Lewisham's Perspective On School Academisation: An Update

Back in April, Nicky Dixon was kind enough to allow me to use a letter I sent to her as a blog post entitled, ‘School Academisation: A Lewisham Perspective’. This can still be viewed here:

http://themaslinmemo.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/school-academisation-lewisham.html

Following the publication of the Lewisham Education Commission Report, there has been concern expressed about when it says about Academies, and Multi Academy Trusts, or MATs. Rather than try and rebut any view that I think people may have formed, I thought it might be useful if, as the Lead Member for Children & Young People, I laid out my understanding of what the report says and what it means for us.

Firstly, I see nothing in the report that recommends that the Council seeks the mass conversion of schools into academies of one sort or another, at the earliest possible opportunity. The full report can be seen here:

http://councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk/documents/s44260/Lewisham%20Education%20Commission%20Report.pdf

For ease of reference, here are the 3 recommendations from the report, page 15, that relate to academies and MATs, so you can judge for yourself:

Establishing a new approach to school organisation

1.  School federations in Lewisham should be supported if their governors decide that they wish to convert to academy status, with these ‘home-grown’ MATs being seen as potential academy sponsors for schools experiencing difficulties and as promoters of free schools where these are required across the borough in the next few years.

2.   The local authority, headteachers and governors should work together to ensure that every school in Lewisham is part of a formal and effective school collaborative group – whether as part of a MAT or through developing and deepening the work of a local cluster, collaborative or federation.

3.  The development of MATs and local clusters of schools should be seen alongside – and not as a substitute for – a borough-wide school-improvement partnership.  The borough-wide partnership that we propose should be tasked with identifying those heads that have the potential and interest in moving into executive leadership and providing them with the development and support to take on this role as more schools move to working through federations, MATs or other school groups.

In my view, the Commission doesn't endorse one form of school governance over another. It merely reports to the Mayor the thinking of some schools and suggests a response that is both pragmatic and potentially to our advantage. I say to our advantage because we are going to need new schools in the future and these will need to be free schools as only academies can apply to open free schools.

I don't think that the report represents any kind of 'hand break turn' change in policy. On the contrary, it builds on the work we have been doing over the last year or so as laid out in our School Improvement Plan. What I think is genuinely exciting about the report is the recommendations it makes to drive forward more collaborative working between Lewisham's schools by setting up new bodies like the Partnership Steering Group and the Lewisham Secondary Challenge. The encouraging news is that Heads, both primary and secondary, are right behind the Report, support the recommendations and are committed to getting involved to make a success of the new organisations and to raise standards.

The government is committed to take the School Improvement function, and the funds to support it, away from Local Authorities. Nationally, we will have to transition to a school-led system of improvement. We will continue to work with schools as we make this change in Lewisham. The Education Commission Report is both challenging and insightful and will assist us as we seek to develop our collaborative approach to improving schools and the life chances of our children and young people.

After The Leave Vote, Is It Time For London To Leave The UK?

Like so many people I am terribly disappointed about the EU referendum. It was a shock. It seemed that most people, Nigel Farage included, thought that the UK was going to vote to Remain. When you receive a shock, you can lose your perspective and your sense of reason, albeit briefly. Certainly this seemed to be the case with some of the prominent Tory Brexiteers who seemed genuinely surprised and upset by David Cameron’s decision to resign when it was plain as a pike staff to everyone else that he would have to go. Events may prove that Cameron too may be suffering from the same condition. I find the notion that the country will wait patiently until October to enable the Tory party to choose our next Prime Minister at its convenience optimistic to say the least. I expect Nigel Farage to call for a General Election to be held immediately every time he gets on air. Which will be a lot over the next few weeks. The chances of a General Election taking place this autumn must be high, whatever the Parliament Act may say about fixed terms.

