fabian tract 407 

the Labour Party: 

an organisational study 

contents 1 preface 1 
2 attitudes to political activity 3 
3 are CLPs necessary? 11 
4 new approaches to democracy 20 
5 election '70 28 
6 reform of party organisation 39 
appendix 49 


this pamphlet has been prepared on the initiative of the 
Executive Committee of the Young Fabian Group, the Local 
Societies Committee and other members of the Fabian Society 

P-C~) 

-Br 16t'51l(__4tl7) 

this pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Society, 
represents not the collective view of the Society but onlyviews of the individuals who prepared it. The responsibility of 
the Society is limited to approving the publications which it 
issues as worthy of consideration within the Labour movement. 
Fabian Society, 11 Dartmouth Street, London SW1 
June 1971 SBN 7163 0407 4 


1. preface 
Anthony Wedgwood Benn 

The Labour Party in opposition has two 
major jobs to do. First, it has to take 
advantage of the time it now has to rethink; 
and second, it has to re-shapeand re-structure its own organisation. 
Both are immensely disturbing, but both 
are absolutely essential if we are to get 
back into government and know what 
to do when we get there. 

There have been many reports, pamphlets 
and articles about party organisation 
since Harold Wilson condemned 
the "penny f.arthing machine" in his report 
in 1955; but this time it's different. 
The party .is clearly ready for change,
and those people who are prepared to 
take the time (and make the effort) to 
put forward new ideas may be surprised 
to discover how responsive the party is 
likely to be to them. At ~his stage we 
want discussion, and that is exactly what 
this pamphlet offers us. We are shown 
different analyses and alternative remedies 
to Jimber us up for the debates 
that lie ahead before we reach the firm 
decisions on how to improve our machine. 
By 1973 at the latest, this machine 
has got to be preparing itself for the 
next general election and that means 
that the decisions will have to be taken 
quite soon. 

What are the prospects? They are goodand interesting. We oan already see ev.idence 
of a recovery of political interest 
in the trade union movement. The 
Industrial Relations Bi·ll and nsmg 
unemployment have re-awakened in 
the trade unions an awareness of the 
need {or a powerful political voice, in 
much the same way as 70 years agot•he same feelings gave birth to the Lab-
our Party itself. The trade unions are 
not going to be content with supporting 
our funds, leaving the day to day work 
of the constituencies to the individual 
members. They are geared up to play a 
much larger part, and they have the 
res~urces and the organisational skill 
to make this effective. Indeed some constituences 
are realising that ~ few yards 
a way from the aged typewriter, defective 
duplicator, and underpaid agent, 
running bingo from the decrepit party 
headquarters wi~h its peeling wallpaper, 

are modern trade union offices properly 
staffed and equipped, running their industrial 
organisations with efficiency and 
humanity. 

Thus if the Labour Party had not been 
born when it was born, it would be born 
now. Similarly, the party is learning that 
to mobilise a winning combination of 
support against the Conservative managerial 
machine backed by b.ig business 
funds, it has got to work more closely 
with organised labour. The money that 
industry poured into Edward Heath's 
election campaign has paid such rich 
dividends already ~hat he will have no 
difficulty in doubling or trebling the 
contributions next time by reminding 
his supporters that they will have to 
pay up to keep him in power and preserve 
the advantages he has given them. 

Money lies at the root of our problems, 
and always has done. But it is not so 
much shortage of money as shortage of 
imagination about money that has held 
us back. For it is equally in our interests 
to provide the funds to get the 
Tories out. An hour's pay per worker 
per year wouJd be just as .good an investment 
(even .Jooked at in purely material 
terms) for our supporters, as the big 
gifts are for the Tory's business backers. 
If we th.ink big about money, we 
could raise millions of pounds too. 
What wi!.I never succeed is the continuation 
of the old vicious circle of poverty, 
poor organisation, appeals to avoid poverty, 
and poor organisation. Insolvencyis no recommendation for support and 
the begging bowl is no basis for future 
development. What we need is a development 
plan that Jocks ahead to the 
sort of party organisation that we know 
we must have and uses tha.t plan to raise 
the money to finance it. For a partythat believes .in planning, we have not 
always acted as if we accept the need 
to plan ahead {)Urselves. 

Now all that is changing. A development 
plan is being drawn up, based not 
on the money we have, but on the 
money we must have. When ·it is completed, 
we shall come to the pa.rty for 
that money to pay •for it. The first test 


will be whether we are prepared to find 
that money by higher subscriptions from 
our own pockets as party members or 
trade unionists. 

We are also looking at other ideas which 
could play a very significant part in 
strengthening the party. We are considering 
the possibility of publishing a 
newspaper. Not a daily newspaper, but 
a regular publication which we hopecould achieve a wide circulation and 
keep us in touch with both members 
and supporters who are now no more 
than promises on our canvass cards. We 
are thinking of new ways of establishingrelations with people and organisationsthat want to work with us, but cannot or 
will not join us. We must seek financial 
support more directly than through the 
cumbrous lotteries and bingo sessions 
that sometimes divert u from our po.Jitical 
work. We are considering the possibility 
of borrowing the idea of con~ultative 
status from the United Nations to 

bring us closer to organisations that 
don't want to affiliate, but don't qualifyin any sense as being proscribed. Symbolically 
we want to stretch out to cooperate 
with the pressure groups that 
are working for the causes in which 
we believe. 

We are also trying to remove the iron 
curtain that has so often shrouded partyactivities, as if the official secrets act 
was part of clause four. We are trying 
to make the conference more meaningful 
and see that the national executive 
reports back to it and consults the constituencies 
and trade unions more effectively. 


In brief, we are looking for new ideas. 
This pamphlet may stimulate others to 
think too and help us to re-shape our 
own organisation, so that it can do 
justice to our political ideas which Britain 
will need again one day when it 
wants something better than the narrow 
vision it is getting from the present government. 



2. attitudes to 
political activity 
Reg Race 


ln the aftermath of Labour's general election 
defeat, there will be caJls for an 
overhaul of party organisation. The signsare already apparent; a large number of 
resolutions to ·the 1970 party conference 
caJled for a re-vamping of .the party'selectoral machinery, arguing that defeat 
was partly caused by the state of constituency 
organisation. Yet another sign 
was the Fabian pamphlet by AnthonyWedgwood Benn, who sought to prove 
that Labour must change its own institutions 
if it was to compete with other 
pressure groups and organisations. 

These pressures for change are inevitable 
after an unexpected election defeat. 
T hey are more powerful for coming at 
the end of a period in which newspapers 
proclaimed the death of Labour's grass 
roots. It is important, however, that the 
debate on party organisation is a rational 
one, and not simply an alternative 
to other theories of electoral defeat. The 
purpose of the debate is not to exorcise 
the reality of the defeat, but to understand 
the nature of .the animal that we 
caJI party organisation, and to see whether 
we can come up with any prescriptions 
for future action. Unless proposals 
are related in a meaningful rway to what 
the organisation is, or should be, then aJI 
such proposals are meaningless. 

Interestingly enough, such an analysis 
of. ·the role and nature of party organis:
ttJOn can answer fundamental questions 
about the Labour )>arty in another field. 
The problem, "what sort of a political 
party has the La,bour Party been, and 
~hat sort of a party is it? can be partially 
answered by looking at the way ·the 
party has organised itself historically. 
Some sorts of political party may behave 
in one way towards. organisation, 
and other sorts of party in quite separ' 
ate ways. However, we should be clear 
that at the moment very little is known 
about the way in which political parties 
operate at the local level. Virtually 
notll.ing is known either, apart from on a 
purely anecdotal level, about the relationships 
that exist between the different 
· levels of a party organisation. Th.is is 
an important area, as people's expectations 
of the role of others in the organ


isation are an important source of conflic_
t, of proposals for change, and of 
resistance to such proposals. 

the concept of organisation 

Everyone wants a debate on party organisation, 
but it is very difficult to agree 
on an agenda. This is not surprising, as 
different actors within the organisation 
attribute goals to the organisation and 
descriptions of wha<t they actually do 
which are different ·from the identitie~ 
developed by others; and all these identities 
have a separate relation to social 
reality itself. We should be wary of an 
approach which states that an organisation 
has a certain goa·! or group of 
goals, and that anything else that goes 
on in the organisation is irrelevant. We 
may miss .important clues if we do this. 

We can, however, .identify at least three 
distinct definitions of party organisation, 
which tend to be used by different people. 
A Transport House official may 
mean the particular set of legal and organisational 
rules by ·which a constituency 
La,bour Party is defined. Such rules 
define the relationshbp of local parties, 
trade unions and affiliated organisations 
to the constituency par·ty in different 
sorts of circumstances, and provide legitimised 
channels through which certain 
operations may be carried out, such as 
the selection of a parliamentary candidate, 
or the sending of resolutions to 
party conference. On the other hand 
workers at different points in the par:ty 
structure may not agree that mere rules 
are everything, arguing that they do not 
describe adequately the decision making 
process .in ·their own local parties. Lab-
our Party agents, for example, maythink that the major function that local 
parties perform is the contesting of elections. 
This implies that they have a list 
of policy and organisational priorities 
from which they select the most salient; 
a rather different operation from the 
pure application of rules to :particular 
events. At yet another level, a member 
of the party who simply attends ward 
meetings, and .perhaps participates in the 
social activities of the party, may be 


motivated more by a concern to establish 
or maintain friendships .with others 
than to immerse himse1f in election work 
or have regard to the rule book. 

We have as yet no empirkal evidence to 
map out accurately these differences of 
attitudes within the par.ty, nor are we 
able ·to assess their impor·tance. The important 
point is that we ·should mot confuse 
the debate on party organisation by 
attempting to define the concept in too 
r.igorous a way. This, as has been said, 
would be impossible at this stage, and 
would be theoretically undesirable. The 
point of defining possible alternative attitudes 
to party organisation is to make 
it possible to examine the way in which 
the debate on organisation has been conducted 
jn the past. As a result of this 
we may be able to say ·that there is a 
general meaning to the term party organisation 
which a.JI the participants in the 
debate have used; and we may also be 
able to point out differences between a 
possible concensus on organisation witnjn 
the Labour Party, and the attitudes 
held in other parties. 

It may also be possible to assess the 
impact of voting behaviour research findings 
on the "concept of party function". 
Research findings, based on populations 
in the USA, Britain and Scandinavia, 
have emphasised the socjo-economic 
or·igins of voting behaviour, and relegated 
the role of electoral organisation 
to the dustbin of history. No matter 
what one thinks of the validity of such 
research findings, it is interest·ing to note 
that they seem to have had considerable 
effect on certain party decisions. The importance 
of television in the Labour Party's 
general election campaigns dates, not 
only from the rtime when TV ownershiphad spread to the vast bulk of the population, 
but also from the time when the 
results of voting behaviour studies became 
widely available in Britain. Some 
critics of Labour Party organisation have 
assumed that this electoral research and 
its findings on the low impact on the 
outcome of elections of local candidates 
and their respective organisations, is sufficient 
justification for dismantJ.ing some 
of the party organisations, and seeking 

a new role. We shall be able to see 
whether this attitude is justified, both in 
respect of voting behaviour research, and 
in terms of whether we can argue that 
a change in one function of party activity 
(ignoring all the other functions that 
a party performs) is good enough reason 
for advocating a totally changed role. 

the debate on organisation 

To revert to our rustorical concern of 
illuminating the nature of the Labour 
Party by referring to its attitude to organisation, 
one can say that there has 
been almost complete agreement on .the 
nature of party organisation. At no time 
since 1918 has there been debate on the 
aims of party organisation, at least in 
the open sessions of annual conference; 
and, as far as can be ascertained, in the 
private sessions either. Contributions 
from outside the party structure proper, 
such as the Socialist Commentary surveyof 1965, have tended to concentrate on 
the problems of efficiency and rationality. 
It is fair to say that there is substantial 
agreement on the "concept of party"
(that concept of w'hat sort of partyLabour is) by all elements in the coalition 
of trade unionists, intellectuals and 
reformers that make up the Labour Party. 
The jmportance of this ·is comparative 
: i·f one looks at the "concept of 
party" as an issue within the Labour 
Party since 1918, and compares this wjth 
the continuous debate on organisationand procedures that took place in the 
Russian Socia.] Democratic Party (RSDRP) 
and the German Social Democratic Party 
(SPD) before the first world war, ihen 
major differences immediately become 
apparent. The debate on the Lenin 
Martov resolutions at the London congress 
otf the RSDRP in 1903 were absolutely 
central to the growth of a spJ.intered 
social democratic movement in 
Russia. Although the debate on the concept 
of .party there did not initiate or 
finalise the split in the Russian movement, 
it can be said that the argument 
on the size of the party was fundamental 
in both reflecting and defining two 
very different attitudes to the role of 
party in revolution. 


Similarly, the debate on revisionism 
{which in many ways was an argumentabout the fundamental role and functions 
of the SPD) dragged on in the German 
party f.or nearly ten years before 
1914. The debate between the trade union 
leaders, Bernstein, Luxemburg and 
the SPD executive, was a debate about 
fundamental political theory, not about 
philosophy or bureaucratic party organisation. 
To quote Luxemburg: ". . . 
What distinguishes (all the opportunisttendencies in the party) on the surface? 
The dislike of theory, and this is natural 
since our theory, that -is the bases of 
scientific socialism, sets our practical activity 
clear tasks and limits, both in 
relation to the goals to be attained, as 
much as in regard to the means to be 
used and finally in the method of the 
struggle. NaturaLly those who only want 
to chase aflter practical achievements 
soon devel-op a desire to liberate themselves, 
·in other words to separate practice 
.from theory to make themselves 
free of it." (Rosa Luxembur.g, Collected 
works, vol 3, p96, Sozialreform oder 
revolution, author's italics.) To Rosa 
Luxemburg, the notion that any social 
democratic activity could have meaning 
or validity apant .from its causal relationship 
to theory, was anathema. Marxism 
emphasises the unity of theory and practice, 
and the anJti-revisionists accused 
Bernstein and his supporters of pursuing 
a politics that had no meaning. Revolutionary 
politics, Luxemburg argued, 
was practical only insofar as it was 
linked to !theoretical necessity. The revisionists 
sought to describe the SPD as 
they saw it, in terms of the functions 
that it performed in a hostile state; imperial 
Germany. Their description of 
party role left them wide open to attack 
in terms of Marx.ist and Leninist theory 
about the nature of the revolutionary'party. This was no argument ~bout whether 
·the party bureaucracy was efficient 
or not, but about whether the party was 
anything else apart from a bureaucracy. 

To say, however, that there has been 
fundamental agreement on the nature of 
the Labour Party in terms of organisation 
is not to say that there have not 
been important differences of emphasis 

between various elements in the party, 
notably between the left and the r•ight; 
although there has always been a small 
and rather specialised pressure groupconcerned almost exclusively with partyorganisaJt.ion, concentrated on the agents' 
union. However, the differences of opinion 
between the left and ri.ght have 
concerned the relationship of electoral 
organisation to v~ing behaviour, and 
winning elections. The discussion has 
centred on whether the party bureaucracy 
was efficient or suited to the needs 
of modern politics; but the argumentcontained one .fundMOental difference in 
attitude towards organisation between 
the leadership and the tradiltiona1 left. 
A·fter the 1959 election defeat, there was 
a considerable amount of debate at the 
s.peoial conference called by :the NEC and 
held on 28 / 29 November 1959. The left's 
attitude to the role of bureaucratic electoral 
organisation is best summaris.ed by 
quoting .from Michael Foot's speech to 
conference: ". . . in the months ahead 
we are bound to have arguments about 
policy. We have to make in those months 
ahead one of the most critical decisions 
that has ever been made in the history of 
this party: whether we are going to go 
the same way as the German SPD or 
whether we are going to realise that in 
order to win an election we have to 
change the mood of the people in this 
country, to open their eyes to what an 
evil and disgraceful and rollten societyit is. This is what we have to do and 
if we really applied our mind to that 
I am sure we could do it . .. . But you 
are never going to convert or win an 
election ·i·f we oursdves do n~ believe in 
our own princi,ples of public ownership." 

(M. Foot, Labour Party annual conference 
report, 1959, p122.) Even more specifically, 
Konni Zi-liacus argued: "I am 
all for propaganda and organisation, but 
they have to be related to an all out 
fight on a firSJt class issue raising a moral 
challenge." (Ibid, p129.) 
Foot's v·iew, however, seems l'o be the 
more developed, and contained at least 
three demenJts: first, the propagation o.f 
socialist policies by the Labour Party is 
suggested to .be a potent force fm changing 
people's votes (as Frank Cousins 


put it at the same conference: "There 
are .three million nascent socialists out 
there waiting to be converted"); second, 
an attittude towards "organisation"; "organisation" 
is essentially neutral, in the 
sense .that without the right policies Ito 
propagate, it can never be successful. 
''Organisation" is non-ideological, but it 
can be positive and effeotive when it is 
distributing the right policies. H is not 
clear from Foot's contribution whether 
"organisation" can be effedtive under 
any other set of circumstances; third, the 
difference between the correct and incorrect 
positions thaJt the Labour Party 
may take is defined in terms of policy,
and usually one particular group of policies, 
those concerned with public ownership. 
It is clear from our earJ.ier examples 
that a·lternaltive definitions of correctness 
have been used. 

Interestingly, no mention was made in 
Foot's speech of the deforming aspects 
of party organisation. In fact, considerations 
of Labour Party organisationhave ignored this important deba:e, 
which is surprising after the publicitygiven to the argumenlts about Stalinism 
in the late 'fifties. The debate on the 
bureaucratisat·ion of the Russian revolution 
is too complex ,to be treated thoroughly 
here, but it can be said that some 
authors thought that the ideals of the 
revolution had been betrayed by the 
growing influence and power of the committee 
men, of whom Stalin was the 
most notable example. These committee 
men had stultified democratic decision 
making in the communist party, and in 
fact constituted a new ruling class or 
caste. No one sought to argue that the 
Labour Party organisation could be analysed 
with similar concepts, though this 
is not saying that the general secretary 
of the party is equiva·lent to Stalin. The 

concepts simply have not been used. 

To return to the 1959 debate: Foot did 
differ from ,the view expressed by NEC 
spokesmen in the debate. Gaitskell took 
the trouble of mentioning in his keynote 
speech that he thought the party's elecrion 
organisation .was "much better than 
in 1955", and he was obviously puzzled 
by the fact that the Tories still won in 

spite of this. GaitskeJ.l assumed that the 
level of party organisation was one of 
the impontant fac~ors in predicting electoral 
success or failure. A different view 
of the party organisation was taken by 
the media-oriented specialists employed 
by the party, panticular.Jy before the 1964 
election. They stressed the content of the 
party's ·image in terms of political style, 
leadership orientation, and the presentation 
of policies. The image was mediated 
through various channels and agencies,
including television, the press, and the 
local poiitical activists. The party must,
they argued, be juS~t as much concerned 
in future with the twists given to its 
image and propaganda by the various 
agencies of mediation, as with the formal 
corutent of policy. The party's own formal 
organisation must not, they argued, 
be exempt from this process of analysis.
Thus there have been, historica!Jy, subtle 
but significant differences of attitude between 
three different sorts of people who 
have contributed to the debate on organisation: 
the traditional left, the party 
leadership and the media specialists. This 
categorisllltion can, however, be regarded 
only as the most accurate caricature available 
of a far more complex reality. 
The truth is that nobody has really analysed 
party organisa:tion thoroughly. The 
fundamental point about this is, however, 
that each group within the partyhas been in fundamental agreement about 
the basic character of the party organisation, 
and of the party itself. If 
there has been no debate about partyorganisation based on Marxist assumptions 
about the roles of pol·itical theory 
and political practice, then there has equally 
been no debate, at least in public, 
based on specialist assumptions about 
voting behaviour and the role of partyworkers in mediating propaganda. 

In fact, II'eformist suggestions of im!proving 
party organisation have been predicted 
on the major assumption that a 
change in the role of local panties, and 
a restructuring of party rules and machinery 
to take account of this, would of 
necessity have to be backed by Transport 
House. Suggestions for reform have 
therefore been aimed at the ears of the 
party elite. This was true of the }956 


Wilson report, which proposed some minor 
and technical changes in the waythat local parties and head office operated, 
and also expressed concern at th.e 
technical inadequacy of the electonil 
machinery in dealing with new problems 
like the postal vote. It was also true of 
r the 1967 interim report on party organ


' 
isation chaired by Bill Simpson; and 
certainly true of the 1965 Socialist Commentary 
survey called "Our penny farthing 
machine". The middle class orientation 
of the article was especiaJ.ly apparent 
in the scathing attitude towards amateurism 
in the party organisation. An 
example given was the failure of partyworkers to use telephones: ". . . these 
[anachronisms] reflect the attitude of the 
party in general to the tools and amenities 
of the modern age. We are as suspicious 
of them as we are of professionalism 
in the party HQ staff or the agency 
service." 

What is remarkable about this is that 
suggestions for reform have been made 
at the 6lite level; a certain amount of 
debate bas taken place at party conference 
about specific organisational defects, 
in particular the run down of the agency 
service. Yet no research has been conducted 
to find out the attitudes of partyworkers to organisation, or of TransportHouse officials and party agents to the 
role of local parties. Nothing is known 
at all about how far the organisationa-l 
charts mapped out in the various sets of 
model rules in fact correspond to actual 
behaviour. Everyone knows that the 
number of full time agents is falling rapidly, 
and yet it is not considered desirable 
that the causes of this decline should 
be understood. These fields of study are 
broad areas in which basic research 
could yield fruitful results. 

organisational research 

At this point it would be useful to state 
which sorts of research might be undertaken 
to clarify the debate on party organisation, 
and to look specifically at several 
social theories which may provide 
important clues as to what questions we 
should ask, and what sorts of behaviour 

we might be interested in. First, i·t ought 
to be made clear that we know next to 
nothing about the actual operation of 
local and constituency Labour Parties,
and even less about the role or attitudes 
of crucial individua,ls in the partystructure, such as full time party agents.
We have numerous descriptive works 
concerning the formal decision making, 
representational and administrative structures 
of individual constituenoy parties. 
These studies are mainly concerned to 
examine voting behaviour at single general 
elections, or sets of local elections, 
and relate this to the performance of the 
local Labour Party; but this performance 
is never related to the functions that a 
local politica,J party performs in the political 
system as a whole; and there has 
never been any attempt to link the activities 
of local political parties with any 
theory of party development. The position 
is that we ha·ve certain limited sorts 
of information from several areas in 
Britain about the formal structures of 
local Labour Parties, and we have also 
two sorts of grand theory which can be 
related to the way in which partieswork. These are the Almond and Coleman 
functional theory, and Michels' interlocking 
theories on the internal dynamics 
of organisations. There has, however, 
been no empirical work linkingthese theories with actual events at the 
grass roots level; so we are doubly in 
the dark, knowing nothing about what 
the local organisations actually do, and 
neither knowing whether the theories are 
right or not. For example, the only piece 
of work ever published on party agents 
is extremely super,ficial, mainly concerned 
with the Conservative Party, and over 
ten years out of date. (G. 0. Comfort, 
"Professional politicians", Annals of 
American research, Public Affairs Press, 
Washington D.C., 1958.) 

the body of 
theory on organisations 
and socialist parties 

Robert Michels wrote a book, first published 
in 1911 entitled simply, Political 
parties. It has 'been one of the m?st influential 
social sc.ience works of th1s cen



tury. In it he argued that the malfunctioning 
of existing democracy, in particular 
the domination by the leadership 
over the society and popular organisations, 
was not primarilry a phenomenonwhich resulted from a particular level 
of social and economic development, but 
ra.ther was characteristic of any complex 
social system. Democratic control was 
not, he argued, fundamentally different 
under capitalism or under a posited socialist 
or communist state. Modern man,
according to him, is faced with an unresolvable 
dilemma; he cannot have large 
institutions such as nation states, trade 
unions, political parties, or churches,
without turning over effective power to 
the few who are at the summit of these 
institutions. To demonstrate the argument 
that democracy and large sc(!Jle 
s·oc.ial organis·ation are incompatible,
Michels examined the behaviour of the 
socialist parties in western Europe which 
appeared to be, at that time, the most 
committed to the extension of democracy. 
Socia·list parties that presentedprogrammes containing civil rights anc 
nationalisahon planks would presumably 
be democratic in their internal workings. 
If such parties were themselves undemocratic 
in their internal structure,
presumably the effort to democratise society 
must fail. His thesis has been conveniently 
summarised as " the iron law of 
oligarchy" : " . . . It is organisation which 
gives birth to the domination of the elected 
over the electors, of the mandatories 
over the mandators, of the delegates 
over the delegators. Who says organisation 
says oligarchy." 

