Labour moots open hustings for potential MPs
Labour is considering introducing community hustings for its parliamentary candidates to help promote the party’s views to a wider range of voters.
Party chairwoman Hazel Blears stressed this was not the same as the US-style primaries being introduced by David Cameron’s Conservatives.
But she told a fringe meeting at the TUC in Brighton yesterday: “Having a candidate exposed to a wide range of people and take questions and answers, and getting out and about, is a very good idea to get our message across.”
Ms Blears also stressed the need to get more black, ethnic minority and female candidates to join the Labour party, saying it could benefit from the energy and drive of some women campaigners, such as Women Against Guns.
“If we do not then we are not going to reinvigorate and get the kind of party we want,” she added.
Labour needed to re-engage with voters if it were to win a fourth election, Ms Blears told the Fabian Society meeting on Labour renewal. Membership was down and there was also a declining level of local activism, although this was common to all parties.
She said Tony Blair’s announcement that he would be gone within a year and the subsequent Labour leadership contest was a “real opportunity to engage the party in a debate as we go forward”.
Admitting that the government had not always taken its members’ views into account, she stressed: “We have to be mindful in everything we do from now on about what concerns the public.”
Ms Blears continued: “I do not believe we can win the next election simply by enacting progressive legislation from the centre – we need activity outside parliament to change the weather, and this involves trade unions and activists.
“We need to move from the party that is about talking about things, to one that is doing things in their local community.”
In an admission of the polls that have shown Labour’s support plummet over the past few months, she added: “If people saw the Labour party doing more things in their community then the esteem in which they hold us would increase.”
Ms Blears admitted the party was facing financial problems, although she stressed this was “not unique to Labour and cannot be blamed on one single factor”.
She refused to comment on the loans for honours row, but stressed that parties had to find a way of “living within our dependable income”.
This meant membership fees rather than the “uncertainty” of loans and donations, she said, adding: “It’s right that people want to donate to us but we must not be dependent on them.”
She repeated Labour’s call for a cap on the amount of money that political parties can spend in an election – both locally and nationally – noting that it would be unfair for Labour to try to live within its means if the Tories were outspending them.
