’s questions by joining the Left Foot Forward-hosted live chat, which you can access below from 8pm, or alternatively leave a comment on our blog.

Anything you can do, we can do… (better?)

The Debate Watch parties we’ve been organising with partners across the Left in London have enabled young supporters from around the capital and across the movement a chance to get together and celebrate, analyse and pick at these historic debates.  This week sees the last debate and the pressure is on! Should only Young Fabians in London be having all the fun? We thought not, so we put a call out to to some of our members up north to put on their own Debate Watch party – here Sam Bacon, Kevin Peel and Grace Fletcher-Hackwood from Manchester answer that call:

So the Leaders debates.  Finally we catch up with our American cousins and subject out leaders to the scrutiny of the TV debate, and what a remarkable effect it has had on this election.  And with two down, one to go, in this rollercoaster ride that is the 2010, I’ve no doubt that the third leaders debate next Thursday will be just as exciting, unpredictable and influential as the first two have been.

If you’ve been in London on the past two Thursdays, there’s been some exciting events you could have attended to watch these great matches of oratory skill.  And as the first leaders debate was here in Manchester, we did have a little shindig, with the Prime Minister popping by to party, as well as Sarah Brown, Lord Mandelson, Douglas Alexander and Ben Bradshaw.

Now, those big hitters were great and all, but it did mean we couldn’t have an open guest list.  So for the third and final debate, as we’ll be short a Prime Minister (and cabinet colleagues), we want to invite you all to make up for it!

Manchester has never been known as a shy and retiring place, and we never knowingly turn down a party (remember: Manchester was the birthplace of the modern DJ, and clubbing in the UK!).  So, on Thursday the 29^th of April, Manchester Young Labour, the Young Fabians, LGBT Labour NW, Co-Op Youth NW, Progress , Labourlist  and Compass are holding a Final Debate Party and Campaign event.

The plans will be similar to the London event:

6:30 – 8pm Phone banking at the Labour offices in the Express Networks building on Anacoats Road, Manchester - This will be the last Manchester Young Labour phone banking of the 2010 Election campaign, so it’s absolutely vital we get as many people as possible along!

8 – 10pm Watching the debate in Bar 38: Bar 38 Pavillion, Great Northern Warehouse, Peter Street, Manchester, M2 5GP

10pm Onwards – celebrating Gordon Brown’s magnificent performance late into the night…

As per the London events there will be food available, drinks, Leaders Debate Bingo and people will be blogging and tweeting as the debate happens live.  And just to make things a little interesting, we’re challenging the London event to a little friendly competition – who can make the most contacts that night (per person!). So for the sake of Northern Pride, come out and help us secure a little one up on our comrades down south!

Sing up via our Facebook Event and for more information email us at mancyounglabour@googlemail.com -  help us show that anything London can do, we can do…(better?!)

What happens when Manchester Young Fabians get together…

What did you do this weekend? Well the Young Fabians did something people don’t usually expect. We had an event outside of London.

I know, you’re shocked!

In fact our Manchester members said that they wanted to organize an event and we agreed to help, so a number of Exec members jumped at the chance go to Manchester for the day. Thanks goes to@sambaconsam whose brainchild it was. Thankfully the Greater Manchester Fabian Society were having their annual conference, so there was a perfect excuse to organize a social after all the serious policy debate!

It was good to see Young Fabians and young people in general being an active part of the debate. One of the main points that was hammered home at the conference was that to win a General Election Labour needs to show off its core values not just in its policy making but in its campaigning too. This is especially important given that there is going to be a whole generation of new voters who don’t see Britain today as a product Thatcher/Major but of Blair/Brown, they need a persuasive reason for picking Labour on May 6th.

In fact the need to go out and engage with voters old and new was a reoccurring theme. Dan Whittle (a former YF exec member) was compelling in setting out the lessons that need to be learned from Obama campaign, in particular the importance of engaging in dialogue with voters. (As Young Fabians who went out to campaign for Obama in 2008 discovered for themselves.)

NB- no fireworks were set off at the Young Fabian event...

Engagement definitely summed up the YF post-conference Manchester social. We were lucky enough to have a real eclectic mix of attendees: YF members, politically interested friends, students and people just curious about the Young Fabians. Again and again people spoke of the importance of finding new ways of getting people involved and staying involved. [Poor James Purnell, people regularly asked him whether he was sad to leave politics, as if being an MP was the apogee of being political and everything else immaterial!]

What was really interesting from our point of view was the number of people interested in politics but not working in politics who came to the event. Too often Westminster can seem like an insiders’ game but there are people who jobs are a million miles away from ‘Politics’ and yet have a genuine interest in the issue we talk about.

We even managed to entice a couple of floating voters to join us! Listening to them talk about what this election will mean for them reiterated the need for Labour to make a persuasive case on why the best choice at the ballot box is with them.

So with Manchester being such a success (look out for Labour conference 2010!) we were left wondering…where’s next?

Sara Ibrahim and Vincenzo Rampulla really enjoyed Saturday’s event as did Shamik Das and Preth Rao who were also there!

If you think there’s a Young Fabian event itching to happen in your area let us know! You can contact vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk for an initial chat.