Will anyone in their right mind underwrite the party until there is a properly elected competent leader who is straight with people? 

It's not 'Tory tosh' though, is it? Here's The Guardian's spin on it, which must make pretty depressing reading...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/29/labour

This is a lovely idea for members to regain effective control of thier party, but it will be hard to fly. To clear the debt requires about £135 from each member on average - I doubt many would fork that out. (The Guardian claims the current debt is £24 million including interest, assuming we still have 180k members => £133.33/member).

Just having members fund the ongoing party expenditure, without millionaire loan/gifts help, would be a substantial achievement.

My proposal, which I floated back in January, is to call upon the salaried beneficiaries of recent elections to make a significant donation to party funds:

If nearly all of the 440 Labour MPs, MEPs, MSPs and AMs contributed £20k each, that would amount to about £8 million, getting on for half the outstanding debt. Probably enough to fend-off the immediate crisis. Those that refused could take their luck with CLP re-selection next time, and fund their own re-election expenses.

We'd have to hope the Unions and Co-operative movement will be willing bail out the party again for the rest over a few years. Though if I was a Union leader I'd be playing hard-ball, given how little the govt has enacted in the way of Union friendly legislation.

If necessary there would have to be another call on the salaried parliamentarians to make up the rest.

We shouldn't be dependent on a fresh set of rich individuals to bail us out from the first lot. We sold off 16 Old Queen Street HQ for £5.8 million in 2006 leaving only about £3 million in tangible assets (less a £750k "onerous lease"), so no solution there.

It would require concerted CLP will-power to drive this through, but the alternatives look bleak to me. We'd have to go with this soon, before the beneficiaries of that expensive 2005 election are gone!

For some financial context 2006 party expenditure was £26.6 million, with a £800k deficit for the year. Donations were £5.4 million for 2006, affiliations+membership were £12.3 million. Paying off the debts from cost-savings looks very tough. Interest alone on the £20 million debt must be about £1.25 million/year.

Dear Richard

You are right we do not want to start to involve the Courts. There is a massive opportunity for teaching the Leadership some basic lessons in good governance, and securing a basic settlement of rights and respnsibilities.

The lead has to come from the top, or at least it should come from the top to avoid the allegations of the Leadership and hence the Prime Minister of either being in hock to the unions or the 'left', which seems to include all off except a few eccentric members of the Cabinet, the PLP and the odd individual member.

I was in a meeting not so long ago with a colleague and the Director of Election Resources, Jon Mendelsohn, who in a volunteer capacity is taking the strain with the Party's main creditors. My colleague and I were both sent application forms for the 1,000 club. We both agreed afterwards that neither of us would sign up until there was a major restructuring of the Party. Instead we would continue to do what we are currently doing financially which is to contribute locally.

There need to be some binding undertakings entered into by the NEC before I will consider doing much more. They involve encouraging local fund-raising and revenue sharing - rather than contributing to national appeals. For local fundraising to work we have to find ways of making the Treasurer function manageable, and guaranteeing no sequestration either by CLPs from branches, or regional parties from CLPS, or the national party from either regional, constituency or branch parties.

Individual members are of course free to contribute to the Party at whatever level and in what ever form they please.

I am just working on the assumption that only a very small minority are now willing to contribute to national funds. And it will take some major shifts in thinking about the Party itself to encourage more donations.

The GMB has apparently indemnified its NEC members.  If the liability of the NEC members is "joint and severall" (highly probable) and if the indemnity is a full indemnity this means that the GMB is potentially liable for all the Labour Party's debts.  Looks like good news for the Party - though not necessarily for the members of the GMB.

PS Does the GMB Executive really have the authority to issue a £25M guarantee? Does the GMB have £25M?

What sort of a delusion is it to think that Labour Party membership and financing is the "main plank" of winning the next election.

 

Not exactly the top issue on the doorstep is it?

 

In any case what does "underwrite" mean. If people want to pay money to the Labour Party they can do that anytime.

 

And the party is democratic. Don't mistake not getting your own way for a lack of democracy. End of.

Perhaps it would be better to bail out the country which is much deeper in debt than the party, if Labour can't run their own party finances then how can they run the country

I have to agree with jaymason, it's largely stayed to the guardianista crowd, but if they couldn't keep their own finances in check, how can the electorate trust the "Right man for the job" to the man who's allowed his party finances to crap out nearly totally.

 That's going to cause a lot of people to at the very least, pause when they used to blindly tick the Labour party box.

Would any underwriting by Party members return the majority voting powers to those members and would this finally rid a good Party of the carbuncle of New Labour?

Oh yeeeah, recruit half a million members and become a mass movement again. Why didn't anyone else think of that?

How about we just accept Labour Party membership has always been about this level (the 450k we claimed in 97 was mythical) and just get some new donors in who wan't to se social justics and a smashed Tory Party.

All 3 parties are in favour of social justice. What makes Labour special? The only unique aspect of Labour is the link with the Unions.  How many people really want to be governed by a party that is completely dependent on the Unions?  Labour needs a broad appeal, but there is no way it can get it under Brown.  And if not, the Lib Dems will take over as the Opposition. Can anyone here who is not a Tory give a reason for not voting LibDem?