Bryne’s defenders will doubtless latch onto what according to polling seems to be majority support for a benefit cap amoung the electorate and Labour supporters. I don’t disagree that this is the case; I do dispute whether this is the correct and whether its a properly informed view. Anybody who bases their view of welfare on what they read in the pages of the tabloid press or see in the media generally, is, I would argue deeply uninformed and badly mislead about the real state of play not just on welfare but on a great many things.

It is simply wrong to say that even elected politicians must always toe the majority line. Democratically it is wrong because there must be checks and balances in place to protect vulnerable minorities from unchecked majority power. This is ABC – if any one group exercises unlimited power in a society then the plain truth is that your society isn’t democratic. Its also worth noting that majorities are not set-in-stone. Indeed, it is likely that the terms of the debate on welfare when people see the real suffering these reforms inflict. Put simply, pure majoritarian rule is tyrannical on the suffering minority but also the majority itself – which is effectively prevented from ever changing its mind.

It therefore falls upon politicians sometimes to challenge the majority view and even defy it. However, representative democracy makes Liam Bryne’s of most of our politicians because they are concerned solely with winning elections and getting a bump in the polls. Peers don’t have this concern so they are naturally more independent-minded. However, some people don’t like being told they are wrong so politicians don’t do it – however, they then complain about the ‘insincerity’ of politicians with no apparent sense of irony. Part of the reason we have insincere politicians is the fact the electorate themselves electorally rewards sincerity less that they should. However, once you open a dialogue based on a sincerely held view many come to respect that, even if they continue to disagree.

The truth about welfare is that the numbers who abuse the system are tiny. In fact, the Welfare Reform Bill is a rather sad attempt to crush an ant with a Sherman tank in that regard.
Welfare dependency is as much caused by poor in-work conditions as it is a ‘scrounger’ mentality. Major structural problems of worklessness also exist in communities caused by economic shifts – like the decline of industry – something that successive governments have been too ‘workshy’ to actually get a grip of. None of this will appear in the pages of the press though because it doesn’t make for particularly ‘sexy’ and appealing headlines.

You certainly won’t hear Liam Bryne say this because he has no moral courage. He has failed to stand-up for the weakest in our society and in doing so he has failed the values and principles which shape this Party. I’d say he should hang his head in shame but to do that, he’d need a backbone…

However, I am not participating in the Twitter BlackOut today. In fact, calling for such a thing is a huge tactical blunder. Twitter wants dissenting voices silenced so, we respond by silencing ourselves? Surely some mistake. What summed up my reasons for not participating was seeing tweets and pictures from the hugely important actions up and down the country against the Welfare Reform Bill, this barbaric piece of legislation is going to shatter so many lives its simply untrue.

Are we seriously saying activists in those campaigns should deprive themselves of what is an essential platform (given the poor coverage the mainstream media offer) just to fight Twitter-censorship? I hope not. If we are then we need to ask the question of whether internet activisms sense of self-importance is too inflated.

Alternatives exist to the blackout – like protest by hashtag. My feeling is that Twitter will ignore the protests today but they would find a constantly trending hashtag much more difficult to ignore not least because our sense of disgust would be on every users homepage across the globe. Instead of ‘blacking out’ we should make some noise. I hope after today campaigners will rethink their strategy because currently it is deeply flawed and unlikely to force Twitter to grow a spine and stand up to these undemocratic attacks on our freedom.

Douglas Alexander chose this morning to chirp-up, once again, about the economy. He says that Labour must ‘do more’ to be considered credible on the economy. It must talk more about the deficit and debt, Mr Alexander says. Obviously, regular readers of this blog will know I don’t agree with this approach at all. However, I want to raise a different point and that is the way this Party is being bounced into policy commitments without a full and proper democratic discussion.

We have heard alot about the economy from Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander and other high-up figures within the Party. We have even heard from trade union leaders and while I am often in sympathy with what is said by the likes of Len McCluskey, for example, his voice is but one and he is advocating on behalf of Unite members, not the Labour Party. No matter how much I feel he represents the views of many within Labour, his opinion is no substitute for the voice of the Party being heard in the proper and democratic way.

The appropriate forum to have this discussion is the National Policy Forum. However, this body has not met for two years. Laughably, Peter Hain said at the last meeting of the NEC, that it would meet in June/July “if an affordable venue could be found.” I know the Labour Party is a bit on the poor side but is this not taking the mick a little. I am sure if asked nicely somebody, a trade union maybe, would have facilities it would provide at the very least at cost price. Indeed, the Labour Democratic Network has offered to put-up the money for a meeting and find a venue.

