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.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Spring Conference

I'm in Birmingham for Labour's Spring Conference.

Did anyone watch Brown's speech on TV? In the hall it was very impressive, particularly the Q&A chaired by Kevin McGuire afterwards. I thought it was a lot better than his speech at Annual Conference - more relaxed and with a clearer view of the central theme of govt policy which it's apparent Brown wants to be about helping everyone to achieve their full potential through education, skills, welfare-to-work, tackling child poverty etc. I'm interested to know how it looked to the TV audience.

As a decision on who will be Labour's General Secretary is close there seems to be intense lobbying of NEC members going on by the rival Mike Griffiths and David Pitt-Watson camps. It's a tough choice as both have quite different skill sets - Mike as a veteran party and union official and David as a finance/management expert. A shame the job can't be split so we could get both of them on a Chief Exec and Chief Operating Officer model.

On a totally different topic, hi to London Region Labour Party Director Ken Clark and Enfield & Haringey Organiser Stephen Longden, both regular readers of this blog and part of Labour's thin red line tipped with steel holding back the Borisonian hordes. Keep up the good work guys!

I'm now off to find the Labour First reception.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Same old rubbish comes out of Browns mouth everyday, people have stopped believing in the Labour party and have stopped believing Brown.

He talks about education but thanks to Labour our education system is in a complete mess. A recent report in the independent shows the Labour education policy as a sham.

Violent crime is worse and immigration is out of control. New police figure reveal the real truth.

We have two wars yet our government feels so uneasy with them that they have chosen to forget about the people that have to fight them. I have never seen anything like this in the last 30 years, it really is a disgrace.

No more boom and bust yet we are on the verge of the biggest crises since the 1930s.

Do you really think Brown deserves another term.

3:02 pm, March 02, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yup Brown deseves another term. Which is not something we can say about our poor little rich kid.

GW

5:08 pm, March 02, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Didn't see the speech - in the best traditions of public service broadcasting, the report on the BBC website focused on the Browns apparently not knowing in which direction to walk off the stage. I went to help with some door knocking voter id instead. No sign of the alleged Tory boom and an encouraging continuing enthusiasm for Labour (in a Tory/Labour marginal ward) – one man actually asked for a stake in his garden (on a busy main road) before I’d had time to ask him if he’d like one – result!

7:05 pm, March 02, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Most people I talk to recently who were Labour are going blue, no sign of renewed Labour support at all. I also think that Labour is going to take a battering in Scotland, a recent poll showed increased support for the SNP.

Even in Newcastle there are signs that the press is ready to turn on Labour...you could see gains here for Lib Dem.

They can't spin there way out of this one.

8:24 pm, March 02, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you drive taxis for a living, Rich? Most of your comments have that same uninformed quality.

8:05 am, March 03, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I driving the kids to school counts as being a Taxi driver then yes.

You don't honestly believe political spin do you, I gave that habit up about 10 years. Is this really a Labour government? Is this really a democracy?

Just because we have the right to vote does it really mean that we have a choice. I would call it a mediaocracy and people vote for empty political promises.

What's the point...

12:52 pm, March 03, 2008

 

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