I don't think the membership deline is Peter's fault, more likely reflective of the party's popularity in government since 97.

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Labour has been let down here.

Either he knew about it and didn't think it was dodgy - incompetence.

He knew about it and didn't think to check the rules - incompetence.

He knew about it and decided not to check the rules - dodgy.

Or he knew about it, checked the rules and did nothing - dodgy.

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Amused to see that Kevin Maguire had already coined the nickname 'Peter "Low" Watt' back in June, ahead of the recent troubles when he has been using it again. Back in June he wrote:

"I'm also hearing rumours about the future, if that's the appropriate term,
of Peter "Low" Watt, Labour's general secretary(for now)."

Kevin was on the money well ahead of time.  His latest offering on the topic in the New Statesman is:

"So hapless Peter "Low" Watt lived up to his nickname, a Labour general secretary viewed as more a secretary than general curiously pleading ignorance of party funding law. My snout in Strangers' Bar hears the Tyneside property developer David Abrahams is a long-time visitor to party functions, recalling how the shy moneyman was guided by the arm of the former Labour dominatrix Margaret, now Lady, McDonagh."

I wonder if this is a hint of what the inquiry will find as the starting point of this shambles.

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Gosh. What qualifications did Peter Watt have for running the legal+constitutional unit? The Times just says he is a former nurse. The Party has enough lawyers in it, where's one when we needed one for a position?

Time we no longer had bright-young-things as General Secretary and Registered Treasurer. Someone older, with less of a future career, would be less open to possible pressure from senior members of the PLP.

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Bit of a self fulfilling prophesy, don't you think? TO paraphrase: "If I leave the Labour Party, something must be wrong. I have left the Labour Party, so something is wrong?"

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So you've left the party then - which party in your opinion is going to do things better than Labour?

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I wouldn't read too much into the speech, he was sat a couple of seats alomg from me and apart from my membership subscription ive never donated a penny to the party. The front row seats were given to people on the day to make it look balanced, he probably just strolled in at the right moment like I did.

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For legal purposes, Jack Dromey is not the party Treasurer, the General Secretary is (Peter Watt as was) as can be see in the Electoral Commission Register of political parties (from the Labour Party Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act return). Jack Dromey is often called "NEC Treasurer", and Peter Watt "Registered Treasurer" by the party. Legally, Jack does not even have to sign the accounts - though he does along with Peter Watt, and from how he went ballistic when he finally heard about the loans, he is kept out of the loop. Seems the party officials view the NEC Treasurer as essentially a honoury position.

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It is certainly valid to question if Jack Dromey was carrying out his role properly. But if the knowledge that Abrahams was donating via agents was kept in a small circle, that info would not have flowed up to the Business Board and Jack in the paperwork, as that merely showed other smaller donors. The GenSec had the Electoral Commission donor reporting responsibility.

Though maybe Jack should have closely investigated all £100k+ donors, which might have picked up these agents - don't know how many donors that would be. 

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Re yozza above - I have written on one of the other threads about the 'Miserable Tendency' and I think the post above is an example of it. The rationale seems to be that we're having a hard time in the polls and the media, so we might as well give up the next election as lost.

People forget, even after a decade in office, that being in Government is hard. Governments are unpopular most of the time. People blame you for what you've done, they blame you for what you haven't done, and they blame you for what other people have done, egged on by the media. It doesn't mean that, when they've got to make the choice, they don't vote for you. Thatcher won the '87 election having been in third place in the opinion polls two years earlier.

We have a good story to tell about what we have done over the last ten years. New schools, new hospitals, new jobs. And a Tory party led by a flim-flam marketing man who would take it all away and turn the clock back.

There is no point sticking our heads in the sand, but equally there is no point sticking our heads in the oven!

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or this lest we forget the double standards of the tories. Abrahams is small fry compared to these crooks upstanding members of the conservative establishment, persons

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The payments weren't illegal, there are procedures for donations thru agents in Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (s54) - it's just that the reporting wasn't done properly. If fact it's unclear to me if the Labour Party officers are in the legal firing line here - the first legal obligation is upon the "agent" of "the principal donor" to report the "paragraph 2 of Schedule 6" details of the donation to the party. So the poor smucks Abrahams got to make the payments may be in the most legal difficulty.

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It seems Chris Lennie has now been registered as PPERA Treasurer with the Electoral Commission. Chris Lennie appears to be an assistant of the former General Secretary - there is no Deputy General Secretary office to provide an automatic stand-in. I wonder how the NEC meeting to authorise Chris Lennie's registration, as necessary under Clause VII.2B of the Constitution, was held?

Anyone know much about Chris Lennie? Very little on the web about him, other than a Guardian Diary piece about his involvement in the George Galloway expulsion appeal, which says he was "chief prosecutor".

 

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Yozza, you seem to have a real bee in your bonnet about the single mums issue. Why shouldn't single mothers be at work? Why does the thought of people on benefit finding jobs and enjoying greater financial security and self reliance fill you with such horror?

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