Labour Conference: Delegates Row - `Only loyal MPs chosen to speak'
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Your support makes all the difference.LABOUR LEADERS faced new allegations of "rigging" their annual conference last night after an internal document, leaked to The Independent, revealed how they tried to ensure that loyal delegates were chosen to speak in debates.
The report disclosed that Labour's Millbank headquarters in London asked its regional offices to draw up a list of "reliable" speakers who would support the Government and allow officials to draft their speeches.
Left-wingers seized on the report as further evidence of the "control freak tendency". But they claimed the attempt had backfired and that delegates had shown they were not afraid to criticise the Government.
The document described "three basic categories" of speaker. The first was "an extra special one or two for every debate ... the one who will get on TV, who we should work with on speech in advance of conference. Speech should be good for TV but also tackle arguments against our position strongly".
The second group was described as "normal - people with stories to tell, not fantastic but time-fillers".The third was "loyal people with initiative. People ready to get up and speak without needing to be prompted and without us needing to write their speech for them. Need to be strong speakers who can persuade people and reliable".
Training sessions were held in each region in the run-up to the Blackpool conference. In some areas, delegates were asked to fill in a questionnaire asking whether they had "a story to tell" and whether there were "local examples (school buildings, NHS spending, smaller classes, New Deal etc) to show Labour's achievements".
Labour also faced embarrassment over the revelation that a list of the 188 delegates from the London region showed that only 14 of them were considered suitable to speak in Blackpool. Their names were marked with a "Yes" or "No", with unreliable delegates described variously as "Trot", "naive" , "argumentative" or a "Ken Livingstone supporter" while a loyal person was dubbed "a softie". Others were described as "mostly sensible - black," and "be nice to - politically sound".
Labour confirmed the list was genuine but said disciplinary action had been taken against the party official who had written on it. A Labour spokesman said: "The party disapproves of any comments of a personal or political nature being used in connection with these lists. This was a one-off incident which the party has investigated and is satisfied will not happen again."
Ken Livingstone, the Labour MP for Brent East, said: `We're supposed to be a political party, not a dating agency." He warned the leadership that the attempts to control the conference would "explode in its face".
Dennis Skinner, the MP for Bolsover, said the document was a matter of concern but that the attempt to fix the conference had already failed. "The mood is very encouraging. Speakers are not `on message', which is a healthy development. The strategy is not working," he said.
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