The NEC spent Monday reviewing the past year and planning for the challenges ahead, with a formal meeting on Tuesday. Matt Carter gave an update on finance, staffing and resources. So far 14,233 new members had joined in 2004, more than in the whole of 2003, and resignations were falling. However activists, especially treasurers, faced […]
The NEC enjoyed a generally harmonious conference, with the unions in helpful mood after their achievements at the Warwick National Policy Forum. They used their four contemporary motions – on public services, pensions, employment rights and manufacturing – to remind ministers of their promises, and the NEC supported all of them as well as an […]
Tony Blair stressed that the coming conference must present a strong forward offer, telling voters what Labour would do in a third term rather than resting on our laurels. The Tories were ever more extreme, and the LibDems were split into two factions pulling in opposite directions. On Iraq, whether the initial invasion was right […]
Hemmed in by barricades, guarded by armed police, the Forum met to lay the foundations of the manifesto. The programme followed the usual pattern: Friday for detailed negotiations with ministers, Saturday in groups discussing areas of difference, and Sunday concluding with votes on issues not yet settled. Keynote speeches also featured. This was the second […]
NEC Chair Mary Turner congratulated Tony Blair and John Prescott on their tenth anniversary as leader and deputy leader. Apologies for absence included Mick Cash of the RMT, though no-one is quite sure of his status since his union became disaffiliated. The prime minister was again away, and John Prescott reported on his behalf. The […]
With Tony Blair away at the NATO summit, John Prescott gave the leader’s report. He skipped cheerfully through the script on Europe: red lines, no European superstate, good for Britain good for Europe etc etc. On public services, Tony Blair believed that people do want choice, and levers should be in the hands of patients […]
Tony Blair laid out the dividing lines for the year ahead. Labour stood for economic stability and expanding opportunity in a changing world. Delivery departments were drawing up five-year plans, guided by the National Policy Forum and the Big Conversation. Meanwhile the Tories clung to the old Thatcherite agenda, claiming that public spending is not […]
This meeting was the first of two which are drawing together policies for conference approval and the manifesto. Papers were finalised on Britain in an Interdependent World and Reconnecting People and Politics, with everything else up for discussion in July. Forum members had only a week to suggest amendments, but still managed a creditable 250. […]
A special meeting on 6 January agreed Ken Livingstone’s readmission to the party, on the recommendation of NEC officers. The vote was 22 – 2, with Dennis Skinner and Michael Cashman maintaining their opposition. Tony Blair took responsibility for publicly explaining his change of mind since blocking Ken in 2000 and 2002. A trigger ballot […]