How?

I've been to dozens of regional/other policy forums and - while enjoying meeting other members, etc. - have found them completely inadequate as a policy-formulating process.  There are all sorts of interesting discussions in the focus groups which are then wiped away in the 'facilitating' process (far more destructive than compositing ever was) and reports are constructed that takes no account of the strength of feeling of participants or the weight of feeling on any issue - it has no democratic substance whatsoever.  Eventual submissions are restricted to answers to the ludicrously-phrased questions in the policy documents.  It's an incredibly expensive PR farce.

[ Parent ]

What a strange notion of democracy and deliberative policy making you have JM. Your post suggests that the leadership has some kind of veto on what can and cannot be discussed. Renationalising the railways is a good example actualy. sure the leadership is opposed, with Brown as chancellor using party staff to urge delegates not to vote for the proposal at last years conference on the knowingly false basis that it would put 4p on income tax. (The motion avoided this cost of compensation for private rail operators by calling for franchises to be taken into public ownership as they expired.)

This is a motion that made it through the NPF process (albeit as a minority report) and is one of the reasons I and many others think that the NPF has some virtues - on paper-  going for it. But to decalre that if the leadership is opposed then we should not expect anything other than a two fingered slaute is depressingly samll minded - not least becasue poll after poll after poll shows that the voting public - the very same people you have often cited as being as important as Labour Party members in making policy decisions - have shown that they would be in favour of a publicly owned railway system.

As for the NPF being a better way for members o be involved in policy making, pfooey. Pfooey again I say. I know who my delegates to the conference are. I elect them, can quiz them and hold them accountable, because they are chosen from the ranks of CLP members. NPF members are elected by region, not a party unit with which most members are closely involved. I'm lucky in my CLP to have to NPF members who are assiduous in reporting back  - but it is just a coincidence that they are in my CLP. It is significant thatafter ten years of PiP the acocuntability of the NPF to members is beginning, just beginning to be taken seriously. But with over 650 CLPs and affiliated unions but less than 200 NPF members, who do members go to to find out about NPF processes - and this is quite apart form making sure tohse processes are not abused as Duncan and Curlew  point out, below. 

[ Parent ]