More thoughts on those proposed changes to the way the Party manages candidates

Yesterday, I wondered about the impact of proposed changes to how the Party manages candidate approval and selection in relation to my current role as a member of my Regional Candidates Committee. I wasn't convinced that it left me with much of a role.

But it did lead me to take a closer look at the proposals, and the more I look, the less I like it.

At the moment, each State Candidates Committee has responsibility for establishing a list of approved Parliamentary candidates, determining how they will be approved and what the processes are for selecting candidates in each parliamentary constituency. It isn't perfect - there were always issues about whether an approval under the Welsh system was valid in England, and vice versa, although as the systems converged, and the Scots and Welsh Parties effectively adopted the systems developed in England, these problems tended to fade to insignificance.

What does tend to "gum up" the system is:

• a lack of people willing to be approved as Parliamentary candidates

• a lack of people willing to be trained as candidate assessors - it's a pretty full-on responsibility

• a lack of Returning Officers - likewise it's a pretty labour intensive role requiring a varied set of skills

• an unwillingness from some Local Parties to select earlier rather than later

In other words, it's mostly human resources which get in the way of the best intentions of a group of volunteers.

And so, the proposal intends to solve these problems by centralising the process - "professionalising" as the text of the motion reads. From my perspective, it isn't clear to me how changing who manages the process will actually address the shortages of volunteers to actually run it. Indeed, the motion is silent on it, and there has been seemingly no effort to explain.

Now far be it for me to suggest that this proposal has not been drafted with any consideration for the "poor bloody infantry" who deliver most of the candidate selection and approval activity, all of whom are volunteers, but I am aware that there has been no meaningful consultation with those in key positions on State Candidates Committees, and that this proposal has been rushed through in the light of a report which was only published seven weeks ago.

In other words, the General Election Review report has been published, its findings endorsed by Federal Board, and a major change to the party's constitutional arrangements drafted in just five weeks. You'll pardon me if that doesn't suggest that any consultation that might have taken place was perfunctory at best.

Personally, I am unconvinced, noting that those people who spent the past five years at the coal face of candidate approval and selection don't appear wildly impressed either by the General Election Review or by this proposal.

But this may not be the worst of it...

Am I to be abolished just as I was getting started?

Having had what I might describe as "not the happiest experience" with my Regional Party four years ago, I decided that, perhaps, I ought to dip a toe back into the water. And so, I ran for, and was elected to, the Regional Candidates Committee.

As a former member of the English Candidates Committee, Senior Returning Officer and candidate assessor, I do know my way around the world of candidate selection and approval and, I like to think, I have some wider credibility amongst the "candidates fraternity" within the Party. In short, I though that I could be useful.

But change and uncertainty are seldom far away and, in this instance, this comes in the form of a rather lengthy motion/constitutional amendment which will come to Federal Conference later this month.

My attention was drawn to the proposed redrafting of Article 19.1 of the Federal Constitution which currently reads as follows:

Each State Party shall establish a Candidates Committee or provide for some or all of its functions to be discharged by another unit or units (and every such unit shall be deemed to be a State Candidates Committee for the purposes of this Article 19).

The revised version as proposed reads:

Each State Party shall establish a Candidates Committee in order to carry out its responsibilities for elections to the Westminster and European Parliaments as well as any elections to the House of Lords or its successor, including implementing the requirements set under Article 13.5. 

This appears, on the face of it, to deny the right of State Candidates Committees to devolve some or all of their functions to Regional Candidates Committees which leads to the question:

What are Regional Candidates Committees for in this brave new world?

And, I have to admit, the answer appears to be "nothing".

I think that I'm going to have to ask some questions...

Now that bureaucracy is truly a dirty word…

These are challenging times for public administration, nowhere more so than in the United States, where Messrs Musk and Trump (but mostly Musk) are cutting a swathe through government department after government department. And, because Musk has very little experience of government, as opposed to selling ideas - his track record in selling actual things doesn’t seem to be that good if Tesla and X are any indicator - he does seem to be operating on a ‘break things in haste, repair at leisure (if at all)’.

