A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

NEC nominations stats

A bit of analysis now we have the full list of NEC nominations:

Azhar Ali (supported by Labour First) - nominated by 56 CLPs
Mohammed Azam (supported by the Grassroots Alliance) - 71
Ann Black (GRA) - 181
Deborah Gardiner (LF) - 60
Peter Kenyon (GRA) - 65
Sonika Nirwal (LF) - 69
Ellie Reeves (LF) - 136
Christine Shawcroft (GRA) - 100
Peter Wheeler (LF) - 132
Peter Willsman (GRA) - 122

By region:
London - 7 CLPs only nominated LF candidates, 9 only nominated GRA candidates, 21 nominated mixed slates
South East - 5 LF, 13 GRA, 18 mixed
South West - 2 LF, 7 GRA, 7 mixed
Eastern - 4 LF, 9 GRA, 9 mixed
East Midlands - 3 LF, 7 GRA, 14 mixed
West Midlands - 12 LF, 5 GRA, 10 mixed
North West - 8 LF, 2 GRA, 25 mixed
Yorkshire - 5 LF, 8 GRA, 7 mixed
North - 1 LF, 1 GRA, 7 mixed
Wales - 3 LF, 3 GRA, 5 mixed
Scotland - 3 LF, 0 GRA, 5 mixed

Notes:
  • 10 of the "mixed" CLPs are those nominating 4 or 5 LF plus just Ann Black from the GRA (there were only 5 LF supported candidates but 6 from the GRA)
  • Ann Black, Peter Wheeler and Ellie Reeves all got large numbers of cross-over nominations from CLPs otherwise backing the alternative "side", presumably as they are seen as non-factional centrist candidates
  • Note the highly politically competitive nature of many CLPs in London and the North West - no one "faction" dominating so they produce "mixed" tickets
  • Comparative strength of LF in West Midlands and North West
  • GRA weakness in the more northern regions and strength south and east of a line from Humber to Severn Estuary

By tenure of seat:

Labour seats: 43 nominated LF candidates only, 31 GRA only, 72 mixed

Opposition seats: 11 LF, 34 GRA, 51 mixed

i.e. Labour First supported candidates performed best in seats with Labour MPs, GRA noticably strong in areas where the Party is very electorally weak (theoretical rather than practical socialists?)

21 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"theoretical rather than practical socialists?"

No just people who are not pavlov dog like apparatchiks like you

7:40 pm, May 14, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"theoretical rather than practical socialists?"

Bit unfair - no amount of canvassing in rural sussex is going to win us a seat there. However, it is interesting that the southern CLPs seem keener on the GRA than northern - is this a reflection of what they think people in those seats want, or a measure of the lack of representativeness of Labour activists in these areas? I wish it were the former, but I'm afraid it's unlikely.

10:29 pm, May 14, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm a member in a CLP in the South West which Labour has never won. Down here the difference between LF and GRA seems to be that LF supports the leadership in not caring about anything outside the national election battleground.

I understand why under our electoral system elections are decided in 60-80 swing seats but this neglect of the rest of the country sows the seeds of our party's demise.

10:58 pm, May 14, 2008

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

If that was the case, how come it was Labour First supporters like Keith Dibble (Aldershot) and Martin Phillips (Guildford) who created the organisation "Third Place First" which spread best practice around southern seats where we started in third place, and why would a Labour First supporter like me have spent over a year campaigning as PPC in Aldershot? (and why would we be supporting an NEC candidate from the Isle of Wight?)

I don't think you can know very much about Labour First or the people who support it.

My hunch is the GRA nominations may include a lot from very small, inactive CLPs.

11:15 pm, May 14, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Luke, I agree with you in general but there's not a lot of knowledge beyond a simplistic LF = loyal to the leadership, GRA = more oppositional.

You're probably right about many moribund CLPs being more likely to nominate GRA but I think it's because they feel abandoned by the leadership and because LF are seen as leadership they get the blame. I'm from a CLP so moribund it couldn't even get a nomination together.

I've not heard of Third Place First before, I don't know much about Labour First beyond the simplistic tags. But I do know that there's many CLPs in the South West in the same boat as the one I'm part of and it's in the leadership's interest to get at least some district council level success.

11:53 pm, May 14, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It doesn't seem as if the difference between northern and southern seats is actually that big.

From my experience the decision about who to nominate in most CLPs tends to be based on one or two members saying "ooh, I've met that person; they were quite nice", or "ooh, they live around here". I'm sure there are some CLPs which select on political grounds, but I'd wager they're few.

