REPORT FROM THE YOUNG LABOUR CONFERENCE
Scarborough 9-10 July 1999 Woolas: 'No Mowlam: Murphy: Blair: control Optimism 'Don't Disapointing freakery' knock us' As an unnoficial delegate from Leeds North East (ie. without the backing of the Constituency Labour Party), I managed to slip my way through the tight security net for admision to the 1999 Young Labour Conference by filling in an application form. Only six weeks after joining the Party, my 'credentials and documentation' arrived from Millbank, proclaiming me as Delegate number 236, along with invitations to various fringe meetings and a large fold-out poster with the word PARTY writ large along the top, apparently celebrating the social, rather than the political face of Young Labour. Alternatively, it was actually a standard poster which could be used by any political grouping and they had forgotten to write the word LABOUR in. The only concession to ideology was the placing, in small type, above the picture of what where either clubbers in Ibiza or young people staring into a bright new dawn placing their eyesight at serious risk, of the revised Clause 4 mantra that By the strength of our common endevour we achieve more than we achieve alone. Almost a vindication of the public sector, but not quite. Thus, on the 9th of July I took the (delayed, privitised)train (without catering facilities due to the failure of a private company) to Scarborough. The cat was let rather out of the bag concerning the 'Special Guest Speaker', since the Spa Complex was crawling with numbers of police and secret service men which are warranted only by the imminent arrival of either the Prime Minister or the Northern Ireland Secretary. Following a thorough bag search and being berated for not paying my £1 membership fee by Direct Debit, I was admited to the rather dreary Ocean Room, with specially constructed podium declaring that the next hundred years start here and that our ideas where the party's future. Quarter of an hour late, National Youth Chair Geoge Tatch welcomed us and introduced Phil Woolas MP (Rochdale East & Saddleworth), the party's campaign co-ordinater and staunch New Labourite. Having run through the standard list of Labour's achievements and berated the party for the poor Euro-Election Results, he launched into a denial of Millbank control-freakery and an attack on press criticism of the government, including the following semi-amusing story: 'Tony Blair is sitting on the terrace of the House of Commons when he sees John Prescott on the other side of the river. He says to his aide that he needs to talk to John about their little disagreements over the public sector, climbs over the parapet and walks across the river, because he can do that. He has his meeting with Prescott and then walks back. The next day The Guardian carries a banner headline which says: PM FAILS TO SWIM RIVER. After a parting plea to back the government from Phil Woolas, we move quickly on to the section enigmatically called 'The Future'. The first section of this consists of a Nostradamus impression by a former Director of Research for the Fabian Society, in which he predicted that we'd all be working longer, 'cacooning' inside our homes, going to more football matches and owning more cats than dogs in the next few years. This was followed by a commercial for the wonders of Digital TV by a man from the Beeb, who assured us that we would have to work with it or die in the future. Playing for cheap claps, his power point presentation included a clip of Mr.Dimbleby announcing the May 1st 1997 exit poll results which, not surprisingly, got the desired effect. The Special Guest Speaker was at this point revealed to be 'Mo' Mowlam, who as well as being Northern Ireland Secretary (for the moment)is also chair of the NEC Youth Committee. After a break, her arrival was announced by a stampede of TV cameras and press photographers, who began snapping as soon as she stepped on stage. Bang on cue, the entire hall rose to it's feet (I admit, it included me) as she entered, flanked by secret service. Her speech was certainly the most inspiring which I heard during the conference. She seemed genuinely to believe in what had been achieved by the government and somehow, despite the onset of the marching season, managed to appear optimistic about Northern Ireland's prospects for peace. She was able to interlace her oratory with humour; she claims that she has multi-skilled the special constable asigned to her - he can now go clothes shopping and order fish and chips. He smiled modestly at the back. 'Mo', deservedly, recieved a second standing ovation as she left to head for a surgery in her Redcar constituency. At lunchtime we were exorted to seek the fringe meeting which had the best food and I opted for the rather under-subscribed Make votes count for Labour meeting, organised by an internal organisation campaigning for the implementation of PR in Westminster elections. The promised Stephen Twigg MP (of Portillo fame) didn't turn up, so we had instead Lawrie Quinn, the first Labour MP for Scarborough & Whitby for many years, who dashed in in between dealing with a water main burst which had reduced much of the town to gridlock. He put the case for PR well, arguing that although FPTP was good for Labour in 1997, this was about the first time that this had been the case. He was followed by Andrew Pakes, chair of the NUS who put the case even more passionatly than Mr.Quinn. No-one, however, seemed to be able to give me a satisfactory answer to my question concerning whether or not the closed list system had been a good idea for the Euro Elections, since it led to increased powers for Millbank and alienation both amongst Labour grass-roots and the voters. Returning to the conference hall after lunch, the Millbank Tendency Head of Policy Margaret Mythen gave us the hard sell on the new policy consultation system which meant that 'the future isn't written yet - you can help us write it', or soundbites to that effect. The conference then split up into the various policy forums, my first one being the Britain in the World meeting. Here we were split into smaller groups and given subjects to discuss, my group's being global social justice. Not surprisingly, the discussion in our group of five circled mainly around the aleviation of Third World debt, on which subject, I argued in a minority of two that debt relief and subsequent aid should not be linked to the political system of the nation concerned. There was general agreement that the aid budget is currently pitifully small and that the UN should have an increased role in the area of Third World development. The discussion was good and surprisingly radical; I was particularly pleased to find support for my questioning one group member's belief that the free market should be paramount