So I hope I am not struggling under the same malady when I say that I wonder whether the decision to Leave the EU will prove to be implementable given that the winning margin was hardly emphatic and opinion across the nation was so divided along geographic and age lines. That the young will accept the right of the retired to adversely affect their life chances, to put it politely, may prove to be a heroic assumption. To believe that Scotland, Northern Ireland and London will accept a result that their citizens rejected by a margin of around 50%, seems naïve in the extreme. Indeed, Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP is already making noises about holding a second referendum on Scottish independence.

The Brexiteers will no doubt argue that the outcome of the EU referendum should be respected because that’s the democratic thing to do. The country has spoken and the matter settled. Whilst this is fair enough in the case of a General Election it is a bit harder to justify in the case of a referendum that delivers a marginal result. After a General Election you know that the result is only for 5 years and opposition politicians will be elected to continue to argue against the policies of the victors and continue to advocate for policies that the voters rejected. A referendum is the chance to answer a binary question to all intents and purposes forever. One can debate this with Constitutional wonks until the cows come home. This is all rather academic. The most practical answer to those who tell you that they are the majority and, therefore, that you have to knuckle under, is to leave and form your own majority. It is the lesson of Yugoslavia, two of whose former republics are now members of the EU and going it alone quite nicely.

So as the Scots think about leaving the UK in order to remain a part of the EU, isn’t it time that London did the same? An independent London would, after all, be bigger than Scotland (population 5.3m). Indeed Londonia with a population of around 8.5m would be larger than 13 current EU member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia). It would be as large as Austria, and not that much smaller than 6 other member states (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal and Sweden)

What I think will make the idea of secession from the UK appealing to many Londoners is the fact that London is paying for much of the rest of the country. How many residents of our great, world city who have woken up today horrified at the prospect of leaving the EU will view the idea of going it alone a step too far when they are told that one pound in every five they earn is going to fund the rest of the country? The EU referendum result seemed to swing over to Leave because people in poorer regions were worried, quite wrongly, that migrants were essentially taking more out of public services than than they were putting in. It’s ironic that these voters were disproportionately older people and therefore more likely to be taking more out of the system, in age-related benefits and health and social care, than they were putting in. And to add insult to injury, this deficit is being funded by a group of people who overwhelmingly wanted to Remain and live in another place. Moreover, those exporting funds to run the things that make us a nation in practical terms, like universal services such as education, the NHS and social care, may well be disproportionately hurt by the vote to Leave as London’s financial services industry loses out to EU competition.

This whole sorry saga has an added piquancy because of the involvement of one Boris Johnson. The man supposedly was Mayor of London for 8 years where he was tasked with standing up for Londoners and getting the best deal for them. No sooner was he out of that job then for reasons of his own ambition he jumped on the Leave bandwagon, knowing full well that Brexit would be bad for London. This morning he could not speak to reporters outside his London home. Instead he had to run away to escape the hostile jeers and catcalls from furious Londoners. Now it seems he will be plotting his final surge to secure the Premiership. Does anyone seriously think that Johnson is a figure that could unite the country? I am sure they do in parts of Ukipland. In London? No chance. For London, Boris as PM would be the last piss take.

The Leave vote was a slap in the face to all Londoners. Do the Brexiteers think we will take it lying down? Dream on.

Boris Johnson, Winston Churchill And The EU Debate

I have just finished reading Boris Johnson’s book about Churchill. I had to get through it as my brother bought it for me for Christmas and has asked me about it on a regular basis. My first impression was that, given the time it must have taken to research and write, Sadiq Khan’s jibe that, according to City Hall staff, Mayor Johnson checked out 2 years ago was an underestimate. But it didn’t take long to come to the view that the book told you as much, if not more, about Johnson than it did about the great wartime PM. His assessment of Churchill seems to be that he was an egotistical, shameless political opportunist who could be forgiven because he was a great patriot, was kind to the lower orders who had the pleasure to serve him and had a paternalistic attitude to the working classes in general, God bless them. It seemed to me that Johnson was keen to form a view of Churchill that enabled him to justify his own monstrous ego-driven, principle-free ambition. Was the whole enterprise a subconscious quest for absolution, I wonder. I have to concede that it was an entertaining read, which has been Johnson’s saving grace. The public seem to gloss over an awful lot if you are not boring. You get a long way in some professions, and politics would appear to be one of them, if you come across as a bit of a music hall turn. It’s in jobs that demand a degree of proven competence where the consequences of getting things wrong can be disastrous, like medicine and engineering, for example, that people find it hard to rise to the top on the basis of personality and show-boating alone.