Although the theory of organisation developed 
by Michels is too complex to 
be analysed here, certain points must be 
stated. Large scale organisations givetheir officers a near monopoly o.f power.
The masses are incapable of taking partin the decision making process, and desire 
strong leadership. The leaders of the 
masses are themsel·ves part of the power 
elite, and develop perspectives and interests 
derived from their position among 
the more privileged elements. Every organisation 
creates .for itself, as soon as 
it has become consolidated, interests peculiar 
to itself. Thus, "the problem of 

socialism is not merely a problem of 
economics . . . . Socialism is also an 
administrative problem, a problem of 
democracy". It is remarkable that there 
has been such a paucity of debate on 
these lines within the L(!Jbour P_arty in 
terms of policy ; and it is true to saythat there has been no debate at all on 
how an interpretation of Michel's theories 
might be used to analyse the Lab-
our Party organisation. However, it is 
important to point out that when Michels 
talks of the ideal of democracy, he is 
referring to a state of absolute democracy; 
and, linked with this qualification, 
it .is necessary to understand that Michels 
was not simply say.ing that organisation 
precludes the possibility of democratisation 
in a political party. It is quitelogical to argue that although organisat.
ion may preclude the possibility of absolute 
democracy, it may be the source 
of democratisation, in many cases and 
ways. An existing simple capitalist state 
cannot, because of its intrinsic distr.ibution 
oJ power and privilege, be made 
more undemocra·tic by the rise within 
that state of a bureaucratic socialist party. 
Michels was quite clear, however, 
that in such a situation, there was no 
possibility of absolute democracy being 
attained. 

Having examined the Michels theory,
what does it mean for research ·on Lab-
our .Party organisation? Michels' hypotheses 
are eminently testable, and we 
should concentrate on which functions or 
organisational forms of local partiesproduce which effects in the process of 
bureaucratisation and democratisation. If 
we put forward questions to test the validity 
of two statements: "do we have 
democracy within political parties" and 
"do we have oligarchy within politicalparties", then the answer may be no to 
both questions. The trouble with Michels' 
basic assumptions about western so-
cia]j.st parties is that the emphasis on 
absolute democracy has prevented empirical 
testing of hypotheses at the local 
level d erived from Michels. Because, for 
Michels, socialist political part·ies based 
on social class were by definition democracies, 
it was difficult .for him to deal 
with the variat.ions that might be gen



erated in their internal workings by such 
factors as social composition. It took 
only the most minor or superficial evidence 
to show that a party that was initially 
a democracy by definition bad become 
something rather less than an absolute 
democracy. 

There is research in progress on the Labour 
Party organisation, which is attempting 
to test hypotheses along these 
lines, taking into account that the degree 
of democracy in a party organisation 
may be related to the formal m1es of 
the party, to its social composition, and 
to the degree and nature of func~ional 
differentiation within the party. A second 
sort of research that should be conducted 
is research comparing the theoreticallyderived expectations (derived from voting 
behaviour research) with what actuallyhappens at .general elecHons. This refers 
specifically to voting behaviour theory in 
regard to the impact of party organistion 
on the voting decisions of indi·viduals. 
Research in both Britain and the 
USA, it can be argued, has failed to provide 
a dynamic theory of why people 
vote the way they do. What bas happened 
-in voter research is that problemshave been tackled one at a time (for instance, 
"how does a particular candidate 
affect the vote of different sorts of people?); 
the variable is found to have limited 
effects on behaviour, so we take the 
next variable, test that, find it bas a-lmost 
no effect . . . and so on. The ludicrous 
pos-ition is then reached whereby ·it seems 
that nothing affects anything, and we are 
pushed back .into arguing that it is social 
class or some such omnibus variable that 
is the main determinant of voting behaviour, 
without us being particularly 
clear, either, about how social class affects 
indi·viduals and groups. For example, 
what precisely is it that makes work·ingclass people in Britain tend to vote Lab-
our? How little we reaLly know about 
voting :behaviour is adequately i.Jlustrated 
by a quotation from an American political 
scientist: ". . . the sel.f identification 
measure of party loyalty is the best 
indicator of pa-rtisanship, and poJ.iticalanalysts commonly refer to partisanship 
and party identification interchangeably. 

Partisanship is the most important single 

influence on political opzmons and voting 
behaviour. Many other influences are 
at work on voters in our society, but 
none compare ·in significance with partisanship". 
t(W. H. Flanigan, Political 
behaviour of the American electorate, 

Allyn and Bacon, Boston 1968, p35, 
author's italics.) Our current knowJedgeof electoral behaviour is not good enough 
to satisfy rigorous academic standards, 
or to provide grounds for saying that we 
should get rid of the electoral organisation 
of the party because it does not 
produce the goods at the ballot box. 
The current belief in the uselessness of 
election organisation has only slightly 
more empirical evidence to back it up 
than had the previous belief in the efficacy 
of this organisation. It is importantto catalogue the process of this change 
in beliefs. 

A fair·ly widespread belief until about 
1955 was the view that candidates secured 
a substantial number of votes for 
their party over and above the normal 
party vote; that electors were .influenced 
strongly by the mass media and by partyelection activity; and that they decided 
which candidate to vote for partly on 
the basis of the policies presented bythe candidates for consumption by the 
electorate. During this per-iod, when such 
explanations of voting behaviour were 
current, Transport House coined the 
slogan "the victory of ideals must be 
organised". It became the practical. justi•
fication of the existence of the natwnal 
agent's department at head office, and of 
the agents' union. Cynics (informed cynics 
who know something of the trend 
of voting behaviour research findings)
might argue that the slogan should now 
read : "the victory of ideals can't be 
organised, because the voters aren't interested 
in the ideals, and if they were, 
organisation couldn't win ~n. election". 
In fact the beliefs in the vahd1ty of organisation 
never had much empiricalevidence to back them up; and now the 
argument that the electio~ _organis~t!onis useless has as little empmcal vahd1ty. 

The transmutation of the belief in electoral 
organisation into _b_eliefs a~~ut the 
nationalisation of Bnt1sh poht1cs (a 


phrase used by Kavanagh in his book 

Constituency electioneering in Britain, 

Longmans, London 1970) began with the 
debate on the impact of individual candidates 
in general elections. The remark 
of an experienced party agent that "the 
candidate is not worth 500 votes" has 
become an accepted truism. Since 1945 
only one independent candidate has 
stood against both major parties in a 
constituency and won; S. 0. Davies at 
Merthyr Tydfi.J in 1970, and it could he 
argued that there were special local reasons 
for S.O.'s success. There is, howeVler, 
at least one author who disputesthe validity of this thesis. Phhlip Wi-lliams 
(Parliamentary affairs, winter 1966-67, pp13-30, "'IWo notes on the Brit·ish electoraJ 
system") argues that long serving 
MPs do in fact build up a small personal 
vote, and that in certain circumstances 
it can be quite large. 

A second element in the transmutation 
of the belief in electora·l organisation has 
been the way in which the mass media 
has treated general elections since the 
early 'sixties. The emphasis on uniformity, 
the realisation that it takes a 1 or a 
10 per cent swing to win a particular 
seat, the increasing scepticism of the 
mass media when dealing with partyclaims about winning unlikely seats; all 
these have contributed to a growingscepticism among party workers themselves. 
The uni.formity of election results 
in terms of a national swing (even if 
national swing only means the average 

o.f different, though not very different, 
regional swings) has helped this scepticism. 
There is now a widespread belief 
that election results are "decided elsewhere", 
and that local activ·it.ies are useless 
in terms of winning the election. 
Marginal seats, in spite of all the activity 
that goes on there, and all the publicity 
that identifies them, do not behave 
very differently from safe seats. The onlyexception to this is the evidence which 
sug.gests that party activity ·in marginalseats, the publicity given to the conceptof marginality, and the engendered feeling 
that the election is decided here, has 
slowed down the decline in turnout 
which has been in evidence since 1950, 
with only a temporary revers<~~l .in 1959. 
Because the organisations of the parties 
are most active in these seats, it is argued, 
organisation cannot be having anyeffect because there appears to be no consistent 
differences in behav.iour between 
marginal and non-marginal seats. However, 
this argument wm just not stand 
up to scrutiny. Party organisations maywell be at their most active in marginal 
const.ituencies but activity and effectiveness 
are not interchangeable words. As 
we have no way of measuring the effectiveness 
of party organisation at present, 
or even measuring the effectiveness of individual 
component parts of the organisation, 
then it is misleading, premature, 
and possibly untrue to assume tthat Ioca.J 
constituency organisation is unimportant.
There is also another point to be considered. 
In marginal seats the party organisations 
are at their most developed;
and it is there that they may be at their 
most effective and ineffective, as the organisations 
may cancel one another out. 

Enough bas been said .to suggest that the 
gi.ib assumptions of 20 years ago about 
the efficacy of Labour's organisation 
must be replaced with a more mature 
appraisal of the organisation's functions. 

A lot of research of a very basic kind 
needs to be done, not because it is good 
to examine one's navel, but because research 
can point to the way things are 
going in the party; how the process of 
demographic change is affect.ing the partys' 
membership; what the attitudes of 
its members, agents and officilllls are; 
what sort of people join the Labour 
Party, and why, and so on. There are 
no self evident truths lurking for us to 
find if we think long enough about the 
problem. A policy on organisation bas 
to be wanted by the party; .it has to be 
afforded by the party; it has to be relevant 
to the problems that we face, problems 
that we know about through the 
findings of research; and we have to realise 
that it is going to take some time 
to solve. But time is short; the number 
of full time party agents has halved 
since 1951, and the decl.ine has steepened 
since the general election. I.f we are 
too long about .it, there may not be much 
of an organisation left to re-vamp. 


3. are CLPs necessary? 
Ben Pimlott 

The Labour Party is withering away at 
the grass roots. Official figures, which 
take no account Olf membership fluctuations 
in all the smaller CLPS, show a 
drop in individual membership of one 
third during the period of the last Lab-
our government. The real extent of the 
decline is certainly much worse. There 
is no shortage of plausible exp.Ianations. 

Affluence and a blurring of the more 
obvious distinctions between parties have 
increased the range and availability of 
alternative activities while blunting the 
edge of incentives to political participation. 


Many people on the left have been attracted 
into organisations other than the 
Labour Party, as the recent growth of 
sing.le issue pressure groups and local 
action committees bears witness. The international 
issue which aroused most 
passion on the left during the late 'sixties, 
the Vietnam war, proved a recruiting 
round for revolutionary groups not 
.for social democracy. A few years earlier 
the unilateralist controversy tore the Labour 
Party apart, alienating thousands 
of members in the process. By contrast, 
the leaders of the Vietnam peace movement 
chose to ignore the Labour Party 
as a vehicle for voicing their dissent,
and followed American and continental 
examples in rejecting bourgeois poli.tics 
altogether. In consequence, the Labour 
Party has been less .ruffled by foreign policy 
controversies than at any time in its 
history. It has thus retained its unity,
but failed to recruit the newest generation 
of radicals to its ranks. 

Widespread disillusionment with the last 
Labour government, reflected in opinion 
polls and bye-election disasters, also 
rubbed off on local Labour Parties, undermining 
morale, and causing members 
to fall away. A recent book by BarryHindess based on a study of local party 
activists in Liverpool, suggests "a vicious 
circle of decline" in working class political 
activity which may have been exacerbated 
by some of Labour's policiesin the last .few years. (The decline of 
working class politics, 1971.) Whether or 
not the notion of such a "spiral" has any 

validity, the author's evidence of working 
class decline in the Liverpool Labour 
Party, and a concomitant shift of control 
to middle class people and middle class 
areas, is of considerahle significance;
though it may not come as a surprise to 
active party members with experienceof other cities. The author argues that 
the increasingly middle class character 
and orientation Olf the party leadershiphas alienated active working class supporters, 
with the result that control has 
become concentrated in middle class 
hands locally as well as nationally, and 
this process has in turn insulated the 
national leadership from the true feelings 
of working class members and voters. 
The participation of working class people 
in .politics has, in consequence, decreased 
still .further. 

Barry Hindess's spiral of decline is one 
hypothesis. Another hypothesis also involves 
the notion of a downward spiral. 
This spiral operates on what might be 
labelled "the boredom principle". When 
Labour has a bad period nationaJ.ly, as 
in the trough of 1967/ 69, party members 
become disenchanted, CLP activity declines 
and a proportion of the membership 
.including committed socialists, faHs 
away. As a result~ elective offic.es are 
filled by people w1th less comm1.tment, 
who are relatively uninterested m the 
vicissitudes of the Labour }>arty at the 
national level. The new leadership is Jess 
concerned that meetings should ·include 
discussions off policy, or that acti':'i~ies 
should be geared to a definite political 
purpose. Meetings consequently become 
even more listless, and more members 
drift away, although nati~mally the Labour 
Party is now recovenng. Gradually, 
effective membership is whittled ~own to 
a hard core of old guard loyalists, the 
politically ambitious and the office holding 
establishment. .~e-.y members who 
might upset the eqmhbnum seldom c:ome 
back for a second meeting ..iDelegatwns,
offices and candidatures are. m effect controlled 
by the simple expedience of making 
meetings so tedious that .few. people 
want to attend them. Me~bersh11;> stays 
at a skeletal level, or declines ~tJ.ll f~ther, 
because nobody has any mcent1ve 

to increase it. 


There may not be an answer. Two official 
attempts to tackle the problem, those 
of the Wilson committee in 1955 and the 
Simpson committee in 1967/68 failed to 
reverse the trend. It may be that the 
downward drift will continue until a 
new plateau .is reached, and a new norm 
of caucus level activity is established. 
However, the very :mildness of the Wilson 
recommendations and the positiveconservatism of the Simpson committee 
give grounds for a sma!.l amount of optimism. 
Very little has changed in constituency 
party organisation in 50 years. 

Arthur Henderson's legacy of multi-tier 
federal CLPS remains intact. There has 
been no equivalent in the Labour Partyof the Woolton broom in the Tory Partyafter 1945. (See Inigo Bing, chapter 4 
p20.) A structure built for the peculiar 
needs of an extraordinary moment in 
Labour }>arty history has been allowed 
to survive in all its archaic quaintness. 
It is not the case that every possible 
means of breathing life into the ailing 
body has been tried and found to fail. 

The scope for root and branch reform 
remains enormous; and there is a real 
chance that a fundamental restructuring 
and re-orientation could adapt the party 
to modern needs. As circumstances 
change, so traditional activities lose their 
relevance. Official doctrine, handed down 
by generations of national executives and 
professional organisers, continues to emphasise 
the activities and functions around 
which CLPS revolved a couple of 
generations ago. The result has been that 
many of the jobs which local parties 
are expected to perform and to accept 
as important have become little more 
than meaningless rituals. Some useful 
functions for CLPs do remain, but theywould be better able to perform these 
functions if they were not distracted byuseless and therefore exceedingly dull 
tasks. CLPs should be restmctured to fit 
them for their changing role. 

the traditional 
functions of CLPs 

According to the mles governing constituency 
and local Labour Parties, the ob


jects of CLPs are "to unite the forces 
of Labour within the constituency and 
to secure the return of Labour representatives 
to parliament and upon local 
government bodies". In practice the NEe 
has considered that CLPs serve the purposes 
summarised below. Collectively,
they might be described as "the official 
athtude" to the rOle of constituency organisation. 


(1) Electioneering services. CLPs providevital electioneering services, especiallythrough canvassing, distributing literature, 
and encouraging Labour supporters 
to vote on polling day. If these services 
were not provided, the turnout of Lab-
our voters at elections wau.Jd fall veryconsiderably. (2) Publicity and propaganda. 
CLPs aid Labour fortunes in their 
own constituencies and, more widely, by 
organising publici·ty and propaganda, by 
means of public meetings, distributing 
leaflets, displayjng posters and other similar 
activities. In addition, by maintaining 
vi.gorous forums of socialist debate, 
they encourage the spread of socia.list 
and pro~Labour ideas through informal 
social contacts. In other words, theymake converts and reinforce loyalties. (3)
Money raising. CLPS raise money for both 
locaJ and national purposes. This money 
is of vital importance to the Labour Party. 
(4) Policy formulation. CLPs help to 
formulate both local and national policy. 
The Labour Party is a democratic party, 
and within it each member can and 
should contribute to the making of policy 
to be carried out by the leadership. 
(5) Political education of members. CLPS 
provide political education .f.or their 
members, both by training them in the 
arts of public speaking and debate, and 
through their privileged access to Labour 
Party literature and Labour Party speakers. 
(6) The selection of candidates. CLPS 
select candidates for local and national 
elections. No alternative methods of selecting 
candidates is viable or desirable. 
Some of these functions remain important; 
the value of others has patentlydeclined. Nevertheless, all the platforms 
of "the official attitude" continue to have 
many adherents at all levels of the pa\ty. 
It may therefore be useful to exarnme 


these traditional functions in turn, and 
consider their contemporary relevance. 

electioneering services 

"We have asked ourselves, what .is our 
aim in constituency party organisation?
The answer ·clearly must be that CLPs 
shoold so conduct themselves, not onlyduring elections, but equaJ.ly important, 
between elections, that on the day they 
can succeed in getting the maximum 
number of Labour voters to the pollsbefore 9 pm; including the converts they 
have made before or dur.ing the election." 
(Labour Party annual conference 
report 1955, p70. Sub-committee on party 
organisation interim report [Wilsonreport].) 

The extra-par-liamentary Labour Partyhas always been, first and foremost, an 
election machine. Local parties were first 
set up in 1918, when Labour was seeking 
to arm itself as a serious contender for 
national power. Ever since, vote winning 
has been regarded as ·the party's main 
job at the local level. Indeed, national 
leaders only show serious concern about 
the state of organisation when the machine 
appears to fail them, or when an election 
is approaching and ·they see the 
writing on the wall. Both the Wilson committee 
in 1955 and the Simpson committee 
were largely concerned with the 
party as a vote gatherer, and their recommendations 
were in the main intended 
to improve its efficiency in this respect. 
This preoccupation may have been 
realistic during the adolescence of the 
Labour Party, especially in the aftermath 
of the first world war. At a time 
when political loyalties were in an exceptional 
state of flux, Labour mightnever have established itself as a major 
party without an organisational structure 
geared to the twin objectives oi 
superseding the Liberals and taking over 
the largest share of the new electorate. 

However, these two objectives no longerapply. Two generations o.f universal suffrage 
have seen the establishment of a 
pattern of relatively immobile political 
organisation. 

Although politicians and party workers 
have frequently failed to acknowledge it, 
evidence that organisation has an extremely 
.Jimited role at general elections 
has been available for some time. Recent 
research has merely added more 
weight to this verdict (for example D. 
Butler and D. Stokes, Political change in 
Britain). The authors of this major studyof voting behaviour, published in 1969, 
allow only that the facts "leave open the 
possibility that the major parties do 
achieve some slight effect through canvassing". 
This confirms David Butler's 
own earlier findings. Before each of the 
last five genera·! elections, the authors of 
the Nuffield Election Studies have asked 
regional officials of both parties to name 
contituencies in their own areas in which 
they expected .improvements in organisation 
to produce better than average results. 
Post-election checks on ~hese answers 
have not shown any significant relationship 
between the predictions and 
the results. Similarly, a study based on 
a sample of parliamentary candidates 
found that there was no relationship between 
candidates' assessments of the effectiveness 
of their campaigns, and the 
results in their constituencies, in terms 
of deviation from the national swing.
(D. A. Kavenagh, Constituency electioneering 
in Britain, 1970.) Contrary e":idence 
is extremely meagre. The suggestwn by 
two American political scien~ists (R. T. 
Holt and J. E. Turner, Political parties 
in action, 1968) that the Conservatives 
might have eradicated a 10 per c~nt Labour 
majority in Barons Court m 1964 
if they had canvassed more thorough_ly,
does not rbear examination. It remams 
possible, however, that a higher turnout 
in marginal seats is a product af _effic.
ient organisational effort on bo_th s1des. 
On a practical level, the expenence of 
the Conserva,tives at the last general _election 
is interesting. The Conservative 
strategy, planned long i_n adva!lce, was 
based on a decision to g1ve spec1al attention 
to about 70 key marginals, on the 
grounds that the election would be won 
or lost in these seats. Market researc? 
surveys were conducted .in th7se constituencies; 
money was poured m ; a concerted 
effort was made by ~entral of?ce 
to improve organisation. Th1s campa1gn, 


