Labour values | Jon Worth

Labour politics and community organising – do we want to go there?

It was a Labour Party politics filled evening for me yesterday.

First I heard Arnold Graf of the Industrial Areas Foundation from the United States talk at a Labour Values event about how his organisation had built networks of community organisations. Graf works with Maurice Glasman, one of the people Ed Miliband trusts to help build better links between Labour and community groups. Graf explained how his conversations with politicians in the UK showed a disconnect between them and their electorates, how questions he had posed to politicians were often met with no clear answers. Quite how he would change things was rather less clear, be that through organisations like London Citizens, or by up-skilling and changing political parties from within.

Writing elsewhere – web campaigning for Progress and EU politics for Left Foot Forward

This blog has been a little quiet recently, but it’s not because I’ve stopped writing. Post-election UK politics is more interesting than at any point for the last few years and I’ve been entering the debates by writing elsewhere – in the main because this blog has a very EU-focused audience.

If UK politics does interest you then I’ve written two pieces for Progress – about the impact of internet campaigns on the UK general election (with specific reference to Stella Creasy’s campaigns in Walthamstow) and about how the candidates in Labour’s leadership election can use the internet for their campaigns and how the net will be vital in that race.

With more of a UK-EU focus I’ve also written a piece for Left Foot Forward looking at the coalition government’s EU policies.

I’ve also been doing the tech for a new web initiative – Labour values – that is drawing together good campaign experience from Labour across the UK at the general election.