Johnson suggests that Churchill was driven by three core beliefs. First, that the British Empire was the greatest the world had ever seen. Second, that he, Churchill, was the greatest man in the Empire. The third, which logically follows, is that he was the greatest man in the history of the world. Likewise with Johnson I fear. How else can one explain the story, which surely must be true, that Johnson had two articles ready to publish, one supporting Brexit and one supporting Remain, when the gun went to signal the start of the EU referendum campaign? How can we understand how someone could make such an important decision simply based on what was most likely to ensure that they became the next leader of the Tory party and Prime Minister? I suspect Johnson’s calculation was that the Tory party are Brexiteers at heart, that win or lose the referendum (and I think Johnson personally would prefer a vote to stay) then Cameron’s position will be untenable and he will therefore resign and the party will pick a leading Leave campaigner to replace him. I think that once Gove made his decision to come out for Brexit, Johnson realised he had no choice but to go with him. He just couldn’t let such a rival get away from him. It’s interesting that, during the campaign, Theresa May, who is on the side of Remain and who many were touting as a candidate for the leadership, has sunk without trace.

One of the key issues that the debate over ‘should we stay or should be go’ is argued has been migration. Many on the Remain side have pointed to how the NHS relies on immigrants to function. The numbers are very large and include skilled nurses and doctors, not just support staff. But it is not just the NHS. Other public services employ foreign nationals. I recently visited one of our schools in Lewisham that takes children with very serious disabilities. It was a real inspiration to spend some time in this special school that Ofsted had judged to be Outstanding. When I went around the classes I noticed that every other class teacher I met was a foreign national, as was the lady running the hydro therapy pool. It is hard to imagine how London, in particular, could continue to function without migrant labour, much of it highly skilled and experienced.

This brings me on to a point that I haven’t seen talked about much in this debate. This is that without immigration the insipid, spluttering growth that Osbornomics has delivered since 2010 would have all but fizzled out altogether. Whilst UK GDP has grown to be above its pre-crisis peak, helped by the inclusion of estimates for the black and sex economies, the same can’t be said for per capita GDP (see chart below). 

So what has been driving growth is not increasing labour productivity but population growth, that is, more workers in the job market. I haven’t been able to get definitive figures on how much of this population growth is due to migration and how much is due to more native borns coming into or returning to the job market, but I think it is fair to assume that it must be a high percentage. This is because we know that the employment rate amongst migrants is higher than for native borns and that, given our ageing population, a lot of native borns will be leaving the job market every year.

The other issue on which the debate has concentrated has been how much we would save if we Brexited. Thankfully the claim that it would be £350m a week and that we could invest it all in the NHS has been comprehensively eviscerated. Those who were gleefully making it have had to accept that to do this they would have to cease all support to farmers. It seems to have been quietly dropped in favour of the claim that the net UK contribution to the EU is around £8bn-£10bn a year, so if we left we could use this to benefit ourselves rather than foreigners in far off lands of whom we know nothing and about whom we care even less. This net contribution amounts to around £128 per person. What is not getting much attention is that Norway, a country often cited as an example of what a Brexited UK could look like, has to pay £106 per person to the EU and it is not even a member. For this, they get the benefits of ‘free’ trade but have to accept the free movement of people, that is, immigration, and they do not get a say in setting the rules. I think it is safe to say that the idea that we can leave the EU, get all our money back, negotiate a trade deal with the EU that is better than the one we have currently and pay nothing for it, whilst negotiating our own trade deals with the US, China and every other emerging economy we can think of, is being over-optimistic.

