Exposing the Real Face of New Labour

Richard Gibbs has an excellent Blog called THINKING ALOUD. In today's Mail on Sunday he tells us of his experiences working for New Labour as a Regional Organiser last year. He likens his experience to the BBC comedy The Thick Of It. Some of what he says is hardly a surprise to us, but other bits surpass even our lowest expectations of our lords and masters. The complete article can be read HERE, but what I have posted below includes some material that the MoS did not publish in its print edition. Look in particular at the last piece on Pauline Prescott's hair! Needless to say the Labour spin machine has swung into action and tried to trash Richard Gibbs by accusing him of joining the Conservative Party. He says on his blog...

There are serious points about the way New Labour treats it's members;
about the contempt in which it's staff hold the democratic process, the media and the public; about the poor standards that prevail and about the way people gain from obeying the leadership as opposed to doing their job. But you can take it from me that The Thick of It is spot on.

The Ken Bigley 'problem'

It was on October 7, 2004, that I first visited Labour’s headquarters
in Old Queen Street, near Whitehall. It was also the day that terrorists in Iraq
murdered British hostage Ken Bigley. There are television sets everywhere in New
Labour’s HQ, and as the BBC broke the story I was thinking, like most other
ordinary people, of the atrociousness of such a killing and how terrible it must
be for Mr Bigley’s family. But within moments, different sentiments were
being expressed by some of Labour’s staff. "What marginal seats are near the
Bigleys?" asked one. "If they have a go at Blair, then we could be in trouble."
"You don’t think his brother or any of his relatives will stand, do you?"
another commented. "This could be really big. It could be a problem."
Such talk would disgust many ordinary Labour members. But the first thought of many
who work for the party was the possible electoral impact of this murder. In
2001, Jo Moore, a special adviser to Minister Stephen Byers, had stupidly
e-mailed colleagues to say the attacks of 9/11 provided a "good day to bury bad
news". At the time, I had assumed that this was simply one woman’s ill-judged
opinion. Now I can’t help but think that Jo Moore was more of a symptom of where
she worked than the proverbial bad apple in the barrel.

The Surestart Scam

Often the question arose: How can we get a Cabinet Minister to visit
party workers and activists but fix it so the taxpayer picks up the bill?
Surestart, the flagship Government childcare project, provided the answer. Since
it was a Whitehall initiative, we could have a Minister transported from London
to anywhere in the country. The cost would be paid by the Minister’s department
because, strictly speaking, this was Government, rather than Labour Party,
business. After spending ten or 15 minutes at a Surestart scheme, party
officials could drive the Minister to a nearby Labour club for a political
event. At the end of the visit, we would reunite the Minister with his
Government car and driver and he would be sent back to London, knowing that
Labour had not had to pay the transport costs. Once, in Edgbaston, I rode in the
back of a New Labour Rover briefing Alan Milburn en route to a political event
while his ministerial car and driver sat outside a Surestart scheme. It was
normal practice on these occasions for us to don earpieces Special Branch-style
and to do up our suit jackets to give the impression we were armed, undercover
police officers. It was a ludicrous fantasy. This silly macho culture percolated
everything. One staffer responded to every question with the same reply: "We're
locked, we're cocked and we're ready to rock" – his right hand forming an
imaginary gun.

Junk mail fraud

One of my tasks as a regional organiser was to arrange large mailshots
to constituents in marginal seats to find out who were potential Labour
supporters. We would prepare an innocuous letter from an MP about a general
subject – anti-social behaviour, street lighting or parking – and attach a
voting intention survey. Since we held MPs' signatures and photos on a digital
database, we were able to create these communications without even contacting
them. And we would use the Parliamentary postage allowance, which meant the
taxpayer picked up the bill. It was a naughty thing to do, since this allowance
was intended only for Parliamentary rather than party political business, but we
did it all the time.

Fix it for Blair

A week before polling day, coded messages about a "key campaigner
visit" were being muttered. This was New Labour’s way of telling staff that Tony
Blair was coming. The whole event was surrounded in hyper-paranoia. Party
members were invited, but in a twist that only New Labour could devise, they
were told only the date and the city it was to be in. Members who were thought
likely to ask the Prime Minister an awkward question were not invited. Names and
photos of ‘undesirables’ were given to door staff. This was nothing to do with
security – it was because the party machine was frightened of allowing the media
to see anything other than unquestioning obedience to the leader. The resultant
event had all the hallmarks of a North Korean rally. When I saw Walter
Wolfgang’s eviction from the Labour conference later in 2005, I was appalled but
not surprised.

