It’d be a pretty big fucking chart.

In a discussion on HP today Shami Chakrabarti was mentioned. One Labour member, who claims to be well connected within the party, said “Labour is against everything she stands for”. Another, mentioning rumours that she wanted to be a Labour MP, said “I would rather eat nails and then shit them than allow that to happen”.

Labour values indeed.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/06/09/read-all-about-it/#comments

“Another, mentioning rumours that she wanted to be a Labour MP, said “I would rather eat nails and then shit them than allow that to happen”.”

Probably Harriet Harman getting protective about her Liberty credentials. Or lack of them…

septic – you’re damn right, and I think factual resources like theyworkforyou and publicwhip do a more complete and less partisan job than LC ever could.

So, Sunny, I suggest the reverse – highlighting the ones who need to be removed and why, then actively promoting the most likely challenger.

I’ll start the list:
1)Nadine Dorries
reasons: unparliamentary conduct, anti-democratic conduct, figurehead for fanatical evangelical christian movement.
Alternatives: 2nd – LibDem (23.8%), 3rd – Lab (22.5%) in 2005.
Conclusion: Mid-Bedfordshire is perfect tactical voting territory – choose your horse.

It’s not a case that theyworkforyou and stuff do the job better…but can the average person go and see definitively how “labour” labour MPs are? No they’d have to search every MP and investigate. I love the idea of this chart or suchlike, easy reference for people to see just how left and working class the MPs are actually representing.

I guess the first thing you’d have to do is define issues that objectively show what defines core Labour issues. The war on Iraq or Trident is something I could imagine people would spring on for this, but in reality both those issues don’t really reside in Labour values do they? Have there been enough other debates going on that you can track that do fall in to the right bracket?

You’d also need to take in to account whips and work out how you want to represent those that vote while under the whip, and what values to attribute to those that don’t vote at all.

BTW I agree with thomas, it’d be much more of an effect to name and shame poor MPs and to promote reasonable opposition (if there is any).

Putting my sceptic’s hat on for a moment, it’d be useful to address what form this support would actually take. Creating another campaign website for tactical voting (the Labour MP doesn’t support our values, therefore vote for the Lib Dem challenger etc) is noble enough and may have an impact if it’s well-publicised, but it still pales in comparison to the one guaranteed way of ensuring that ‘liberal conspiracy’ candidates are well-supported – and that is actually raising money for them.

It would be an interesting experiment to see what impact – if any – we could have in the next election by finding a handful of Parliamentary candidates in marginal seats who share the beliefs of this site, see how much money could be raised for them in individual online donations and then see whether that could have any impact on their particular campaigns.

Now I’m going to revert to type, put my daydreamer’s hat on and advocate for some things that’ll never happen. There seem to be two areas where Labour in particular needs reform:

1) It needs to stop parachuting the ‘rising stars’ favoured by party leaders (the Purnells & Milibands, for example) into safe and reliably working class Labour constituencies and – here’s a novel idea – recruit from within the constituency.
2) If an MP is being seen as not representing the values and aspirations of his/her constituents, or the values and aspirations of Labour members within constituencies, there needs to be a greater trend towards deselecting them and replacing with someone who can represent them better.

Can I make a pre-emptive strike and say something about using the patent Dodgy Bar Chart Generator, before certain Labour types and/or the odd passing Tory does? Seriously though, They Work For You is very much your friend here, and will be even more so after the results from tonight’s vote on the 42-day limit comes through.

And yes I’ll gladly go along with Thomas @ 2’s suggestion as the top Tory target. For what it’s worth there are eleven LibDem councillors and none at all from Labour in Mid Beds, though one of the three independents is an ex-Labour man.

If you’re going to be non-partisan about developing a tactical agenda then I don’t think it is sensible to get tribal about opposing conservatives.

No, I think an independent ‘decapitation’ policy can be developed to oppose those most strongly linked with bad practises, corruption and dishonesty.

It’s a pity Martin Bell wasn’t able to clone himself and create a more widespread movement in this respect, as Neil Hamilton was only one of a vicious brigade that needed to be slung out. The LibDem ‘decapitation’ tactic was doomed to failure partly because they are neither neutral or impartial and fooled nobody in trying to portray themselves as such, but I think LC could prove itself to be above party politics by designating a nominal list (say 10) of the worst MPs irrespective of party or position to rally and rail against in a more active and productive way.

How about a vote on the ten we hate most…

I’d really enjoy reading nominations from the conspirators detailing their reasons – do you want to start the ball rolling, Sunny?

I can’t help but feel that would end up getting counter productive, and I doubt many reading (myself included) know enough about all MPs to pick out anyone other than prominent ones.

Much better would be to get a list of the most marginal seats and investigate the MPs sitting in them, see if they’re “worthy” or not to be there regardless of party.

Lee, that’s stage two.