While we are on the subject of lame excuses; I was a spectator on a Twitter exchange between Luke Akehurst and Peter Kenyon last night. Luke’s basic point was that we couldn’t have an NPF meeting because it would detract from campaigning, specifically Ken Livingstone’s campaign for the London Mayoralty. I would say firstly that since we are a large political party there is always the chance that a meeting will take activists away from some campaign somewhere whenever it is held. Of course, the London Mayoral election is a big election but to comrades and colleagues across the country their campaigns are just as big. I am sure nobody would begrudge their NPF rep one day off if it meant improving our democracy.

In my neck of the woods, despite their being a big set of local elections in May with huge potential for Labour, I know branches are still holding their AGM’s in the upcoming weeks. Various bodies are still meeting as normal and this will be the case at least until the advent of the ‘short-campaign’ and I am sure in many instances will continue to be the case even then.  Indeed, i’d personally rather they did because it aids campaigning and helps reach out to get others involved. Furthermore, I agree with Peter Kenyon:

Just because there are elections in less than 100 days time does not mean elected representatives should not be discussing and debating policy. On the contrary, I would argue the opposite. Given the need to persuade the electorate that Labour values matter, what better way to get key messages to members – you matter, and voters – we understand your needs and have better ways of addressing them, than having open discussion?

So, Luke’s counterposition between campaigning and an NPF meeting, which at worst will take a full-day, is a false one. The fact is that it is starting to look awkwardly like this leadership is not as committed to improving our democracy as it said it would be; it obviously prefers to make a series of major policy announcements on-the-hoof with zero-sum input from Labour members. This is obviously totally unacceptable. Is it not about time Labour members had their say on the economy and other big issues like everybody else has?

Ed’s policy on chocolate oranges actually exposes how attempts to pitch yourself as ‘one of the people’ inevitably backfire. On closer inspection, you find that WH Smith doesn’t sell fruit so all both Mr Miliband and Mr Cameron have done is expose the fact they never shop there. Incidentally, they are both wrong politically, because the state should not really be meddling with prices in order to bend people to the behaviour that it thinks is appropriate. Some people who buy the aforementioned oranges will be obese and should probably cut back but others won’t so all you are doing with a price rise is punishing those that are not for indulging themselves in the odd bit of chocolate now and then. Not particularly fair and it is a microcosm of why this kind of nanny-state approach shouldn’t be taken.

Miliband’s stance can best be characterised as crass popularism – something Newt Gingrich knows something about after his pledge to colonise the moon by the end of his second term (notice how America has to elect him not just once but twice to get this show on the road). Gingrich obviously fancies himself as something of a Dr No (or more likely Dr Evil from Austin Powers) in the making. He is trying to steal a march on his rivals with a big, maybe inspiring, but frankly bonkers idea and Mr Miliband is trying to appeal to use something he knows is popular as leverage to talk about a broader issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to work it into his responsibility riff.

Obviously, in a representative democracy, it’s better if politicians do listen to the people they represent. However, attempting to appeal too or feed their prejudices often ends-up producing downright ugly politics – look at the welfare debate for a good example of how this kind of thing turns very nasty, very quickly. Indeed, it is pretty much impossible to have a sensible debate on welfare because it is buried under a tonne of media and political class inspired ignorant prejudice about what it is like to live on welfare and how the welfare system actually functions.

It is therefore a truism that the best politicians are the ones who are prepared to be unpopular and prepared to take positions they know people won’t like. Representative democracy inhibits them from doing that because it enhances the importance of perception over fact. This is one of the many flaws of the system we have, something that probably won’t be changed anytime soon. Still, while we argue and discuss about the changes that need to happen it would indeed be a small mercy if we were spared our leaders thoughts on the price of fine chocolate confectionary – this would at least save us from an awful lot of cringing.

For while the above is true, its also true that for all the billions lifted out of poverty there are billions more cast down into the poverty pit. Whole nations in fact are shackled in these chains. This phenomena is not just restricted to the starving countries you see on your TV screen but increasingly it is afflicting first-world countries.

This is not just because of the traditional avarice of indigenous capitalists but also a fundamental structural shift. Manufacturing and industry is in terminal decline in the first-world. Why would companies produce goods in Britain when they can do it at half-price or less in a country with no serious protection for its workers and they can pay a fraction of the wages they would to a British worker? Last nights Newsnight illustrated this perfectly with its report on migrant workers in China; these workers are denied basic rights of citizenship and are a slave class.

This is leaving whole communities in first-world countries mired in a cycle of poverty and reliance on increasingly thin welfare provision. No investment or support has been forthcoming from successive governments and then these people find themselves demonised as ‘scroungers’. This wretched government is going to push these communities finally under and hold them there until the last gasp of life leaves them.