I'd be wary of drawing any lessons one way or the other from this. I'm fairly wary of drawing lessons even from the final vote, but at least there are less variables to consider there.

12:54 am, May 15, 2008

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

dm andy

I agree that we need to be putting some organisational effort into areas like the South West - if only to ensure we can say we are a genuinely national party. It isn't politics stopping that - it's the national party being skint. Blair was actually quite committed to this in the run up to 97 - he got Tom Sawyer to run a programme called "Operation Toehold" which in a year when there weren't elections in London seconded full-timers from London CLPs to beef up CLPs where there was not a single Labour cllr. In a number of places in Dorset and Somerset this suceeded in getting Labour Groups onto councils for the first time in decades - in fact you can perhaps trace Jim Knight's victory in South Dorset back to this. We need to be similarly imaginative now.

7:47 am, May 15, 2008

 
Blogger Duncan Hall said...

I have to say I've never seen the sort of political argument Luke posits at a nomination meeting, either in my own CLP or at others I've been happening to visit when they've done it (bizarrely several this year which I confess is unusual, so it's a fairly small sample historically speaking!) It tends to be pretty vague. For example, one CLP (not mine) where I was at their AGM, they had been sent some stuff from the GRA and not from any other candidates so they chose to nominate three from there, 1 because they'd met them at conference and they were nice, another because they sounded nice and a third because they were anti-war. Nobody disagreed with the reasoning in any of the three cases.

I would suggest that the figures show primarily who organised best and where.

8:39 am, May 15, 2008

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Duncan

actually I agree that what this shows is "primarily who organised best and where."

8:47 am, May 15, 2008

 
Blogger Ravi Gopaul said...

Luke said

"By tenure of seat:

Labour seats: 43 nominated LF candidates only, 31 GRA only, 72 mixed

Opposition seats: 11 LF, 34 GRA, 51 mixed"

Does'nt that analysis show overall the GRA have a majority?

9:33 am, May 15, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How does a telentless bint like Ellie Reeves come second?

It's ridiculous. What has our once great party become.

3:18 pm, May 15, 2008

 
Blogger Chris Paul said...

GRA not only have a majority but will sooon be taking over Luke's World ... ha nhaa nhaa ha ha ...

Manchester Central are usually a pretty GRA-ey CLP but Peter Wheeler tends to sneak a nomination.

Withington you'd expect to be the other way, but only Reeve had anyone speak up for her as I recall.

This exercise is pretty meaningless and the analysis re seats where we are in opposition is truly shocking, argumentative and hostile. The sort of clever clogs I'd expect over at LDV.

Welcome back to Sectarian Luke.

5:48 pm, May 15, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

NEW POLL, LABOUR DOWN BEHIND BY 37%. BELOW THE LIB DEMS. (And this is a Pro Labour sponsored Poll) Plus another report suggests that Labour can not win the next general election as Browns popularity plummets.

Making matters worse Labour are on the verge of being kicked out of Scotland with 25 crucial Labour seats clearly now going to the SNP.

If this happens this will be the worst performance in the history of the Labour party.

The poll will not be officially released until the end of this week.

7:52 am, May 18, 2008

 
Blogger Duncan Hall said...

37 points behind? Errm... Which poll is this? And it's coming out at the end of the week (after the by-election) you say?

Seems quite imaginative, Rich!

1:31 pm, May 18, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You said the same thing when I posted my last poll prediction of third place in May.

6:00 pm, May 18, 2008

 
Blogger Duncan Hall said...

Did I? And did the poll ever materialise?

10:13 pm, May 18, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Poll was mentioned in the times yesterday and it is the worst result for Labour since Maggie.

10:08 pm, May 21, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As a Tory, can I say how wonderful it is to read about Labour 'factions'. It really is back to the 1980s stuff! We might not always all get along well in my party, but you'd never get this sort of thing in our National Convention elections.

And, by the way, the socialist experiment failed utterly. Get over it.

12:56 pm, May 23, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Get over yourself you tory twat!

2:18 pm, May 23, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Poor little socialist - I wonder what could possibly have upset you today?

5:47 pm, May 23, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

DM Andy - I'd be interested in having a chat to you about improving organisation in the, shall we say, less winnable seats. I'm a Labour Councillor here on the Isle of Wight and was a supporter of the excellent Third Place First (and also the Southern Comfort network which is also organised by Martin Phillips and is primarily based in the South East, but there may be room for an extension?). We can and should do more, and need a network of people who are willing to get involved.

If you want to email me on deborah.gardiner@iow.gov.uk I'd be happy to discuss things.

Deborah

9:00 pm, May 24, 2008

 

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