14 
moreover, was not matched by any com-
parable concentration of effort on the 
Labour side. If local organisation is ca-
pable of having an important effect at 
general elections, it would surely have 
manifested itself in above average swings 
to the Conservatives in these seats. In 
fact, analysis of the results shows no 
s.ignificant deviation from national or 
regional trends (see D. Butler and M. 
Pinto-Duschinsky, The British generalelection of 1970, p342). 
Nevertheless, .party organisation cannot 
be dismissed as an insignificant factor in 
the w.inning of general elections. Four 
out of ei.ght post war elections have been 
decided by narrow majorities in a han9-
ful of seats. If the Labour Party, notor-
iously inefficient at .locating postal votes, 
had received a share of the postal vote 
proportionate to its share of the total 
national vote, then, ceteris paribus, it 
would have won in 1951, might even 
have won in 1970, and it would certainlyhave had comfortable majorities in 1950 
and 1964. The organisation of the postal 
vote is thus one form O£f electoral acti-
vity which is still worthwhile in marg-
inal constituencies. 
Moreover, although canvassing seems to 
have little direct effect at general elec-
tions, the same is not necessari·IY true at 
local elections. Particularly in largetowns, the proportion of ha~b.itual Lalbour 
voters who do not vote at local elections 
is commonly very high. In such areas, 
there may be considerable scope for mo-
bilising lukewarm Labour supporters,
and the mere function of reminding peo-
ple that an election is taking place maybe important. A recent experiment in a 
safe LabOIUr ward is Dundee, norma.Jlyuntouched by canvassers of any party, 
provides striking evidence of this. Two 
blocks of flats in a working class district 
were selected. One was used as a con-
trol. The other was canvassed before the 
May 1970 municbpal elections, and Lab-
our supporters in it were knocked up on 
the evening of polling day. Electors in 
both blocks were subsequently inter-
viewed. Turnout proved to be 10 per 
cent higher in the canvassed block than 
in the control block; and among respon-
dents personally contacted on pollingday, turnout was as much at 25.5 per 
cent higher than among those who were 
not canvassed. (J. M. Bochel (University 
of Dundee) and D. T. Denver (Univer-
sity of Lancaster), Canvassing, turnout 
and party support: an experiment. Un-
published paper, October 1970) The re-
sult of this experiment supports P. 
Fletcher's suggestion (Political studies, 
1969) that turnout is higher in marginal 
wards and small wards, because it is 
these wards which give local parties most 
scope, and hence stimulate party organ-
isation to greater effectiveness; but not 
everybody agrees. L. J. Sharpe (Votingin cities, 1967, p319) concluded that in 
practice: "the proportion of contests in 
which the result may have been affected 
[by organisation] was fractional; at most 
the influence was marginal in marginal 
wards". 
,Postal votes and local government elec-
tions are, in any case, however, scarcely 
enough to justify the maintenance of 
highly structured .party organisations in 
every constiuency in the country. The 
limited political rewards o.f election act-
ivity can only act as a focus for party 
effort .in marginal consti~uencies, or con-
stituencies with marginal local govern-
ment units within their boundaries. Many 
constituencies provide no scope for elec-
tion activity; and in many others the 
off chance of picking up a council seat 
in a good year is not really very inspir-
ing as a raison d'etre. The Labour Partyought, therefore, to reject election activ-
ity as the key function of party organis-
ation where it is obviously irrelevant, 
and scale down its significance in those 
constituencies where it may have an im-
portant, though restricted, role. In non-
mar.ginals a minimal election effort (the 
distr.i1bution of the election address, for 
example) is desirable, in order to 
tain a tenuous contact between MP 
councillor and constituent in safe 
and to encourage the habit of 
Labour in hopeless ones. The extreme:IYJ 
limited value of such activityhowever, be fully acknowledged 
should be given a very low pri 
CLPS in safe and hopeless seats 
activists to help in neighbouring · 
14 
moreover, was not matched by any com-
parable concentration of effort on the 
Labour side. If local organisation is ca-
pable of having an important effect at 
general elections, it would surely have 
manifested itself in above average swings 
to the Conservatives in these seats. In 
fact, analysis of the results shows no 
s.ignificant deviation from national or 
regional trends (see D. Butler and M. 
Pinto-Duschinsky, The British generalelection of 1970, p342). 
Nevertheless, .party organisation cannot 
be dismissed as an insignificant factor in 
the w.inning of general elections. Four 
out of ei.ght post war elections have been 
decided by narrow majorities in a han9-
ful of seats. If the Labour Party, notor-
iously inefficient at .locating postal votes, 
had received a share of the postal vote 
proportionate to its share of the total 
national vote, then, ceteris paribus, it 
would have won in 1951, might even 
have won in 1970, and it would certainlyhave had comfortable majorities in 1950 
and 1964. The organisation of the postal 
vote is thus one form O£f electoral acti-
vity which is still worthwhile in marg-
inal constituencies. 
Moreover, although canvassing seems to 
have little direct effect at general elec-
tions, the same is not necessari·IY true at 
local elections. Particularly in largetowns, the proportion of ha~b.itual Lalbour 
voters who do not vote at local elections 
is commonly very high. In such areas, 
there may be considerable scope for mo-
bilising lukewarm Labour supporters,
and the mere function of reminding peo-
ple that an election is taking place maybe important. A recent experiment in a 
safe LabOIUr ward is Dundee, norma.Jlyuntouched by canvassers of any party, 
provides striking evidence of this. Two 
blocks of flats in a working class district 
were selected. One was used as a con-
trol. The other was canvassed before the 
May 1970 municbpal elections, and Lab-
our supporters in it were knocked up on 
the evening of polling day. Electors in 
both blocks were subsequently inter-
viewed. Turnout proved to be 10 per 
cent higher in the canvassed block than 
in the control block; and among respon-
dents personally contacted on pollingday, turnout was as much at 25.5 per 
cent higher than among those who were 
not canvassed. (J. M. Bochel (University 
of Dundee) and D. T. Denver (Univer-
sity of Lancaster), Canvassing, turnout 
and party support: an experiment. Un-
published paper, October 1970) The re-
sult of this experiment supports P. 
Fletcher's suggestion (Political studies, 
1969) that turnout is higher in marginal 
wards and small wards, because it is 
these wards which give local parties most 
scope, and hence stimulate party organ-
isation to greater effectiveness; but not 
everybody agrees. L. J. Sharpe (Votingin cities, 1967, p319) concluded that in 
practice: "the proportion of contests in 
which the result may have been affected 
[by organisation] was fractional; at most 
the influence was marginal in marginal 
wards". 
,Postal votes and local government elec-
tions are, in any case, however, scarcely 
enough to justify the maintenance of 
highly structured .party organisations in 
every constiuency in the country. The 
limited political rewards o.f election act-
ivity can only act as a focus for party 
effort .in marginal consti~uencies, or con-
stituencies with marginal local govern-
ment units within their boundaries. Many 
constituencies provide no scope for elec-
tion activity; and in many others the 
off chance of picking up a council seat 
in a good year is not really very inspir-
ing as a raison d'etre. The Labour Partyought, therefore, to reject election activ-
ity as the key function of party organis-
ation where it is obviously irrelevant, 
and scale down its significance in those 
constituencies where it may have an im-
portant, though restricted, role. In non-
mar.ginals a minimal election effort (the 
distr.i1bution of the election address, for 
example) is desirable, in order to 
tain a tenuous contact between MP 
councillor and constituent in safe 
and to encourage the habit of 
Labour in hopeless ones. The extreme:IYJ 
limited value of such activityhowever, be fully acknowledged 
should be given a very low pri 
CLPS in safe and hopeless seats 
activists to help in neighbouring · 

nals at election times. This is valuable 
and should be encouraged, but it cannot 
act as a central function and interest 
between elections. Something else must 
be found. 

publicity and propaganda 

Organised party propaganda undoubtedly 
has some effect, though it is hard to 
assess how much; but whatever its effect, 
the relative importance cxf local propaganda 
is slight. Much has changed since 
1895, when the Liberal Party distributed 
23 million leaflets, an average of four 
per elector. One of the most importantchanges has been •the advent of television. 

(P. G . J. Pulzer, Political representation 
and election in Britain, 1967, p87, "Radio 
irn its heyday never came into its own 
politically, despite the impact of par.tyelection broadcasts from 1931 onwards 
and of Churchill's wartime addresses".) 
From 1950 to 1964 the proportion of 
British households with television mse 
from 10 to 88 per cent. In 1964 three out 
of four electors remembered seeing at 
least one party election broadcast. At 
the same election, although 14 per cent 
claimed to pay subscriptions to local 
parties, only 8 per cent bad been to the 
public meetings of any party. (Butlerand Stokes, op cit, ,pp218 and 219; J. G. 
Blumler and D. MoQuail, Election television 
in the 1960s, 1%8, p36; Butler and 
Stokes, op cit, p25.) The advent of television 
and the decline of class tension, 
have reduced the significance of publicmeetings to little more than morale 
boosters for the .faitblful. Other forms 
of local propaganda activity may be 
more effective, thO'Ugh this is doubtful. 
There is no evidence that .local parties 
which put up more posters or distribute 
more leaflets get better results. Even the 
importance cxf getting the name of the 
Labour candidate across to the electors 
is greatly reduced, now that candidates 
are allowed to give themselves a partylabel on the ballot paper. There is a 
sense, however, in which a flourishingCLP may have an indirect propagandaeffect. A number of studies have shown 
that the influence of the local political 
i environment can be an important factor 

in determining voting behaviour. A middle 
class voter in a mining town is verymuch more likely to vote Labour than 
an equivalent voter in a seaside resort. 
Conversely, there is the story of the 
Boumemouth elector who entered the 
polling station and asked timidly where 
servants voted for Brigadier Page-Croft. 
(Butler and Stokes. op cit, p145 ; also 

F. W. Bealey, J. Blonde! and W. Mc-
Cann, Constituency politics, 1965. These 
provide corroborati·on in Britain of the 
evidence of various studies of American 
voters.) A large and active CLP might,
over a period, help to shape the political 
climate of a community and thereby influnce 
votes; but the effect could probably 
never be great, nor would it ever 
be obvious and at best it would be a byproduct 
of a vigorous membership achieved 
in other ways. 
money raising 

CLPS raise considerable sums cxf money;
but they spend more than they raise. 
The importance of ·this function, therefore, 
depends entirely on the importance 
attached to maintaining CLPS. In 1960, 
it was estimated tba.t seven out of every 
ten pounds that the Labour Party received 
centrally, and at least ·two in every 
three that it received regionally, came 
from the trade unions. Out of a total of 
£611,000 in .the 1964 general election 
fund, some £573,000 came from trade 
unions. In 1966, of £313,976 affiliation 
fees paid to Transport House, only£39,201 or one eighth came from CLPs. 
The CLP contribution to the national funds 
of the Labour Party is thus a mere token, 
cancelled out many times over by Transport 
House and trade union assistance 
to CLPS. 35 per cent of the 1964 general 
election fund was spent on assistance to 
CLPS in marginal seats. These figures are 
in a sense misleading because CLPs spend 
most of the money they raise locally. It 
has been estimated that as much as 34 
per cent of the Labour P.arty's total ~nnual 
income over the 1960/ 64 penod 
was raised by constituency partiesthrough their own efforts (that is ~ot 
from affiliated bodies), as compared w1th 
55 per cent contributed by trade unions. 


Nevertheless, quite apart from any contributions 
.from Trans-port House, some 
£195,000 per annum was paid into CLPs 
by trade unions and co-operative societies.(
Martin Harrison, Trade unions and 
the Labour Party since 1945, p96; Lab-
our Party annual conference report 1967,
p336; Richard Rose, Influencing voters, 
1967, pp252, 256 and 258.) 

CLPS thus raise enough on .their own to 
cover basic election expenses, but little 
more, and some need assistance even 
with these. Their financial contribution 
is important, but scarcely vital, except 
in the sense that it is highly desirable 
that the Labour Party should not be entirely 
dependent on trade union finance. 
However, CLPS cannot feel that they are 
carrying the Labour P.arty on their 
shoulders. Lf anything, it is they who are 
the passengers. AJ.though the Labour 
Party is poor by comparison with the 
Conservative Party, it is very far from 
bankPupt. Transport House has tended 
to squeeze sizeable profits out of postwar general election funds. (See M. Ha·rrison, 
op cit.) The boredom of collectingmembersh1p subscriptions and other fund 
raising activities is only justified .iif the 
maintenance of CLPS can itself be justified. 

the formulation of policy 

One of the favourite pastimes of the annual 
conference of the Labour Party is 
to consider how much notice the parliamentary 
leaders of .the party should take 
of its deliberations. The 1970 conference, 
for example, passed a resolution announcing 
its belief that the leaders 
"should reflect the views and aspirations 
of the Labour and .trade union movement, 
by framing their policies on annual 
conference decisions", and it deplored 
"the parliamentary Labour party's 
refusa-l to act on colllference decisions". 
For some reason, delegates fail 
to see the impotent circularity of ordering 
the PLP to obey their orders. Official 
doctrine, .faithd'ully reiterated in all the 
literature and imbibed by novice par.tymembers, remains that the Labour Partyis democratic, and the annual conference 
is both the representative and .the saver


eign body o:f the movement. The realityof course is quite different. At no time 
has a Labour cabinet ever allowed i·tself 
to be bound in any way by the decisions 
of annual conference. Yet the fiction is 
maintained. In the course olf the same 
debate at the 1970 conference, MargaretMcCarthy (Oxfordshire Federation of 
Labour Parties) made a significant impact 
on the delegates when she spoke in 
support of the resolution that the PLP 
should reflect the views of the conference. 
"I think that what we all resent 
most is, not ·that decisions have not been 
carried out, but that we have been treated 
with a cynicism in the rejection of 
conference decisions (applause). Which 
has iJ.lustrated to us with the utmost 
clarity that all we are useful .for ·is that, 
if a trade union we can cough up the 
money and, iJf a constituency party, we 
should get out on the doorstep (applause)
and canvass in order to put into power 
honest, sincere but elitist members of 
parliament, who then demonstrate that 
they are not particularly interested in 
what we have to say to them". The 
CLPS, like trade unions, undoubtedly have 
an important role to play when policyis being made. They can recommend,
advise and warn. Moreover, the leaders 
of the Labour party ignore at .their 
peril the views of their most ardent supporters 
in consti tuenc.ies. Consequently,
it remains important that CLPs should 
have a voice at colllference, but it should 
be officially acknowledged that it is just 
a voice and not some form o.f control. 
(15 yea'rs ago, Robert McKenzie wrote: 
"The devices lby ·the party leaders .to escape 
the control cYf ilhe conference. are 
among l!he important !factors contnb~ting 
to the demoralisation of the active 
party workers . . . the party leaders must 
grasp the nettle represented by their outmoded 
theory of intra...party democracy."

(The Wilson report and the future of 
Labour Party organisation. Political studies, 
1956.) His words are still relevant. 

political education 

Political education remains one orf the 
cLP's most important and potentially inspiring 
functions. In a sense even the 


most moribund CLP provides it; in the 
form of an opportunity for direct contact 
between the ordinary citizen and 
local political leaders, a chance to getsome glimpse of how the system works. 
CLPs, however, provide scope for much 
more than this, although few make use 
of it. In practice, meetings are too often 
bogged down with procedure and business, 
thrus leaving no time for politicaldiscussion. Such meetings become introspective 
and pointless. A major objective 
of reform should the to see that CLPs 
provide members with opportunities to 
discuss political principles and ideas and 
policies, that political talks becOIITie a 
regular .feature, and that meetings are 
supplemented with lively and intelligentliterature, not patronising propaganda. 

The Simpson committee came to the laudable 
conclusion that the Labour Partyhas "very special educational obligations 
to its members". It orecommended inter 
alia, that a political education section 
should be set up at Transport House,
under a political eduucation officer. It 
felt, however, that this section should 
initially be small, and should concentrate 
on priority tasks and on pilot schemes 
"in a limited number of constituencies 
and regions". Yet, almost in the same 
breath, it commented that "the work 
done at national level will have little 
purpose unless the programme of political 
education is implemented throrughout 
the party and down to the grassroots". The grass roots remain for the 
most part unpenetrated. The committee's 
programme for CLPs was high minded 
but unrealistic. "Each constituency partyshould have a political education committee. 
Its work will fall into two parts, 

(i) the training of members to undertake 
administration, organisation and election 
duties and (ii) arranging political studies 
and discussions at party meetings, and 
organising schools and discussion groups. 
A full time agent or some other person 
with the necessary qualifications should 
direct the training of key workers, and 
it should be easy to find a member capable 
of acting as political education officer 
for other forms of political education." 
(Labour Party annual conference 
report 1967, .pp343/5.) 
These suggestions are admirable, but it 
will need more than a paragraph or two 
of exhortation to put them into practice. 
A conscious acceptance on the partof the NBC of political education as a 
primary function of consti!Juency organisation 
might help; but only a well financed 
organisationa.l drive to put political 
education on the agenda is likely to 
have more than a token effect. 

This would mean appointing a number 
of fuJ.l time ,political education officers, 
entrusted with the specific duty of 
inducing CLPS to rethink their educational 
role. Such officers would be able to see 
that each CLP appointed its own political 
education officer and would provide such 
officers with advice and instruction, and 
would make available a wide range of 
literature, films, projectors and other educational 
aids. CLPS are admirably equipped 
.for performing the d'unction of political 
education; it is important that they 
should perform it well. It is highly desirable 
that Labour candidates shoruld 
have a working knowledge of local govemment, 
a solid experience of politicaldebate and carefully considered ideas on 
policy. A good CLP should try to provide 
these, by making itself ;both a school 
and a training ground fo.r active socialists 
and .potential candidates. Political 
education is, moreover, tlhe one function 
which, if performed well, is likely to 
attract and encourage a high qualitymembership. A new impetus and a new 
emphasis are needed, to get tlhings under 

way. 

the selection of candidates 

The selection of candidates remains the 
CLPS' main vital .function. Of corurse, a 
mass membership is not neces~ary ~or 
this. Many parties abroad functiOn .w1th 
great electoral success on the bas1s of 
local committees which scarcely operate 
except to nominate candidates. The 
Gaullist party in France, for example,
whioh received 43.6 per cent of the popular 
vote in the elections of June 1968, 
has taken care to avoid a mass membership. 
The French Communist Party,
which obtained less than half as many 


votes, probably had more than three 
times as many members. Yet although a 
party can be successful without members, 
it cannot be representative. A candidate 
who is selected by a handtful of self 
appointed supporters really representsnobody except them, even though a mass 
electorate may vote .for him as standard 
bearer for a party. A party, moreover, 
only gets the candidates it deserves; es-
specially a party that only recruits from 
its awn ranks. The quality of Labour 
councillors and MPS depends upon the 
quality of politically active trade unionists 
and individual members of the Lab-
our Party. Candidates will only be good 
i[ both the available talent and the selectors 
are of a high calibre. For these 
reasons, this function on its own makes 
vigorous CLPs important, in order to 
maintain and improve the quality of the 
people available for nomination, and to 
ensure that the business af selection is 
carried out satisfactorily. 

To these six traditional functions a se·tenth 
might be added, which has in practice 
been performed by many contituency 
parties, though it has seldom been 
recognised as a function of major importance. 
The representation of local opinion 
.to local and national authorities 
and representatives. This can take many 
forms. Collecting names for a petition is 
one. Another is the .passing of resolutions 
at ward or GMC level on matters 
of local concern. Informed personal contacts 
with counci.Ilors and MPs provide 
yet another way in which local partymembers can keep representatives in constant 
touch with at least a section of 
local opinion. CLPS can, however, represent 
local opinion more constructively. 

Indeed, the accumulation of evidence 
of local opinions, wishes and grievancescould provide CLPs with a new and rewarding 
job. For example, scientific surveys 
of opinion on key local issues, of 
the kind carried out by the more enterprising 
voluntary pressure .groups, could 
provide Labour politicians with the sqrtof inlformation they urgently need. Surveys 
to assess the needs of old people, 
or the bad housing conditions of local 
immigrants, or the loca.J demand for nur


sery education, could provide an invaluable 
complement to the work of council 
Labour groups. (See the excel,lent booklet 
published by the Forest Waad Lab-
our Party on ·the social services in their 
city, Nottingham; The poor relation. 
This is also a useful form of research 
for local Fabian Societies.) 

Anthony Wedgwood Benn has recentlystressed the importance of local pressure 
groups and suggested that local Labour 
Parties should try to involve them bygiving them a defined "consultative status". 
Such a step might help instil life 
into CLPS and provide them with new 
ideas, by bringing them ·into close contact 
with people positively concerned to 
get things done. 

conclusion 

It has been suggested that a major reason 
for the decline of CLPs is that they 
have lost their sense of purpose. In manyconstituencies, nhe traditional [unctionsof a CLP like electioneering and propaganda 
have become largely irrelevant. 
Policy formulation has always been a 
dead .Jetter. Money raising is neither inspiring 
nor very productive. In order to 
restore a sense of purpose, CLPs should 
be encouraged to concentrate on those 
functions which are valuable, while disregarding 
those which are not. In nonmarg.
inals, this would mean concentra


ting on political education and local 
research. In such constituencies, elect·ioneering 
and money raising should be 
given a low priority. Indeed, the amount 
of money that can be raised is likely to 
be related to the success of a CLP in attracting 
and interesting members in other 
ways . .Nbove all, CLPs should not be allowed 
to exist as organisations whose 
only function is to fulfil the psychological 
needs of their members. 

organisational changes_ 

Such a change of emphasis (from pointless 
tasks to useful ones) would be facilitated 
if certain organisational changes 
were made. A complete overhaul and 


restructuring of local organisation would 
have many advantages. This is, however, 
unlikely to be feasible, because Olf the 
federal nature of the Labour Party,
which ·requires that room should be 
found for delegates of affiliated bodies. 

For this reason, it would be difficult to 
abolish the general management committee, 
cumbersome and unnecessarythough it may seem to some. Granted 
this, three important organisational changes 
are possible. 

The ward and local Labour Party unit 
in many if not most CLPs should he retained 
only for the purposes of electingdelegates and selecting candidates. According 
to the Simpson committee's report: 
"that some constituency parties 
have so few members that they cannot 
organise them into ward committees, is 
no serious reason for abandoning this 
form of organisation. Centralising aU activ.
jty is quite impractical in some constituencies 
and in others it is unnecessary." 
(Labour Party annual conference 
report, 1968.) Where it is impractical, 
as in la~ge county constituencies, or unnecessary 
beca·use ward parties are so 
large, active and successful, no ohangeis needed. The Simpson committee, however, 
gives no reason good or bad for 
not abolishing separate organisationswhere such a step would be both practical 
and useful. As a formal unit, the 
ward party serves little purpose and has 
many disadvantages. The family atmosphere 
of a small ward party may be 
cosy socially for long term members, 
but it is frustrating .for the new recruit, 
who finds himself cut off from the real 
business of the constituency. In urban 
constituencies, different wards frequently 
have particular class oharacteristics 
because they contain different types of 
housing, or are close to or !from a factory 
or railway line. In such cases, the 
existence of separate ward parties may 
encourage a form of social apartheid, bypreventing working class and midd.Je 
class members .from getting to know 
each other; it may also foster mutual 
suspicions. Ward .boundaries are electoral 
boundaries, and the only occasion on 
which they have any s.ignificance is at 

local government elections. However 
ward parties are unnecessary for select~ 
ing candidates, since members J.iving in 
a ward can have the same role at selection 
meetings as they have now, without 
having to maintain themselves as separate 
organisations for the rest of the year. 

Indeed, separate ward parties often encourage 
extreme parochialism at election 
time, and it is not uncommon to find 
three or four ward parties hald'heartedly 
canvassing their safe or unwinnable 
wards, while the one marginal ward 
in the constituency remains untouched. 

All individual members should be entitled 
and encouraged to attend aggregate 
constituency Labour Party meetings,
which would replace monthly GMC meetings, 
on matters requiring a GMC decision, 
only delegates would be entitled to 
vote. Exceptional meetings of the GMC 
could still be called when necessary, to 
discuss special business. The discussion 
of business at CLP meetings should be 
reduced to a minimum with a time limit, 
to provide time for other more worthwhile 
activities. 

The executive committee should be given 
the power to make most organisationaland financial decisions without reference 
to the GMC, merely reporting its decisions 
to it. It should also be charged with the 
organisation of a programme of activities 
and meetings. The purpose of this change 
would be to reduce duplication of the 
discussion of business matters, and keep 
trivia off the agenda at .full CLP meetings.
By placing more responsibility in the 
hands of [ewer individuals, it might also 
produce more conscious planning of policy 
and activities. 

These changes would make it easier for 
CLPS to concentrate on worthwhile activities 
whioh would in turn make them 
mo.r~ attractive to potential recruits. On 
their own, however, they would be of 
little value, without a positive lead by 
the NEC and a concerted effort by Transport 
House to wean constituency party 
members from the ritual performancesand ingrained habits of decades,. an? instill 
some rationaJj,ty into orang~satton. 


4. new approaches 
to democracy 
Inigo Bing 

The Labour Party has always prided 
itself upon its democratic structure, but 
democracy, like socialism, is prone to 
various interpretations by the party leadership. 
If what is meant is the structure 
of each constituency Labour Party 
(CLP), then the pride is well founded 
for the structure is quintessential 
democracy. Every decision of the executive 
committee must be approved by 
the general management committee 
(GMC), which is itself composed of members 
elected from the wards and affiliated 
bodies. By holding regular monthly meetings 
each individual member exercises 
an element of control over every decis.ion 
that is taken on his behalf. The model 
rules amply provide that in the constituency 
power may never be concentrated 
in too few hands, even where there is 
a strong and forceful agent few members 
need worry that their authority will 
be eroded away. 

However, the traditional pride that .is 
taken in the party's democratic structure 
involves more than the business of auministration. 
Essentially, so the historybooks tell us, the party is democratic because 
poJ.icy is made by the whole partythwugh its elected representatives at the 
annual conference. Again, in this wider 
sense, there is a structure which provides 
for the democratic expression of ideas. 
Individual members may submit a resolution 
to the ward whose delegates may 
debate it in the GMC, who in turn maypresent it for inclusion on the agenda 
of the regional or annual conference. 

In theory, therefore, it is quite correct 
to say, "in the Labour Party the final 
word rests with the annual party conference, 
and between CO'Ilfe.rences the 
national executive committee is t)Je administrative 
authority . . .. The parJ.iamentary 
party (PLP) has no power to 
issue orders to the national executive, 
or the executive to the parliamentaryparty. Both are responsible only to the 
party conference." (The rise of the Lab-
our Party (1948), p14.) 

In practice, as Ben Pimlott has observed 
(chapter 3, 'P16), this claim is largely a 
myth, and a well recognised myth at that. 

It may be argued that such a state of 
affairs is no bad thing. Even a cursoryknowledge of the history of the Labour 
Party .reveals the staggering decline in the 
role of the annual conference in making 
policy for the party. When one considers 
the constitutional arguments that are always 
advanced against the propositionthat the PLP or cabinet should be accountable 
to conference it may be thoughtthat there is little .room for manoeuvre 
towards change. Besides which it will be 
asked whether change is really necessary. 
Despite all the frustrations which 
constituencies suffer in achieving policy 
goals the organisation remains intact. 
Nobody is a member of the Labour 
Party very long before he .realises that 
he will have little hope of altering policy 
in the face of a determined leadership. 
The fact that people sti.Jl join us and 
that constituencies do organise is a hopeful 
argument that there is no great concern 
with a decline in the .role of conference. 


