TWO days after the crushing disappointment of Labour’s county council election performance – just 11 seats, four in Northampton itself – the Northampton branch held its AGM which, as Aufona reported a few weeks back, amounted to a “blood-letting”.
The real extent of it, however, has been laid bare with the so-called “observers” report of that meeting which has come up with its own conclusions as to the state of Northampton Labour.
On the elections, the observers “had no idea” how much work was needed for Labour to win while at the count itself, candidates lacked support and were, in the case of Rhea Keehn, Ben Wesson, Clement Chunga, Janice Duffy and Rifia Ashraf, left “pretty much on their own”: Or, in their words: “The Lib Dems and the Tories at the end of the count celebrated in their groups and took photos. We didn’t”. Worse still very little support was offered to candidates by Labour borough councillors. At the AGM itself, no mention AT ALL was made of the election and none of the winning quartet congratulated. Observers were asked to count votes for leader, deputy leader, secretary, chairman, whip, treasurer and chair of scrutiny. Les Marriott – now mayor – was self-nominated as chairman while Ven Subbarayan and Gareth Eales did the same for secretary and treasurer respectively. All other posts were up for grabs with candidates given three minutes to speak and take three minutes of questions. The report states: “The votes seemed to bear no relationship to the speeches or the answers to the questions. There was no process in place to ensure gender equality or to ensure we got the best candidate for the post”. In the end, six of the seven posts went to men (exception being deputy Geraldine Davies) while no reports were presented to monitor councillor performance – attendance, training etc which actually measure performance of the activists themselves.
It gets worse: “There seems to be a divide and rule process going on,” it concludes, “we’d hope to see a leadership that developed the talents and skills of each member and brought them together to work as a team. Minority views are treated with contempt. The shadow cabinet seems to try to impose its views on the group without due discussion. Observers are not invited to shadow cabinet meetings and we haven’t seen any minutes. We’d like the party, both Northampton Labour and the group, to develop a more organised and complete practice so we can promote positive messages about Labour. In order to do this we need stronger, more focused and more inclusive leadership”.
Aufona doesn’t need to remind you of the long, rancorous relationship between the Northampton South branch and the national party following the exit of Man On The Street, Tony Clarke. Nor the delay in finding someone to fight Northampton South in 2015. But clearly, as this report indicates, Labour remains a very unhappy ship.
NEP’s due for annual ‘healthcheck’ any day...
NOT long now before Aufona’s favourite business quango, the Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership, publishes that much awaited “healthcheck” report outlining how it has been spending some of the £6m which thee and me will be pumping into it until 2014.
Luckily for NEP, the Tories are still in charge at County Hall so there’s no chance of any of those nasty Opposition parties (Labour, Lib Dem, UKIP) pulling funding that helps pay for that £200k-a-year Brussels office.
Better still, they can still rely on the judgement of Gonzo, now fully rehabilitated with fellow board member Norman Hacker following that daft attempt to name a park after his own son. County Hall brushed off suggestions the report’s publication had been delayed last March, promising a June date.
NEP’s Oxfordshire-based PR firm, meanwhile, has punted out a cornucopia of figures outlining what they have achieved since 2011, including £13m of investment “in the pipeline”. We now look forward to seeing what our elected sceptics have to offer in the form of questions...
PS Good work by @northantspolice and its #alcoholharm campaign which even “trended” briefly on Saturday night. Shame Matthew Taylor (@DavRuralNthSCT) was a off-message with this tweet midway through: “I’m at home drowning my sorrows into a bottle of cider knowing full well @TaylorTraveller will be revelling in the glory tomorrow...”