Jon Cruddas Exclusive!

One political drama will dominate 2007 - the fight for the soul of the Labour party. With Gordon Brown almost certain to succeed Tony Blair, the contest for deputy leader is the one to watch.In this exclusive interview, outsider candidate Jon Cruddas MP outlines his ambitious plans for reform of the Labour party. New New Labour, in fact.

The race to succeed John Prescott is a crowded field.

With the Prime Minister role reserved for a Mr G Brown of Downing St, cabinet ministers have been lining up to express an interest in the deputy job.The race is awash with Blairites. There is an alternative though. He has only been an MP for six years, yet Jon Cruddas is exciting activists across the Labour movement with his no-nonsense plan to renew the party. The member for Dagenham is not a Blairite.

Not by any stretch. 44-year-old Cruddas has serious working-class credentials. He was born near Portsmouth, the son of a sailor. His most notable rebellion against the government was over tuition fees, and when it transpires that he managed to get not just a degree but a masters and a PhD, all funded by the state, his refusal to make today's young people pay for their education makes perfect sense.

In the flesh, Cruddas is personable, sounds a bit like a cockney and certainly would not look out of place using the word geezer. His matey attitude is quite infectious, yet when faced with tough questions his evident intelligence and passion for the Labour movement becomes apparent. He is a Labour man to the core - neither the Old or New model. Just Labour.

In 1989, when Tony Blair was an up and coming shadow minister, Cruddas was a policy officer for the party. 1994 saw the start of the New Labour project, with the election of Blair as party leader.

It was also the year that Cruddas became chief assistant to the General Secretary of the Labour party. In 1997, he became deputy political secretary to the now Prime Minister Blair, a role within No.10 which acts as a bridge between the PM and the unions. He stayed in that job until he was selected for the safe Labour seat of Dagenham in 2001.

His wife of 14 years, Anna Healey, is a fellow activist who has worked for a string of Labour Cabinet ministers.Suffice to say that Jon Cruddas probably has a clearer understanding of how the Labour party actually works than anyone else. Which is probably why colleagues approached him and asked him to stand for deputy leader.

The role is an often overlooked one. The deputy is supposed to be the voice of the party, a man or woman that the grassroots and the unions trust as one of their own. John Prescott's huge popularity within the Labour movement comes in part from the contrast he offers to Blair. Labour has been haemorrhaging members since the glory days of 1997.

While some of that loss in interest was to be expected, the war in Iraq saw huge numbers of activists leave the party. It is the case that all political parties have lost members, and that political participation is down in all mature democracies.

For example, between 1998 and 2004, the French Parti Socialiste lost 60% of its membership. Both the LibDems and the Tories are losing members. The Labour party now has less than 200,000 members, the lowest figure since the1930s.The days of mass membership political parties are over it would seem.

Cruddas disagrees."The problem we have at the moment is that all the political parties are camped out on a specific part of the electoral landscape, middle England.

“How do you re-enfranchise everyone else and rebuild democratic participation, debate and accountability at a local level?"I don't think we are post-party. Take London, I am involved in living wage campaigns, anti-fascism, really lively forms of political mobilisation.

“Trouble is that the Labour party is not involved in it. That is not to say that politics is dead, just the way the Labour party is doing it needs to be rewound and rebuilt."

The consequence of falling membership is that the parties are relying on big individual donors to pay for their upkeep, and the ongoing loans-for-peerages investigation makes politicians seem more distant from the concerns of ordinary people than ever.

Cruddas thinks that creates a dangerous situation where the government aren't interested in the issues that worry voters."The recent Queen’s Speech was only about security in terms of terrorism, migration and criminality. There was no notion of the 'good society' or of what we stand for. We must try to modernise ourselves so that we go with the grain of people's contemporary insecurities.

“Talk to my community about security and they will talk about housing insecurity, they feel vulnerable in terms of being able to access healthcare.“Simply saying 'clamp down' does not present a positive agenda that helps communities navigate through change."