Now, because I live in the United Kingdom, rather than the United States, I don’t have an intimate knowledge of how efficient, or otherwise, the various governmental organisations are across the Atlantic. But there are some truisms that are generally applicable. Politicians often get in the way of good administration - by under resourcing it, or changing the priorities frequently, or by interfering with operational activities. And, in a political system where politicians are rewarded for bringing the bacon home to their state or district, and where horse trading is rampant, the scope for disruption is all the greater.

Like the business community, administrators prefer consistency and evolutionary change. This allows you to make the necessary resourcing adjustments in a planned way, minimising damaging disruption and wasted investment.

And, if your administrative cadre are paid less than the equivalent rate in the private sector, that reliability is a factor which allows government to recruit and retain the sort of quality people who you really want - committed to public service and expert in their field.

Musk doesn’t appear to get that, and why should anyone expect otherwise? If something fails, he is rich enough to write off his investment and move on to the next thing. Previous customers may be less inclined to purchase his products going forward, but there are plenty of potential customers out there. Government is different.

If government screws up, people starve, or go bust, or get hurt, or die. If you reduce, or remove entirely, employees who fulfil important functions, you may suddenly discover that something you want to happen can’t. If you cut tax collection staff, you might find that you raise less money and need to cut things that voters like, or want (of course, this may be the aim of the exercise).

Here’s the key difference though - voters can fire you if you upset them enough - and no investment or PR exercise will change that immediately. I’m fairly confident that Elon Musk doesn’t feel the need to factor that into his operations.

My experience, at least in the United Kingdom anyway, is that the sort of people who complain about too much governance are, simultaneously, the very same people who are demanding that “there should be a law against it”. I don’t get the sense that Republicans see the world quite the same way - they take pride in the idea of self-reliance and self-government. But even they demand laws against “woke”, and limits on things that they don’t like. And who’s going to enforce those laws?

It is a nervous time to be an American bureaucrat, and I’m really not sure how I would respond if the same situation arose in Britain. But, for the rest of us, the experiment in tearing down an entire bureaucracy whilst expecting key business to continue as normal is going to one that some politicians in developed and developing countries will watch with interest, seeking a template for similar policies at home.

But don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…

Labour: pulling levers and finding that the cables were cut long ago…

I’m not one of those people who wish the Labour government ill. I want the country to be better, and whilst I tend to the view that liberal solutions are, by and large, more effective, why would anybody want their country to be poorer, weaker, meaner?

But, as a civil servant, I also know that it takes time to initiate lasting change. System failures tend to require investment over extended periods, especially when the missing resources are human ones. You can’t just magic up doctors, or police officers or, as the Government are discovering, lawyers. And, as a result, the pledge to “fast-track rape cases through specialist courts at every crown court location in England and Wales” has been walked back.

This presents a wider problem for politicians, as promises to turn round failing public services run into the barrier of poor public sector morale, uncompetitive salary scales and under resourcing of key areas of work. You can’t solve these without a long-term strategy of raising pay scales, proper employment levels and investment in service provision. And that means upfront costs without immediate benefits, leaving any “progressive” administration at the mercy of public opinion whipped up by a hostile media.

It doesn’t help that the public are less patient, less trusting and more likely to have their own world view reinforced by media algorithms. The incessant chatter of supposedly intelligent journalists and commentators doesn’t help either, as they take ever more shallow stances in order to gain attention. You never, or at least, hardly ever, see anyone admit that they were wrong, even when they turn out to be horribly so.

Now, perhaps you could be more optimistic if our body politic consisted of political forces campaigning on philosophical lines, based on propagation of facts and ideas. But it doesn’t.

So, any government genuinely intending to improve public services needs to be honest about how long it will take to generate positive change, and how much that’s going to cost in the short to medium term. And yes, you can talk about the long-term benefits, because high quality public services can, and should, save money in the long term, whether that be in reducing reoffending levels, or care costs for the elderly, or getting people back into the productive economy.

Labour have five years to start that process, and in that time, improvements should start to become visible. But given the damage done over decades, it’s going to take more than just one term to create the public services we deserve at a cost that is sustainable.

Worcester: not going there from exactly here…

Catching trains is usually a fairly straightforward affair, especially in suburban stations. There are two platforms, one ‘down’, one ‘up’, usually corresponding to the usual rules of the road. And, when you have platform indicators telling you when trains are coming and which track they’ll be one, it should be pretty foolproof, you’d think, right?

But I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.