Another good illustration of the problems of globalisation is the current crisis facing the Eurozone and the European Union. The EU finds itself emasculated in the undemocratic chains woven by nation-states whose governments are not prepared politically to make the necessary leap to democratic transnational governance. We are told that demands for greater national autonomy within the EU are ‘democratic demands’. Nothing could be further from the truth; it is the institutions and practices of the EU that have been created to protect ‘national sovereignty’ that are the most undemocratic. If these ‘ champions of democracy’ want to truly defend it then when will they demand a fully-elected and sovereign European Parliament? Incidentally, the economic woes of the Euro have the same root cause – muddle-headed austerity and too little integration, not too much.

It is tempting for the left, faced with all this, to collapse into offering reactionary, not progressive, political solutions. ‘British jobs for British workers’ being a good example of this type of mistake – manically screaming ‘No to the EU’ being another. Capitalism cannot complete the globalisation process due to its inherent contradictions. Socialism, with its vision of global democratic governance, on the other hand can. However, this will only happen if it opens its eyes to the world around us and seeks again to shape it, not merely react to it with a jerking knee.

He did this by coming to power on a wave of popular enthusiasm which in some ways mimicked that which carried Tony Blair to power on this side of the pond. Sustaining that was always going to be tricky. It seemed that until recently Obama wasnt going to manage and could be heading for an early exit. However, the Republicans made a huge tactical error in precipitating the budget gridlock – a dispute they got the blame for starting.

They did so under the influence of the malign Tea Party which it seems, if the race for Republican nominee is anything to go by, has suffered a slight diminution of its power following that fiasco. Obama might well bemoan that, had somebody whose politics are obviously un-hinged as Sarah Palin’s are been made the Republican candidate then motivating his core supporters would have been easy. However, now he has to rely on his own pulling power.

Both Mick Romney and Newt Gingrich are a testimony to how bereft of anything approaching political talent the GOP are and how, consequentially, they are going to lose the presidential election in November as much as Obama will actually win it. The only sparkle either of them have is their respective tax and personal scandals – nowhere near enough to challenge the Obama machine.

The Presidential election will make fascinating viewing for a European audience if only to show how much America is changing. Obama is tentatively suggesting a larger role for the state and has taken state-led stimulus approach to the crisis – something that Goldman Sachs predict will see the US avoiding recession (compare and contrast with the UK and Europe which is crashing and burning). However, given the culture of the US which is instinctively hostile to the state playing a large role in the economy and in the provision of things like healthcare it remains to be seen whether Obama can re-frame the debate in a way which lasts beyond his two terms.

This is not an abstract matter. Party members are the organic link between the Party and the wider electorate and in our case, the wider labour movement. The disenfranchisement the members of political parties has dove-tailed with the crisis of faith in our democracy and this is no accident. Party leaderships of all stripes have become aloof, distant, unrepresentative and unaccountable to even their own members.

So, I will be making the return of democracy to our Party a top priority because it is not only a matter of principle but also electoral expediency. A Party that can’t respect its own members can scarcely be expected to show any for the electorate.

I want to propose some bullet-point suggestions to get the ball rolling. This is by no means a finished or final list but a starting place for discussion and dialogue.

The electoral college I recognise the democratic legitimacy of Ed Miliband’s victory but the manner of his victory has been a huge contributory factor in the instability surrounding his leadership. Somewhat unusually for a left-winger I support the introduction of One Member, One Equal Vote in electing our leader.

The multiple votes issue obscures the democratic scandal of vote weightings which accord far too much power to the Parliamentary Labour Party. Constituency nominations should also count in this contest – a certain number of constituency nominations should be required to make it onto the ballot paper.

National Policy Forum Peter Kenyon has recently exposed the scandal of the non-existent meetings of this body. This is entirely unacceptable. The NEC must instruct the leadership to convene a meeting at the earliest possible date.

Meetings must be regular and the deliberations of the NPF must be widely accessible to members, utilising new media especially. CLPs must have proper facility to amend and shape the deliberations of NPF. Party members, utilising the model adopted and practised somewhat imperfectly during the Refounding Labour consultation must have the same opportunity.

The National Executive 6 CLP representatives is nowhere near enough. The NEC must be expanded if necessary to make it truly representative of our Party. My proposal is that each region be given at least one seat on the NEC although in practice there probably be more than one. Elections to these seats should be based on regional contests – this means the NEC will be more representative of diverse experiences and stronger for it.

Party Conference Part of encouraging greater participation in our policy making process and our democracy is opening-up Party conference; too that end I have two proposals.

One is too make extra subsidised places available to new joiners. We must bring new members right into the heart of our Party to show them this is a political Party which takes its members seriously. Secondly, I propose that the potential for involving the wider membership via new media be explored. Properly utilised, new media can be a powerful tool for returning this Party to its members – many can’t make conference but still want to be involved.

