And a good 20-30% would likely support invading France. Time to get Brittany back.

You’re right, Conor and so too – to an extent – is Kettle. However, every time I read Kettle’s columns, I’m waiting for the moment where he does the big reveal and decides that the answer is something not a million miles removed from New Labour under Blair, circa 1997-2001. He’s been pining for ‘a new politics’ ever since he abandoned whatever he used to believe in for some kind of English liberalism (which usually boiled down to…see above). He recognises that the emasculation of Labour party conferences was part of making the party electable, but he seems a bit short of saying how they could be (re)opened up to enable debate in a party now so ruthlessly controlled by and from the centre. And that’s before we get to the whole issue of New Labour’s repeated attempts at ensuring that whatever is regarded as the left is kept well away from power, let alone influence. As for the Tories, a combination of deference, the scent of power in the nostrils and the marginalisation of the ‘One Nation’ non-Thatcherite tendency will ensure their conferences will continue to resemble a cross between a Nuremburg rally and the Rotary Club.

with a few years in the middle where we had some genuine political debates that shaped the reform agenda of Labour’s first term in office.

Is this really true, or was it more the case that they weren’t genuinely debates because the people who opposed that reform agenda mostly preferred to keep quiet rather than rock the boat? I’m not sure I can think of any debate from that time where you couldn’t assume the result well before kick-off.

EJH: I remember a debate about the decision to support incorporation of the ECHR into domestic law. I think Charter88 also had a big influence on the constitutional reform agenda (remember Kinnock once referred to its sponsors as a bunch of wingers and wankers before he came around to most of its proposals). The level at which the minimum wage should be set was also debated at successive conferences plus Clause IV and OMOV – both of which were close run things (OMOV passed on the vote of the MSF delegation which hinged on one woman switching sides because the resolution had been composited with the proposal for all-women short-lists).

Whatever you think of the outcome of those debates they did take place.

Redpesto: yes. Martin worked for Liberty as a policy officer about twenty years before me, but apart from that I don’t find much in common with him. He comes from that CP fellow-travelling style of politics who all seemed to end up as either Blairites or neocons (or both). Having said which, I would agree that Labour’s first term was a reforming government – although I would say that most of those reforms were actually a legacy of the years in which John Smith was party leader.

The Clause Four vote was 66%-34% – perhaps not all that close-run. My recollection is of a concerted attempt to overturn the previous year’s vote rather than anything else. (I mean, that was the whole point of the special conference. ) Everybody knew who was going to win. OMOV, I grant you, was more complex.

Conor, you mention four debates. Only two have anything to do with Labour’s achievements once in government.

The other two are organisational debates, which have been ongoing in the party since its foundation – and on which changes, additions and subtractions have been debated and voted in many conferences, not specific to the time period in which you say debate was open and things got decided. To gie an example, the recent conference decision to suspend contemporary resolutions, and potentially this conference’s decision to reverse them. Yet no one doubts where the real balance of power lies, and all the debate in the world is futile.

Of the two debates you mentioned where what was decided actually happened, well let’s look a tad more closely. In the case of the ECHR, all of what was done, was done with the support of John Smith and the support of the NEC, expressed by a Statement that was adopted by conference. ‘Debate’ was well locked up beforehand. Not to say that the majority didn’t support such a measure – but it only happened because the leadership supported it; had the leadership not supported it, it would not have happened, and had it happened without leadership support, the leadership would have ignored it – as they have with so many other resolutions of conference.

The second ‘debate’ you mention was about Charter88. Some of the same criticisms apply as above, but even allowing for Neil Kinnock’s opposition and supposing for a moment that everything that happened at congress was a spontaneous expression of members’ will that changed the minds of the leadership, how much has actually been achieved? Sure, the hereditary peers are all but dispensed with, but we’re a bit forgetful if we think for a moment that that was all Charter88 demanded. On the subject of Charter 88′s demands, this Labour government had 12 years and three parliamentary majorities – and constitutional reform is still buried beneath an avalanche of bureaucracy.

Arguably several of the most important, far reaching demands will never be achieved – not by Labour anyway:

* Subject Executive powers and prerogatives, by whomsoever exercised, to the rule of law.
* Establish freedom of information and open government.
* Create a fair electoral system of proportional representation.
* Reform the Upper House to establish a democratic, non-hereditary Second Chamber.
* Place the Executive under the power of a democratically renewed Parliament and all agencies of the state under the rule of law.
* Draw up a written constitution anchored in the ideal of universal citizenship, that incorporates these reforms.

So exactly what was the point of all the hot air expended at conference again, in the years you mentioned?

I’m inclined to agree with much of Conor’s OP and Dave Semple’s response @6.

Dave wrote,

… no one doubts where the real balance of power lies, and all the debate in the world is futile.

Indeed, if I recall correctly membership of the Labour party halved while Tony Blair was PM.

I don’t attribute it to him, and I don’t know about the other parties – the point is that people have disengaged from mainstream politics, as Conor rightly claimed, and one of the reasons is that they feel they have little to no influence. This is also a reason why party membership has fallen – they feel they have no say in the party, there is no ‘reward’ for their subscriptions.

If politicians are genuinely concerned about disengagement they should address such issues, as well as doing what Dave suggested.

I’m sure some of them are concerned but it seems to me there have been no changes that would increase engagement.