The Wardman Wire

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Two down, one to go. Yesterday the Labour faithful left Manchester along with the lobbyists, PR knobs and media after the party’s annual get together. Next week it is the Tories turn before they all head to Westminster for another two and half months of head to head battle. While it is no secret what [...]

From the BBC:

The Labour Party has moved to see off an attempt by 12 rebel MPs to force a challenge to Gordon Brown’s leadership.

Its ruling National Executive Committee has rejected calls to get nomination forms sent out to all Labour MPs before next week’s party conference.

Whoever is trying to prevent any prospect of a Labour Leadership Challenge has decided that they are not even willing to give a show of allowing MPs to raise the question.

I have read Alan Watkins since the 1970s - first in the Observer, and then the Independent, and he has commented at length over many years on the rules for replacing the Labour leader. The current set make it - to put it mildly - incredibly difficult. These rules were put in place in the mid-1990s as part of a gradual centralisation of power within Labour carried out by the Blair-Brown-Mandelson axis to make it difficult for anybody but “Us” to assert themselves against “The Project”.

If Mr Brown and his friends are seriously looking for a renewed Labour Party, then relying on this rulebook from the past to shush the dissenters is not the way to do it.

The Party Conference Season is almost upon us, as the Messagespace adverts have been reminding us for the last fortnight or so until I wanted to clip one as an illustration for this post.

This year I am trying to set up some good coverage on the Wardman Wire from as many conferences as possible, including some of the smaller parties.

If you are planning to attend, and may be interested in doing a conference diary - please drop me an email on mattwardman at gmail dot com.

I won’t be covering the BNP conference.

This is massively in advance (or not), but these things usually work like snails. Now that the Wardman Wire has a decent front-page video showcase, I’m looking at the possibility of publishing Party Conference Video (and text) Blogs this autumn. I’ve not been a conference habitué, so if anyone has any useful hints, tips or offers to participate I’d be interested to hear them.