No influence for Labour Party members in policy making - nothing new there then!

When does extending party democracy mean exactly the opposite? When New Labour want to curtail members rights and influence even further.

Suggested motion for New Labour CLPs. "We, the undersigned Constituency Labour Party Officers, are alarmed at the proposals in the document 'Extending Party Democracy', that would remove the right of CLP's to send motions to our annual conference. Rank and file Labour Party members must have the right and ability to influence and direct policy within their own party if the party is to have any claim to democratic legitimacy. We have mandated our delegates to oppose any proposals which would threaten this right, and call on all delegates to do the same."

Alarmed at last? Bit late now!
As I pointed out below..
only 30% are delegates or Labour Party Visitors - LP visitors can't go in the main conference hall perhaps because they don't pay enough.
10% elected representatives
20% Media
and 40% exhibitor /Commercial/Corporate the Labour Party boasts so you can feel at home without worrying about pesky real LP members.

New Labour Tory polices & 2 Horse Lies?

New Labour leaflet tells me that it's a two horse race between New Labour and the Torys.

See this story as it illustrates the dirty tricks New Laboutr has resorted to win votes.

- Fury over Plaid coalition 'lies' Apr 21 2007 Martin Shipton, Western Mail
PLAID CYMRU last night dramatically offered to hold talks with Labour to stop any prospect of the Conservatives entering government in Wales.The move was Plaid

leader Ieuan Wyn Jones's response to the "lies" he claimed Labour was peddling in suggesting he was willing to serve in a Tory-led coalition.

Insisting he would not contemplate such a coalition he said, "Labour keeps peddling this story and therefore they are calling into question, frankly, my integrity."In a sense they are calling me a liar... It's time for Labour to stop peddling this lie, make it clear that they accept my word and not repeat it again."

New Labour wants me to vote for Cllr Asbo Sophie Howe who can't sort out Whitchurch parking problems or a skate board park for young people as a councillor so what can she achieve in the Assembly? Her emphasis on anti social behaviour and all this talk of yobs and thugs is unpleasant and right wing. I think politicans should try and mollify and allay peoples fear of crime rather than exacerbate it.

Where did the idea to tackling anti-social behaviour using ASBOs come from? According to Will McMahon of the Crime and Society Foundation, Asbos were first touted by right-wing criminology think-tanks in the mid-1990s as a way of modernising an arcane and cumbersome body of statutes regulating housing law and neighbourly disputes. Though rejected by the Major government as unworkable, they found favour with New Labour.

Rising fear of youth crime saw 'ungovernable' or 'incorrigible' children ordered into a reform programme as far back as 1806, according to archive material made available by the young people's charity Rainer. The historical equivalent of 'anti-social behaviour' saw children as young as nine referred to the Philanthropic Society in an attempt to reform them before they became involved in crime.

New Labour is moving social policy backwards in two ways:

first, through the re-emergence of the “problem family”, a concept stemming from the 1950s which blames families themselves for their social problems;

second, by the sense of déjà vu that long-serving social care professionals will feel as a result of the government’s approach. “The government is repeating the cycle of analysis by Sir Keith Joseph, Conservative social services minister in the 1970s, which is that problem families are

the source of all our problems” Vote New Labour get New Labour Tories.

Now are public services better under New Labour in Wales?

Privatisation has led to Turkey Twizzlers and MRSA and not getting better.....Jobs lost in closed job centres Wales, regional pay so that workers in Merthyr get less than those in Cardiff and those less than Bristol?

PCS doesn't think our public services are safe with Welsh New Labour.

It is what Welsh New Labour & Rhrodri Morgan & Cardiff North Sophie Howe don't say in their leaflets that it won't

1. cut civil service jobs in the devolved and

non-devolved civil service in Wales.

2.provide well staffed local offices providing the public with the option of face to face contact.

3. stop privatising public services.

4. agree that Welsh civil servants deserve fair play on pay

5. introduce regional pay in the public sector.

Privatised jobs = no job or worse pay = more child poverty in Wales

Notice that New Labour formerly 'Welsh Labour' now just Labour in 2007 Welsh elections?

Why another of Labour's heartlands is becoming more restive. A rumbling in the valleys

....Though it is set soon to get powers more akin to Scotland's, until now the Assembly has been permitted only to amend laws made in Westminster, and then only in certain areas. Rhodri Morgan, Wales's Labour first minister, reckons listening to the Assembly's orators is as diverting as watching paint dry.

.........And now, if a recent poll by NOP for ITV Wales is accurate, Labour will lose four of the 29 Assembly seats it currently holds (there are 60 in all) in the May elections. A single survey is unlikely to be very accurate, but there are three reasons to think that it picked up something real.

First, the swing against Labour fits the national picture. The party is unloved across Britain right now, with support in the polls only a few points above the levels the Tories sank to in the mid-1990s. Even though Mr Morgan has done his best to distinguish Welsh Labour in style and substance from the cappuccino-drinking Westminster variety—he thinks that New Labour is merely a passing fad and remarks that global warming would be a boon to tourism in Wales—his party still suffers from Labour's national funk.

A second reason is that both the main opposition parties (the Conservatives and the nationalist Plaid Cymru) are scoring points against the party in power. The poorest part of Britain, Wales has also grown less rapidly than the rest (see map). The Tories and the nationalists have attacked Labour for wasting the £2 billion ($4 billion) of European Union funding that has come Wales's way. A recent study shows that the cash has not had much impact, and the money will shortly dry up anyway, for Wales does not look so needy when compared with Romania and Bulgaria. Both parties have also criticised Labour for the state of the unreformed health service, which lags behind its cousin in England even though it has enjoyed the same investment splurge.....

Apr 12th 2007 | CARDIFF
From The Economist print edition