Opinion: The NEC Elections

By Will Cross (@WillCross61)

The Labour National Executive Committee election results have today been published, and although there was little change in the body’s membership, there are still some interesting conclusions to be drawn from the results.

The political balance of the NEC remains the same, with 3 left wingers, 2 moderates and 1 independent, however, Luke Akehurst has lost his place to Peter Wheeler. I am particularly disappointed in this, as I have been impressed with Luke’s detailed knowledge of the history of Labour and its ideological traditions, and his loyalty and commitment to the party - however, he only narrowly won his seat last time, and he wasn’t helped this time by the negative and personal campaign against him by Left Futures, or his own tendency towards conflict those with differing political views within the party.

Another significant result is that Johanna Baxter was one of the 6 successful candidates. I couldn’t be happier with this result - the Reading Young Labour executive committee endorsed Johanna as their pick, and I told everyone who was interested and then some to vote for her. Having lost the election last time, Johanna was appointed to the NEC to fill a vacancy, but this year she has been elected in her own right - this is particularly impressive as she hasn’t had the backing of either the left or moderate slate, and is, to my knowledge, the first ever independent candidate to be elected to the NEC since it took on its present form in 1998.

The importance of having high profile candidates can bee seen by the fact that Ken Livingstone again topped the poll for the left, despite his numerous shortcomings. The results may be somewhat disappointing for Progress/Labour First, as they have failed to make inroads against the left, and other than Ellie, Peter and Luke, their three other candidates were right down towards the bottom of the poll, suggesting that the moderate wing needs to rethink the type of candidates it puts forward next time. Indeed, the NEC came within a hair's breadth of having 4 left wingers and 1 moderate.

The gap between 6th and 9th place was extremely small, and one result that surprised me was how close the left’s Kate Osamor came to being elected, ending up just 124 votes short on her first attempt. Given the closeness of the results, one issue which concerns me is the extremely shoddy way in which the balloting process was carried out - ballot papers arrived over a week after they were supposed to, with councillors’ papers being the most delayed, some members failed to receive ballot papers at all, the deadline was moved back and yet there was only a 3 hour period on a Monday morning for members to request that their papers be reissued. Most shockingly was the fact that an unknown number of members were sent the wrong ballot papers - my South East ballot contained the PCC candidates for Hampshire, when I in fact live in Berkshire, and despite Electoral Reform Serivces pledging to send out a replacement ballot first class, I only received it after the deadline had passed, as did other local members. With such a small gap between 6th and 9th place, I think it is inevitable that some uncertainly will be cast on the result of the ballot, and Labour needs to investigate the process and consider whether ERS is the right organisation to carry out the internal elections.


The result of the election is displayed below (Red = left slate, Purple = moderate slate, Grey = independents):

Candidate	Votes
LIVINGSTONE, Ken	31682
BLACK, Ann	30240
REEVES, Ellie	23417
SHAWCROFT, Christine	22236
BAXTER, Johanna	20146
WHEELER, Peter	17721
OSAMOR, Kate	17598
AKEHURST, Luke	17475
WILLSMAN, Peter	16786
WILLIAMS, Darren	14641
NOSEGBE, Florence	12745
SMEETH, Ruth	10860
MILLIGAN, Joanne	10034
ATKINSON, Lewis	8968
ALI, Shaukat	6855
GOODLIFFE, Darrell	6147
RICE, Lynda	4864
SIDHU, Rajwant	4726
CARR, Rob	4386



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Breaking Down The Latest YouGov Poll

by
Duncan Bruce (@duncanqbruce)

Recently Labour has been celebrating some good polling results with all the pollsters agreeing that Labour is ahead, but disagreeing as to what degree. YouGov is an entirely 'online' pollster, meaning it draws its data only from its online users rather than telephone canvassing. On the face of it that sounds like a method that would not produce an accurate result but YouGov weights its data in order of sex, age, region to gain an accurate reflection of the country's voting intention, and indeed recently YouGov was the closest pollster on the 2012 London Mayoral Election and the 2012 Local Elections.

So what is YouGov saying the country's voting intention is? Well the headline figure for Labour is very good - Labour leads by 14-points on 45% with the Tories on 31%. The Liberal Democrats have collapsed from their 27% in 2010 to 9% and UKIP is now on 9%.