It seems to me that one of the things uniting those who are strongly in favour of the UK leaving the EU, is that they hold, perhaps as Churchill did, a romanticised view of Britain that is rooted in the past. I am tempted to say that they are the kind of people who harbour a sneaking admiration for Toad of Toad Hall rather than seeing him as a figure of fun. What Johnson’s book on Churchill does make clear is that whilst being sentimental and highly emotional, this did not prevent him from being a realist. He clearly saw that Britain’s power and status in the world was diminishing. This led him to be internationalist in his outlook. For him, this meant attaching the UK as closely as possible to the USA. Britain is going to continue to become less and less important as other emerging economies catch us up and, in many cases, overtake us. Surely the correct response to this is to continue to be internationalist and progressive. For our time, this must mean that we remain a part of an organisation which is on our doorstep, is our biggest market and, like us, is committed to liberal democracy and social inclusion.  

EU Referendum: President Obama Does Us All A Favour

Am I the only one who thinks that until fairly recently we heard a lot more from the Leave campaign in the reporting of the coming EU? Has anyone heard from Alan Johnson lately? Wasn't he supposed to be leading the Remain campaign? And what have we heard from the Leave campaign? To my mind its been a non-stop comic display of jingoistic wishful thinking and childish naivety. The plan seems to be that we will leave an alliance of 28 nations, comprising over 500 million people and generating nearly a quarter of global income and go and do better for ourselves on our own. We will do this by wrapping ourselves in the Union Jack and going to other countries like the USA and China and negotiating treaties that are on terms that will be entirely the ones we demand. And why will these countries give us exactly what we want? Well, because we are the fifth biggest economy in the world, have the fourth biggest military, countries will lose out if we close our markets to them and, and, and, 'Well, by Timothy we are British for goodness sake!'

Such run-away self-confidence was dealt a bit of a blow last week when President Obama put us in our place. He had to point out the bleeding obvious. We are not as important as we think we are. If we leave the EU we will not be at the front of the queue to sign a trade deal with the US. It may take 5 to 10 years for the US to get around to seeing us. Oh dear. But look on the bright side. Maybe President Trump or President Clinton II will call us in from the waiting room a bit sooner. Or maybe not. Obama's reward for calling us up from planet earth was to predictably reap a storm of protest and abuse from the Leavers. Boris Johnson suggested that the President was simply prejudiced against us because his Kenyan father had been opposed to British colonial rule. Although Johnson has been criticised by his own side for his intemperate remarks, I thought that he was putting the weakness of the Leave case very well. I am not suggesting that Obama is anti-British, but when you are negotiating you should assume that your opposite number is not on your side, favours their interest above yours and, yes, may dislike you.

It is thought by some that in 1945 at the end of WWII when the Liberation of France had only been possible because of the support and sacrifice of the Allies, General Charles de Gaulle said to Churchill, 'We will stun the world with our ingratitude'. Whether he said it or not, few would say he ever displayed any. What's more, he went on to veto the UK's application to join the EU, or the EEC as it was then called, not once, but twice (in 1963 and again in 1965). Clearly, he wasn't impressed by any of the UK's arguments for joining. He may not even have cared that UK membership would have improved French prosperity. He may have just been content with the situation where the EEC was a club run by West Germany and France for their benefit and seen British membership as a threat to this position. Better to be one of 2 equal partners in a club that was doing alright than 1 of three bosses in a club that was more prosperous overall, but where you ran the risk of the other two ganging up against you. I am not sure whether this attitude could rightly be described as prejudice but it certainly provides a cautionary tale against those who feel that they can get others to see their point of view and consequently act in their interest, even if they believe they have interests in common. I think you'll find its a bit more complicated than that. 

