Through the Looking Glass: A Dissenter Inside New Labour

by Liz Davies

As New Labour prepares the ground for a second term in government, Liz Davies provides a compelling insider’s account of the annihilation of the party’s internal democracy. For two years prior to the party conference of September 2000, Davies sat on the highest body of the party, its National Executive Committee. From this unique viewpoint she reveals in riveting detail the extent to which cynical doublethink has come to permeate the party’s leadership.

Focusing particularly on the frenzied attempts to prevent Ken Livingston from becoming London’s next mayor, Davies details how Blair and his acolytes sought to manipulate every detail of the NEC’s proceedings, repeatedly blocking open discussion and the counting of votes. With elected representatives rendered powerless in NEC meetings, full-time officials briefed selected journalists on what was being decided, often hours before the meeting itself took place.

Davies chronicles Blair’s evident discomfort in the face of close questioning at the meetings, and his impatience with even the mildest dissent. She exposes the hollowness of John Prescott’s Old Labour credentials as well as the relentless manipulation of Margaret McDonagh, the party’s hard-nosed General Secretary. She watches aghast as trade union representatives repeatedly defy positions adopted by their members, and while special interests, notably those representing business, twist policies to suit their needs.

Employing a redoubtable independence of mind, as well as verbatim notes kept in each of the meetings, Davies provides an electrifying picture of the systematic corruption of a major political institution.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2001

Reviews

[Simon Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

POLITICALLY CLEANSING THE LABOUR PARTY

"In the 1970's, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Labour Party [membership] lost touch with each other - that must never happen again." Thus said Tony. His solution to this problem is reminiscent of that poem of Brecht's about the leadership being so disappointed in their people that they wishes to dissolve them and elect another. In the case of the Labour Party, Blair's aim would appear to be to destroy it as a mass based participatory party; there was to be no new party beyond a small number of aspirational opportunists, who if they know anything it is how to say "yes". That much is clear from my journey with Liz Davies "Through the Looking Glass".

Davies was a Parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in Leeds who was de-selected by the central party after a disgraceful campaign by the "leadership" around Tony Blair and their friends in the press. In 1998 and 1999 she stood for election to the National Executive Committee, the governing body of the Labour Party, under the Grassroots Alliance's slate and was elected to sit on that body. The time she spent there is the subject of this fascinating book.

Anyone who has worked and dealt with a bureaucracy, whether in the public or private sector, will recognise how the people at the top - in this case the Labour leadership - operate. An un-nerving inability to hear what is said, critical comments don't make it to the written record, flip-charts, power point presentations, the perpetual drone of asinine buzz words, the yes-men and woman staying on message and off the planet, effortless hypocrisy, bumptious pep talks and the side-lining of efforts to have real debate into phantom sub-committees. In short it is depressing, and hats off to Liz Davies for sticking at it for nearly two years.

The calibre of the New Labourites is also likely to dampen the spirits of anyone with a sense of reality. Tony Blair's speeches to the NEC that Davies, in part transcribed for this book are practically surreal. Each sentence appears to be able to stand alone, and would make as little sense if they were given out at random. The bottom line is that we must stick together, trust our leader, ask no questions and for Tony's sake get with the programme, smile, be happy. . . . Some of them are frighteningly vacuous, my favourite being the New-Labourite at a discussion of Foreign policy stating that the reason for the French antipathy to the British and the US is that they have never had the responsibility of an Empire! Others include the celebrity New-Labourites, such as ex-Eastender and fellow NEC member Michael Cashman who plays the part of toady in chief with considerable aplomb. Likewise, watching Blackadder will never be the same after reading Davies account of Tony Robinson's (Baldrick) contribution to party politics.

The writing is fairly functional, it is not the raciest of reads, nor one to lift the spirits, but useful if you are interested in how an integral part of our political system operates in reality. Political parties are the main opportunity for ordinary people to participate in a meaningful way in the political process. In Blair's New Labour, ordinary party members are there to be seen and not heard, and to be scapegoats in the event of things going wrong; of course it is nothing to do with the leaderships own mistakes and policies. The leading constituency for New Labour was neither the ordinary members, nor the public or those who voted for them, but those with power and money ind spades: big Business, George W. Bush and the City. These were the people Blair was there for, the people he felt comfortable with, and no doubt the people he wishes to join as evidenced by his recently uncovered financial jiggery-pokery. As an account of the Blair project in general, particularly how it affected democracy within the Labour Party, Liz Davies book is both valuable and fascinating.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read!