Labour's biggest lead is in the 18-24 year old age group where Labour has a 35-point lead over the Tories. The Tories will take a gamble with this age group (as they have previously) and presume it won't vote, I personally think that's a mistake. Young people are feeling more and more irrelevant under the coalition with no effort being made to bring down youth unemployment and young people feeling like they are saddled with debt on leaving university.  The Tories' biggest problem (in their eyes) will be the 25-39 and the more important 40-59 age groups, groups that repeatedly vote in general elections. In both these age groups Labour has 50% of the vote with the Tories fighting with the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Green Party, Plaid and the SNP for the remaining portion of the vote.  In the Tories' safest age group, 60+, they continue to win, however they've dropped from their position of over 50% of the vote with UKIP now making massive gains in this demographic.

Obviously with all polling there is a margin or error, however with a 14-point lead regardless of that margin, Labour would form the next government.

Results if the election were conducted tomorrow:
On the current boundaries:
Labour: 390 seats (+132) - Reading West would be a Labour gain, Reading East most likely a Labour gain.
Conservative: 214 (-92)
Liberal Democrats: 21 (-36)
Others: 7 (-4)
Labour majority of 130 seats

On the revised boundaries:
Labour: 365 seats (+107) - Reading West would be a Labour gain, Reading East most likely a Labour gain.
Conservative: 200 (-105)
Liberal Democrats: 12 (-45)
Others: 7 (-4)

Labour majority of 130 seats

Neither of the Reading parliamentary seats are affected by boundary changes so in both projections they are the same.

The latest YouGov poll also indicated that 61% of people asked disapproved of the government's record to date, with only 23% approving.  Labour is also seen as leading on the NHS, education and schools, taxation, unemployment and the economy. The Conservatives are seen as leading on Europe, asylum and immigration, and law and order. Neither David Cameron or Ed Miliband came out of the YouGov poll looking fantastic but in the key question "in touch with the concerns of ordinary people" Ed Miliband scored 23% whereas David Cameron scored a disastrous 5% - that's right, out of every 100 people asked, only 5 would say that David Cameron is in touch with the concerns of ordinary people.

Link to the YouGov data

Seat projections were compiled using UK Polling Report's Seat Calculator

Graphics are courtesy of the BBC.

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Opinion: Tory “Omnishambles” Extends To Reading

by
Duncan Bruce (@duncanqbruce)

Last night myself and a few other Reading Young Labour members decided to attend the Full Council meeting at which the decision on the Civic Centre would be taken. On paper it seemed like it may be a controversial decision, after all, as Councillor's on all sides pointed out, who gets into politics to decide which £60m pound building to move to? However the arguments were presented well and I would say the key issue on which the decision was made was value for the taxpayer.

The three options presented were:

A) Remain at the Civic Centre
This option was the most costly at £93m. The Civic Centre is riddled with asbestos and due to its design no longer fits the requirements of the council. To remain in the Civic Centre would require major work as well as continued expensive upkeep. The Councillors were also informed that even if the building was refurbished it would not have full disabled access.
B) Move to the RG2 Building (Yell Building)
This option would cost £64.4m. Buying the RG2 building would cost £29.3m with annual costs of £3.6m over 25 years. RG2 would also need a great deal of refurbishment prior to council staff being able to move in. The borough would own the freehold of this option after the 25 year period.
C) Move to the Plaza West Building
This option would cost £59.6m. Purchase of the Plaza West building would cost £25.4m and would have an annual running cost of £3.17m, which includes £1.75m of repayments. The building has the advantage of having disabled access as well as the opportunity to open a nursery/creche for staff members. The borough would own the freehold of this option after the 25 year period.


The Labour Party, The Liberal Democrat Party, The Green Party and Cllr Mark Ralph who sits as an independent, supported a move to the Plaza West Building. It represented a far better option both in terms of value (Cheaper to buy, cheaper to upkeep) and in long term needs (Can take more staff than the RG2 building, Once the council own the freehold of the property the value for Plaza West would be higher, representing a better investment of taxpayer's money).

No party supported staying in the Civic Centre although The Green Party did indicate it would be their preferred choice had the cost not been so high. The Labour Group also proposed that the old Civic Centre would be knocked down to make way for the area to be regenerated, and in doing so support both the Broad Street Mall and the Hexagon. Cllr Jo Lovelock also indicated that the Council had been working to facilitate the movement of the Civic Centre Post Office into the Broad Street Mall (which is by far the most popular reason to visit the Civic) so as not to reduce footfall in the Mall.