This argument would have some validity 
if it were not axiomatic that party 
members are concerned about the status 
of conference and their ability to express 
opinion on policy. One only has to read 
the debate on composite resolution 16 
of the 1970 conference (quoted by Ben 
,Pimlott on page 16) to realise the strength 
of feeling on this issue. A study of the 
resolutions submitted every year to the 
annual conference reveals the enormous 
range of policy issues which evolve from 
the constituencies and these are merelypublic manifestations of countless debates 
which have taken .place within general 
management committees. To say that 
one can safely ignore policy in discussing 
organisation is not only at va.r.iance 
with the evidence it is also something of 
a dangerous argument. It was no coincidence 
that there was a decline in constituency 
morale, membership and efficiency 
at precisely the time that unpopular 
policies were being pursued at Westminster 
by a Labour government. The 
fratricidal debates on nationalisation and 
unilateml disarmament were not solelythe discussions of theoretical idealists, 
but showed a desire by the participants 
to have the best policies with which to 


organise an election V·ictory. To say that 
there is no evidence that organisationalefficiency is directly related to the policy 
of the leadership is not the same argument 
as saying the two have no conceivable 
link. So long as one accepts that 
people work for the Labour Party because 
they believe in policy objectives, 
then one must accept a need to examine 
ways of giving expression to those policy 
objectives. 

Traditionally, of course, it has been the 
annual conference which has been the 
theatre for the democratic expressionof ideas, and at the 1970 conference 
composite resolution 16 was passedwhich "deplore(d) the parliamentaryLabour Party's refusal to act on conference 
decisions"; but the error is to 
assume that, because the conference was 
given this status by the constitution of 
1918, it can nowadays perform the same 
function. It i's only by operating from the 
premise that conference is in reality the 
supreme policy making body of the party 
that it is legitimate to express callous 
anger at the parliamentary leadershipwho ignore it. 

history of the decline 
of conference 


As is well known the role of conference 
has declined. It is the reason for the 
decline that is less widely appreciated. 
The main reason is due to the fact that 
the concept of democracy in a mass 
constituency based Labour Par.ty was inherited 
from the concept of democracyof the Labour Representation Committee 
prior to 1918. In those days the executive 
body of the party was composed almost 
entirely of trade unionists with the 
addition of affi.liated socialist societies. 
The committee was responsible to ann' 
ual conference which was convened to 
make policy on behalf of the party. As 
a method of ex.press.ing the collective 
views of trade unions the system worked 
wen: for it was recognised that Labour 
members of parliament would attemptto introduce legislation on the lines proposed 
by annual conference; a comparison 
of the bills introduced by Labour 
members in the parliamentary session 

of 1907 with the conference resolutions 
of the same year shows this. Professor 
Beer writing about this period says "the 
power of the annual conference over 
the parliamentary party was expected to 
be, and in fact was, far greater than 
that of either of the two major parties" 
(Conservative and Libera.]) (ModernBritish politics, p116). 

In 1918 there was a dramatic change in 
the political situation. A variety of circumstances 
led to a new community consciousness 
which saw the Labour movement 
as its natural expression. It became 
necessary to evolve a new constitution 
which would embody a constituency organisation. 
The constitution of 1918 grafted 
on to the existing structure a constituency 
organisation. However, the policy 
making body was to remain the 
same; the annual conference. The trade 
unions were not unnaturaUy given the 
most important voice at conference under 
the new constitution, though it is 
interesting that the ILP commented that 
they did not regard the constitution as 
being satisfactory "from a democratic 
point of v.iew" (quoted in Professor MacKenzie's 
book British political parties). 
It was not a fault of the constitution that 
the authority of conference declined, 
though it did mean that the constituencies 
were relegated to a position where 
they themselves as a bloc could have 
no influence on party policy. The reason 
for the gradual decline in the power of 
conference was the inevitable development 
of the Labour Party as a partywhich accepted the conventions of parliamentary 
democracy. By becoming Her 
Majesty's Opposition or occasionallyHer Majesty's Government the levers of 
power were unconsciously transferred 
to the leadership of the PLP. The bond 
of confidence which had developed over 
the years between the trade union leaders 
and the parliamentary leadershipprovided a socialist blessing to this development. 
The process was so natural 
that the general secretary of the party 
was able to state without fear of contradiction 
in 1960 that "the par.]iamentary 
party could not maintain its position 
in the country i.f it could be demonstrated 
that it was at any ·time or in any 


way subject to dictation from an outside 
body which, however representative of 
the party, could not be regarded as represent~
tive of the country" (Morgan}>hillips Constitution of the Labour Party.) 


While the nature and function of conference 
has changed beyond recognitionsince 1918 there still persis1ts the fond 
pretence that it has not, and that it is 
only necessary to mount deba'tes at conference 
for policy changes to occur. The 
extraordinary fact is that this is not 
only a view held by many party activists 
but it is a view supported by official 
party literature. A newcomer to the party 
who reads Sara Barker's introductory 
booklet How the Labour Party works 
would be told 'ihat conference is "the 
fountain of authority. It declares policy". 
The pressing need now is to examine 
new ways of providing channels of communications 
between the constituencies 
and .the leadership which will be effective 
in influencing policy decisions. The ne(;d 
for such a re-appraisal of the machinery 
of .party democracy ex.ists not simply because 
conference has altered in complexion 
but also because the nature of Lab-
our Party membership demands it. Anyone 
who doubts this should read the 
telling and brilliant arguments of the 
movers of composite resolution 16. It 
is beyond doubt that i.f the party is to 
maintain a vigorous electoral organisation 
there must be a large and active 
membershi.p; but this in itself wi11 be a 
difficulty unless constituencies are strengthened 
in their political role within the 
party. Anthony Wedgwood Benn has 
pointed to the wide variety of pressuregroups which exist and have attractions 
for the young. Unless CLPs provide genuine 
attractions 1to accommodate a 

growing political consciousness, manyconstituencies' membership will literallydie away. 

There is another reason why constitcencies 
mus·t be strengthened and it is the 
rapidly changing political environment. 
Political allegences are no longer firmly 
based. Apathy and abstentions have become 
an important feature in elections 
and it is a fact not to be ignored. A 

voter who abstains expresses a disillusionment 
with political solutions and so 
long as political parties remain aloof and 
distant from ordinary problems the process 
of alienation will continue. 

The constituencies are the vita,] link between 
the legislators in parliament and 
the people whom legislation affects; but at 
the moment the link is a one way process. 
The present structure is gearedto the constituenc:es disseminating ideas 
which originate in Transport House or 
policy which is made in par.Iiament, but 
the system is manifestly unsuited to communicating 
ideas which originate in the 
constituences to the NEC in Smith Square 
or the cabinet in Downing Street. So 
long as the party relies on the annual 
conference as the medium for converging 
constituency opinion the link will 
remain a one way process for ever. 

There is one simple reform which could 
be made to give the constituencies a larger 
voice in helping to form policy and 
that is to give new status to the annual 
meetings of the regional counc1ls of the 
Labour Party; struc'iurally and constitu


tionally they have a wholly different 
function from the main annual conference. 
For one thing they are forbidden 
to place on their agenda items of na1ional 
po-licy, but there is another difference. 
Not only has the purpose of annual 
conference altered over the years,
but the manner in which the debates are 
presented has changed also. Unlike the 
debates within the party at any other 
level, the debates at annual conference 
are conducted under the twin gaze of the 
press and the television cameras. Inevitably 
their presence encourages statements 
for public consumption and militates 
against genuine, if unharmonious,
debate. One can utterly sympathise with 
the party leadership, which sees 1the conference 
as a vehicle for demonstratingparty unity and maintaining morale with 
large doses of anti-Conservative inv~ctive; 
nevertheless, it is a little invidious 
to combine this function with the pretence 
that party policy is being decided 
at the same time. 

Regional conferences on the other hand 


do not suffer from the same solicitous 
attention of the press, partly because 
they are not a~tended by great numbers orf 
national leaders. What they do have, however, 
is a large gathering of constituencydelegates and trade union representatives.
For a forum of representative opinion 
from the grass roots of the ,party one 
would need to look little further than a 
regional conference. Not only is it representative, 
but discussion is not inhibited 
by the watchful presence of the TV or 
the party leadership. What does inhibit 
discussion is not the delegates but the 
subject matter of the debates. An analysis 
of the final agenda of the annua.l conference 
of the Greater London regionalcouncil for 1969 and 1970 will iHustrate 
the point. In 1969 there were eight resolutons 
on transport and traffic problems 
which called variously for a higher priority 
for public transport, greater worker 
participation and measures to discourage 
the use of the private motor 
car. There were nine resolutions on rents 
and housing which opposed the sale of 
council houses, deplored Conservative 
policy towards repairs and re-decorations 
and called for measures to effect some 
sort of rents pollicy for private dwellings. 
There were two resolutions in support 
of health centres, two on welfare 
services and various others on publicity, 
organisation, the rating of empty property, 
the police and the fire service. 

In 1970 there was a similar pattern.
There were 22 resolutions on transport 
! and traffic problems which condemned 
any decrease in public transport, proposed 
measures for expanding publictransport, called for concessionary fares 
for old age pensioners and the disabled 
and called for a transport enquiry on the 
lines of the Roskill commission. In addition 
.there were four resolutions on the 
motorway box. There were eleven resolutions 
on rents and housing which, while 
covering slightly different issues from 
1969, were all accepted by the executive 
(with only one reservation about the call 
to municipalise private rented accommodation) 
and passed overwhelminglyby the conference. This analysis is not 
intended to show that the subjects in the 
resolutions are unimportant, they are 

palpably not, but it does iHustrate an 
eiement of repetition and lack of controversy 
which characteri·sed the debates. 

A proposal for reform which would allow 
for sufficient discussion on regional 
matters, bul would at the same time give 
the conferences a more important function, 
would be to allocate one day of 
debate for regional matters and one dayfor national policy. The reform would be 
aimed at shortening the discussion on 
essentially non-contentious issues which 
characterise the present debates and provide 
time for the conference to play a 
role in forming policy for the whole 
party. A suggested method of reform 
would be this. Each constituency party 
or trade union district committee would 
be able to present a resolution on either 
regional policy or national policy, with 
the proviso that a resolution in the same 
category would not be presented in 
consecutive years. In other words a constituency 
could submit a national issue 
to a regional conference every other year. 

The executive committee would arrange 
for compositing meetings to be held on 
aH the resolutions and then one daywould be set aside for regional debates 
and one for national policy. The successful 
resolutions in the regional category 
would be referred to the regional executive 
committee in the normal way, but 
those in the national category would 
be referred to the national executive 
committee (NEe), who would then be required 
to consider the resolution and 
present a report of their recommendations 
to the annual conference of the 
whole party. This report would then be 
debated and the recommendations could 
either be rejected or accepted by the 
conference. The debates at conference 
would have the advantage of being conducted 
with the knowledge that th~ resolution 
at least .found favour With a 
regional conference and with .the foreknowledge 
of the NEe's attitude. Such 
a proposal would make th~ debate more 
authoritative and informative; but there 
is another advantage in the .pr<_>posa!. Byrequiring the NEC to st~te their ~ttltude 
in advance the issues mvolved Ill each 
subject would be more readily a.ppre



ciated by const1tuency genera.! management 
committees. The delegate at annual 
conference would be able to participate 
and vote in the debate knowing in 
advance both the views of his own partyand those of the NEC. There would be a 
greater dialogue throughout the party 
as well as a more informed and considered 
debate. 

It is not suggested that aH the debates at 
conference should take this form, thoughit would be necessary to set aside two 
days for discussion in the manner suggested 
above. Constituencies which had 
not submitted a national resolution to 
their regional conference would be able 
to ubmit a resolution to the annual conference 
in the present form, However, 
priority would be given to resolutions 
which emanated from a regional conference, 
because those would have already 
bad wide discussion within the party. 

Such a reform would not, of course, 
create a situation of Athenian democracv 
in the party. The constitutional and his·torical 
strictures would remain. What 
would not remain though would be the 
feeling that the views of conference were 
being treated with cynical disregard by 
the leadership. Such a view exists now 
because of the manner and style of conference 
and the system whereby the NEC 
in the last resort can always ask for awkward 
resolutions to be remitted. In the 
reformed system the NEC would be required 
to give a reasoned response to a 
resolution for the consideration of conference. 
Apart from these advantagesthe change would be a tentative step to 
what has become known as "participation". 


participation 

While participation is a favourite word 
of the Liberal .Party and the advocates 
of the "new politics", it is by no means 
a word that ha been corned by the 
Labour Party. At the Labour Party conference 
in Brighton in 1969 the general 
secretary introduced a document which 
he described as " omething completely 
new, a quite new concept, which gives 
opportunitie to all our members to ex


press their views, to send their opinions 
to the national executive committee"' 
(Labour Party conference report, p355).
The "new concept" was a document ca·lled 
Participation '69, which was a leaflet 
and questionnaire on the subject of "Women 
and social security". The questionnaire 
was designed .to find out wpat CLP 
members thought about means test , 
health charges, and the adequacy of social 
security provision for women. In one 
sense the scheme was a failure because 
there were on'ly 248 replies to the 2,000 
questionnaires which were circulated. 
Nevertheless, the replies were sufficientlyfull for a number of discernable opinions 
to emerge, the .full details o.f which 
are contained in the Labour Party research 
department information paper, no. 

43. Although further discussion papers 
were promised, indeed their subject matter 
was announced, no further questionnaires 
have been sent out. 
It would be an enormous mistake i·f either 
Transport House or the constituencie 
were to allow this scheme to disintegrate. 
It is the first new approach to 
party democracy since the constitution 
was devised in 1918, and is perhaps the 
first official recognition of the fact that 
the traditional channels of inner party 
democracy are outdated. Although the 
idea was borrowed from Sweden, this 
should not detract from the courage of 
Transport House is adapting it to Britain. 
It was no boa t of Harry Nicholas 
to describe the scheme as something"completely new". As a means of involving 
party members in the making of 
policy, the scheme is new. Unlike ~nnual 
conference, where delegates sunplyvote for or against some predecided proposition, 
Participation '69 provides a 
means for a detailed consideration of a 
number of principles (upon which comments 
were invited). It is not neces ary 
simply that the scheme hould continue. 
1t should become a regular feature of 
Labour Party activity. If developed ima~inatively 
the idea could involve people 1n 
the work of the party who have been 
previously disi.Jlusioned by the bc:>redom 
of business meeting and the ted1um of 
re olution passing. If the party is _to 
attract new members who otherw1 e 


might work in other organisations, a continuous 
dialogue between the leadership 
and the movement is utterly vital. However, 
it is not sufficient simply to keep

the scheme going. If it is to work properly 
constituencies must be involved in 
aJ.l major issues. The common market is 
an obvious examp-le of a subject where 
constituencies should be given an opportunity 
to express detai•led and reasoned 
arguments. It is ridiculous for politicians 
to bewail an ill informed public, 
if the public are never treated to an informed 
discussion. There should be a 
continuous preparation of papers on subjects 
such as housing, pensions, publicexpenditure priorities and so on. Discussion 
papers should be published as a 
matter of course, and it should not be a 
decision of the Labour Party research 
department as to which issues merit general 
circulation. Inevitably this would involve 
greater expenditure at TransportHouse, with a larger staff under the political 
education officer. (As the argument 
necessa6ly invo·lves higher expenditure 
the proposal will be considered impractical 
and unpopular. The Labour Partyof course is particularly vulnerable on 
matters of finance.) But efficient organisation 
like socialism itself is the language 
of priorities. In the last resort it wiJ.I be 
for the constituency members themselves 
to press and campaign (and even 
donate) for the staff to be expanded. 

selection of candidates 

Although it is possible to point to great 
changes in the party since 1918, particularly 
the role of conference, there is one 
function that has remained quite unaltered. 
It is the function of constituencies 
to select parliamentary candidates. 
Most writers about the Labour Partyacknowledge that this is a constituency's 
most important .function, since they have 
within their control the future composition 
of the House of Commons. If indeed 
constituencies are to play a greater 
role in party affairs then it is essential 
that this role should be preserved and 
improved and not belittled and constricted. 
In this connection the NEC amendment 
to standing orders which was passed 
at the 1970 conference is important. 

The function of selection is important not 
simply because constituencies can choose 
wl1ich individuals can become members 
of parliament but because the choice o.f 
a bad candidate may not only ,Jose a 
marginal seat but may undermine enthusiasm 
and morale within the party. The 
MP is the crucial link between the rank 
and file and parliament. To argue for 
greater contact between the movement 
and the PLP inevitably .involves consideration 
of the member and his position 
vis a vis his local party. If selection processes 
were more thorough, there would 
be less recourse to the complaint that 
the member did not represent .the views 
of his loca.J party. To be sure selection 
processes are not thorough at the moment. 
Edward G. Janosik, who has made 
a special study of the selection procedure, 
has commented "It is surprising that 
the selection conferences are not more 
meaningful .... It is hard to understand 
why marginal divisions .in which .the Labour 
candidate received 45 per cent of 
the vote in a straight vote in 1959 received 
so few nominations that no screening 
was possible at the shor.tlisting phase 
of the process, aU nominees going on the 
shortlist" (Constituency Labour Parties 
in Britain, pp151-152). 

Reform of the procedure should have 
three aims in mind. First, the opportunity 
to contest a constituency should be 
made as widely avai.Jable as possible; second, 
more information about candidates 
should be known to the local party than 
at present, and third, all members of the 
party should participate in the selection 
process (as is suggested by Oliver Stut~hbury 
in chapter 6 and the appendix). 

Several improvements could be made 
to the present system wi thout dramatically 
altering the rules. Contenders for 
parliamentary nomination should be encouraged 
to provide political references. 
This would .give prominence to the ·I?Ore 
serious applicants. Wards and affihated 
organisations should have the •J:?OWer to 
nominate as many of the apphcants as 
appear worthy of nomina.tion ~o .avoid 
a real.ly good candidate bemg ehmmated 
at the early stages. Shortlisting should 
be done by the executive, but not in 


closed session. Ward members who are 
not on the executive should be a~ble to 
make representations on behalf of nominees 
before the tina'! shortlist is decided. 
All party members should be invited to 
the selection conference and have the 
power to vote. 

Two benefits would accrue from these 
proposals. First, the selection processwould indubitably take longer and therefore 
there would be a check on hurried 
decisions that may be encouraged by a 
small section of the party. Second, a 
greater number of party members would 
take part in the selection and therefore 
in the formal sense it would !be more 
democratic. The next question .is whether, 
having given greater opportunities 
to select a candidate one should give less 
opportunities to reject the sitting member. 
The amendment which was proposed 
:by the NEC and approved by the 1970 
conference was designed precisely •to achieve 
this objective. The amendment changes 
model rules (set A) clause XII sectio11 
7 (h) to read "The general committee at 
a speciaJ.ly convened meeting intimates byresolution its desire that he or she must 
retire at the next general election. A 
member of the parliamentary Labour 
Party against whom such action is taken 
shaH have the right of appeal to the national 
executive committee, which committee 
sha·].J have the power to confirm, 
vary or reverse the action taken by the 
general committee." 

The first point to make about the proposal 
is that there has not been a whole 
series of instances where constituencies 
have been sacking their MPs, with the 
NEC standing impotently in the wingshelpless to intervene. In fact the exact 
opposite has been the case. The instances 
have not been numerous and the NEC 
has been far from helpless. Since 1945 
there have only been four occasions 
where the ·local party has wished to sack 
an MP and the NEe has shown diSJPleasure 
at the local party's attitude. There are 
just as many instances where the NEC has 
connived with the ·local party in its antagonism 
towards the member; these 
concerned Alfred Edwards (Middlesbrough 
East), Stanley Evans (Wednes


bury), Jimmy GlanviJ.le (Consett) and 
John Baird (Wolverhampton North East). 
These examples are discussed in detail 
in Austin Runney's Pathway to parliament, 
chapter 6. On the four occasions 
where real disputes arose two were settled 
reasonably expeditiously. In each 
case the impasse was settled by the personal 
intervention of the regional organiser 
coupled with a threat -to disaffiliate 
the party. Both members were subsequently 
re-adopted and re-elected. The 
third case was Margaret McKay in Clap-
ham who resigned before the dispute 
came to a head. Only S. 0 . Davies in 
Merthyr Tydfil was able to confound his 
opposition to the embarrassment and 
harm of the party nationaHy. 

If these examples show nothing else they 
certainly do not show a welter of forced 
resignations where members are thrust 
into the political wi-lderness at the whim 
of a general management committee. On 
past records the NEC wiH only be called 
upon to vary or reverse a decision by 
the GMC in very unusual circumstances, 
where the relationship with the member 
has deteriorated so markedly that the 
local party sees no alternative but to take 
action. If the strength of feeling within 
the constituency is such that exceptionalaction is taken, then it is difficult to see 
how the NEC can alter that strength of 
feeling by reversing the decision. To argue 
for sti.JI greater autonomy for the 
constituencies in this respect is not the 
argument of party militants ranged against 
the considered wisdom of the NEC. 
If the argument is militant it at least has 
the blessing of The Times newSipaper, 
who put it this way: "Unless an MP for 
a safe seat is to have tenure for ,Ji,fe his 
constituency supporters must have the 
right to reject him even if he wishes to 
stand again. If he has lost the confidence 
of most of his party in the constituency, 
it would in fact be an abuse of the parliamentary 
process for him to be re-elected 
just because he wore the right 
label which nobody was permitted to 
remove .from him .... The test should 
be not whether the reasons are good 
ones but whether this is the wish of the 
majority of local party supporters. The 
safeguard that is needed is against a 


small local minority wielding this power 
of ex-communication." (The Times' leading 
article, I September 1970.) 

The member of parliament could, if constituencies 
were to use their power effectively, 
be the ideal go between from the 
grass roots to the parliamentary Labour 
Party. To give him security of tenure 
without the possibility of eviction is hardly 
likely to encourage the member to be 
responsive to political argument from 
the constituencies. The rejoinder .to this 
view will be the argument that his ·freedom 
of expression will be impaired and 
that countless constituencies will .throw 
out any member who deviates from GMC 
policy. This is an argument but one 
that has little evidence to support it. 
There were large numbers of constituencies 
whose policy often differed from 
that of the last government, many of 
whom were represented in parliament by 
loyal government supporters. How manyof these loyalists were ever in any danger 
of losing their nomination at the 
election? The maxims of Burke are well 
recognised in the constituencies and the 
freedom of MPs to express views different 
from their consti.tuency fully acknowledged. 
The argument is not designed to 
unseat anybody. On the contrary it is to 
make their seat more secure by creating 
a local party that will prosper because 
democracy in the party is improved. 

conclusion 

These changes will not transform the 
Labour Party overnight, nor even in a 
decade. In essence the structure of the 
party will remain una·ltered. The purposeof the proposals is to make alterations 
in the structure where it is deficient and 
to acknowledge that the deficiency lies 
in the formalised system of democracywhich had previously existed. The formalised 
structure has become an atrophied 
structure. The proposals are designed 
not to replace one set of ru~es by another 
but to allow for greater dialogue, 
communication and exchange of .ideas 
within the present broad structure. To 
a'llow regional conferences to submit resolutions 
to conference will not of itself 
change the status of conference; what 

it will do is to give greater author.ity to 
constituency opinion at conference and it 
wiH force the NEC to acknowledge that 
opinion by expanding the participation 
programme; it will remain the prerogative 
of the NEC to dra·ft the election 
manifesto, but it will mean that there 
wiH be ample evidence of what the constituencies 
feel about the .issues to be 
contained in that manifesto. 

In the end things might not alter a great 
deal, but at least the new member of the 
Labour party will feel that there is the 
machinery for an active democracy, and 
not the skeleton of one that was devised 
53 years ago. 


5. election '70 
Joycelin Dawes 

In this chapter an attempt is made to 
present a thumbnail sketch of Labour 
Party organisation as it was in June 1970, 
based on the resU'lts of a survey carried 
out on behalf of the Fabian Local Societies 
Committee (Lsc). Members of local 
Fabian Societies up and down the country 
played a considerable part in the election 
of 18 June 1970, so that althoughthe survey is by no means exhaustive, byappealing for help t>hrough local Societies, 
a wide spread of constituencies was 
obtained, numbering 37 in all. These 
results have been supported and supplemented 
by a similar survey carried out 
on behalf of the Young Fabian Group,
which gained replies from a further 32 
constituencies. The most striking characteristic 
of these two surveys .is that, a.lthough 
they were both carried out completely 
independently of each other (except 
in the collation of results for which 
they have been joined in part) and at 
different times (the Young Fabian's in 
July and August 1970 and the Lsc's 
slightly later), they come up with replies 
from nearly 70 constituencies, a.Jl of 
which have a simi·lar story ,to tell. 