Roger Scruton wrote a book entitled, 'The Uses of Pessimism and the Danger of False Hope'. In it, he cautions us to be on our guard against those who encourage us to reject an imperfect and irritating reality and embrace instead a far better theoretical alternative. We should resist those who tell us that, if only we could summon up the courage to breakaway from the constraints of our own making, then we would be free to run to the sunny uplands of a brighter, better future. The Leave campaigners obviously haven't read this book. I think I even heard one of them talk on the radio about the 'sunny uplands'. The Leavers are so intoxicated with this idea of being 'Free At Last! Free At Last!', that any attempt to point out the downside of leaving is met with the the charge of 'scaremongering!'

My biggest fear if we leave the EU is that the EU will still exist. What's more, it will not remain set in aspic. What will it be like in 5, 10, 20 years time? When it comes to the future we only 'see through a glass darkly'. It is possible that in my lifetime (I am 50) the EU could open its doors to membership for Ukraine (population 45 million), Turkey (population 79 million), Belarus (population 10 million) and perhaps even Russia (population 144 million). What would such a huge expansion and geo-political shift mean for the EU's world view and priorities? How would such a vastly changed alliance view the UK and its interests? What's more the issues that I think have generated such dissatisfaction with the way things are of which the desire to leave the EU amongst some is a symptom, will not go away if we Brexit. Falling living standards for the majority of working people, increased debt, mass economic migration driven by war and poverty, globalisation, terrorism and religious fundamentalism, all will be unchanged the day after we leave. Brexit will not isolate us from mainland Europe and insulate us against our problems. On the contrary, I think it will expose our weaknesses. For example, the reason we export so little to non-EU countries (and EU countries for that matter) is not because of Brussels bureaucrats. It is because we have such a small manufacturing industry. This is due to decisions that successive UK governments have made which have led us to build our economy on financial services, shopping, property and private debt rather than making products that people want to buy. British people may fear that illegal immigration is getting out of hand, but you only need to have driven through the port of Calais regularly over the last few years to see the enormous resources that the French have invested to try and stop them getting through. They may have done an imperfect job in fulfilling their treaty obligations to a fellow EU member, but it is hard to believe that they would do a better job of protecting the borders of a non-EU member just because we told them to and said that we would be very cross if they did not.

So, thank you President Obama for giving us a much needed dose of reality. Let us stick with our EU partners present and future. Let us remain within an imperfect organisation that has lost its way for the moment on economic policy and is struggling to work together to deal with the fall-out from foreign conflicts. We should work together to make things better for all European citizens and not turn our back on our duty to do so in favour of a short-sighted petulant leap in the dark that risks our children's future.

School Academisation: A Lewisham Perspective

Here is the text, slightly edited, of a letter I sent to Nicky Dixon, a Lewisham resident, mother of two children at Lewisham schools and a member of the NEC of the Campaign for State Education (CASE).  Nicky has kindly agreed to let me post it on my blog as she agrees with me that others may find it of interest.

Dear Nicky

Thanks for your email. I think there is considerable justifiable concern about the Government's intention to turn all schools into academies by 2020. I am sure you won't be surprised when I say that you are not the first person to ask me to outline the Council's position on this issue. You are right to say that the Mayor has set up an Education Commission. It's job is to provide him with independent, professional advice on the best way forward for education in Lewisham. It's remit is not exclusively about Academisation but I am sure that they will address the issue. I am also sure that the Mayor will want to wait to receive their advice before making any new policy statements. However, this is not to say he has no view. Here is what he said in his speech at the recent Council AGM:

'Two years ago we set out to improve outcomes from our Secondary schools and to deliver enough primary places to meet the needs of our growing population. So far we have achieved the second of these but with growing difficulty while the first is a work in progress. 

We have established a Commission of experts to look at the performance of our schools and to make recommendations to us about what we need to do secure improvement. It will report shortly. 