Rent a mob

When Michael Howard, or Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy visited our
region, we would all be cheered up by the prospect of a day out. Off came the
suits and ties and out came the magic markers and sugar-paper so we could make
our very own demo with a suitably evocative title such as "No Tory Cuts!" The
plan would be to get near the visiting party leader and begin our "spontaneous"
demonstration, complete with helpful factoids that we could yell about the
damage their policies would do. Frankly, it was embarrassing. The press tended
to ignore us, so obvious must it have been that we were New Labour stooges. The
public looked bemused and appalled at our antics. In the run up to the general
election, Michael Howard paid a visit to Birmingham. We gathered a group of
staff together, pretending to be normal members of the public. Unfortunately,
one of Howard’s entourage spotted our flaw — we had used the backs of Labour
Party posters for our banners. The sharp-eyed Tory pretended to slip and grabbed
at our banner tearing it as he fell. As the words "Vote Labour" were revealed,
it was clear for all to see that we were frauds.

Short, fat and ugly

Image was always important to us. The party had to sound right, feel
right — and look right. As Chairman of the Labour Party, Ian McCartney was, in
theory, the most senior politician in the party. During the North East Regional
Assembly campaign, McCartney was due to hold a photo call at a Labour Party
street stall in Newcastle and the staff were keen to try and garner some
positive coverage for our faltering campaign. The press officers looked carefully at McCartney and began to voice concerns that we might end up with an "ugly picture" at the end of the day. This was before the five foot nothing Cabinet minister had been diagnosed with serious heart problems. By his own recent admission, he was at the time "obese". One press officer said: "The thing is, if the press get a picture of him from the front, he’ll look short." "Yeah,
but if it’s from the side, he’ll look fat," replied the second. "Is there a way
we can make him look not fat and short?" It was decided that the best course of
action was to steer McCartney into a shop just before we reached the media and
keep him talking for a while. While distracting him, we could get the press to
photograph some nice, photogenic Labour students on the other side of the road,
suitably prepared with "Vote Yes" badges and banners. That way, we managed to
avoid any ugly pictures, even if it did mean sidelining the Chairman of the
Labour Party.

The wife's hair

Back on my home territory of the West Midlands during the General
Election campaign, I tried to prevent another Prescott visit — but was not
entirely successful. Back on his battle bus Prezza was on mission to help the
marginal seats. But the truth was few of the marginal Labour candidates really
wanted his help. This was starting to become embarrassing for everyone. So, at
some point someone in the party decided that the best way to handle things, was
simply to tell the constituency when the Prescott Xpress was on his way. When
the warning came of a visit to my patch in Stourbridge, it was tempting though
just let him arrive and leave him untended. But I felt that this was probably
going too far. We contacted a film crew from the BBC Politics Show who were in
the area, and summoned a 'crowd' of Labour Party members pretending to be normal
members of the public. The venue was an open square in the centre of town, but
minutes from the appointed time, a call came from Karim Palant on the Prescott
Xpress: "Richard, is it raining with you?" "Well, it’s trying to, but it’s
nothing heavy. Why?" "Er, well, it’s Pauline. Her hair, it could be a problem."
"What are you talking about? And who's Pauline?" "Prescott’s wife! You remember
the whole thing at conference when it was windy? Well if she's gonna get her
hair wet, that’s going to screw up the whole visit." In my time working for New
Labour, I had learned that 'security' was a great catch-all phrase to cover
other problems. So I told guests and media, with the gravest expression I could
manage: "Look, we’ve got to move to another venue — security concerns." Assuming
that I had just been tipped off by Special Branch of a some terrorist threat
against Prezza, people nodded seriously and were very compliant.

I hope that one or two people will be asking questions about what Richard Gibbs says about the widespread misuse of House of Commons stationery. Let's hope he has kept some proof which he can show to the Serjeant at Arms. We all knew this was going onm before the last election. Maybe now something can be done about it.