Young Fabian reveals Labour Manifesto

A LARGE PART of the Labour Manifesto has been revealed to the world by a Tower Hamlets Labour Party Officer – apparently in advance of any formal launch of the document as a whole.

Adam Allnutt has quoted the document extensively in a post on the News Section of the Young Fabians website. According to the same website, Allnutt is the Local Government Officer of the Young Fabians – and his twitter account states that he is the Tower Hamlets Labour Membership Officer. He would seem well placed to know what he is talking about.

Allnutt reveals that the Fabians have been highly successful in influencing the policies which were discussed by local Labour Party members last week. He writes: “On Thursday (February 22nd) we had a manifesto discussion at the General Committee of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party ahead of the Local Elections […]. The influence we, the owners of the Fabian tradition, have can be seen throughout what policies have been proposed after a extended period of member consultation.”

He goes on to detail what took place during that consultation period before the General Committee meeting took place: “In Tower Hamlets there has been extensive consultation; with the motions we as a local party have passed, current programmes within the Labour run council, a full all member day of input from members on the broken down six policy areas, two separate email based inputs from local Labour members, input from the existing Labour Group of councillors on their ambitions for the future, separate follow up policy meeting on the six areas…”

Allnutt claims that the General Committee last week discussed 186 policy pledges which have come out of the discussion. He claims that Cllr Josh Peck and Executive Mayor John Biggs took more ideas from the General Committee and were aiming “to increase the number of pledges to over 200.”

Allnutt states that the final list of pledges will go to the Labour Group of Labour Councillors for final approval – but after such extensive discussion by the Party it would seem unlikely that the Councillors will overturn the Pledge-Fest that the Party has drawn up.

Allnutt quotes 25 of those 200 pledges, which he describes as his personal “highlights”. These pledges fall into three main groups:
•promises of new service provision which come without clarity on where the money to pay for them is coming from;
•hints that there will be new service provision, without actually promising to do it;
•wishful thinking, which is vague and/or not costed.

It would not be fair to judge the whole manifesto on the basis of the 12.5% of its eventual pledges which Allnutt has quoted. However, the Save Our Nurseries campaign will be worried that there is no commitment from Labour to keep the Council’s three day care nurseries. It has recently been revealed that 84% of online respondents in the public consultation opposed the Council selling off the nurseries to private providers. Perhaps a commitment to respect the outcome of this public consultation will surface when the full Manifesto is released.

Allnutt ends his post stating that he “can’t wait to take these pledge to the doorstep” and put them to residents. He is certain that the local manifesto will prove to be a big hit. Whether the voters will rush to embrace the Fabians’ list of uncosted proposals remains to be seen.

•Read more about it:
Biggs refuses to bow to public pressure on nurseries
Biggs’s borough: child poverty hotspot

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