in all dealings and that it was by neccessity a 'good thing'. After twenty-five minutes we reported back to the full group, as did the other discussion groups, many of whom had come up with some very sensible suggestions. I was worried, however, that the group which had been discussing the EU had been very anti further integration and the single currency and was even proposing complete withdrawal. Everything we said, we were assured, would be taken down and used as evidence against us...sorry, I mean to formulate policy. My second policy forum was on Environment, Transport and the Regions, where I was part of the group discussing transport, one of my pet subjects. The discussion was again good, with wide support for road pricing and the ring-fencing of the capital raised in this manner for public transport, although concern was expressed about the reaction of good old Middle England to such schemes (aaaggghhh...). There was a surprising level of support for what is really an impracticably expensive scheme to renationalise the railways, something to do with the fact that a number of the group members had been stuck on a stalled Virgin Trains service without air conditioning on their way to Yorkshire the previous day. My personal view on this was that, although in principle I support renationalisation, in the real world the vast amounts of money required for such a scheme would be much better spent on improving the railways in their current form. The group settled on the much cheaper option of tougher regulation. After a brief plenary session we split up again into regional groups, where the foundations were laid for a revival of Leeds Young Labour, which has apparently ceased to function. The conference then officially closed for the day, but I attended a fringe meeting entitled Your Council Needs You, which was being heavily promoted through a bookmark-leaflet which had John Prescott looking heavilly unsuitable to a Lord Kitchiner role. There was plentiful free food and wine provided by Unioson ('Working towards a second term') and interesting talks by Bev Hughes, the PPS to Hilary Armstrong, Minister for Local Government and Sally Powell, Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, which has begun to be reformed into the Cabinet style of working. The talks were basically aimed at convincing us that our political futures lay in local government and on how easy it would be to get in through the new system of Self-Nomination. We were also urged to campaign for a reduction in the age limit for putting yourself forward as a candidate from 21 to 18. Before long it was time to negociate the police cordons again for the last train home. Next morning, back in Scarborough, we were addressed by Claire McCarthy, the new NEC Youth Rep, who bemoned the fact that she had been elected unopposed. The mantra of this morning was that of the desire to shake off the curse of Labour governments: they have never achieved a full second term. Claire spoke well and promises to be a reasonably independently-minded rep. We then moved on to a pair of talks on The Labour Party's Centenary. Jim Murphy MP (from the safest Tory seat in Scotland!) reminded us of Labour's roots and assured us that New Labour was in no way selling them down the river...some hope! The Labour Pary Development Officer Tracey Paul who basically told us to 'go back to your constituencies and recruit more members, knock on doors and stand for election'. In the question session at the end, both she and Jim Murphy were ferociously tackled from the floor on the subject of both Tuition Fees and the lower minimum wage for 16-21 year olds. The feeling is that the hierachy has given up trying to defend these things and is basically telling us to be pleased with what we've got. The old saying that 'the choice is not between the Labour Government you'd like and the one we've got, but between the Labour Government we've got and a Tory Government' was rolled out again and again. Eventually, we were told that the PM was waiting down in the main hall, so we trooped down to join a plenary session with the Labour Women's Conference which had just started. On the grey 'granite' rostra were a number of female Labour luminaries, including Baroness Jay. Lawrie Quinn was also there, looking very out of place, welcoming the delegates to Scarborough. The Blair was announced and the media rushed in, this being billed as a 'key-note speech' in which he would seek to heal the rifts which have not, of course, developed between him and Prescott over the Public Sector's role. The entire hall (excluding me and a few others) rose to their feet in the sort of Tony worship which seems to predominate in the Party these days. However, the feeling I get of the younger party's attitude to Blair is that they suffer him gladly whilst he continues to win us elections, but when that stops... Blair, no longer the young thing who won in 1997, swept onto the platform and ran through what I felt to be a rather disapointing speech in which he described his love for the public sector and exorted us all to fight against the Tories. One moment he was denegrating them, claiming that it was now so right-wing that 'Michael Howard and Peter Lilley had to go to the back benches and suggesting that they were the Phantom Menace the next: 'They're there in the wings, waiting for us to slip up'. As he ran through the list of Labour's achievenments the hall applauded every other word, whilst the Politbureau up on the platform nodded gravely and understandingly. It was a New Labour puppet show personified and I felt slightly sick that what was once such a proud party has been brought down to the level of the flag-waving, leader-worshiping Tories. After the second standing ovation at the end of the speech, the youth delegates were quickly ushered out of the hall. As I left the building I realised I had made a terrible mistake: I was trapped between the PM's waiting Jaguar and the Scarborough Constituency Labour Party sending off delegation. There was no escape! Blair eventually walked out of the hall and made a few asinine remarks concerning the lovely weather ('Is it always like this? I claim this as another Labour achievement') and I, along with the rest of the assembled multitude was forced to shake his hand. It's never felt quite the same since... The Jag eventually sped off and the Secret Service Cherokee pretentiously skidded off after him and that was that. The conference was over. Whilst it had been a friendly little affair, I had a feeling that nothing had been achieved, other than the opportunity to inanely clap a few people and promise to recruit five more members each. I wondered when the rot of Labour will stop; the will is there for a democratic Socialist party, but there seems to be little desire for action. Jo Kibble 14-7-99