When we consider its advice we will need to do so against the background of impending legislation to turn every school into an Academy and remove it from the Local Authority family of schools. Many of us take the view that this is a policy which derives from ideology not from any consideration of the evidence. We hear minsters attempt to justify it by reminding us that it was a Labour Government which first introduced academies. 

And so it was – but they were expressly intended as a way of achieving improvement in schools which were experiencing significant failure. We now have a policy which is designed to lead to all of Lewisham’s primary schools becoming academies – despite the fact that we have some of the best performing primary schools in the country. 

There will be opposition to this legislation and I have no doubt there will be fierce debate and efforts made to remove the worst parts of the bill. It has been encouraging to hear even Conservative councillors making clear their opposition to this. 

But this government has been democratically elected and is entitled to act on that mandate. Those of us who disagree with a given policy should say so and explain why but equally those of us who hold elected office must also examine the potential impact such legislation will have and prepare to deal with it. 

Nor can we wait until the legislation passes before acting – we will need to talk to those who are currently involved in delivering education in Lewisham about how we can work together to sustain the positives we now have while making ready to deal with the consequences of legislation. 

The co-operation between our schools has been a great strength in this borough and I hope we can use that strength to find local solutions to a changing situation rather than sit back and let Academy chains which know little of our community pursue a piecemeal approach.'

He was also clear when the Leathersellers' expressed their desire to convert their three Lewisham schools into an academy, that he was unclear what they believed they would achieve by doing so. He also made clear his view that he believed that their priority should be school improvement, that Academisation was no guarantee of this and that he feared that the pursuit of this organisational change risked causing a distraction that would undermine efforts to improve education outcomes for pupils.

The Council's position is ultimately a matter for the Mayor but I would as the Lead Member just make a number of points, some of which expand on those expressed by Steve. Firstly, I think it is generally accepted by many, regardless of their political persuasion that, to borrow a phrase from Christine Blower, the General Secretary of the NUT, based on the evidence, Academisation is not a school improvement strategy. The recent report of the cross party Education Select Committee came to the same conclusion, although they expressed it in a more measured way. (As an aside I found it interesting that the report went out of its way to record the view of a number of witnesses that appeared before them, who were at pains to point out that Local AuthoritIes had not run any schools since the Baker reforms of the 1980s. I suspect that the motivation of these witnesses was to counter the view of many people, including the former Secretary of State for Education, that interference by Local Authorities is to blame for failing schools. No doubt the impetus for Academisation stems from this erroneous view and the mixed record of academy schools bears this out)

Secondly, 6 years of large cuts to Council budget, plus 4 more to come, means that the Council's capacity to fight the policy of a democratically elected national government has been much reduced and will decline further. Moreover, this is not a situation like the threatened closure of Lewisham Hospital's A&E, where we had a strong case to argue that the Secretary of State has acted ultra vires, as the result of the court case demonstrated. Every pound spent on lobbying is a pound taken away from front line services.

Having said this, it is clear that there isn't unanimity of view on forced Academisation on the Tory benches in Parliament. I followed the recent debate on the subject with interest. Given that the Government only has a working majority of 18, it is unclear to me that any vote on mandatory conversion of all schools by 2020 would be passed. 

However, as you point out, regardless of this, Regional School Commissioners have powers to issue academy orders. To answer your specific question, our Commissioner hasn't issued any. It is hard to predict the future with certainty but, if he were to do so, it is hard to envisage a set of circumstances where we would be able to effectively oppose this.

Moreover, the government and the Commissioners are not the only driver of Academisation. Schools are free to apply to convert should they wish to do so, as our experience with the Leathersellers' demonstrates. Going back to the point I made about the Education Select Committee, the Council doesn't run any schools and hasn't run any schools in the way that many people think we do, for decades. In addition, the drive to Academisation has been given fresh impetus by the changes to schools' funding that the government are enacting. The government decision to implement what it calls 'fairer' funding for schools is going to redistribute funding away from inner city, urban schools to schools in more rural areas. It is estimated that this will reduce the funding for Lewisham Schools by more than 10%. On top of this, schools are facing increased running costs. So, regardless of Academisation, it is likely that primary schools, especially smaller ones, would have to come together in some way, in order to share management overheads. This is obviously going to fuel interest in the move towards primary schools combining to form Multi Academy Trusts.