Once you’ve decided who the worst are it gets easier to decide which are in the most vulnerable position and worth attacking.

Starting from the opposite premise is to take up the coordinating role which is also necessary, but ultimately secondary to the motivating role – you have to get the ball rolling before you can get it going in the right direction. Insisting on pointing it in the right direction before you blow the starting whistle gets you nowhere, even if it makes you feel like you’ve done something positive, but really it only absolves one’s guilt complex.

I understand what you’re saying, I just think that naming a load of MPs that are more likely to be ministers in safe seats is a little bit of a waste of time.

Suggestions in increasing order of difficulty:

1. Use TheyWorkForYou or Ask Aristotle to see how a particular MP voted.

2. Create a policy with Public Whip and see how MPs voted.

3. Import and manipulate the data available from the PublicWhip.

But what are Labour values?

That’s why I’m suggesting it’d be good to open it up to all the conspirators and contributors to discover whether there is any consensus.

I’m sure each and every one of us have our own personal bete noires who we’d like to see suffer a slaying at the hands of the electorate. So whether they are particular for their local flavour or their obscurity, it’d be fascinating to get a taste of where we all stand.

My personal stand is against the cynical, corrupt, conniving and dishonest MPs out there because I think the misguided and selfish are capable of redemption. Anyway ministers are among the more capable members so there are far worthier objects for our opprobrium.

But thomas, some of the more cynical, corrupt, conniving and dishonest MPs appear to be ministers!

If “ministers are among the more capable members” then how do you explain Hazel Blears?

Some very interesting suggestions….

But what policies would one use to measure the MPs? What would be a good ‘labour values’ vote and what wouldn’t?

This is kind of the problem, you’d only be able to really sort the wheat from the chaff on social policies…how many Labour MPs have voted against things like child benefits and winter fuel allowance? I somehow doubt many (if any) have. Prove me wrong someone?

Please do do this as an act of public service. Anyone identified as not being in thrall to the Trade Unions (in an entirely undemocratic way) would be more likely to get my, and I suspect many millions of others,’ votes.

Leftwards into obscurity comrades!

What a limp attack at the “left” as if many MPs on either side actually represent the people rather than their party or their own ends.

Sunny, Labour values seem to be authoritarian and centralist – setting aside dishonesty for now.

Perhaps the question should be, “what should be Labour values, and who are the MPs who voted accordingly?”

I don’t really see the point of a ranking list (there is a lot more to whether an MP is true to ‘Labour values’ than how they vote in parliament).

What the American bloggers do which I think seems to work well is to help candidates who share their views get selected and elected (this has much more impact, particularly in the medium to long term, than ‘decapitation campaigns’, e.g. any effort to get rid of Nadine Dorries would, sadly, be completely wasted). This can involve help with fundraising or, for example, advice on e-campaigning, website design or whatever the Liberal Conspirators think they have to offer people who are trying to get selected as their party’s candidate to be a councillor or MP, or standing for election.

Rather than having to trawl through a load of information to come up with a list that hardly anyone is going to read, another approach would be to decide what help LC could offer candidates, what the criteria for accessing this help would be, and then let people (from whichever party) who think that they meet the criteria apply to be endorsed by LC. Then the readers, or editors or whoever, can decide on the most deserving cases.

the govt’s won: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7449268.stm

“The government won by nine votes, with 315 MPs backing its position and 306 MPs voting against it.”

looks like the list is going to get long indeed.

#22 donpaskini

Seconded. There are differences between the US and Britain (size of the country & therefore the blogosphere), that limit what we could do, but it’d be an interesting experiment to find three or four good Parliamentary candidates (they don’t even have to be current MPs) in winnable seats and see what impact could be made with fundraising, campaigning & publicity.

Bizarrely you would end up having to add some conservative MPs to that list as well thanks to their promise to scrap 42 days detention without trial and ID Cards.

This list may not indicate that the respective constituencies have deals with the GMB. There are some there that I believe have sponsorships from Unite for example. Which is not to say that the MPs concerned aren’t GMB members as well as their other unions. For example Tony Lloyd was a printer TU-wise and could have joined forces with NUJ scribbler Gerald Kaufman to run a magazine.

PS The main points I made on my own blog were (a) that TU reps on the NEC and NPF and in PPC shortlisting and selections DO NOT follow TU policy and (b) that these deals – the significant ones anyway – are with constituencies not MPs. Kenny could think Sean Woodward was a twat and still think St helens CLP was worth supporting. I’d hope so. But at the moment he’s whipping MPs.

Why is LC concerned with ‘Labour values’? Since last night, I’d’ve though ‘Labour values’ have now completely decoupled from anything anybody here stands for.

Why not ‘left-liberal values’? “(social justice, equality, eradicating poverty etc.)”

Or is it time to change the ‘FAQs’ page?