The era where centralised command-and-control of this Party is acceptable is over – its time to send a clear signal to the leadership that we will no longer be bridled. One of the lessons we should have learned from our time in government is the central importance of being a Party that listens to its members and involves them at every step of the way. As I said, this list is by no means an exhaustive or final one. It is merely meant to start the ball rolling. I look forward to receiving feedback and participating in the upcoming discussions and debates.

Above is a simple and powerful message that Labour can deliver on the debt and deficit which is also credible. It could go further – it could point out that there can be no sustainable economic growth without social justice and that it was social injustice that caused the crash. This message would not only inspire the electorate but unite significant sections of the Party – it would, for example not give me everything I want but at least be a message I could be proud of; I cannot say that about our current message.

In all fairness, before the madness of the last few weeks we were trying tentatively to articulate this message. It is hurting and it isn’t working was a catchy slogan. However, what was already a ropey economic narrative has been shot to pieces by the total acceptance of the Conservative and media framing of the debt crisis as one being caused by excessive public spending. In actual fact it was caused by feckless financial markets and low wages and the consequent accumulation of personal debt.

Labour desperately needs to change the entire premise of the economic debate, Frankly, as things stand it is on a hiding to nothing. It can only win an austerity auction with the government which will disillusion and alienate not just its core supporters but swing voters too.

In the latest ICM poll the 5% gain for Miliband & Balls on the economy was offset by a 2% gain and a record high for Cameron & Osborne. Why? Because fighting on their turf is legitimising their solutions. It is simply silly to say we are going to accept and continue something that we say in the next breath isn’t working. I can only conclude our leadership assumes the electorate are stupid and won’t see the obvious contradiction therein.

We need an urgent debate on the economy at all levels of the Party, especially within the NEC and NPF. Above all we need the leadership to change course because right now because the one it has set is heading straight for the rocks of electoral ruin.

Meanwhile, rather than save any money, its reforms are proving to be a costly shambles. It’s reforms of the NHS, for example, costing money as well as hitting patient care. So, what difference is this making to the opinion polls? Well, it has seen the Conservative roar into a 5-point lead. Staggeringly Cameron & Osborne’s reputation for economic competently has increased by 2%. All of which is a testimony to our continued failure to provide anything approaching effective opposition.

We are not even really an opposition at all because we operate almost entirely within the frameworks defined by the government. So, we accept the underpinnings of a strategy that we, ourselves, say have failed. No wonder people see this as a tad contradictory and are either going elsewhere or de-camping to the government, which at least offers them the real deal. People are confused and disoriented by recent events and rather than offer them a clear lead, we offer them a muddled wall of static.

Britain is sadly thus doubly cursed with a shambolic government and an opposition whose performance isn’t much better. If you are going to vote for an opposition Party then generally you need to have a reason to do so. Ken Livingstone is bucking the trend of Labour’s dismal national performance in London precisely because he has found that issue. His Fare Deal proposal is the key reason he is gaining support and has turned a massive poll deficit around.  It is a simple proposal which resonates with every Londoner and that is why it has turned his fortunes around.

I don’t agree with everything Gus Baker rights on LabourList but this observation is very prescient:

By talking in nebulous terms we are tying ourselves in knots. Our inability to come up with a clear line on the benefit cap is a classic example. We are too frightened to forcefully oppose a dreadfully thought through policy; and too timid to suggest an alternative, like properly regulating buy-to-let landlords to bring the cost of private sector housing down.

Or indeed we could talk about the construction of more cheap and affordable socially owned housing. Or the Living Wage. Something that is inspiring and gives people a reason to support us. It is almost at the point where anything will do because although this government is a huge failure it is currently being eclipsed by our own omni-shambolic failure as an opposition.

All well and good you might argue. Nuanced and sensible. This illusion lasts till you realise that the benefits cap itself is a utterly worthless piece of legislation unless Housing Benefit is included in the cap.

Who on this earth is going to make £26,000 a year on Job Seekers Allowance, for example? You get roughly £65 a week on JSA – so you’d have to defy the laws of basic mathematics to even worry 10 k let-alone 26. Listen carefully, for I will say this only once – the whole point of the benefits cap is to cap Housing Benefit. So, saying you support the cap but not the HB element is a position that is to be utterly blind to the logical implications of what your actually saying.

Housing Benefit is well known to take up the biggest slice of the welfare cake. Its a cost the government could reduce massively by capping private rents and building some more homes. This is what I like to call a win-win. Families get homes, the government rakes in more tax from the jobs etc created – the only people who lose are parasitic landlords. A policy that drives down rents and creates a greater supply of cheaper and affordable housing would also benefit the working poor.

If Labour is serious about opposing these reckless changes it will have to vote against the benefit cap in its entirety. In its execution it will be as shambolic as the equally barking cap on immigration and its our poorest that will suffer the most.