Though he is full of praise for Blair, calling him a genius at one point, he cites 2001 as the point at which the party lost its way and the government became completely disconnected from its own supporters.

"I always thought of the government as a bit like the Thatcher government, first period you put down roots then you radicalise in your second period.

"That is what I hoped for in 2001 and 2005 and in effect that didn't happen. Foundation hospitals, top-up fees and then the war in Iraq just crowded out everything.

“We lost a sense of mission, of zeal. I think a few wheels fell off there. I think it is retrievable but we didn't use our second term in the way that I anticipated and a lot of members felt that as well."

The decline in Labour membership is also to do with the way that Tony Blair, scared of the activists and ever-fearful that old-Labour will hijack the party, has effectively bypassed the membership.

Party conference, which is actually where policy should be debated and decided, has become a stage-managed platform for the government. Luckily for Cruddas, the elections of a leader and deputy are one of the few real democratic processes left in the Labour party.

The elections will probably take place in late July, after a five week contest. Any MP who wants to stand needs the backing of 12.5% of Labour MPs, at present that means 44 endorsements. The party uses an electoral college to elect its leadership, split three ways between the MPs and MEPs, the party membership and members of affiliated unions. That means over a million people will get a vote. Any candidate that gets 50% or more of the vote wins outright, otherwise further elimination ballots will be held.

The Tories are already trying to portray likely Prime Minister-elect Gordon Brown as a dour Scottish accountant, who lords it over English voters while decisions that effect his constituents are taken in Edinburgh.

"Gordon Brown has got as much interest in the health of my constituents as his own. I am really interested in Brown as a politician. “He has within him the power to transcend the rules of the game and turn the page on a specific period of politics.

“I think he can reintroduce the ethic of public service in a really interesting way. I think it could cut through a lot of the hostility towards the Westminster game. "Then there is his intellectual rigour. If he can combine them, I think he can really reintroduce himself as a figure for the next era, taking us beyond the spin, the smoke and mirrors, through his own personality.”

Cruddas is equally confident the Scot can take on the revitalised Tory party and win.

"I think he could well compartmentalise Cameron and the Tories as almost a hangover from the period he is going beyond. He has that sense of duty that was so admired in the late John Smith, more than just atomised consumption and celebrity."

Will 2007 provide the moment that the grassroots take control of the Labour party, or will the disconnect between voters and politicians continue? Cruddas thinks that if Labour can learn to listen, it could be reborn. "Politicians tend to rip out complexity and then offer simplistic solutions to what they see as simple questions.

“Certainty is the hallmark of politicians. I look at it the other way. We should acknowledge the complexity of the world. People do and they want politicians to."

Perhaps the clearest sign that Jon Cruddas' candidacy is truly about the party and not his own ambition is his assertion that he will not accept a government department to run if he is elected deputy leader. In marked contrast to John Prescott, he says he will work on renewing the party, and leave the snakes and ladders of political ambition to others.

Can the Labour party honestly be reborn as a membership-led progressive party? 2007 is the year we will find out.

This article first appeared in the January issue of The Pink News which is out now.

new job!

Hey!
So in case I haven't seen you recently - all my hard work has paid off and as of January I will be news editor of www.pinknews.co.uk

This will mean lots more responsibility (ie: if we get sued I will be in the dock!) and also means I will have less time to write fabulous think pieces - I should find time to blog though!

Tony

Blair has his collar felt

As predicted, Tony Blair has finally been questioned by police. It has been argued that the announcement, coming on the same day as Lord Stevens report into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and in the middle of a serial murderer story, was a nice bit of burying bad news.

The fact is that if the Met phoned Downing St last week and demanded an hour and a half of the Prime Ministers time, his civil servants would in essence choose when that interview took place.
The Times reports that the PMs spokesman went down to the Commons to reveal to reporters that his boss had been interviewed as soon as the police had left Downing St.

The House of Commons, of course, will not get a chance to question Mr Blair themselves until mid-January. Nice timing. The PM flew off to a Euro summit last night, locked away from reporters with bad attitudes. Then he will be in the Middle East.

