A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery someone has set this up: http://lukeakehurstsblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/test.html
posted by Luke Akehurst at 5:35 pm
Labour MP for North Durham since 2024. Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Dad. Unite and GMB union member. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
22 Comments:
Dear Luke
Congratulations for coming out of the shadows.
With regard to the leadership contest: Gordon Brown risks being branded the 'Right-wing' candidate. As we know from the LabOUR/YouGov poll, only 5% of members classified themselves as "Slightly" "Fairly" or "Very Right Wing". As you have already reported members describing themselves as "Very left-wing" accounted for 6% of total membership. So you could conclude that Gordon risks coming a close third to the Left candidate; and the likely leader has yet to emerge.
7:53 am, June 24, 2006
Beyond parody? You really do have an over-inflated image of yourself, don't you!
12:57 pm, June 24, 2006
Try the link http://lukeakehurstsblog.blogspot.com which will get you to the authentic Luke Akehurst website and away from this fake one.
1:27 pm, June 24, 2006
Luke,
It seems the corrupt crooks who got expelled from the Labour party in Hackney the 1990s want to have a go at you. You must be doing something right!
12:02 am, June 25, 2006
Reason for expulsion being?
10:05 pm, June 25, 2006
Peter
I'm not sure I've ever been in the shadows!
I took part in the YouGov poll and put my political position down as left-of-centre as the scale was clearly the whole UK political spectrum not just the spectrum within the Labour Party.
It's not a "right-wing" position to oppose unilateralism.
Luke
11:10 pm, June 25, 2006
Adele - reason for expulsion was 17 Labour Councillors defected to form a rival group called "Hackney New Labour" - ironically mainly the more left faction in the Labour Group. They all subsequently joined the Tories and LDs. The reason for the defection was primarily that 5 of them had been suspended following an NEC investigation that found they had formed a "group within a group" on the council.
11:15 pm, June 25, 2006
Get what you mean, kinda like militant in Liverpool in the 80s.
1:02 am, June 26, 2006
With less politics - it was mainly about personalities.
8:07 am, June 26, 2006
What a lot of words to use without "Trotter", "paedophile" or "cover-up" appearing anywhere!
8:11 am, June 26, 2006
I refer you to the independent Barratt report (January 1998) which rather burst that particular bubble.
8:25 am, June 26, 2006
Dear Luke
Gordon's Brown decision to go nuclear has undoubtedly had reactions - see my article in the next issue of Chartist due out next week.
http://www.chartist.org.uk
These go beyond the classification of unilateralism on the political spectrum.
What the Labour Leadership electorate are now doing thanks to GB's five-word reference to Britain's nuclear deterrent is his position on the Labour Party political spectrum i.e. right wing.
Increasingly the spotlight will be on his record on Labour values - the notorious 75 pence pension increase; his failure to tackle house price inflation - now as much a worry for anyone in middle England with children as us chattering classes; top levels of income tax; the absence of effective policies to tackle child poverty either at home or abroad; no existent policies to tackle climate change; PFI; health service redundancies; civil service cuts and so on. He has been Chancellor of the Exchequer for nine years! So he himself should not be surprised if the Labour Party electorate start to wonder whether he is the person to win a fourth term.
That is something worth blogging about.
8:37 am, June 26, 2006
Personally I'm delighted that Brown has shown where he stands so that we can have an honestly fought leadership election - one that I'm certain my wing of the party will win just like we have every leadership election in Labour's postwar history except 1963 and 1980. This way we will secure a renewed mandate for the settlement reached in 1994.
8:44 am, June 26, 2006
Long Memory said...
What a lot of words to use without "Trotter", "paedophile" or "cover-up" appearing anywhere!
8:11 AM
Luke Akehurst said...
I refer you to the independent Barratt report (January 1998) which rather burst that particular bubble.
------------------------
Far from bursting that particular bubble - the report acknowledged what was going on.
On 16 January 1998, your Council issued a press release entitled: "OUTCOME OF SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING TO DISCUSS BARRATT REPORT". It stated:
Last night, at a special meeting to discuss the Barratt Inquiry, Hackney Council passed the following motions:
(A) ‘This Council welcomes the publication of the Barratt report.
Hackney Council recognises its past failure to provide protection to those residents placed in its care.
As a Council we will implement those recommendations proposed by Mr Barratt that have not already been put in place.
(B) This Council receives the Barratt report and accepts the recommendations therein. We also call upon the Labour Party Executive Committee to suspend the Hackney Labour Councillors and their senior party officers pending a Labour Party inquiry into the Labour Party's past control of Hackney Council.
Another release stated: Mr Barratt states it would be unfair to make adverse judgements about professional performances without taking into account the "volatility of personalised politics" in Hackney. However, the report makes a number of criticisms of the way in which both Trotter and the initial investigation were managed.
"The "volatility of personalised politics" in Hackney!". As a master of the dark arts, you'd not know anything about that, would you?
2:17 pm, June 26, 2006
Actually this was narrowly before my time - my first involvement in Hackney was in Feb 1998 (unless you count a foray to the South Defoe byelection while I was working in Camden). People can google the relevant press releases and see you have quoted selectively from them.
Not sure I'm a "master of the dark arts" as that suggests a subtler approach than I'm capable of or inclined towards. Indeed, it isn't me hiding behind anonymity.
3:12 pm, June 26, 2006
Ha ha Luke, I note you now have Neil Kinnock down as on the "traditional right wing". Some of us were there at the time and voted for the modernising candidate of the centre-left, just as did in 1994. Hattersley was your lots candidate in 83. I know that is something of an embarassment to you now, but ther you go :)
9:12 pm, June 26, 2006
Don't call Kinnock right, wing, he is my political hero.
12:19 am, June 27, 2006
OK point taken on respective labelling of Kinnock and Hattersley. I was actually never keen on Hattersley (despite him being from "my lot") - ask anyone who was in NOLS with me what my position was on him as Deputy Leader.
9:28 am, June 27, 2006
I always just assumed that was because Hatters was anti PR.
3:07 pm, June 27, 2006
That was part of it. Just generally uninspiring. I was/am a huge fan of Kinnock which is a source of some amusement to some of "my lot"(to use the phraseology above) as is my pro-PR stance.
3:17 pm, June 27, 2006
Yeah, Kinnock was awesome. well, still is.
So is PR. It would let us be more democratic and embed ourselves at the same time.
2:46 pm, June 30, 2006
For the truth about Hackney Labour Party, smears, spin and Trottergate see Tony Whelan's excellent piece "Spin Doctors, Media and the Left: the Hackney Example" which can be found on the web at http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext6/Hackney.html
8:47 am, July 02, 2006
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