In this response I have tried to set out the landscape in which the Council finds itself as it seeks to make Lewisham the best place to live work and learn and, in particular, to drive school improvement, as much as it is able to do so. I hope it has been helpful.

Can The Labour Party Select Winners?

I recently heard a recording of Denis Healey saying that he thought that politicians who were only interested in politics made bad politicians. He pitied people who had no life outside politics and said that his real life had always been in the arts. There is a story that I have heard that in Norway they select their local politicians in the same way as we select people for jury service. I don't know if this is just another, 'I heard it from a man in the pub' story, but, in my experience, there is certainly something to be said for this idea. The serious but largely mundane business of government is something that is far too important to be left to people who think they want to do it. Far better, perhaps, to pick a random selection of ordinary people who would much rather be elsewhere doing something else, present them with the facts and get them to make a decision, the only proviso being that it had to satisfy the 'Welfare of the People above all' test.

The Labour Party prides itself on being far more diverse and reflective of the communities it represents than the Tory Party. A cursory glance at the 53 councillors that make up Lewisham Council's Labour Group would confirm that we have a good mix of women, people from ethnic minorities and people from the LGTB community. However, there are very few people under 35, who have children of school age, or work in the private sector, for example. Ben Judah, in his recently published book on London, makes the point that 55% of Londoners are not white British, nearly 40% were born abroad and 5% are living here illegally. I think in Lewisham, and, I suspect, everywhere else, Labour is far less representative of the community it serves than it thinks. Can we really be confident that we are governing in the best interests of the people when our life experience are so different from theirs?

This state of affairs wouldn't be quite so bad if we were doing something about it. Sadly, we seem to be making matters worse. Rather than encouraging Councillors and Labour members to be active in their communities, we are making more and more demands on their time. I have noticed this in the 20 years that I have been a Labour Party member. When I was approached to be a candidate in the local elections, the fact that I wouldn't have to do too much if I didn't want to if successful, was put to me as a selling point. Since then everything has become more corporate and professional. And a good thing too in many ways. However, I think things have gone too far.

The Labour Party is now on a constant war footing. We are continually campaigning and canvassing throughout the year. No sooner had we finished campaigning for our own local elections in 2014, then it seems that we were gearing up for the General Election in 2015. This was swiftly followed by the campaign to elect the new leader and deputy leader of the party, then the campaign to select the Labour candidate for the London Mayoral Elections and now the London Mayoral campaign itself. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that you could spend every night of the week and every weekend at some kind of Labour Party meeting, or out campaigning, or at a Labour Party Fundraiser of some description. And the sad fact is that if you don't, you have little chance of advancing up the greasy pole. The sheer effort, time and commitment required to become a Labour candidate in some election or other, with the exception of Council elections in some cases, is now so great, that if you were a normal person with a normal life outside politics when you started, you won't be by the time you have become successful. Labour politics is not something that can be pursued alongside other interests, not to mention family commitments. Perhaps it was ever thus. Clearly, Denis Healey thought and acted otherwise.

Labour recognises that it is on a quest for relevance in the eyes of ordinary people. It seeks the holy grail of our age, Authenticity, as it tries to come up with a plan to win in 2020. Jeremy Corbyn's massive victory in the leadership election and the huge increase in Party membership that accompanied it, are seen by many as evidence of Labour's reconnection with the people. Labour's subsequent steady decline in the opinion polls tells another story. My fear is that if Labour does manage to find leaders with the common touch, people who can convince voters in constituencies that we need to win in order to form a Government, to vote Labour, this will have to be by luck rather than design.

