Media Reform rally (+ live stream), Thur 17th @ 6-8pm

15 May 2012: The Coordinating Committee for Media Reform, in conjunction with the Hacked Off campaign, will be hosting a public rally for Media Reform at Westminster Central Hall on the evening of 17th May.

Speakers include Hugh Grant, Tom Watson, Mary-Ellen Field, Jaqui Hames, Michelle Stanistreet (NUJ), Richard Peppiatt (ex Daily Star hack), Peter Bottomley MP plus a cross-section of celebrities, victims, campaigners and politicians to be announced shortly.

In this unprecedented public event, diverse speakers will gather together to voice their views about what a democratic and accountable media means. It will be well-timed to coincide with the peak of Leveson's most controversial module on the relationship between the press and politicians as well as the imminent Communications green paper consultation. We believe it is critical at this time to define an agenda for change so that crucial opportunities for meaningful reform are not missed, and that both politicians and the media are subject to pressure from a broad base of public support.

Registrations are no longer being taken for the event, but there may be places available after 6pm on a first come first serve basis.

But the good news is that those who can't make it in person can watch the live stream of the event by clicking here at 6pm.

What if loyalty hadn’t drained Ken of his maverick energy?

8 May 2012: Michael Calderbank examines the reasons behind Ken Livingstone's defeat in the London mayoral elections

With Labour’s strong showing at the polls depriving the Blairites of the opportunity to machinate about taking back the leadership, the defeat of Ken Livingstone was seized upon with predictable alacrity as an occasion to snipe at the left. Not that all, ‘Labour’ activists waited until the votes had been counted to start the attack, of course. Lord Alan Sugar thanked the party which gave him his title and unelected position in the legislature by announcing he would refuse to support its candidate for the mayoralty.  Prominent blogger Alex Hilton openly voted for independent candidate Siobhan Benita, whilst Dan Hodges went one better by joining his Torygraph paymasters in advocating a vote for Boris.

In this context it was no surprise to see right-wing hack (and self-styled scurge of the left) Luke Akehurst so quick off the mark in dancing on Ken Livingstone’s political grave. Livingstone’s enduring popularity with Labour supporters in London had long frustrated the likes of Akehurst, for whom Ken represented a stubbornly persistent strain of the Bennism otherwise purged or easily marginalised from New Labour: ‘This flying circus of 1980s vintage ultra-leftism was only kept in the air because its ringmaster, Ken, had a machine and a populist charisma and an administrative ability that no one else on the Hard Left had.’

Ironically, of course, Ken’s original election as Mayor was won in the teeth of a concerted attempt to subvert the selection process and bar Labour members from picking Ken as their preferred candidate. As an independent, Ken’s campaign had the force of a political insurgency, leaving the official party candidate and right wing parties in his wake. If returning to the Labour fold provided the financial and political security that comes with a permanent machine, it did not come without strings attached. In office, Ken’s populist left rhetoric did not sit comfortably with his active role as defender of the City’s role as a hub of global capitalism, or the conduct of the Met police in the Jean Charles de Menezes case. True, he out-polled Labour’s GLA vote share in his 2008 Mayoral bid, but the association with the Brown government can’t have helped.

No single factor can account for the defeat this time. Boris was a uniquely difficult opponent, having the ability both to mobilise the Tory core vote whilst also acting as an affable clown who appealed to a section of the electorate otherwise bored by humdrum politicians. Johnson was also supported by a highly effective negative campaigning machine martialled by Australian fixer Lynton Crosby, making Ken’s opaque tax affairs a key campaign issue and deflecting proper scrutiny of Boris’s own record and policy platform. In this the Tories were assisted by their influential friends in the media. The grip of the Evening Standard over London politics (particularly since its transition to a free-sheet thrust into the hand of hundreds of thousands every day) has been especially pernicious. The print media is very rarely a friend to Labour candidates, still less so when they stand on the left. But the free distribution of such an obviously partisan perspective becomes perilously close to a ‘donation in kind’ to the Conservatives. There is a strong argument that free-sheets should be bound by the same kind of political neutrality criteria that applies to the broadcast media.