There is definitely something a bit fishy about the date of the interview, but then again every day is a bad news day for this government, so it does not make much odds.

If the PM had been cautioned or worse still arrested, Diana rising from the grave only to be murdered by a serial killer would not have kept the story off the front pages.

It looks more and more likely that despite police claims that they have significant evidence, neither the PM or any other political figure will end up in court.

There is the possibility that some minor players will be recommended for prosecution. Lord Levy might perhaps be done for selling peerages, but the PM will not face charges or be forced to resign.

That does not mean there is no fallout from the whole affair. It underlines the fact that Blair is surrounded by spin and lies, and just because he can distance himself from the allegations of selling peerages, in the public mind he did it and everyone knows he did.

The big question is whether Blair will return in January, brass neck intact, and carry on as if nothing has happened. It would be in character, and it may be in Gordon Brown's interest to let Tony linger too long, so that his eventual accession appears more of a 'new dawn' than it really is.

More intriguing still, when Tony Blair is safely at home writing his memoirs, might Prime Minister Brown take a chance on an early election, possibly May 2008, in an attempt to consolidate his majority and secure his own mandate?

Labour party chairman Hazel Blears has told party activists to prepare for an early election, and the other major parties have told journalists they are ready to fight any snap election.

It could be one of the biggest political gambles of the century, but is Gordon a betting man?

PMQ - Cameron is boring, Ming is unhinged

For all the noise and fury about the ‘banning’ of Christmas, the last PMQ of 2007 passed without any Yuletide references.

It was a rather tame affair, with David Cameron tackling the Prime Minister over a new bonus scheme for Navy and Marines personnel. At these PMQ, Cameron seems to veer from excellent to autistic on a weekly basis.

The comparison with his first go at Mr Blair a year ago could not have been more striking. Cameron managed to ask a question of such stunning boredom that not even his febrile backbenchers seemed in the least bit interested.

Allowances are complex, the Prime Minister told MPs, and then launched into such a convoluted explanation of the current system. He spoke for well over a minute, and there was nothing MPs could do – he had to explain to the House how the allowance scheme works.

His use of the phrase “accumulated turbulence” caused a few laughs. The thrust of his response was that everyone would be getting more money one way or another.

Drowning in a sea of information, Mr Cameron commented that a revival of Yes, Minister with Mr Blair as Sir Humphrey would work. He then mumbled some nonsense about sending an appalling message to the troops and moved onto the Health Service. Poor central management is the problem. Oh no it isn’t said the PM. Oh yes it is! Punch and Judy live on.

Cameron finished his supplementaries with a half-hearted attempt to rally his troops, calling Mr Blair a lame duck and saying he, “should give us all an early Christmas present and tell us when he is off!” OK so I lied, there was one Xmas comment, but really it could have been anytime of year in the chamber, such was the torpor.

The lack of end-of-term levity was not helped by an odd intervention from Ming Campbell. The serial killer on the loose in Ipswich had been the subject of the second question, with local MP Chris Mole speaking at his “horror at events.” With five local prostitutes disappeared, the PM voiced his support for the police and sympathised with the, “understandable fear in the community.”

David Cameron said, “we all want this monster to be caught and” well he said locked up as opposed to strung up. He is such a new Tory. The events in Ipswich seemed to have been covered, when the LibDem leader asked two of the most ill-judged points of his handful of PMQ appearances.

“What is going on in Suffolk shows the link between poverty, prostitution and drug abuse,” he told the PM, who looked stunned that Ming would choose this moment to make a whole range of assumptions about the disappeared women. Mr Blair cautiously navigated this minefield, “there may well be lessons, but they will be learnt in a considered way.”

It is wise to leave policy responses to a later date, the PM warned. Ming pressed on, asking for a change of the law to “ensure the safety of women.” If the LibDem leader really does want to be an advocate for the decriminalisation of prostitution, he picked the worst moment to raise it.

The rest of the session was the usual nonsense: canals, wind power, fat children, closed swimming pools, the usual municipal nonsense.