What Is The Moderate Labour Message?

John Harris' article in last Saturday's Guardian asked, 'When are Labour 'moderates' going to do more than moan?' It was a call for Blair-Brown pragmatic centrists to set out some concrete, forward-thinking policies rather than analysing the reasons for Labour's 2015 General Election defeat, pontificating on the Party's current predicament and speculating on who might be a post Corbyn era electable leader. I would add that it might help if supposed mainstream moderates would stop prioritising their Pavlovian rebuttal of any criticism of the last Labour administration's record in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nothing is more certain of getting a response, and a sharp one at that, from a 'moderate', than an expression of anything less than fulsome support for the Iraq War, especially if it's from another perceived sound moderate who is held to be someone who 'should know better'. I don't want to get into a debate on whether these military interventions were right or wrong. I simply express surprise that those who call for the party to concentrate on the centre ground and what really matters to ordinary people rather than obsessing about the ideological preoccupations of the radical few, appear to be the first to ignore this advice when it comes to the Afghan and Iraq Wars. I think it's fair to say that the majority of British people think that, at worse, the wars were a mistake and, at best they would rather forget all about what they feel was and continues to be a very sorry business. In such circumstances, you would think that the true political professionals on the centre right in the Labour Party who are serious about the acquisition of power would be seeking to close down the debate on this issue and move the discussion on.

It's now popular to say that Ed Miliband was a terrible leader of the party and never had a hope of becoming Prime Minister, but this is exactly what he tried to do. Speaking at his first Party Conference as leader in 2010 he said:

I criticise nobody faced with making the toughest of decisions and I honour our troops who fought and died there. But I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that. 

Again, whatever one thinks about the War, this can be seen as a genuine attempt to draw a line under the issue as an unwelcome distraction in order to enable the Party to move on to more politically fertile ground where it could finally breathe some fresh air. Surely this course of action would have been the wise advice of any impartial, objective campaign manager who saw it as their job to win elections. To his credit, Miliband the Younger then did try and move the debate on and tried to raise the issue of growing inequality of income and wealth. His characterisation of the 'squeezed middle' may have initially attracted ridicule but it has now become a mainstream concern with that pillar of fiscal rectitude the IMF, no less, citing it as a drag on global economic growth.

There are plenty of things that Labour moderates can raise to engage voters and Harris points to Tristam Hunt talking about inequality and Chuka Umunna talking about electoral reform. I noticed this good article by former Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary and Lewisham girl, Rachel Reeves, on the dangers of rising private debt and the need to reform the tax system to deal with the inequality that exists in tax reliefs applied to savings that favour the well off. The arguments for dealing with inequality that are most likely to gain the most traction with the electorate are the economic ones rather than those about fairness. Pointing out that inequality keeps us all poorer is harder to rebut than seeking to appeal to our notions of right and wrong. The call to reduce inequality in order to increase economic growth and address what's been described as secular stagnation gives Labour a chance to park its tanks on the Tories' lawn. 

It is a shame, given these opportunities, that the moderates seem to have devoted more energy to defending Blair's record in Iraq than defending his record on the economy and management of the public finances. Consequently, the battle against self-defeating Austerity has, bizarrely, been left to the Corbynistas. The recent floods, whilst terrible for those suffering their indiscriminate effects, have been an absolute gift for any pragmatic centrist who wanted to appeal to all sections of the Party and the country by arguing for the need for an interventionist state and increased levels of public spending to 'fix the roof' when the low interest rate environment 'is shining'. (see here, here and here for example)

Rather than complain that Corbyn is a disaster and speculate on which 'moderate' from the PLP should succeed him when the time comes, perhaps all of us pragmatic centrists should concentrate on saying something that might have a chance of engaging the interest of people who didn't vote Labour last year.

PS It was nice to get such a good response when out yesterday telling commuters about Sadiq Khan's pledge to freeze bus and train fares if he is elected the next Mayor of London.