NEC Chair
I mentioned in the post below that Dianne Hayter is the new NEC Chair.
I don't think enough has been done to celebrate that we have an NEC Chair this year who proudly proclaims on their official biography on the Party website - http://www.labour.org.uk/dianne_hayter - that they are "the author of "Fightback! Labour's traditional right in the 1970s and 1980s"." And she's from Holborn & St Pancras CLP - which has to be a good thing.
It's a great book - buy it while stocks last.
P.S. Message for Greta Karpin if you are reading this can I have my copy of "Fightback" back?
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:52 pm
2 Comments:
Dianne is a splendid person who I worked with on the 1906 centenary celebrations. She did very well chairing several conference sessions this year.
10:59 pm, October 04, 2007
From a Left review of this book:
"Hayter explains the role of the key organisations working assiduously to destroy the left’s influence and drive Militant out of the party. The alleged motive was to ‘save’ the party, and make it ‘electable’. She does not explain for what purpose a Labour Party should be elected"
"The election of Michael Foot as leader, after Jim Callaghan’s defeat in 1979, opened up a new period of infighting. Foot’s initial refusal to attack Militant – fuelled by his experience as a victim of the Gaitskell-inspired witch-hunts of the 1950s – provoked the wrath of the Manifesto Group. It split to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP) after the 1981 Labour Party conference in Brighton, after the conference had transferred responsibility for electing the party’s leader from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) to an electoral college in which MPs had only 30% of the vote."
"Labour’s defeat by Thatcher in the post-Falkland war election in 1983, assisted by the split in the anti-Tory vote by the SDP, reignited right-wing attacks. Naturally, they did not blame SDP defectors or the proto-Thatcherite policies of public expenditure cuts and wage restraint pursued by Callaghan and Denis Healey but, with the frenzied encouragement of the media spearheaded by the Murdoch/Maxwell axis, the right wing went into overdrive in denouncing the left. "
"In closing, Hayter reflects on whether the changes wrought by the right wing have served the movement well. She answers with the observation: "The NEC, having ceded policy-making to the National Policy Forum, is left with little role and has failed to retain its pre-eminence over organisational issues (candidate selection issues, campaign organisation, staffing) as these are now led by Number 10. Furthermore, the creation of the so-called party chairman, appointed by the prime minister and with a cabinet seat, has given unparalleled power to the government over a political party".
Any thougths?
5:51 pm, October 05, 2007
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