However as with everything the Tories decided to show up unprepared and rather that talk about the issues of moving and what impact it may have, they decided to play politics with an attempt to pass this amendment:

1. Deplores Labour's public statement of a decision in favour of Plaza West in advance of tonight's Council debate and
2. Calls for the Labour Group to apologise to the people of Reading for their arrogance and the traducing of the cross-party democratic process, which had existed through the Civic Board
3. Notes the comments of a Labour Cabinet members that "when in power you can do what you like".

Unsurprisingly the amendment was viewed as childish and voted down, the Tories gaining no support from any party. It was probably at that point that myself and my Reading Young Labour colleagues realised that instead of trying to create debate or propose an alternative they simply wanted to play opposition politics. The Labour Party, The Liberal Democrat Party, The Green Party and Cllr Ralph ignored the comments of the Tories and moved onto the serious matter, with Cllr Daisy Benson proposing an amendment which was happily received by all parties (not the Tories) calling on proper scrutiny to be in place so that Councillors can be kept a breast and Cllr Ralph (Former Tory) speaking in favour saying that the Plaza West option represented the best value for the Taxpayer and that was very important in his decision making. We then proceeded to the final vote with The Labour Party, The Liberal Democrat Party, The Green Party and Cllr Mark Ralph all voting in favour of the move. The Tories abstained, refusing to vote, with Cllr Richard Willis commenting that the Tories would have supported the move but instead weren't going to because Labour had announced they supported Plaza West before the meeting.

As several people have said to me since, the move by the Tories was the wrong one to make. When it came to making a decision they were absent, and move importantly the voters in their wards who elected them were left without a voice. And, as Matthew Dent pointed out to me afterwards, wouldn't it be interesting if Labour (who are in opposition nationally) simply said they were not going to vote or take part because the Tories have announced a preference towards something before hand?

Clearly the Tory coined word "Omnishambles" has begun to spread...

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Analysis: Reading Local Elections 2012

by
Will Cross (@WillCross61)

There were a lot of really good results for Reading Labour in this month's council elections, in which we regained majority control of the council. Labour replicated the successes of the previous year by winning Redlands, Church and Katesgrove wards, the latter seeing the Liberal Democrat vote collapse to the extent that they nearly came third to the Tories.

But as well as winning those target seats, Labour also succeeded in wards which had not been the focus of central Reading Labour campaigning. In Kentwood ward, Daya Pal Singh managed to win on his third attempt, and in Caversham ward, Richard Davies managed to beat the incumbent Tory with almost 50% of the vote. I'm particularly proud of the Caversham result, as the activists for the campaign were almost entirely Reading Young Labour members, and we achieved the best swing to Labour of the night (13.1% compared with the Borough-wide average of 5.7%). In 2010 Labour came third with under a quarter of the vote, which we have now doubled.

Labour managed to increase its vote in every ward it won in 2011, with Norcot becoming Labour's safest ward with 68.8% of the vote. It's interesting to compare Norcot now to as it was in 2008 (the last time a local election has taken place without a general election/referendum also taking place), since then there has been a huge 17.5% swing to Labour from the Conservatives.

While Labour is very pleased with the results, Tory MP Rob Wilson must be bitterly disappointed; out of the 11 wards up for election in his constituency, his party won only three (Thames ward, which saw a drop in Tory vote of 9.7%, Mapledurham, which saw a swing against Isobel Ballsdon, and Peppard ward which had a huge 23.8% swing against the Conservatives due to Jamie Chowdhary standing as an independent - you can find more details of the issues in that ward by clicking here). As well as only managing to win Thames, Mapledurham and Peppard, Rob Wilson and his team were crushed by the Liberal Democrats in Woodley who managed to win in the seats they had lost to the Tories in 2011.

In Reading West the Conservatives also suffered badly with the Tories being pushed out the Borough, failing to hold or gain any seats.

Naturally it would be foolish to suggest that these results will mean Labour will necessarily gain the parliamentary seats in Reading, but the results do suggest the Tories will be in for a tough fight, and I know myself, Reading Young Labour and Reading Labour Party will be taking that fight to them.

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