But whatever the strength of his opponent, Ken’s narrow defeat was not inevitable. Even Akehurst has to admit the meticulously professional way in which Patrick Henegan and Simon Fletcher ran the campaign, and in putting lower fares and the need to tackle London’s housing crisis at the centre of the manifesto, Ken’s team locked onto genuine concerns for ordinary Londoners. But Labour failed to drive up turnout sufficiently in its inner-London heartlands. Labour’s ‘offer’ was solid but Ken’s candidacy did little to electrify the contest, in stark contrast with the way George Galloway was able to do in Bradford West.

Far from having a slicker, more ‘on-message’ and centrist politician fighting the contest (which is what many of Ken’s critics appear to prefer), in reality the downturn in Ken’s fortunes has accompanied the loss of his insurgent edge. Far from Ken being too tainted with a 1980s leftism, his electoral fortunes would surely have been boosted by a return to the oppositional tubthumping of his GLC days. If he stood in a looser relation to the party machine, he could have galvanised national opposition to cuts and austerity (including the slightly milder dose prescribed by Miliband and Balls), and defended direct action and other forms of resistance. He could have spoken out against the ongoing war in Afghanistan and of police harassment of black, Asian and white working class youth. By giving free reign to his maverick radicalism, Livingstone might have electrified popular opinion in London and beyond, and looked less like a tired shadow of his former self. Sadly, this isn’t what most of his critics have in mind.

Local Elections: The gift that wasn’t on the Tory wish list

8 May 2012: Anthony Arblaster discusses the ups and downs of the local election results, which came as an unwelcome surprise to some

The right-wing press and the centrist commentariat had their responses to the local elections well prepared. Labour would of course make gains - this is mid-term for the government after all - but not really significant gains. In Scotland they would suffer at the hands of the SNP. Boris would win handsomely in London. The Tories would hold their own in the south of England. Ed Miliband's leadership would be called in to question yet more strongly.

The central fact about the election results is that none of this happened. Against the predictions, and hopes of most commentators, many of whom have still not forgiven Ed for usurping his brother David's presumed throne, Labour did everywhere perform better than expected.

In Scotland Labour and the SNP both made gains at the expense of the Lib Dems and the Conservatives, but the SNP did not make the expected headway against Labour, whose control of Glasgow remains strong. Boris did, of course, win the London mayoral contest, but by a slender margin of 3 per cent, and this despite the embarrassment of Livingstone's tax arrangements and tactless remarks about both Jews and gays. Labour took 20 seats in Birmingham from the Coalition parties, and further south it won control of Plymouth, Exeter, Southampton and Reading, as well as some towns on the fringes of London.

In other words predictions of the impending death, or irreversible decline, of the Labour Party, which occur about every ten years or so, have once again been exposed as political wishful thinking. One obvious reason for this is the terrible damage the Lib Dems have inflicted on themselves by their ardent embrace of the Tories in the coalition government, and of the Tory programme of attacks on the NHS, the welfare state and the public sector as a whole.

In Scotland they, like the Tories, are back on the fringes of politics.  In my own city of Sheffield it is hard to believe that they were the party in power just over two years ago. They now hold 23 seats out of a total of 84 whilst Labour have 59. There are two Green Councillors and no Conservatives.

Until the Coalition was formed, the Lib Dems attracted support from those disillusioned, for a variety of reasons, with the two major parties. Since 2010 the disillusioned have had to look elsewhere.  Rising unemployment and related hardships have enhanced the xenophobic appeal of UKIP, which did almost as well as the Lib Dems in the seats it contested. More encouraging was the success of Respect in Bradford, where they successfully followed up on George Galloway's stunning by-election victory.

Respect and the Greens show that there is room for radical alternatives to the mainstream parties, but the overall results show that Labour, and especially the two Eds, Miliband and Balls, have been right to attack the Tories economic policy. People are starting to listen to their critique.

So farewell then electors – we knew you once…

8 May 2012: A record low turnout for last week’s elections was probably the most significant outcome. Just 32 per cent bothered to vote – the lowest since 2000

This figure is absolutely appalling. It is even worse than the Hansard Society survey published a week ago showing just 48 per cent of people certain to vote in an election, down 10 per cent over the previous year, and interest in politics collapsing from 58 per cent to 42 per cent over the last year.