Pre-COVID, when we were last in the Metro West suburbs of Boston, there was a really good local pizza place called “Volturno” which, amongst its various delights, included an octopus starter which Ros and I both rather enjoyed. Unfortunately, the Framingham branch bit the dust, presumably down to the pandemic.

The good news, however, was that the original restaurant in Worcester had survived, and as we were both at a loose end today, we thought that we’d take the train from West Natick and have a nice lunch. The train fare for the scheduled forty-five minute journey was a very reasonable $4.50 each way (no discount for return journeys, I note) and, whilst the trains themselves are definitely showing their age, they’re warm and comfortable enough.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is a bit eccentric. Outside of the rush hours, they insist that you board the train at a specified spot on the platform which, at West Natick, is a small raised section at the most westerly end of the platform. And, to make matters more entertaining, during large chunks of the day, ‘down’ trains serve the ‘up’ platform.

On arrival at the station, I noted the platform indicator stating that our train would leave from track 1, the ‘up’ or ‘wrong’ platform, and that we should board from the designated spot. So, you can imagine my surprise when, spot on time, the train arrived… on the other platform.

No problem, right? Simply cross from one platform to the other, board train. But no, there is no footbridge at West Natick, and the sole crossing point is at track level, at the other end of the platform. I am not as quick across the ground as I once was, but I wasn’t simply going to give up, given that the next train was two hours away. And we made it with the aid of a bit of frantic waving and a kindly train conductor who, seeing us heading towards her, held the train until we could board.

Drama, and a bit of cardio exercise, over, we could enjoy the train ride to Worcester, dotted as it is with forests and lakes. And, due to the quirky scheduling which allows twenty-seven minutes for the twelve-minute journey from the penultimate stop at Grafton, we were a full quarter of an hour early arriving at our destination.

Union Station is a rather magnificent gateway to the city, having obviously been built for a time when many more trains served it. Now, apart from the rather workaday commuter trains, it has one long distance Amtrak service, the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited, per day, and the gorgeous passenger hall is almost entirely wasted on the people scurrying through it.

Worcester itself is in the process of reinventing itself, and I remember going there twenty years ago when the outlet mall built in the downtown area had spectacularly failed, creating an enormous void in the heart of the city. Things have rather improved although, like a lot of American cities, it feels a bit stark and empty of life. Ros reminds me that the development of American cities was, and remains, very different to that of European ones, and I do occasionally need to remind myself of that.

We walked about a bit, admiring City Hall and Worcester Common in front of it, before heading to lunch. Disaster! Volturno was closed for repairs - it might have been nice had they mentioned that prominently on their website, but luckily enough the neighbouring brew house was open and serving some good food and equally good beer. I’d spotted products of the Wormtown Brewery in the past and was now able to put two and two together - Wormtown is a nickname for Worcester.

Replete, it was time to head back to Union Station for the train back to West Natick. As we arrived, it dawned on me - we were on the wrong platform again. And again, passengers were dashing to catch the train. We got off the train, shrugged our shoulders at the eccentricity of the MBTA, and went home…

2025 is here, and so?

I’ve never really been one to mark the New Year. We’re often away, but that’s as much for reasons other than the celebration of the turning of the page from year to year.

But 2024 did see a few changes, mostly psychological, I’d suggest. I turned sixty which, whilst the day itself didn’t really resonate, has led to a mild sense of, well, it’s hard to explain really. I do feel that I’m slightly slower, slightly “older” and thus mildly more cautious. And, of course, this is absurd. Physically, nothing has changed, in that my weight is pretty constant, my underlying health (apart from slightly elevated cholestrol) apparently good if my recent health check is to be believed.

Best of all, I have Ros. Yes, I admit that that sounds a little “soppy” but as the years pass by, I value her in ways that I might not have expected. Even her simple presence enhances my day.

And, with the new home, life is much simpler. Having pretty much everything we need within a short walk (including my office) just allows a degree of spontaneity that didn’t exist when we were in the Creetings and I have a Senior Railcard for when Ipswich comes up short.

So, a new year offers an opportunity (or, if you like, justification) to ring the changes a bit, and that’s my plan for the year ahead. Nothing big, or wildly ambitious, but simply making slightly different choices and engaging a bit more.

Wish me luck along the way…