Denis MacShane got told to shut up by the Speaker for asking a question that was about the Tories and not the Government. MPs almost laughed, but as ever it was the old dogs, unable to learn new tricks, who save the day with an old one.

Sir Peter Tapsell had MPs on all sides cheering as this Tory veteran, who first entered the House in 1959, rose majestically from the middle benches opposite the Prime Minister. In an impossibly grand aristocratic lisping voice, Sir Peter gave the young Blair a bloody good blast of old-school Tory contempt:

“As the Prime Minister is so fond of apologising to foreigners, will he now apologise to the British people for his own folly in leading us into Iraq?”

Oh but dear reader, it was the way he bellowed out the word ‘foreigner’ in a way that implied outrage and slight disgust that there are people out there who just aren’t British, damn it.

As that old charmer Tony Blair commented, rarely is the word foreigner expressed with such strong emotion.

So the only memorable outburst in the last PMQ of 2006 was from Sir Peter Tapsell. Cameron no doubt will have him booted up to the House of Lords come the next election, but I bet 10 of the A-List would not be able to replace him.

List of MPs who are standing down

Here is a list of MPs who have announced they will retire at the next general election:

Labour
John Battle - Leeds West, announced 20 October 2006
John Cummings - Easington, announced 9 October 2006
John Grogan - Selby, announced 10 October 2006
Brian Iddon - Bolton South East, announced 5 October 2006
David Lepper - Brighton Pavilion, announced 19 September 2006
Des Turner - Brighton Kemptown, announced 23 October 2006

Conservative
Tim Boswell - Daventry, announced 31 March 2006.
Angela Browning - Tiverton and Honiton, announced 17 November 2006.
Michael Howard - Folkestone and Hythe, announced 17 March 2006.
Michael Mates - East Hampshire, announced 24 November 2006.
Michael Spicer - West Worcestershire, announced 24 March 2006.

Liberal Democrats
Mark Oaten - Winchester, announced 25 July 2006
Paul Keetch - Hereford, announced 16 November 2006

Other parties
George Galloway (RESPECT) - Bethnal Green and Bow, announced prior to election.
Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party) Banff and Buchan, announced 15 January 2006.
Clare Short (Independent) - elected as Labour MP, resigned the whip 20 October 2006 - Birmingham Ladywood, announced 14 September 2006

MPs think they are worth 100k per year!

Yes

You read that right! MPs are apparently feeling hard done by. While it seems their "contemporaries" in business and other public sectors are on the magic 100k, out poor members of Parliament have to make do with a mere 60k.

Some quick reality checks here for those honourable members behind this eye-catching initiative.

They take on nothing like the responsibility of a GP. Stop comparing yourselves to GPs. You have no formal qualifications for a start. You are in the main a bunch of below-average people. Not all of you. But at least half of you would struggle to do half as much as a senior civil servant.

I find it grossly insulting to other professions that MPs would see themselves as on a par with them.I know doctors and senior civil servants. In both cases they do more work, and have WAY more responsibility than almost all MPs. MPs are actually responsible for fuck all. They mostly take care of constituency matters and spend the rest of the time fighting amongst themselves, preening nad parading around like the attention seekers they are.Now they want more money.

Despite being on three times the national average wage. Despite having all their travel and office expenses paid ON TOP OF their salary. OK lads. Fine. We will pay you 100k a year - when you cull half of your number. There are a hell of a lot of you who are a waste of space. So here is how this will work. If you honestly think you are worth big money, interview for your job.

Lets inject a bit of reality into the process. And dont talk about elections thats not a job interview. People arent voting for you in 90% of cases, they are voting for party. It is such an insight into the warped mindset of MPs that they think they are worth as much to the country as a GP. I met most of them. They aren't.

We could happily function with less than 300 MPs - instead we have 646. And if Blair gets his way, the House of Lords will be full of yet more second rate political hacks, no doubt bitching about how badly paid being a peer is.

lack of posts

apologies for the lack of posts - broadband is down! BT are attempting to fix the problem and we should be back in business next week.

ta ta!