The potential importance of a survey of 
this type is borne out in a let,ter f,rom 
Conrad Jameson (of Conrad Jameson 
Associates Ltd) to the New Statesman (5February 1971) in relation to the work 
which he has been commissioned to do 
by Transport House. He talks of "the 
inexcusable incompetence of TransportHouse which keeps tabs on the partywith the casualness of a choolboy storing 
away in a shoebox the odd sock or 

broken pencil". He discovered "that 
Transport House had no reliable information 
whatever about the party organisation 
... and put [the widespread alienation] 
down to the indifference and 
hostility o£ an old guard ... that refH!s 
its ranks ... with janissaries of its own 
narrow minded kind .... Just at the 
moment there could be no more effective 
measure or reform than to do a Booth 
type inquiry on the state of the partyorganisation". The survey undertaken 
here is not exhaustively rigorous, but has 
the merit o.f being a piece of descriptiveresearch of the kind to wh.ich Conrad 
Jameson refers. 

The theme of policy inadequacy has fast 
become one of the main whipping boys 
of apologists for Labour's defeat, but this 
was not all that was amiss. One of the 
lessons to be drawn fr<Ym the survey, if 
not its main conclusion, is the demonstration 
that the Labour Party possesses, 
on average, little more than a haphazardorganisation geared to fight elections on 
an extremely ad hoc basis without, moreover, 
any conception of a national standard 
against which a constituency can 
objectively judge its own performance. 
In contrast, the Con ervatives have a party 
organisation, admittedly backed by superior 
financial resources, which demonstrates 
its superiority time and time 
again, not only with those electioneering 
aids which are dependant upon money,
such as a national agency service, but 
also by making far more ski.lful use of 
the whole range of political activities at 
its disposal. The overwhelming major-

TABLE 1 party 

...... ...... ......

agent 
activitie

0 0 0

_e. Q) 

c: 
of candidate 
.... > c: c:: "' 

".;:j 0 .!:: .!:: B Lab Con 
~"'"' "'> ~ ~.,!!2~0 Labour canvassing >. >.

.... (/) ~"' > 
.... 

Q)

3.~ 3 ·-"' ·->·-completion of ~ 

0 8 0 
Q) c::~c:oc:~

tate of .04> .0 "'c 
0 ~ ~E ~-;;; (per cent) .... B ~ ....> B >.... 

:l Q) 0 :l Q)

constituency 
"' ........ln. ....l"' _ u (3~(3~(38. 30 31-60 61-I 00 g -0' c: >

> 0' 

Labour held seat 8 2 12 8 8 7 9 5 4 3 6 6 5 5 5 
Con held seat 7 I 15 11 3 6 9 6 I 3 8 5 13 2 I 
eat changing hand 4 5 6 6 4 4 3 3 -3 3 -3 3 

Total number of sea.ts: 
safe Labour seat 15 
safe Conservative seats 16 
seats changing hands 6 


ity of constituencies replying to the LSC 
questionnaire were· either safe Conservative 
or safe Labour seats after the 1966 
election and only six out of 37 changedhands in 1970. Most of the importantfactua.<l information can be presented in 
an encapsulated form (see table 1) but 
certain important characteristics are worthy 
of extrapolation, because they are 
useful indications of the total picturewhich emerges. 

On the whole the Conservative Partyhas, as is well known, a larger number 
of agents in the constituencies than does 
the Labour Party; in addition, however, 
they have a si·gnificantly larger number 
in seats which in the normal run of 
elections, they will not expect to win. 
The other direct contrast which can be 
made between the two parties shows 
that Labour candidates tend to be more 
active in their constituencies than their 
Conservative counterparts. However, as 
the opinions on this question are givenby the Labour Party themselves, part of 
the difference may lie in the fact that 
one side's interpretation of the other may 
not be wholly objective. Despite this 
seeming lack of .interest on the part of 
their candidates, the Conservative Party, 
by a.JI indications, maintains a far more 
effective machine than does Labour. 

There are some aspects of organising a 
campaign which will always be completed 
where a well run and enthusiastic 
campaign takes place; thus, the organisation 
of canvassing, removals and 
posta.J votes can be taken as indicators 
of the groundwork put in by a party.
This is simply because if an organisationis below par, these tend to be the areas 
of activi·ty which are neglected first, 
and are consequently the most obvious 
omissions. In all these three instances, 
as can be seen briefly in table 1, the Labour 
Party record is not good. Apart 
··om this there were, in addition, ten 
constituencies in which Labour had no 
cam'paign committee to take overaH 
charge of organisation, one of these being 
in a seat which was subsequent.Jylost to the Conservatives. An equal number 
of constituencies did not organisepublic relations and press coverage be


fore launching into the campaign and 
there were a few places where the candidates 
had no formal introduction to 
the press at any stage. It is commonlyheld that the efforts of the ·local candidate 
make little appreciable difference to 
the electoral outcome; this may be true, 
and the survey replies in no way inva•lidate 
the theory, but they do show that 
it is by no means .impossible that candidates 
might emerge from the shadows 
a .little more if a more concerted effort 
was made to communicate more effectively 
with electors through such obvious 
outlets as the local press. 

Before going on to illustrate the impression 
given by the replies to the survey, 
of the overa.Jl picture of Labour Partyorganisation in the election, it is worth 
looking much more closely at the significant 
indicators already mentioned; 
na.mely the organisation of press and 
public relations, the organisation of removals 
and postal votes, and the activities 
in which candidates involve themselves. 


press and public relation_s_ 

The argument in .favour of paying due 
attention to the skilful use of .public relations 
and press coverage is that it is 
one of the most effective ways in which 
the candidate can present a favourable 
image of himself and his party to a large 
numrber of people. Even in these days of 
nationalised election campaigning, this is 
still a relevant matter. From the replies 
to the questionnaire it is immediatelyobvious that prospective candidates in a 
constituency suffer considerably from 
such a deficiency, but not the incumbent 
MP who is intrinsically .far more 
newswor'thy. However, it was also obvious 
that all the candidates couoJd reapbenefits from being selected at an earlier 
stage prior to a possible election; aU 
those that were in this position and had 
cultivated regular press contacts in the 
intervening .period, found it that much 
easier to command their attention at election 
time. On some occasions, however, 
all these efforts can be wasted when, 
as one constituency reported, no repor



ters actua'lly turn up to press conferences 
arranged for them. On the whole, 
the use made by constituencies of the 
availabi·lity of the press was unimaginative, 
consisting of mixtures of an established 
gamut of activities. These range 
from introductory "meet the candidate" 
sessions, to nothing more than supplying 
the press with copies of a daily itinerary, 
handouts and speeches. Very little seemed 
to be done in the way of initiatingstories of local news interest. A good example 
of the use of such a news storywas where the candidate (the incumbent 
MP) was able, quite legitimately, to exploit 
his position by heJpjng the local 
residents living near an overflowing open 
sewer. This provided a front page story. 

These are not universa·lly accepted practices, 
and it seems that there was a lack 
of enthusiasm jn most cases and, even 
more, no real understanding of the importance 
of the press and its use. It was 
the exception rather than the rule that 
local parties actively attempted to gai'lthe attention of the press by holdingnewsworthy events, if one accepts that 
most election activities are newsworthyonly in a minimal way. It was only on 
rare occasions that a constituency Lab-
our Party went out of its way, as one 
did, to do such things as bringing "prettyand prorrunent" people into the area and 
then promoting them as Labour Party 
supporters. The characteristic feature of 
press and public relations were their 
lack of ingenuity and novelty. Hence 
they in no way combat the fact that 
over time most electioneering activities 
have become institutionalised and less 
worthy of attention except in a ritual 
sense. 

removals and postal voting 

The organi ation of removals and postal 
votes is significant in revealing a different 
aspect of the pattern of electoral organisation, 
which seems to be prev~lent 
throughout the country. They are important 
partly becau e, in marginal seats,
the number of votes captured in trus way 
can make all the difference between winning 
and losing, but also becau e being 

largely mechanical exercises they reveal 
a considerable amount about the inadequacy 
of the Labour Party's methods of 
organisation. At the same time two .problems 
of interpretation arise in evaluating 
the replies, particularly in relation to the 
question of the organisation of removals; 
first, the answer given is not necessari'ly 
objective in the sense that it rrught 
indicate what a constituency tried to do, 
but this gives no clue as to their relative 
success or effectiveness; second, in 
each case jt is impossible to evaluate the 
methods used in relation to the other 
possibilities avai.lable. as the latter are 
unknown variables. For example, some 
constituencies based their canvassing of 
removals on the local authority housing 
removals ·list. On the other band, constituencies 
that did not do this. do not 
at the same time tell us whether their 
local authority had no such lists, or that 
they omitted to use them, or that no one 
knew (:)f their existence, or that the authority 
refused to supply them. 

The .fact, however, that such a large proportion 
of the constituencies replyinghad not organised this aspect of their 
work, can be taken to indicate something 
of the way in which constituencies 
are run. Of the replies received, slightly 
over half had made no provisions at all 
in this direction, and only one singleconstituency had compj]ed a removals 
list before the election was announced,
this having been done by checking the 
local authority housing lists for .the previous 
year. The importance of the lack 
of attention given to removals does nqt 
rest solely on the fact that it was organised 
jn no more than 50 per cent of 
cases, but equally in the .fact that af the 

17 constituencies which worked on this,
twelve of them only picked removals up 
whilst they were canvassing. Given the 
low rate of canvassing in most constituencies, 
it is obvious that this is an extremely 
haphazard and unreliable way of 
attempting to account for all removals. 
The procedure followed, havin~ obtained 
some sort of a list of removals, was the 
only logical tep; to contact the individuals 
and tell them where they had 
to vote and, where appropriate, to arrange 
transport. 


Organisation of postal voting, despitethe growing awareness of its importance, 
and the need to improve its organisation, 
is stiU carried out very much on 
a haphazard hasis, and left until the last 
moment. It is also surprising to note that 
about one quarter af the constituencies 
organising postal votes had no more than 
a vague idea of the votes actually cast, 
which may be eXJplained by the staggering 
number of constituencies displaying 
a total ignorance of the procedure of 

, opening and counting postal votes and of 
their rights in this ·respect. A two fold 
problem exists in respect of organisingthe postal vote which few constituencies 
recognised and dealt with. On ·the one 
hand there is the problem of contactingregistered postal voters, which only a 
handful of constituencies mentioned, and 
on the other of finding people who need 
a postal vote but are not registered permanently 
as such, and therefore oan only 
be picked up on canvassing (thus cai.Jing 
for a maximum initial effort) or on the 
knowledge of ward organisers; but then 
the problem also becomes one of time. 
One constituency employed a rather 
more carefully calculated approach .in 
contacting known postal voters than 
most of the others; an attempt was made 
to send different workers or types of people 
to postal voters hoping to match the 
particular elector up with someone with 
whom ·they were likely to have some 
sympathy or link. One difficulty which 
was mentioned was that, once a voter 
had been visited and canvassed there 
was not the time to caH again and make 
sure that the ballot paper was actualyposted. There seems, as a general ,pattern, 
to be little advantage taken of the 
obvious places to find potential postal 
voters, such as visiting old people'shomes or hospitals. 

Not a.Jl constituencies are able to organise 
themselves to their best advantagebecause, as is shown with this sort of 
task, they are essentially juggling with 
scarce resources. Benefits are, not surprisingly, 
seen to accrue in constituencies 
with more resources at their disposal. 
For example, one constituency was 
able to employ two people full time for a 
month before the election, organising the 

postal vote. It is reasonable in this light, 
that many constituencies feel that their 
resources are better employed on tasks 
which have more than a marginal electoral 
value. However, two valid pointsremain, both in reference to postal voting 
and removals. First, the inabi.J.ity of 
parties to spend time on these routine 
mechanical tasks is a measme of th~ 
total ineptitude of Labour Party thinking 
and efforts in the direction of improving 
the circumstances and methods 
of local organisation. Second, as there 
will inevitably be an interim period before 
there can be any drastic improvements, 
.it is the :responsibility oi the local 
parties to try and improve their own 
methods. Thus, if they choose not to organise 
activities like postal votes and removals 
in the optimum fashion, but rely 
on picking up the information in canvassing, 
then the operation of canvassing 
must become more thorough. Unless canvassing 
is efficiently carried out, then 
other activities, to be reliable, must not 
in any way be dependant upon it; as the 
opposite is the case at the moment it is 
rapidly becoming a salient characteristic 
of Labour Party organisation that all 
these activities are independent and thus 
are aU done badly. 

the candidate's 
degree of activity 

The results of the survey genera.Jly supported 
the theory that the individual is 
only of marginal electoral value. This is 
certainly true of the Conservative Partywhere a .larger proportion of safe seats 
are held by inactive MPs. Nevertheless, 
a candidate's activity may be important,
particular-ly in respect of the personal 
enthusiasm which he can engender .both 
amongst party workers and the electorate 
at large An incumbent MP, as representative 
of the enti-re constituency is far 
more favourably placed to take part in 
community, rather than purely party political 
activities, and indeed it ·is to be 
expected of him. Those candidates who 
had involved themselves in the life and 
issues of the community are, for this 
reason, particularly noticeable and were 
invariably favourably commented upon 
for precisely this reason. The Labour 


candidates in Conservative held seats 
tended to be marginally more active than 
those in Labour seats, and consideralb1ymore so than their opponents, who were 
of course sitting on pretty safe majorities; 
but this is not to ignore that this group 
of Labour candidates probably had to 
overcome some of the bigges.t problems, 
and the evidence is that their achievement 
was frequently a personal one. 
Some candidates tended to involve themselves 
purely with local party activities 
and constituents' problems. On the other 
hand a fair number, particularly amongst 
the very active, spent a great deal of time 
working with, and for, a variety of local 
organisations. The note of reservation 
which the results might therefore attach 
to the hypothesis about candidate activity 
is perhaps a negative one. It tended 
to be the constituencies which were the 
least well organised .in which the candidates 
were the least effective. Whilst not 
attempting to make any categoric statements 
about cause and effect in this situation, 
nevertheless any campaign nect>ssarily 
revolves around the candidate and 
inevitably h.is degree of enthusiasm and 
effort has a great impact upon the morale 
of those working for him. It affects 
the total output and effectiveness of the 
whole campaign and the willingness of 
those whom the candidate must rely u,pon 
for aid. In many cases the impression 
given .is that this high degree o.f personalcommitment is lacking (at least to some 
extent) perhaps more in the personal 
s.ense than the degree of commitment a 
candidate ,feels towards the party's principles; 
and as long as the Labour Partyis in a situation in which its organisation 
and machinery are inadequate there is 
a much bigger gap to be filled by personal 
effort. 

thumbnail sketch 

The foregoing descriptions indicate that 
in some crucial areas O!f activity (communication, 
organisation, and personaland party morale) the survey shows that 
the Labour Party is deficient. The objectof this thumbnail sketch therefore is not 
merely to paint a picture, but aiso to 
look at some of the questions raised by 

these shortcomings. The questions which 
emerge probably fall into four different 
types; a consideration of the role of 
organisation in the constituencies and an 
attempt to evaluate .its significance, the 
electoral implications of the failure to 
achieve the optimum distribution of 
scarce resources, the effect o£ a.JI this 
on party morale, and lastly, the lessons 
to be learnt about the relationship between 
national and constituency electioneering. 


The results af the sur·vey prompt the realisation 
that the Labour ,Party has, up 
till now, left wide open the interpretation 
it wishes to put upon the word "organisation". 
Organisation means one 
thing to one constituency and somethingsubstantially different to another. There is 
no accepted national standard of organisation; 
there are no aspects of election 
work which every constituency keepsticking over between elections, desp.ite 
the fact that some areas are .involved in 
local elections every year. The picture is 
of an organisation which is ad hoc and 
haphazard almost in .the extreme and 
when a general election is announced 
activities are scheduled in a hurry, largely 
with reference to the resources conveniently 
to hand at that particular time. 
The complete absence of any long term 
strategic p.lanning, coupled with the failure 
to provide a national standard, means 
that the majority of constituencies can 
make no objective judgment of their 
performances either through time or 
across the country. The effects of this are 
obvious; tables 2 and 3 show that there 
is little discernible pattern to the results 
in the constituencies surveyed. It is not 
immediately evident that good organisation 
on the part o.f the Labour Party 
was necessarily synonymous with an 
above average performance signified in 
terms of a diminished swing to the Conservatives, 
similarly there was no obvious 
electoral advantage gained from having 
a full time paid 'Labour Party agent, 
nor conversely do parties seem to have 
suffered unduly without one. However, 
the benefits of .good organisation are obscured 
by a lack of comparability as by 
the other complexities involved in the 
relationship, such as regional variations. 


TABLE 2 
STANDARD OF CONSTITUENCY 
ORGANISATION 

per cent 
swing to Tories 

Labour Conservative 3 3-5 5 
good good J 4 5 
good poor 4 1 
poor good 4 4 2 
poor poor 3 5 2 
average net swing 4 per cent 

TABLE 3 
DISTRIBUTION OF FULL TIME 
LABOUR PARTY AGENTS 

.per cent 
swing to Tories 
seat total 3 3-5 5 

agent: sad'e Labour 2 
agent: safe Tory J 1 
agent: marg.inal 5 3 2 
no agent: safe Labour 13 4 5 4 
no agent: safe Tory 15 7 7 I 
no agent: margina.J 1 1 

Perhaps the most instructive lesson of 
table 2 is that in seats where Lrubour organisation 
was good, and their opponent's 
poor, the result for Labour tended 
to show a less than average swing to the 
Conservative Party and this figure includes 
within .it both some sa·fe Conservative 
and safe Labour seats. The proble~
s ~aused by this inability to make an 
objective JUdgment of constituencies is 
?ack~ up by the Young Fabian survey,
m wh1ch .it turned out that there is only 
~me universally practised election activ-
Ity, ':Vhich is having a constantly manned 
daytime campaign headquarters. 32 percent of the respondents had not carried 
out more than a 20 per cent canvass olf 
the constituency since January 1970, 
which is of significance as in the intervening 
period the new register containing 
~he under 21 year old voters had come 
.mto operation. Despite these varyingmaqequacies displayed in constituency?rganisation, 63 per cent of those reply-
mg felt that their local party was more 
efficient than what they assumed to be 
the average national standard, and of 
this percentage only 5 per cent qua.Jified 
their statement by pointing out that this 

was in the light of what was admittedly 
a .low standard. The 63 per cent, moreover, 
contained within themselves one or 
two constituencies ·Where organisation 
:-vas undoubtedly superior, but it also 
moluded a larger number whose achievement 
di~ notshow any ev.idence to support 
the1r cla1m, and whose organisation 
could be judged to have been ineffectual 
on nearly every count. Even so most 
constituencies, when asked, replied that 
they thought .that Conservative organisation 
of their campaign was at least 
equal to their own and, .in many cases,
superior. 

The impression given by the sur-vey is 
that the whole operation is conducted 
in an extremely amateur way. Agents are 
appointed at the last moment to act during 
the election period, and in one specific 
case of a constituency which was 
captured by the Conservative .in 1970, it 
was felt that a Jarge part of the responsibility 
for this loss was due to the agent, 
who was totally inexperienced in politics, 
apart from also being seem.ingly .incapable 
of organising anything verymuch; indeed, he had no idea of his 
duties or how to go about them. Conversely, 
where an agent was good at his 
job, even if the ultimate result does not 
bear this out, there was usually a far 
more thorough organisation of the mechanical 
aspects of campaigning. If electoral 
organisation means anything at all, 
it is as a national standard to be achieved 
because of its inherent desirability, 
and will entail, at least, constant supervision 
of the more mechanical activities 
such as the organisation of the postal 
vote, removals and canvassing. At present 
this is maniiestly not the case. 

It is an obvious and well known fact 
that, in comparison with the Conservative 
Party, the Labour Party has to operate 
on shoestring finances. Thus, along 
with questions of efficiency, a survey of 
this kind poses questions of how effectively 
the party uses the material ~id 
which it bas. It is clear from the replies 
received that few parties are, in .fact, 
able to do more than juggle with competing 
scarce resources. Hence effe~tiv~ness 
is at least as important a cntena 


for action as efficiency. Even efficiently 
executed activities may not be effective 
in terms of electoral impact. There is,
however, no ready measure o.f effectiveness, 
except in terms of results, which 
are themselves conditioned by so manyother .factors. When the po·litics of election 
campaigning are run so much from 
a national level, a constituency candidate 
must aim to reinforce the link in the 
voter's mind between his party, partypo!.icy and his own personality. In this 
sense effectiveness is the measure o.f how 
successfully a candidate identifies himself 
with his party label (although he 
may diverge on some points of policy) in 
the eyes of the electorate. 

The results do not indicate that candidates 
or local parties are particularlyadept at public relations. As the evidence 
about the press showed they are characterised 
by an atmosphere o.f drabness 
and lack o,f ingenuity. No campaign can 
be effective if it does not communicate, 
and this is related to the theme o.f orgaaising 
resources .in order to reach the maximum 
number of electors. This requires 
a number of attractive qualities to be 
part o.f the constituency campaign, such 
as enthusiasm, imagination, organisation 
and ability, and the means to convey all 
of this to the public at large. It seems 
to be the case that, on crucial occasions, 
some or all of these characteristics are 
in short supply in the Labour Party. 

The .tables, encapsulating some of the in· 
formation received, reveal an interestingdifference in the distribution o.f resources, 
as ,far as facilities like the national 
agency service are concerned. The overall 
impression given o.f the correspondingConservative campaigns is not only that 
they are at least as well run, but more 
significantly, that the Conservative P.arty 
tends to make a greater overall effort 
than the Labour Party in both their own 
safe seats (although they have a higherproportion of inactive incumbent MPs 
than was .found in Labour sa.fe seats)
and Labour's safe seats. While the concentration 
of information in a tabular 
form masks many of the complexitiesinvolved in this kind of survey, nevertheless, 
it serves to demonstrate that the 

Conservative Party distributes its resources 
far more evenly than the Labour 
Party. It may well be that the Labour 
Party policy of concentrating on the 
marginal seats pays off in terms of supperior 
organisation in these places and 
this survey would seem to show that it 
does, but the cost of this is that at any 
one point in time the Labour Party is 
less able than its opponents to exert a 
"physical presence" right across the country. 
The fact seems to be that far too 
high a proportion of Labour Parties lie 
nearly dormant in off election periods,
therefore when they do come to li.fe they 
are inevitably hampered by the ad hoc 
arrangements they rely on, which are all 
they can muster. 

This leads on to the area of party morale 
and enthusiasm, and the effect of this 
on ·local/ national party relations. Instances 
were quoted in the replies when a 
candidate's greater participation, not onlyin the party but also in the community 
at large, had beneficial effects on the impetus 
o.f his campaign and the enthusiasm 
of the party workers. Where a candidate 
was especiaJ.Iy active and able,
this drew comments from those completing 
the questionnaire to the effect that 
this had made a ,favourable impact upon 
the .party. Members of the Labour Party 
are not always sufficiently conscious of 
the fact that they are part of an organisation 
which sees itself as an ageing and 
divided group. Interest and activism are 
generally, therefore, at a very low level 
and this is confirmed by the fact that 
only just over 40 per cent of elections 
for ·local party officers are contested with 
a·ny degree of regularity. One of the 
main duties of the agent during a campaign 
is to help the candidate vis a vis 
the aJiocation of his time and effort,
hence his personal effect wi.JI be closely 
dependent upon the former's skill in using 
the available resources. In turn the 
workers' enthusiasm and the whole atmosphere 
of the campaign take their cue 
from the way in which this is handled, 
therefore a candidate who has the advantage 
of being .part of an active party, 
or who is capable of engendering the 
right sort o.f framework and approach, 
has an obvious advantage. 