Why is this the case? Well, many people now see little point in voting as the parties 'are all the same' and 'don’t listen to ordinary people' anyway. They have a point. While most of us would prefer a Labour council to a Tory one, many people have long memories and see little to choose between Labour and the Tories, especially at the national level.

Elected mayors will be the solution…

Well, they won’t actually. Almost all the referenda in our major cities about whether to introduce an elected mayor failed – most by a significant margin. Only Bristol bucked the trend, with Doncaster voting to retain its mayoral system – glad to know the good people of Doncaster have a sense of humour….

Of course, it’s a pity Boris got back in and Ken failed in London. And it’s great that Jenny Jones performed well and came third. But again, unlike the local government pundits and the mainstream politicians, most people obviously do not think an all-powerful local mayor is the solution to their dissatisfaction with democracy. And they are right to think that. The same will be true of the new elected Police Commissioner elections this November.

What is really needed is for central government to devolve power massively down to local government and on to local citizens. Labour promised it but didn’t deliver. The Coalition promised it but the Big Society has failed – with the Hansard Society recording a collapse in volunteering over the last year from 29 per cent to 21 per cent.

There is no alternative…

Yes there is. And where it was offered, people often took it. Respect won five councillors in Bradford, following up the recent spectacular success of George Galloway in the by-election, the Greens won 8 more seats in England (but lost a few too) and 6 more in Scotland. And TUSC won two council seats (in Preston and Walsall) but lost Dave Nellist in Coventry. But these gains were very modest for the Left alternative candidates. In most places, there is still a mountain to climb before such candidates are seen as credible and electable.

The Nationalist parties in Wales and Scotland fared worse then expected. Jim Bollan was re-elected for the Scottish Socialist party in West Dunbartonshire.

At least the Far Right candidates did badly – the BNP lost in all the 136 seats they contested, and their vote in the London mayoral elections fell by around two thirds.

Davy Jones (davy@davyjonesconsultancy.co.uk)

http://davyjonesconsultancy.co.uk/blog/2012/04/government-toffs-toffs

Kettling police powers

6 May 2012: Kevin Blowe invites you to a conference on defending our fundamental liberties during the Olympics and beyond

This weekend, with Olympics organisers testing preparations for the 2012 Games, LOCOG chair Sebastian Coe has been forced yet again to promise that London will not turn into a 'Siege City'. Plans to deploy surface-to-air missiles on residential buildings in east London are just one part of the gradually emergence of a huge security operation during the Olympics, with policing having the greatest impact on local residents and anyone planning to protest against sponsors like BP or Dow.

The media is starting to wake us to the potential consequences of the capital’s lockdown: over the last ten days, because I have been writing about Olympic security, I have had numerous requests for interviews and comment from journalists all over the world. However, describing what we can expect from the largest police deployment in London since the Second World War is all very well, but the real question is what can we do in practice to protect the fundamental liberties of both protesters and local working class communities living on the doorstep of the Games?

This is why an event on 20 May at the Bishopsgate Institute in London is one of the most important in the weeks preceding the start of the Olympics. The ‘Kettling Police Powers’ conference is organised by the Network for Police Monitoring – which brings together activist groups like Climate Camp’s legal team and Green & Black Cross with community organisations such as Newham Monitoring Project. It will provide campaigners, lawyers and others working at the sharp end of challenging unlawful, violent, racist or excessive policing with a chance to discuss the impact of London’s new ‘Total Policing’ concept and what that will mean this summer.

Speakers include Alfie Meadows (who was struck on the head with a police baton during December’s student protests), Marc Vallee (one of the founders of the ‘I’m A Photographer Not a Terrorist’ campaign) and Rob Safar (one of the Fortnum & Mason 145 defendants), as well as the experienced lawyers Simon Natas and Kat Craig. Most importantly, the conference will enable activists to debate how to best respond to the most draconian, heavy-handed policing operation we have ever experienced.

I hope as many people as possible can attend. To register, visit the Network for Police Monitoring website.