A large proportion of the roOIJll .in which 
he has to manoeuvre is increasingly taken 
up by the encroachment of the national 
campaign upon the electorate's time 
and interest, but many constituencies do 
account .for part of their result in terms 
of Ioca.J conditions. •Both this surveyand the Young Fabian one do show 
that constituency parties themselves feel 
that prevailing local peculiarities have 
more than a passing effect upon their 
own result. It is often the result of the 
constituency MP being particularly conscientious 
or having a higher than average 
personal vote. According to constituency 
parties some seats (and nof always 
those which were marginal) could have 

been lost in June 1970 but for the abilities 
of the MP. Again, many constituencies 
feel that having a .Jocal person standing 
wi.JI tend to increase their candidate's 
votes, whilst one Conservative opponent 
was a:ble to damage Labour byplaying upon the fact that he was a 
local man and a long established alderman. 
The national campaign can, however, 
intrude in the constituencies with 
deleterious effect; one constituency felt 
that they could have made far more 
headway against an unpopular Tory MP 
if the Labour Party's image had been 
different. 

Most of the local differences in result 
are put down to one of two causes, both 
of which militate in lfavour o.f a better 
organisation to exploit them. First, there 
is strong evidence, as has already been 
mentioned, to suppose that the candidate 
can have a more positive effect than is 
usually supposed. Intense activity was often 
seen to be an effective counter .in 
safe Conservative seats to an out of 
touch MP, and in these circumstances 
young and progressive candidates were 
able to set the pace and make an impact.
A constituency with a swing o.f 2.1 per 
cent to the Conservatives, that is well 
below the national average, thought that 
.they. positively benefited from having an 
energetic candidate with local ties. Another 
said that the reason .for the return 
of their candidate was that he was 
young and the impact he had on the 
organisation led to far greater enthusiasm. 
The second significant local factor 

to emerge was the way .in which national 
policies were particularly applied to 
localities. Thus Labour's regional policies 
had an effect in the development areas 
and immigration policy and Powellism 
affected areas like the West Midlands· 
this was a two edged weapon, however' 
in that there was obviously a heavy tur~ 
out of the immigrant vote .in response 
to the threat of Powellism within the 
Tory Party. In one case a Labour MP 
who was returned with a majority of 
just over 2,000 could probably account 
for between 500 and 1,000 votes of that 
majori.ty by the immigrant vote. The 
ultra~Powellism of SOIJlle Conservative 
candidates was raised quite o.ften, invariably 
because the constituency Labour 
Party felt that it not only helped them to 
gain immigrant votes but also those of 
other grolllps in the electorate; the middle 
classes being quoted in one example. 

The local role of parties and candidates 
is demonstrably far .from dead. The further 
enhancement of their role is held 
up, not only by the overpower.ing nature-
of the national campaign, but equally bythe fact that organisation in the average 
constituency is .in such a lamentable state 
and contact is made with so few electors 
that it becomes necessary to rely on the 
national campaign generating enough 
support and enthus.iasm to garner the 
votes on behalf of the local party, and 
almost in lieu of its efforts. The picturewhich these constituences present of 
their party is not a very inspiring one. 
There are obviously many imp].ications 
to be drawn which could lead to rapid 
improvements. However, at present, the 
overwhelming impression is a depressing 
one of a party which is running do~n 
and the creaks in its joints are becornmg 
more pronounced and .Jess easily ignored. 
It is the image of an organisation whi~h 
has abil·ity and potential amongst 1ts 
members, but does not utilise them to 
the full or give equal opportunity to new 
ideas and methods. It has not completely 
lost its way, but, living in a rapidly changing 
society where new ·ideas a~e at. a 
premium, it has the aura .of havmg dispensed 
with its imagination a_nd foresight. 
This .js no state of !iffa1rs for a 
major political party to be m; the ques



tion is whether it will bow to the weight 
of accumulating evidence, but as that last 
battle has surely been won it ·is of more 
vital importance whether or not there 
are, or wi,JJ appear, adequate blueprintsfor change. 

conclusion: a possibility 
for change 

Whilst the conclusions to be drawn from 
the survey are evident in their own right,
it is nevertheless worthwhile reiterating 
them purely and simply because the experience 
of the last few months shows 
that the La:bour Party itself is insufficiently 
conscious of these shortcomings. 
The account detailed above not onlyshows that on the whole the Labour 
}>arty organises individual activities badly, 
but, moreover, the overall picture it 
presents is of an organisation which does 
not utilise its maximum ability because 
it dissipates itself in unproductive tasks, 
and its members see themselves as partof an agein.g and divided party. The fail · 
ure is not only at ·local level (although 
it seems that this ·is where most effort 
is wasted and most ideas ·lost) but it is 
also very much the responsibili-ty of the 
party's central machine, both in the wayit runs and in the way ·it thinks about 
itsel.f. This is perhaps the crux of the 
argument. Organisation is two things;
it is both the technical and financial operations 
which lead to efficient use of 
resources designed to maximise the number 
of votes cast in its ,favour (the managerial 
aspect) as well as the manner in 
which the party arranges itself to carry 
out its tasks and achieve its objects,
which involves the conceptualisation of 
both its aims and of the future. 

At a purely technical .level, there is obviously 
much wrong with the present organisation 
which cou·ld be improved even 
in the short term. It is not ·intended as 
any denigrati.on of the time and effort 
expended by the few hard working party 
workers to highlight their apparent sheer 
lack of knowledge of organisational method 
and of imag·ination. It is not that 
those concerned do not work hard (thatwould, in most cases, be totally untrue) 
but for far too long the effort has been so 

unstructured that it has sunk into little 
more than a sterile ritual for most con· 
stituency parties. It fol.lows inevitablyfrom this that the efficiency of their 
effort also declines. Working in an election 
might stil·l be an enjoyable occupation, 
but it has been so overlaid by the 
national campaign that it is generaHy accepted 
that it is a game which has few 
local returns and so apathy prevails. 

At a national level, campaigning has intensified 
and concentrates around personality 
contests, which are fought out in 
the news media between the party leaderships. 
This tends to increase the constituencies' 
dependence on the central 
characters by standardising political reaction 
throughout the country. Thus, in 
a way, non-organisation is a by-product 
of this type of appea·l, because it attempts 
to forge a more direct link between 
the ultimate .leaders and the mass 
of the led, so by-passing the intermediate 
stages of the political hierarchy. The nationalisation 
of campaigning, and its attendant 
organisation, consci.ous-ly asserts 
its independence of the local unit because 
if they had more autonomy and better 
technical organisation this would automatically 
prise some of the power and 
author·ity from the national leaders, 
whose charismatic appeal would be endangered. 
To put it more bluntly, the 
party nationally fails the local party in 
the constituencies yet again. As was mentioned 
earlier, one glaringly obvious 
fact to emerge from the survey .is that 
the consti.tuency parties have little concept 
of what goes on elsewhere. Such 
communication as does take place, regarding 
organisation, is largely vertical, 
the horizontal links are ineffectual. If 
this were not the case, then the Labour 
Party might have discovered its own ineptitude 
long before now. After a.ll, the 
present rundown state of organisationand morale bas not arisen overnight. In 
1964 it was admitted, though never completely 
accepted, that with superior organisation 
the Labour Party could have 
won sufficient of what became the Con


servative marg·ina·ls, to have radicallyenlarged their majority. The failure all 
along has been a refusal to accept, and 
act upon the mounting evidence. 


The net result of past .failures is that 
Labour Party organisation is only fleetingly 
and unfavourably compared with 
Conservative Party organisation, and is 
never looked at in relation to its own 
party aims, or performance. This means, 
in effect, that there is no barrier to the 
disintegration of the direction of its impact. 
An organisation which can make, at 
best, only hazy comparisons between itself 
and its rivals, or between itself now 
and in the immediate past has no yard;
tick against which to measure itself. Two 
>pecific criticisms can be leveJ,led at the 
aational organisation in this respect. First, 
the regional organisations could have 
greatly widened their role in providing a 
forum in which the constituency parties 
;ould compare their experiences one wi·th 
mot>her, thereby reducing their isolation. 

•iecond, 
far more should be done, perhaps 
:hrough the national agency service to 
!stablish the idea that the Labour .Party 
should set itself a national minimum 
;tandard of organisational efficiency. It 
1as never been accepted by the partylhat there is a level of ineptitude below 
.vhich parties must not .fall. 
Whilst at present regional organisers 
:>lay a very valuable role in advis·ing, vis-
ting and helping constituency Labour 
>arties, the structure should be expanded 
:o encourage and promote far more re~
ional participation by the rank and file 
Jarty members. For instance, it would be 
Jf help if there were to be annual regonai 
seminars, or standing study groups, 
ooking at both the question of .improvng 
the present allocation of resources 
LDd new ways of reaching people. Organsation 
in the Labour Party is permeatedvith two overriding attitudes; that all 
rou have to do .is fill, address and stamp:nvelopes, and that the stalwart voter 
viii vote Labour anyway, and as there 
,s no need to approach supposed Con.
ervative voters, only "doulbtfuls" and 
'genuine supporters" need to be located. 
['his is a totally false view of the role of 
>rgan'isation, which could be more effecively 
countered .from the regional level, 
vith its more intimate knowledge of the 
:onstituencies, than proclamations, dir><:
tives or exhortations from Transport-louse. It should be the purpose of reg


ional organisations to stimulate interest 
in the wider field of organisation, which 
stretches beyond envelope filling to the 
whole area of how to administer a party, 
or an election, or any other event; the 
regional structure should a·Iso commit 
itself far more to educating CLPs themselves. 
Far too many parties see their 
organisation rOle .in the too restrictive 
]i.ght of concentrating on known sympathisers 
instead of trying to think of waysin which ·its influence could be expandedrby approaching the non-commi.tted, apathetic, 
or even Conservative supporters. 
The role of organisation as it should be 
promoted lby the regions, is at aU times 
(including election times) to aid the party 
to commuunicate with the widest possible 
number of electors, for it is only byeducating and politicising people that 
' they become sufficiently aware of the 

problems to care about them. 

Similarly, the national agency service 
should play a far more dynamic role in 
stimulating an awareness of the need to 
organise properly. It should be far more 
creative in visiting and advising constituencies 
and encouraging more activism. 
It might be feasible to institute an annual 
state of the party report (in addition 
to a revita.]ised Labour organiser) which 
is circulated to every party member, discussing 
organisation, local election performances, 
new problems and new methods 
of work to have emerged over the 
past year. We should recognise that whilst 
the agency service exists primarily to 
train and provide agents, its proper function 
should be more emphatically one of 
directing an organisation, its employeesshould perhaps be more like roving ambassadors 
than static fixtures. 

The Labour Party is, as is well known, 
perennially short of money, and its position 
is not likely to improve over the next 
few years but the suggestions outlined 
above do ~ot necessarily involve a heavy 
financial outlay. Obviously, with sufficient 
money, there are a great number 
of improvements which could be made ~o 
organisational structures at every level; m 
a way, however, money is almost the 
least of the problems. The overwhelming 
evidence presented by the survey is 


that the root of the problem is not a 
quantifiable, financial cause, but it is 
more a crisis of morale and imagination.
Therefore, the idea behind the suggested 
improvements are calculated to invigorate 
and change these fai.Jing character


istics rather than merely spend more 
money. 

It has .frequently been said that electoral 
organisation ·in terms of votes is virtuallyworthless. Indeed one of the great claims 
of the N uffield series of election studies 
is that they have demonstrated the truth 
behind this theory. But to dismiss organisation 
on these grounds is both short 
sighted and hurried. Organisation in a 
political party, and in particular electoral 
organisation, does not have the sole purpose 
of vote gathering, but is the means 
by which a party arranges itself to have 
the maximum beneficial effect upon the 
population. Electoral organisation has 
been stultified by the belief that its only 
importance lies in .getting out the vote. 
As a result the myth is perpetuated th?.t 
organisation is only needed for elections 
and even then only on a shallow basis. 
If changes are to made in the Labour 
Party along the lines suggested in the 
other essays, then there must also be a 
complete re-vamping of these organisational 
attitudes. Organisation is the infrastructure 
which enables an active 

party to project itself into the community, 
electoral organisation reaps the 
rewards of this involvement. AU the ideas 
expressed in the pamphlet have in 
common the idea of creating a more 
participatory form of society in which 
socialism will take its rightful place as 
the demand of the people. Organisation 
must be .Jooked upon as the means of 
providing the channels ·in which this 
participation wil.l thrive. Only then will 
the sort of analysis resulting from this 
survey cease to be of paramount importance 
to the future of the Labour Party. 


6. reform of party 
organisation 

Oliver Stutchbury 

Organisation tends to be a bore, and 
even if it need not be (and a good organiser 
can make it absorbingly interesting) 
too often it seems to be a bore. 
But somebody has got -to do the organisation. 
As the other contributors have 
made clear i.t has not been at all well 
done in the Labour Party ·for many 
years. In the words of the inteHigent report 
of the National Union of Labour 
Organisers' (NULO) Enquiry into Labour 
Party organisation : "Wha.t is vital is 
that the Labour Party should stop tinkering 
with its macrunery and should undertake 
the kind of 'radical reconstruction' 
which its leaders have lbeen urging 
on every other section of the communi-
ty for the past few years". 

This chapter is an attempt to outline, 
and give the arguments in favour of, a 
realistic plan for the par.ty to adopt. It 
is written in the conviction that the crisis 
is not (and will not be) the fault of 
anyone at Transport House. It ·is quitefruitless to look around for scapegoats, 
or to complain that something could and 
should have been done long ago. The 
faul-t (if it can be ca.Jied one) is to be 
found in the absolute autonomy which 
each unit of the party's organisation 
enjoys in running its own affairs; and 
this is an admirable characteristic of any 
truly democratic party. However, this 
autonomy leads to avoidable inefficiency 
in some important respects. One of the 
purposes o[ the argument .in this cha.pteris to show where, without imposing any 
sort of central control over the topicswhere absolute autonomy is admirable, 
more central control over each unit of 
-the party's organisation would help to 
remove inefficiency, so that the Labour 
Party's organisation may work at .Jeast 
as well as that of its opponents. 

the distinction between 
politics and organisation 

The. work required of the party's supporters 
at constituency level may be very 
roughly split into four divisions: the 
selection of candidates for parliamentary 
and local elections, and of delegates to 
the various conferences and councils of 
the party; the framing of, and decisions 

about, resolutions to the various conferences 
and councils of the party; delivering 
the votes of people in sympathy with 
the party at parliamentary and loca.J elections; 
raising the money to do these 
three things. 

It will be argued by some, for instance 
Ben Pimlott in chapter 3 of this pamphlet, 
that this account leaves out the 
important function of political educaion. 
There are two quite different aspects 
to political education. There is politicaleducation in the old broad sense which 
consisted of spreading the gospel of socialism 
and persuading the workers to 
combine against the capitalists. It can 
truthfully be argued that as a result o.f the 
party's past activities and successes, the 
present and .future generations of partymembers have (or will have) received not 
as good a formal political eduucation as 
is possible, but a sufficiently good one for 
it to be bordering on impertinence for 
the par.ty to assume that its members 
are not perfectly capable of achievingthis sort of political education and knowledge 
from sources other than the par.ty 
organisation. On the other hand there 
is a different job which may be called 
political education in another sense. This 
consists of stimulating an active .interest 
in politics (especially among young people) 
so tha.t they become activists; and 
providing in pamphlet form a series of 
studies on those subjects with which the 
party is particularly concerned, so tha.t 
the facts on any topic are easily available. 
This activity is far from useless 
and a new appointment to the head office 
staff of the party evidences the national 
executive committee's (NEe) concern 
for this ·sort of political education. 
This job, however, should be something 
which Transport House tackles, not as 
a specific end in itself (to advance education 
as such) but as a means to an 
end: namely delivering the votes of 
people in sympathy with ~he party at 
parliamentary and local elections. J.t mayalso be argued against this account of 
what is required of 1he party's supporters 
at constituency level, that it omits the 
party's important social activities. However, 
these .inevitably attend (and add to 
the satisfaction derived from) aU the 


four divisions of the work listed above, 
and the party would certainly not wish 
to be organised for the purpose of social 
activities: like some branches of the 
Young Conservatives. 

There is a sense in which all these four 
divisions of the work at constituencylevel are interconnected, but there is a 
good reason for separating (as far as i·t 
can be done) the first two jobs from the 
last •two. The reason is that althoughit is admirable that the local unit of 
party organisation should have absolute 
autonomy over the selection of candidates 
and delega·tes, and the framing 
of resolutions tha.t it may wish to present 
at the conference (and .it would be 
objectionable and unaccepta~ble to extend 
.the power of the head office in 
these areas); it is not so clear that the 
local unit should have absolu•te autonomy 
over vote delivering and fund raising, 
if that local unit's efforts are so inefficient 
as to bring the party into disrepute 
na.tionally, or to require large 
subsidies from head office. Each unit 
of the party's organisation depends to 
too great an extent on every ·other unit 
for it to he acceptable for any one unit 

to become too inefficient. 

The business of selection o.f candidates 
for parliamentary and local elections and 
of delega·tes to the various conferences 
and councils of •the party, and the framing 
of, and decision aobout, resolutions 
to the various conferences and councils 
of the party, will be called the politics 
of the unit or its political side. The 
business of delivering the votes of people 
in sympathy with the party at parliamentary 
and local elections, and raising 
the money to do these three ·things,
will be called the organisation of the unit 
or its organisational side. The politicalside is, in some ways, more importantthan the organisation side but the object 
of this paper is .to outline a plan to 
improve the organisation. It seeks to be 
entirely neutral politically as between the 
right and the left wings of the party,
and between the trades unions and the 
constituency Labour Parties (CLP). It is 
only if this neutrality can be achieved 
that these suggestions have any chance 

of being adopted. They are concerned 
exclusively with the organisational side: 

a.t trying to make the party more efficient 
a1 delivering the votes of its sympathisers 
at the polls and at raising the 
money needed .to do this. 
the organiser (if any) 

The key to delivering the votes effectively 
at elections, and to fund raising, is 
the secretary agent of the CLP; the organiser, 
an all important functionary. It 
is not surprising that our organisationis not all ·that it should be, if it is remembered 
·that only 140 or ·so CLPS in Great 
Britain (that ·is less than one quarter of 
the total number of parliamentary constituencies) 
have a full time organiser.
Moreover as the NULO's Enquiry stresses. 
the number of organisers is declining at 
an alarming rate. In July 1964, there 
were 180 full time organisers employed 
by CLPS throughout the country. By July 
1969 this number had fallen to 136. 

All that the NEe's new national agency 
service can hope to do is to guaranteethe salaries of organisers in perhaps 50 
or so of the most crucial marginal CLPs, 
so that these organisers will not be forced 
to quit for lack of money. However, 
50 out of 618 is nowhere near 
enough. Since 90 per cent of the funds 
for the national agency service (like all 
the other funds available to the NEC)
comes .from the trades unions and they 
cannot be expected to increa·se their 
contributions for this particular purpose, 
it follows that it is a complete delusion 
to hope that the national agency servioe 
can do anything more than man the Jas1 
ditches, as the rest of 'the party's organissation 
in the country crumbles away.
This is not a happy prospect for the 
future. 

a wrong panacea 

What has gone wrong? Everyth.ing could 
be cured with more money. What is 
therefore needed, argue some reformers, 
is a more resolute effort at fund raising; 
not from the trades unions, who are uni



versal!y understood 'to have really been 
squeezed to the limit, but .from the CLPs. 
The NULO Enquiry voices a gener·allyheld view: "(53) The .first essential is a 
separate fund raising department at head 
office, under a well paid fund raisingofficer who should have full and direct 
control and be responsible to .the nat-
ional executive committee. He would 
need adequate staff and facilities and 
should be both young and vigorous. A 
good deal of his time would be spentin travelling ex.tensively to advise and 
help local parties but also to <Jearn from 
their eXJperiences. (54) The mere creation 
of the department would in itself be an 
indication to active party workers that 
the party was at last tackling the prob-
lem of fund raising seriously; but there 
would be many more tangible benefits. 
The department would be able to build 
up a vast fund of knowledge and exper-
tise on fund raising, not only based on 
labour Party aotivity but through study-
ing the methods of cricket and football 
;lubs, charities and other large scale 
noney raisers. (55) This information 
;ould be classifi·ed and made available 
:o all who sought help with their own 
ocal problems. A monthly fund raising 
mlletin could be circulated throughout:he party with all the latest news, ideas 
md suggestions. (56) Parties without fund 
aising schemes or whose promotions 
vere in difficulties could, if necessary, 
>e loaned the money needed to start 
L new venture. This would be repayable'rom the eventual profits. raf'ties helped 
n this way would devote an agreed per-
:enta·ge of .the proceeds to head office, 
hus providing both Jocal and national 
unds. (57) Other schemes which could 
,e considered by a .fund raising officer 
night include a national lottery; quar-
erly draws on big sporting events, run 
m regional or national basis; a national 
••r regional link up of tote schemes; and 
. national "fireside bingo" with the pub-
ication of each day's numbers in the 
tational press. Profits from such ven-
ures could be split between head office 
nd local par.ties. The routine organisa-
ion of such schemes could well be han-
Jed by full time fund raising organisers 
mployed over groups of constituencies 
·r even at regional level." 
41 
It may not be generally known, but there 
has, in fact, been a full time fund raising 
officer at head office since 1966. He could 
no doubt have been younger, more vig-
orous and better paid, but even then it 
is improbable tha1 more funds would 
have been raised. The fund raising de-
partment at Transport House alreadyoffers any CLP that wants help: (a) ad-
vice and knowhow in starting a shillinga week tote, <together with a loan of up 
to £100 to get it started, in precisely the 
fashion outlined in paragra.ph 56 of the 
NULO Enquiry; (b) advice and help with 
expanding membership of Labour's gol-
den prize clubs which guarantee CLPs 
£4.80 per annum for each member they 
enrol; (c) literature to enable par-ty sub-
scriptions to be paid without help from 
collectors by banker's or giro order. 
However, the fund raising departmen1 
at head office (wholehear.tedly supported 
though it has been by the full resources 
of the national agent's department) is 
dependent upon the co-operation of the 
CLPs which need help. Except in the 
handful of cases in which help has been 
called for (where the results have been 
most encouraging), this co-operation has 
not been forthcoming. The result is that, 
almost unbelievably, the fund raising de-
partment is chronicaJ.Iy under employed. 
Some CLPs already have efficient fund 
raising schemes and it is perhaps not 
unfair to point out that the authors of 
the NULO Enquiry come from this sort 
of CLP, which, quite understandably, 
wants nothing to do with head office's 
fund raising department. 1,£ every CLP was 
like these, ·then there would be no prob-
lem; indeed, there would be no need of 
a fund raising department at head office. 
However, the 500 or so CLPS which have 
not got efficient fund raising schemes, 
and which ought to be looking to the 
fund raising department ifor help, are 
seemingly unwilling to do so. It is not 
so much that they have taken ·a con-
scious decision not to a vail themselves 
of head office's help, as that they are 
locked in an agreeable welter of indecis-
ion. (It is so much ea'Sier not to bother.) 
In some cases they question the need 
for a full time organiser a.t all, for 
if there is no organiser they can raise 
versal!y understood 'to have really been 
squeezed to the limit, but .from the CLPs. 
The NULO Enquiry voices a gener·allyheld view: "(53) The .first essential is a 
separate fund raising department at head 
office, under a well paid fund raisingofficer who should have full and direct 
control and be responsible to .the nat-
ional executive committee. He would 
need adequate staff and facilities and 
should be both young and vigorous. A 
good deal of his time would be spentin travelling ex.tensively to advise and 
help local parties but also to <Jearn from 
their eXJperiences. (54) The mere creation 
of the department would in itself be an 
indication to active party workers that 
the party was at last tackling the prob-
lem of fund raising seriously; but there 
would be many more tangible benefits. 
The department would be able to build 
up a vast fund of knowledge and exper-
tise on fund raising, not only based on 
labour Party aotivity but through study-
ing the methods of cricket and football 
;lubs, charities and other large scale 
noney raisers. (55) This information 
;ould be classifi·ed and made available 
:o all who sought help with their own 
ocal problems. A monthly fund raising 
mlletin could be circulated throughout:he party with all the latest news, ideas 
md suggestions. (56) Parties without fund 
aising schemes or whose promotions 
vere in difficulties could, if necessary, 
>e loaned the money needed to start 
L new venture. This would be repayable'rom the eventual profits. raf'ties helped 
n this way would devote an agreed per-
:enta·ge of .the proceeds to head office, 
hus providing both Jocal and national 
unds. (57) Other schemes which could 
,e considered by a .fund raising officer 
night include a national lottery; quar-
erly draws on big sporting events, run 
m regional or national basis; a national 
••r regional link up of tote schemes; and 
. national "fireside bingo" with the pub-
ication of each day's numbers in the 
tational press. Profits from such ven-
ures could be split between head office 
nd local par.ties. The routine organisa-
ion of such schemes could well be han-
Jed by full time fund raising organisers 
mployed over groups of constituencies 
·r even at regional level." 
41 
It may not be generally known, but there 
has, in fact, been a full time fund raising 
officer at head office since 1966. He could 
no doubt have been younger, more vig-
orous and better paid, but even then it 
is improbable tha1 more funds would 
have been raised. The fund raising de-
partment at Transport House alreadyoffers any CLP that wants help: (a) ad-
vice and knowhow in starting a shillinga week tote, <together with a loan of up 
to £100 to get it started, in precisely the 
fashion outlined in paragra.ph 56 of the 
NULO Enquiry; (b) advice and help with 
expanding membership of Labour's gol-
den prize clubs which guarantee CLPs 
£4.80 per annum for each member they 
enrol; (c) literature to enable par-ty sub-
scriptions to be paid without help from 
collectors by banker's or giro order. 
However, the fund raising departmen1 
at head office (wholehear.tedly supported 
though it has been by the full resources 
of the national agent's department) is 
dependent upon the co-operation of the 
CLPs which need help. Except in the 
handful of cases in which help has been 
called for (where the results have been 
most encouraging), this co-operation has 
not been forthcoming. The result is that, 
almost unbelievably, the fund raising de-
partment is chronicaJ.Iy under employed. 
Some CLPs already have efficient fund 
raising schemes and it is perhaps not 
unfair to point out that the authors of 
the NULO Enquiry come from this sort 
of CLP, which, quite understandably, 
wants nothing to do with head office's 
fund raising department. 1,£ every CLP was 
like these, ·then there would be no prob-
lem; indeed, there would be no need of 
a fund raising department at head office. 
However, the 500 or so CLPS which have 
not got efficient fund raising schemes, 
and which ought to be looking to the 
fund raising department ifor help, are 
seemingly unwilling to do so. It is not 
so much that they have taken ·a con-
scious decision not to a vail themselves 
of head office's help, as that they are 
locked in an agreeable welter of indecis-
ion. (It is so much ea'Sier not to bother.) 
In some cases they question the need 
for a full time organiser a.t all, for 
if there is no organiser they can raise 

all the money they need for elections by 
a periodical whip round. The existinggeneral management commi-ttee (GMC) is, 
from the national point of view, a most 
unsatisfactory body for making the r.ight 
sort of decisions about the organisational 
side of a CLP's work. It is not so much 
that the m ganisational side of these 
CLPS is bad, as that .it is non-existent. 
Because of the complete autonomy of 
constituency parties, head office is powerless 
to intervene and it is a delusion to 
suppose that, in these circumstances, any 
fund raiser could raise money from CLPS. 

This is why any scheme of the kind described 
.in paragraph 57 of the NULO Enquiry 
is almost bound to he a failure. 
It is possible that a national lotterymight work, provided the only people 
who could run these were political parties; 
but this would require legislation. 

Judging .from the results achieved by a 
persistent head office campaign .to secure 
from the Home Office a small techni-.:al 
amendment to the Betting, Gaming and 
Lotteries Aot .to enable the golden prize 
clubs to advertise nationally, any chance 
of securing an alteration in the law even 
f,rom a Labour government, is ne~ligible. 
Is it not possible, a reformer might persist, 
to go over the heads of CLPS, and 
trades unions, and appeai direct to the 
huge body of Labour supporters in the 
country? This has been tried too. The 
fighting fivers fund appeal was a limited 
·ucce s, but the amount of money raised 
was triv.ial compared with the party's 
needs. It is possible that offering membership 
of the party nationally might 
produce a better response; but that 
would need a change in the party con


stitution. 

The conclusion must be that althoughmoney would, no doubt, solve many of 
the party's organisational problems, .it 
cannot be conjured out of thin air. 
Fund raising cannot be considered in 
i alation from the rest of .the organisation. 
Wh.ile the organisation in so many 
constituences i ineffective, o also (under 
the present relation hip of complete 
autonomy of CLPs) wiH head office's fund 
raising effort he ineffective. 

The fundamental reason for the party's 
organisational difficulties is a completemisconception of the changing role of 
the organiser in the modern world. The 
key requirement of the best sort of full 
time organiser is the skill of .the first 
class salesman. What he is doing most 
of the time he .is on the job is sellingthe Labour Party, its programme, principles, 
policy and personalities. He has 
to sell par.ty membership to people who 
have expressed Labour sympathies; he 
has to sell the desirabi.Jity of doing voluntary 
work for the party to members; 
he has to sell the idea of executive functions 
to members he hopes to recruit as 
canvassers, local government candidates, 
collectors and other workers. Last but 
not least he has to sell money raising 
schemes. That part of his job which consists 
of keeping a register of members, 
canvass returns, convening occasional 
meetings and tak.ing minutes, is an insignificant 
part of the whole job; if he 
is doing the whole job aot all competently. 
The .thesis here developed is based 
on the conviction that it is the selling 
aspect of an organiser's work that .is 
paramount. 

The employment of salesmen is these 
days one of the most carefully researched 
(and nursed) managerial functions in the 
business world. It is worth comparingthe job of the salesman in business with 
that of an organiser, to see iJ one cannot 
learn something from .industry's detailed 
study of this problem. Stanton and Buskirk's 
Management of a sales force Jis.ts 
nine ways in which a salesman's job is 
different from the job of the ordinary 
run of the employees of an organi·sation. 
All nine apply equa.lly to an organiser'sjob: he ·is the representative of his organisation 
in the area in which he operatesin a way quite unlike other em 
he has no direct supervision; 
reason, he needs to be highly and continuously 
stimulated to do his job properly; 
he spends a great deal of time 
away from his home and his family; 
he is " under constant mental stress while 
dealing wi·th a seemingly never ending 
stream of customers who are usuallydetermined not to buy his goods"; he 
must "possess a far greater degree ol 



tact, diplomacy, and social poise than 
other employees on his same level"; he 
is his organisMion's first line intelligence 
agent who reports back to head office 
what is going on in the field; he spendshis organisation's money on his own initiative; 
he is a lone wolf. He performswithout an audience and his superiors 
are usually unable to wa•tch and encourage 
him at work. 

Ask any organiser if these are not also 
the factors which make his job different 
from his neighbour's. The object of listing 
these factors is •to emphasise the 
obvious. The people who have the necessary 
qualities .for this sort of job are 
very few and far between. In business 
and industry they are very highly "compensated"; 
they expeot to get paid well 
and to have their value recognised in 
other ways with opportunities for promGtion, 
long paid holidays and so on. 
The successful manager of a sales force 
wi.Jl in particular keep two crucial matters 
constantly in mind. He must arrange that 
the force is firmly led, by a central 
authori-ty which is •there to give the salesman 
every assistance he can conceivably 
want. Just as important, the compensation 
should bear some sort of relation 
to the resul·ts the man achieves. 
Without attention to these points any experienced 
businessman will tell you that 
a ·sales force's morale wiJ.I speedi-ly evapora
·te and the force will slowly disintegrate 
as the members go off and getbetter jobs elsewhere. 

Let us see how the organisation of the 
agency service throughout the countrymeasures up to these two tests of a successful 
sales force. The requirement .that 
a force must be firmly led from a central 
authority is ruled out of court by the 
organiser's terms of service. His first allegiance 
must be to .the CLP, which is 
his employer, and he can, with complete 
impunity, cock a snook at the regional 
organiser's attempts to lead him. 
The system may have worked quite well 
in the past, wit>h relatively highly paid 
organisers, but today the national agent's 
department is set an impossible task. 
Moreover, and this point should not be 
overlooked because it is distasteful, 

many CLPs are very bad employers : irresolute, 
indolent and factious. They are 
often also cheeseparing, if only because 
shortage of funds makes them so. On the 
second .test of compensation both financial 
and non-financial, it is difficult to 
describe the si.tuation without a feelingof shame at belonging to a party which 
has .Jagged so piteously behind the times. 
A commercial organisation would have 
to offer a minimum of £2,000 per annum 
to get the right calibre of candidate 
for this short of work. No doubt peoplewould work for the party for less than 
they would work for industry : but the 
organiser's status must be restored to 
something closer to what it was in the 
past. Moreover the right calibre of person 
could raise the money for his own 
salary through increased membershipsubscriptions, golden prize club membership, 
supporters for the fighting fivers 
fund and so on, once he was on the job. 

The day of the small independent retailer 
in business is coming to an end. 
He is always going to be outperformedby the multiple stores. The reason for 
this is the economies which can be made,
and the attractions which can be offered, 
by the ·latter because of their size. The 
quality of the people who can be attracted 
to the big unit is always going to be 
better than that attracted to .the smaller 
unit, because t>hey can be better compensated: 
more pay, better opportunities 
for promotion and so on. The same 
trend is bound to develop among paid 
officials of politica-l organisat·ions. The 
idea that it is practical for each CLP to 
be autonomous as an employer of staff 
is growing out of date. For these reasons 
it should be no sul'prise tha-t the 
party's team of full time mganisers is 
shrinking rapidly. The organisational set 
up precludes success or efficiency. Although 
it is too early to come to a fin~! 
verdict, it is to be feared that the national 
agency service is ~oing to be n.o 
improvement. The orgam~ers under th~s 
arrangement are still appomted by ~onstituency 
parties. It is true th~t th~Jr payis marginally better but, m th1s sort 
of employment, no man can serve two 
masters. They are being asked to serve 
both the NEC and their CLP and these 


separate interests do not always coincide. 
The party should not be surprised if the 
national agency service experiment, although 
necessary in the short run, turns 
out in the long run to be unsatisfactory. 

a reformed organisation 

What then must be done? The first and 
essential requirement of a reformed organisation 
must be that the organiser is 
appointed and paid by, and is responsible 
to, the party nationaHy. Of course 
there must be consultations with the 
CLP to which the organiser is appointed;
of course the CLP must be able to make 
representations and possibly pick the appointee 
from a short list prepared byhead office. But the chain of command 
must be clear and seen to he clear: from 
the nationa,l agent at the top of the 
pyramid, through the regional organisers, 
down to lthe men on the ground in the 
CLPs. If the new organiser is told to 
do something by his regional organist:r, 
there must be no nonsense about .the 
CLP not allowing him to (because any 
organiser worth his saJ,t can, under the 
present system, get his CLP not .to allow 
him to do anything he d'oes not want to 
do). If something is not done, he, and 
he alone, should be to blame. The prinpal 
objection to this proposal is that it 
would give the party nati'onally too much 
power; but, it cannot be stressed too 
urgently, that this would not be power 
over the political side of a CLP's function. 
The new organiser would (as .far as 
it is humanly possible) be specificallyprohibited from taking part in tthe selection 
of candidates and the framing of 
resolutions, because, inter alia, if he 
were to do so, he would prejudice his 
usefulness in delivering the votes and 
fund raising, his primary responsibilities. 

Having got the chain of command right,
how do we arrange to recruit the right 
sort oi person? The pay has got to be 
right, but this is less of a problem than 
many people might imagine, because the 
right sort of person will have no difficulty 
in ·raising the money. Most of the 
best -organisers at the moment raise a 
great deal of their own salaries. The 

rates paid to existing agency service 
organisers, though on the mean side, 
would be all right provided the organiser 
also received a percentage of anyfunds he succeeded in raising over and 
above the expense of running his own 
CLP, which would of course include his 
own pay. There is plenty of moneyabout the place in the hands of Labour 
Party sympathisers, but the remuneration 
of the new organi·ser would be a 
private matter between him and head 
office, not between him and his CLP. 

Pay, however, is not everything. The party 
has other attractions to offer. There 
are times in the year when no one wants 
to have anything to do with politics. Although 
holidays must be flexible .to fit 
in with elections, there is at lea·st one 
month in the summer and a fortnight 
at other times in the year when political 
activity of any sort is a waste of time. 
The new organiser could be offered six 
weeks paid holiday a year without affecting 
his usefulness one iota. 

Finally there is his career. His employment 
as a member of a national team 
would rationalise his career structure 
within the national agent's department; 
but, on the political side, why should 
organisers be prohibited from beingnominated as candid<~Jtes in parliamentary 
elections as they are under their 
existing contracts of service? Why should 
not some of them aspire, one day, to 
become politicians themselves? There 
must be rules to prevent them beingnominated in the constituencies in which 
they are employed, Jest .they rtry to steal 
their candidates' constituencies, and once 
adopted they should resign. However, 
there is no good reason why the ag-. 
ency service should not be used as a 
stepping stone to a career in politics 
proper. Instead of doing his stint in the 
research department at Transport House, 
an aspiring politician of the left would 
do his stint on !the road with some CLP. 
There is a strong case for saying that 
this would be just as good a trainingfor politics as any other be could choose. 
Let us be clear who would oppose this 
latter reform. There would be heart 
searching among many existing senior 


organisers, who once upon a time took 
the difficult decision to opt for helping 
the par,ty behind the scenes and not to 
aspire .to stand for election themselves. 
However, they surely can be relied upon 
not to insist that their own self im' 
posed handicaps should be visi,ted upon 
their successors. The determined opponents 
will be other parliamentary aspirants. 
They will fear that a new organiser 
might be at an advantage over them 

I 
when i't comes to securing nominations 
for a parliamentary constituency. Maybe, hut why not? Why should a person 
who spends his life working for the 
party be ruled out of the race as he is 
at present? If the other aspirants are 
so eager to do .their bit for the partyon the political side, there is nothillg to 
prevent them from devoting themselves 
full time to doing their spell on the organisational 
side as a new organiser beforehand. 
They wiJ,l then get the same 
advantage as the others. 

the crucial step to be taken 

This it may be argued, may be all very 
well in Utopia, but how are CLPs to be 
persuaded to leave their present powerful 
entrenched positions and accept the surrender 
of some of their autonomy in the 
way outlined? CLPS, it will be said on aM 
sides, will never agree. There is no suggestion 
that all should agree. No :b.iginstitution like the Labour Party can be 
asked to change overnight. It is to be 
hoped rthat, for the present, a substantial 
majority ·Of CLPs would continue to affiliate 
under the old model rules and run 
their parties in the old way. Some CLPs 
are exceedingly well organised and adequately 
(some more than adequately) financed. 
Among this group are s·ome of 
the constituencies which have been the 
preserve of particular affiliated organisations 
since the turn of century. It is 
not suggested that these constituencies or 
arrangements be upset. Under these proposals 
they would continue as heretofore 
as long as they chose. But alongside the 
well run constituencies are some which 
recognise that they do not run the organisational 
side of their affairs at all effectively 
and would welcome closer integra


tion with Transport House if only there 
was a way it could be done. These are 
the constituencies which may opt to become 
"integrated CLPs". 

The suggestion is that, as an experiment, 
any CLP which chooses to do so, could 
affiliate nationaJly under a new set of 
model rules to be caJ.Jed "Model Rules 
H". There would be no power to compel 
CLPs to do so. The only pressurewhich head office could exert would be 
negative pressure. CLPs that were persistently 
having .to be subsidised by the 
NEC (of which there are far too many 
at present), would be offered the alternative 
of affiliating under "Model Rules 
H" or losing their subsidy; but so long 
as they paid their way no CLP could 
be coerced. A constituency wishing to 
integrate itself more fully on the organisational 
side of its activities would make 
a bargain with Transpor't House. In exchange 
for the services of a new organiser 
trained, paid for, and run by the 
party nationally, the CLP would agree to 
hand over all its fund raising potential 
to head office. 

The appendix (p49) contains a draJt set 
of "Model Rules H" which is put forward 
for discussion only. The crucial 
provision is contained in rule ten, which 
sets out who is to appoint and remove 
the organiser. Such a provision does not 
compel head office to appoint one organiser 
to each CLP, al,though that would 
be the ideal, and would fit in with less 
ambitious plans to appoint organisers to 
groups of CLPS. GMCs as at present constitwted 
are cumbersome bodies for taking 
decisions on organisational matters. 
Members of integrated CLPS would 
therefore be required to elect, from their 
own number, a smaller but representative 
committee, still called the GMC, but 
organised on the lines of a company'sboard of directors, to take the organisa,
tional decisions for them. Ail members 
would of course be engaged in helping 
to carry out .these decisions (such as 
canvassing and subscription collecting) 
and if they did not like the decisions 
their remedy would be to sack the members 
of the commi,ttee standing for reelection 
at the next annual general meet



ing, and appoint their own nominees. 
Having elected the.ir committee, however, 
they would have to abide by its organisational 
decisions, unti.J the composition 
of the committee was altered. 

On the other hand, on political matters, 
every member of the CLP who had paidhis subscription, would have an equalright to a.ttend meetings and vote. On 
matters such as the selection oi candidates 
and resolutions to the conference, 
the decisions would be 'taken by the 
whole CLP, which would meet at least six 
times in each year. AU members would 
be entitled to notice of these meetings. 
This division between <the ways in which 
decisions affecting organisation and decisions 
affecting politics would be taken 
is the kernel of the arrangements set out 
in "Model Rules H". Too many objections 
should not be raised to this suggestion 
on the grounds that, at present, 
some GMcs are politically irresponsible. 
The whole point is that the new bimonthly 
meeting of party members 
would be quite different .from existing 
GMC meetings. There are, in the draft 
" Model Rules H ", one or two other provisions 
which depart from current practice 
and therefore require a word or two 
of explanation. Although they are not 
as important as the matters discussed 
<11bove, they seem to be worth fightingfor. One of them concerns the organisation 
of individual members of the CLP 
into ward paPties, women's sections and 
so on. A·lthough organisation into ward 
parties is clearly desirable as an ideal, 
as .the Simpson committee stressed, and 
the present well organised CLP will want 
to retain this structure, in weak parties 
this present requirement can produce absurd 
results. Moreover, the apathy of 
many sympathisers of the party and their 
unwillingness to become active may very 
well have been condj.tioned by the bore


dom they experienced when first exposed 
to a ward meeting. Many do not 
bother to persist after their first experience 
of tbis gruesome party ritual. 

The draft model rules suggeg,t (rule 16)
that a CLP may organise itself into such 
wards, women's sections and youth sections 
as its GMC shall from time to time 

decide: so i·t can organi·se itself, with the 
organiser's help and advice, in the best 
way to suit its own particular circumstances. 
There is nothing in the draft 
to prevent a CLP organising itself on the 
present well tried lines if it so wishes 
(and no doubt this will remain the ideal), 
but if the present structure proves impractical 
in any locality, the CLP is at 
liberty to do whatever it thinks best. 
The draft "Model Rules H" have made 
no attempt to reform the procedures for 
selecting parliamentary candidates except 
in so far as the possible non-existence of 
ward parties necessitates a change. It is 
proposed that any individual should have 
the right to make nominations, and since 
it is assumed that at least one member 
of every affiliated body would be an 
individual member of the CLP, the position 
of trades unions should not be 
adversely affected. 

subscriptions 

The backbone of any CLP's annual income 
should be its income from membership 
subscriptions. The fact that this 
accounts for such a deplorably small proportion 
of the income of most well run 
CLPS when compared with various grants 
from trades unions, Transport House, 
and of course from gambling, of one 
sort or another, ought to he a cause of 
much more concern than it is. The reas


on for this smaH contribution from subscriptions 
is to be found in the amount 
and system of collection. There is nothing, 
today, .to prevent subscriptions being 
collected annually but the tradition 
still exists of monthly or quarterly collections. 
It is impor·tant to emphasisethat the experts on the collection of small· 
contributions, the industrial life offices. 
long ago came to the conclusion that4 
collecting sums in ·these amounts was 
quite uneconomic and should be aban· 
doned. It is no answer to say that much 
of the work is done by unpaid workers 
CLPS all over the country are finding tha1 
people are less and less prepared to de 
unpaid work. As the NULO Enquir)
noted: "In the past much of Labour'! 
organisa·tional strength derived from th< 
dedication and determination oi a larg< 


number of voluntary workers. Todayboth •the number of workers and their 
degree of dedication is much smaUer". 
This is no cause for lamentation. People 
these days have much more varied and 
interesting things to do with their sparetime than they had in the past. The trend 
is bound to continue and the party must 
meet the challenge in other ways. 

It is now a fairly widespread practice 
for CLPs •to remunerate collectors with 
between 25 and 33 per cent of what 
they collect. This is an absurdly high expense 
ratio, which would make the party 
look ridiculous were it more generally 
known. There is no practical reason why 
many more membership subscriptions 
should not be paid by members with 
post office savings bank accounts giving 
a "standing instruction for periodic payments" 
on SB803. The claim that most 
party members do not have bank accounts 
cannot be sustained. There are 
22 million active post office savings bank 
accounts, and they cannot all belong to 
the Tories. Where people do not have 
such accounts, they could be sent giroforms to hand in at the post office, together 
with their subscriptions. Some 
Labour Party supporters have trus•tee or 
clearing bank accounts : then there is 
no problem in asking them to complete 
a banker's order. There are many alternative 
ways in which subscriptions could 
be collected which would be an improve-

I 
ment on the present haphazard systemof marking 5p a month in a member's 
party card. The ones outlined above 
would not only ease the colJection problem 
but also simplify accounting procedures 
(and make these procedures more 
secure than they are at present which 
would be a welcome change). 

,ln the draft "Model Rules H ", there is 
provision for a minimum subscriptionof £1, payable annually. This, in real 
terms, is no more than members were 
paying before the party conference de~
ided upon a definite figure. In those 
days the custom was to pay ld per we~k 
to the party : that is 4s 4d per annum. 
[t is really no answer to say that 60p 
per annum is the minimum annual sub>
cription and that members may pay 

more if they please. Anyone is reluctant 
to volunteer for this sort of Jevy, unless 
he is sure that a fellow member, jusot 
as rich as he, is paying up too. £1 is certainly 
not too much for the annual subscription 
in this day and age for most 
men and women at work. It is apprecia·
ted that some extremely valuable party 
workers would find this amount a considerable 
burden, but the party cannot 
afford to ask less for the privilege of 
member·ship. If a worker reaHy believes 
in the party and its ideals, he will continue 
to work for it even if he cannot 
afford membership. (The draft model 
rules-make special provision for pensioners.) 
It is worth bearing in mind that 
in an average constituency, if one has 
an annual turnover CYf about 10 per cent, 
it would cost commercially somewhere 
about 40p per account per annum to 
keep a reliable register of members. 

The keeping of such a register of members 
is another matter which affects the 
pal'ty's ability to raise money. Exi·stingmodel rules are entirely silent on this 
matter and there are very few CLPS today 
that have more than a rudimentary, and 
then often out of date, register of members. 
It is important in the money raising 
business for this reason. Everybodyhas ideas about how money can be made 
out of nothing, but there are extremelyshrewd operators in all walks of life who 
are planning to do just this for their own 
personal profit. The only advantage a 
political party has over any other organisation 
is that its ow n members 
ought to support iot. If that party does 
not know who its supporters are or 
where uhey live, it cannot reap the ..onlyadvantage it possesses. In the draft ~ode! 
Rules H", the integrated CLP J_ITIposes 
upon itself the duty of keepmgsuch a regisoter, in such a form as .to 
assist the formation of a central register. 
Size significantly reduces the cost 
per account, so it is important that the 
register should cover as .large an area 
as is practicable. A register of partymembers kept nationally would have political 
as well as fund raising advantages 
: it could be used as. a channel of 
communication for soundi~g o~t partymembers on political questwns, 1t could 


be used .to advertise jobs which the partywanted filled, it could be used as a 
vehicle for propaganda, it could be used 
for special appeals for election funds. 
If anyone thinks that too much is beingmade o.f this, let him reflect what an organisation 
like .the Automobile Association 
achieves, with very little more than 
a register of members. At the very least 
it enables one to know which of the 
party's supporters have not paid their 
subscriptions. 

a plan for reform 

These proposals are founded on the 
premise that the party's existing organisation 
in the country is not good, and 
far from improving is, under the present 
set up, likely .to grow worse. It is onlyif this premise begins ·to be generallyaccepted that these r·ather drastic remedies 
are likely to prove acceptable. 

When everyone agrees that somethingdrastic has to be done, two steps are 
su~gested. Step 1 : the NEe ·should recommended 
that conference permit a limited 
number of CLPs (at the NEe's discretion) 
to be affiliated :to the party nationally 
under a new set of model rules on the 
Jines o.f those set out in the appendix and 
that conference should agree to this recommendation. 
Step 2: the NEC should 
set aside a limited sum of money (£15,000 
per annum for three years would suffice) 
to recruit and train a small team of new 
organisers to be employed by the NEe 
on the basis outlined above. If these 
steps were taken, it is not too much to 
hope that almost everything else would 
eventually fall into place. For, once the 
new set up was demonstrated to be a 
success, CLPS would be tumbling over 
themselves to become "integrated". 

One of the things whioh it is to be 
hoped would fall into place sooner than 
any other would be that the appropriate 
subcommittee of the NEC would have less 
say over the appointment of the party's 
employees lower down the line. The 
chain of command must be clear. It is 
a cardinal rule of good management that 
a manager, at all levels, must (subject to 

an appeals procedure) be given the lion's 
share in the decisions about hiring and 
firing his own immediate subordinates. 
This rule does not obtain at TranspoPtHouse. UsuaJ.ly, but not always, the appropriate 
officer is asked to si.t with the 
committee when it meets to make an 
appointment of an officer's subordinate; 
but "sitting with" is not enough, the 
officer should make the appointmenthimself subject only to the committee's 
veto. One would also hope for some 
relaxation of .the rule requiring all vacancies 
on the organisational side <to be 
advertised before being ·fiHed. No doubt 
an advertisement can be useful where 
there is no obvious candidate, but sometimes 
·the procedure is a waste of <time 
and money, where an obvious choice is 
available. 

Whether or not these suggestions are good 
ones is, of course, a matter for argument. 
What cannot be denied is that 
something must be done. Ben Pimlott is 
mistaken in suggesting that the partyna.tionally is not heading for bankruptcy. 
The estimated annual deficit wiU rise 
from £153,000 this year, by annual increments, 
to an estimated £398,000 in 
1975. No foreseeable "profits" on running 
general elections is going to copewith this sort of deficit. The .treasurer 
will, no doubt, be sent off, cap in hand 
once again, to tap the long suffering 
affiliated trades unions for increased affiliation 
fees, but dozens of CLPs are in 
arrears on the 7~p affiliation. It is myfervent hope that this time the unions 
will turn and refuse to unhand any more 
money until the CLPS have put their 
own house in order. 

The time has come for action. Many of 
us feel that there is something degrading 
about belonging to a par.t·y which aspires 
to run the country, but is manifestly incapable 
of conducting its own affairs 
with anything which resembles competence. 



appendix 

Oliver Stutchbury 

MODEL RULES-SETH {DRAFT) 

(FOR CONSTITUENCY LABOUR PARTIES INTEGRATED 
WITH THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE) 

NAME 

1. The name of the constituency party is "THE .......... CoNSTITUENCY 
LABOUR 
PARTY." 
OBJECTS 

2. The objects for which the constituency party is established are:(
A) NATIONAL 
To give effect as far as may be practicable to the principles from time to 
time approved by the party conference. 
To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their 
industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, 
upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, 
distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular 
administration and control of each industry or service. 

Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of 
the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their 
own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life. 

(B) LocAL 
To unite the forces of Labour within the constituency, and to secure the 
return of Labour representatives to parliament and local government 
bodies. 

INTERPRETATION 

3. In these rules the expressions standing in the first column of the following 
able shall where the context admits bear the meanings set opposite to them in the 
,econd column of the table:The 
party The Labour Party as constituted by the 
party constitution. 

The party constitution The party constitution and standing orders 
as amended from time to time py the 
party conference. 

The party conference The annual or any special conference held 
by the party under the provisions of 
clause VI of the party constitution. 

The constituency party The party named in rule 1 of these rules. 
The NEC The national executive committee as constituted 
by the party constitution. 

The GMC The members of the general management 
committee of the constituency partyelected under rule 9 of these rules. 

The organiser 
The person appointed under rule 10 of 
these rules. 
The constituency The constituency named in rule 1 of these 
rules. 
Words denoting males shall include females. 


MEMBERSHIP 

4. Any person who satisfies the conditions of membership and who is not less 
than 16 years of age shall be a member of the constituency party. 
CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP 

5. 
To satisfy the conditions of membership a person shall(
A) 
Agree to accept the programme, principles and policy of the party. 
(B) 
Either reside in the constituency or be registered therein as a parliamentary 
or local government elector. 
(c) 
Agree to conform to the party constitution and to abide by these rules. 
(o) 
If eligible, be a member of a trade union affiliated to the trades union 
congress or recognised by the general council of the trades union 
congress as a bona fide trade union. 
(E) 
If a member of a trade union, contribute to the political fund of that 
trade union. 
(F) 
Pay an annual contribution to the constituency party of not less than 
£1 or such other amount as shall from time to time be fixed by the 
NEC provided that the annual contribution of a person who is in 
receipt of an old age, widows' or full disability pension shall be not 
less than 12-!p.
(G) 
Not be a member of a political party or organisation declared by the 
party conference or the NEC in pursuance of party conference decisions 
to be ineligible for affiliation to the party, or an organisation anciHary 
or subsidiary thereto. 
And any person who, being a member of the constituency party, ceases to satisfyany of these conditions shall thereupon cease to be a member of the constituency 
party. 

REGISTER OF MEMBERS 

6. It shall be the duty of the constituency party to afford all assistance to the 
organiser in the compilation of a register of members of the constituency party 
and keeping such register up to date and it shall be the responsibility of the 
constituency party to furnish the NEC with copies of such register in such manner 
as the NEC may from ti,me to time require. 
GENERAL MEETINGS 

7. (A) General meetings of the constituency party shall be held six times at 
least in every calendar year on the last Friday (Friday is chosen as a day rlikely 
to be convenient for members of parliament) of a calendar month (hereinafter 
named "the Friday meetings") and on such other occasions and at such times · 
and places as may be determined by the GMC. 
(B) General meetings of the constituency party at which any of the following 
matters are voted upon shall be called special general meetings and shall be held 
at the same time as or immediately after the Friday meetings:(
i) 
The annual report and accounts and the annual election of members 
of the GMC. 
(ii) 
The selection of candidates under rule 18 or 19 of these rules. 
(iii) The appointment of delegates and the submission of resolutions 
and 
amendments to the party conference and regional councils under rule 
20 of these rules. 

PROCEEDINGS AT GENERAL MEETINGS 


8. (A) The chairman of the GMC shall preside at every general meeting, 
but if there be no such chairman, or if he shall not be present at the time 
appointed for holding the same, the members present shall choose some member 
of the GMC, or if no member of the GMC be present, one of themselves to be 
chairman of the meeting. 
(B) A resolution put to the vote of the meeting shall be decided on a show 
of hands by a simple majority of those present. In the case of an equality of 
votes the chairman of the meeting shall be entitled to a further or casting vote in 
addition to the vote to which he is entitled as a member. A declaration by the 
chairm_an of the meeting that a resolution has been carried, or lost, and an 
entry to that effect in the minute book of the constituency party shall be conclusive 
evidence of the fact. 
GENERAL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE 

9. (A) The GMC shall consist of the president of the constituency party (ifany), the member of the pal'liamentary Labour Party representing the constituency 
(or where there is no such member, then the duly selected and endorsed parliamentary 
candidate of the constituency party) and tweLve members of the constituency 
party of whom at least three shall be women members and at least two shall be 
members of the "youth section" as hereinafter defined. 
(B) The GMC may from time to time co-opt any other member of the 
constituency party to fi]] a casual vacancy, but any member so co-opted shall hold 
office only unti·l the next special general meeting at which the annual election of 
members to the GMC is made. The continuing members of the GMC may act 
notwithstanding a vacancy in their body. 
THE ORGANISER 

10. (A) The NEC may appoint, 1subject to the approval of the GMC, anyperson to be the organiser of the constituency party, and such person shall be the 
secretary of the GMC and be entitled to have notice of and be present at its 
meetings. Any organiser so appointed by the NEC may be removed by it. 
(B) The GMC may delegate such powers to the organiser as it thinks 
fit, provided that no organiser shaH be invested with any powers or entrusted with 
any duties which the GMC itself could not have exercised or pcrformed2. 
POWERS OF GENERAL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE 

11. (A) The business of the constituency party shall be managed by the GMC 
who may exercise all such powers of the constituency party and do all such acts 
as may be exercised and done lby the constituency party ·in general meeting, 
provided that the GMC shall not be competent to transact any of the business of 
the constituency party required to be voted upon at its special general meetings 
(B) In particular without limiting the generality of the foregoing the GMC 
shall, subject to the approval in writing of the NEC, have power to buy freehold 
or leasehold land and to erect buildings thereon and/ or freehold or leasehold 
premises and to borrow money on mortgage or otherwise on the security thereof 
and ·to appoint trustees to hold any •land and property so acquired for and on 
behalf of the constituency party and to define the powers of any trustee~ so 
appointed and to lay down the manner in which such powers shall be exercised. 
1 This is a crucial rule. 
2 Thus he has no powers over the selection of candidates or of delegates to or resolutions 
submitted to conference. 



DISQUALIFICATION OF MEMBERS OF THE GMC 

12. 
The office of a member of the GMC shall be vacated(
A) If he cease to be a member of the constituency party. 
(B) If in writing he resigns his office. 
(c) 
If he absents himself from meetings of the GMC during a continuous 
period of six months without special leave of absence from the GMC 
and the GMC passes a resolution that he has by reason of such 
absence vacated office. 
ROTATlON OF MEMBERS OF GMC 

13. (A) At the special general meeting in each year at which the annual report 
and accounts is voted upon, at least four of the members of the GMC (other than 
che president and the member or candidate) shall retire from office. 
(B) The members to retire shall be the members who have been longest 
in office since their last election with the addition of any member co-opted under 
rule 9. As between members of equal seniority, the member to retire shall in the 
absence of agreement be selected from among them by Jot. A retiring member shall 
be eligible for re-election and shall act as a member of the GMC throughout the 
meeting at which he retires. 
(c) The constituency party shall, at the meeting at which any member of the 
GMC retires in manner aforesaid, fill up the vacated office by electing a member 
thereto. In default the retiring member shall be deemed to have been re-elected, 
unless a resolution for his re-election shall have been put to the meeting and lost, 
or the meeting expressly resolves that he be not re-elected. 
(D) No member not being a member of the GMC retiring at the meeting 
shaH be eligible for the office of a member of the GMC unless his name shaH 
have been given to the organiser or to a member of the GMC one month before 
such meeting (together with the names of his proposer and seconder) and his 
name (together with the names of his proposer and seconder) is set out in the 
notice convening the meeting. 
PROCEEDINGS OF GMC 

14. (A) The members of the GMC may meet together for the dispatch of 
business, adjourn and otherwise regulate their meetings as they think fit, and 
determine the quorum necessary for the transaction of business. Until otherwise 
determined five shall be a quorum. Questions arising at any meeting shall be 
decided by a majority of votes. In case of an equality of votes the chairman shall 
have a second or casting vote. 
(B) The members of the GMC may from time to time elect a chairman, who · 
shall preside at their meetings, but if no such chairman be elected, or if at anymeeting the chairman be not present within five minutes after the time appointed 
for holding the same, an acting chairman for that meeting shall be appointed bysuch meeting from among the members present. 
(c) The GMC shall cause proper minutes to be made in books to be provided 
for the purpose of the proceedings of all meetings of the GMC and of the 
constituency party and of all business transacted and resolutions passed at such 
meetings. Any such minutes of any such meeting if purporting to be signed by the 
chairman of such meeting, or by the chairman of the next succeeding meeting 
shall be sufficient evidence without any further proof of the facts therein stated 

PRESIDENT 

15. The GMC may at any special general meeting of the constituency party 
propose the election of any person to the office of president of the constituency 
party and such person shall hold office until he resign such office or a resolution 
that he be removed from office as president shall have been proposed by the 
: GMC and passed at a special general meeting. 

ORGANISATION OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS 

16. 
(A) The members of the constituency party shall be organised into such 
· wards, the women's sections and youth sections as the GMC shaH from time to time 
decide, provided that no member shall be eligible to be or remain a member of 
the youth section after he shall have attained the age of 26 years or such other 
age as the NEC shall from time to time decide. (This is a crucial rule.) 

(B) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing the GMC may either 
itself appoint, or in any manner it may decide arrange the election of, appropriate 
officers for such wards, women's sections and youth sections. 
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 

17. (A) At least once in every year the GMC shall lay before a special general 
meeting of the constituency party a report containing at least the followinginformation : (
i) 
A list of the members of the GMC together with the year of their 
appointment to the GMC. 
(ii) A 
list of those members of the GMC retiring by rotation and of 
candidates duly proposed and seconded for election to the GMC at 
the meeting. 
(iii) A statement showing the capital position of the constituency party as at 
the end of the financial year made up to the 31st December last 
preceding the meeting and an account of the income and expenditure 
of the constituency party in the preceding calendar year duly audited 
by an official of the NEC. 
(iv) 
A list of delegates sent, and resolutions submitted by the constituency 
party, to the party conference. 
(v) 
A list showing the dates and places of the Friday meetings held in the 
previous calendar year together with a brief description of the business 
transacted thereat. 
(B) A copy of the report shall be sent out with the notice convening such 
special general meeting and be sent to the NEC. 
PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES 

18. (A) The desirability of sponsoring a parliamentary candidate for the 
;onstituency shall be considered by the GMC of the party in consultation with the 
'ffiC or its officc:rs prior to the procedure laid down in this rule being set in I?otion. 
(B) If it is thought expedient to sponsor such a candidate the constituency 
)arty at its next Friday meeting shall be asked to give authority to the GMC in 
;a-operation with the NEC to secure nominations for the candidature. 
(c) The normal procedure shall be as follows:(
i) 
A circular, in terms prescribed by the NEC, shall be sent to everymember of the constituency party inviting nominations, such noi?!nations 
to be made within a period of time and under conqitionsmentioned therein. 

(ii) 
Any member of the party, or of an affiliated organisation of the party 
who is not disqualified under the constitution of the party, or under 
the decisions of the party conference, may be nominated. 
(iii) 
No nomination shall be valid unless made on the form in terms prescribed 
by the NEC and bearing thereon the consent in writing of the 
member nominated. In the event of the name of a member nominated 
being on the official panel of available parliamentary candidates of an 
affiliated organisation the consent in writing of the executive committee 
thereof must also be obtained and sent in with the form of nomination. 
(iv) Prior to a special general meeting of the constituency party being called 
to consider the nominations the GMC shall consult the NEC or its 
officers to determine the validity of the nominations received. 
(v) The 
GMC may tender such advice as it deems necessary to the constituency 
party on the nominations found to be valid, and may suggest 
to the constituency party the manner in which they shall be dealt with, 
provided that all valid nominations shall be placed before that body 
for its consideration at a general meeting. The notice calling such 
meeting must indicate the business to be transacted. The GMC shall 
then fix a date for a special general meeting to decide which nomination, 
if any, shall be submitted to the NEC for endorsement as 
prospective parliamentary candidate. 

(vi) 
The special general meeting to select a prospective parliamentary 
candidate shall be convened by circular in terms prescribed by the 
NEC. It may be attendeci by an officer of the NEC or by a specialrepresentative appointed for the purpose. When a vote is necessaryto determine which nomination is to be sent to the NEC for endorsement 
it shall be taken by ballot on the basis of one vote per member 
of the constituency party. 
(vii) 
The selection of a prospective parliamentary candidate shall not be 
regarded as completed until the name of the member selected has 
been placed before a meeting of the NEC, and his selection has been 
duly endorsed. Until such endorsement has been received the 
constituency party shall not introduce its prospective candidate to the 
public. 
(D) Where no valid nominations are received, or when an emergency arises, 
or when the GMC or the NEC are of opinion that the interests of the party demand 
the suspension of the procedure laid down in section (c) of this rule, normal 
procedure may be dispensed with after consultation and agreement between the 
GMC and the NEC. 
(E) If a parliamentary by-election occurs in the constituency the procedure 
laid down in section (c) of this rule shall be suspended and the NEC shall co-operate 
with the GMC in the nomination of a candidate. The NEC may, if it deems it 
necessary in the interests of the party, advise the GMC to select a nomination 
to be submitted to the NEC. The NEC may also give advice and guidance on any 
special issue to be raised or in the conduct of the campaign during the by-election. 
(F) In accordance with the party constitution the GMC or the executive 
committee of a nationally affiliated organisation shall by resolution formally 
accept responsibility for the election expenses of the prospective candidate 
selected and a copy of such resolution shall be attached to the application of the 
constituency party to the NEC for endorsement. 

(G) If at any time the constituency is represented in parliament by a 
member of the parliamentary Labour Party the procedure for the selection of a 
prospective parliamentary candidate shall not be set in motion until an election is 
imminent when section (D) of this rule shall apply unless(
i) Such member of parliament intimates his intention to retire, or 
(ii) 
The GMC on securing a mandate from the constituency party at a special 
general meeting intimates by resolution its desire that he should retire. 
(H) 
An election shall cancel any parliamentary candidature. 
(I) Every parliamentary candidate must undertake to stand as "Labour 
candidate" independent of all other political parties and, if elected, to join the 
parliamentary Labour Party. 
(1) This rule shall be read with clause IX of the party constitution, and 
the provisions of the latter shall apply to the constituency party. 
LOCAL GOVERNMENT CANDIDATES 

19. (A) The GMC shall in the event of or in contemplation of any local government 
election invite every member of the constituency party to submit nominations 
for candidature for that election. Such nominations to be made within a period of 
time and under such conditions as the GMC shall decide. 
(B) Nominations shall be submitted to the GMC which if it is satisfied of 
their validity, shall cause the names of the candidates together with the names of 
the proposer and seconder to be sent to every member of the constituency party. 
(c) A special general meeting of the constituency party shall afterwards be 
called to endorse or otherwise the candidates who have been nominated and where 
more nominations ha-ve been received and endorsed than there are candidatures 
avai,lable, the surplus candidates shall be eliminated by a :ballot taken in such 
manner as the GMC may decide. 
(D) Only persons who are members of the party shall be eligible for 
nomination. 
THE PARTY CONFERENCE 

20. Any delegate attending the party conference or any regional council on 
behalf of the constituency party and any resolution submitted thereat shall be 
approved by the constituency party at a special general meeting. 
MISCELLANEOUS 

21. (A) The general provisions of the party constitution shall apply to the 
:.:onstituency party. 
(B) The constituency party shall not enter into affiliation with or givesupport financially or otherwise to any political party or organisation ancillary or 
subsidiary thereto, declared by the party conference or by the NEC in pursuance of 
conference decisions to be ineligible for membership of the party. 
(c) It shall be the duty of the constituency party on the advice of the 
:JMC to take all necessary steps to safeguard the party constitution and the 
programme, principles and policy of the party within the constitue~cy. When 
3.ction is taken under this rule involving the punishment or expulswn of any 
individual or the exolusion of any individual from membership, such individual 
shall have the right of appeal against the punishment, expulsion ~r exclusion 
to the NEC which shall have power to confirm, vary, or annul the actwn taken by 
he constituency party. 


(D) Subject to the conditions in clause VII of the party constitution the 
constituency party may appoint one delegate for each 5,000 individual members 
or part thereof on whom fees were paid to the party for the preceding year to 
annual or special party conferences called by the NEC. In the event of the women's 
individual membership of the constituency party exceeding 2,500 an additional 
woman delegate may be appointed to such conferences. In the event of such 
a delegate being elected as treasurer or as a member of the NEC, the constituency 
party may claim authority, at subsequent party conferences during his period of 
office, to appoint a delegate additional to the number applicable to it under para. 
(B) of section 2 of clause VI of the party constitution, provided the delegate elected 
as treasurer or as a member of the NEC(
i) Remains qualified to be appointed as a delegate under the said clause; 
and 
(ii) Continues 
to be duly appointed as a delegate by the constituency 
party within the provisions of this rule. 
NOTICES 

22. (A) All notices except for notices convening special general meetings of the 
constituency party shall be given in such manner as the GMC shall dt!cide. 
(B) Notices convening special general meetings of the constituency party 
shall be in writing, shall state the general nature of the business to be transacted, 
and shall be served either by personal delivery or by sending the notice through 
the post in a prepaid letter addressed to members of the constituency party at 
their addresses in the register of members. 
(c) Notices convening special general meetings of the constituency party 
shall be served 14 days at least before the meeting. 

abian society 


The Fabian Society exi·sts .to further 
socialist education and researoh. It is 
affiliated to the Labour Party, both nationally 
and locally, and embraces all 
shades of Socialist opinion within its 
ranks-left, right and centre. 

Since 1884 the Fabian Society has enrolled 
thoughtful socialists who are prepared 
to discuss the essential questions 
of democratic socia.lism and relate them 
to practical plans for building socialism 
in a changing world. 

Beyond this the Society has no collective 
policy. It plllts forward no resolutions of 
a political character. But it is not an 
organisation of armchair socialists. Its 
members are active in their Labour 
}>arties, Trade Unions and Co-operatives. 
They are representative of the lab-
our movement, practical people concerned 
to study and discuss problems 
that matter. 

The Society is organised na·tionally and 
loca.Jly. The national Society, directed 
by an elected Executive Committee,
publishes pamphlets, and ho.Jds schools 
and conferences of many kinds. Local 
Societies-there are some 80 of them-
are self governing and are lively centres 
of discussion and also under•take research. 


Enquiries about membership should be 
sent to the General Secretary, Fabian 
Society, 11 Dartmouth Street, London, 
SW1; •telephone 01-930 3077. 

the author 


Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP, vice 
chairman Olf the Labour Pa11ty and chairman 
of its information committee, is 
shadow cabinet spokesman on trade and 
industry in the Commons. Author of 
The new politics, .published by the Fabian 
Society, he was PMG and Mini&ter <Yf 
Technology in the Labour government.
Husband of Caroline Benn. 

Inigo Bing is a 1lawyer practising in 
London. He was a padiamentary candidate 
for the Beckenham constituency in 
the last general election. He has been 
eleoted to Wandsworth Borough Council 
recently. 

J oycelin Dawes, a .research economist,
has an MSC in British poJi,tics. A member 
of Kensington CLP, she worked in Smethwick 
in the election. A member of the 
Young Fabian Executive, Local Societies 
Committee and par·t time research assistant 
to Anthony Wedgwood Benn. 

Ben Pimlott is a lecturer at Newcastle 
University and is .writing a book on 
Labour in the 'thir•ties for Allen and 
Unwin. He is secretary of a local pressure 
group, the East Newcastle Action 
Group, and treasurer of Newcast.Ie East 
CLP. 

Reg Race is a graduate student in .politics 
at Kent University, conducting research 
on Labour Party organisa.tion.
He is secretary and agent to Canterbury 
City }>arty, and organiser od' the Canterbury 
Social Rights Campaign. 

Oliver Stutchbury was managing director 
of .the Save and Pros.per Group of 
unit trusts before he became the first 
fund raising adviser to the Labour Party.
He resigned in 1970 after four frustrating 
years of failure. 

SBN 7163 0407 4 


research series 


233 F. Singleton, A. Topham237 M. Armstrong, M. Young252 Peter Mittler 
262 A. Lester, N. Deakin (eds) 
268 M. Rende! and others 
279 Louis Turner 
281 Roy Moore 
283 Lord Kennet 
284 Alf Morris 
285 Sitanshu Das 
286 David Bull 
287 Peter Draper and others 
288 Lord Walston 
290 Hamish Richards 
291 David Stephen 
292 John Gyford, Stephen Haseler 
293 a Fabian Group294 John Southgate 

Workers' control in Yugoslavia 20pNew look at comprehensive schools 15pThe mental health services 25pPolicies for racial equality 25pEquality for women 25pPolitics and the multinational company 25pSelf management in Yugoslavia 25pControlling our environment 15pValue added tax : a tax on the consumer 15pThe future for Indian democracy 35pAction for welfare rights 15pThe NHS : three views 20pFarm gate to Brussels 30pThe UN: an economic institution 20pImmigration and race relations 25pSocial democracy beyond revisionism 25pPeople, participation and government 25pAgricuHural •trade and the EEC 30p 

tracts 


331 Richard W ollheim Socialism and culture 30p374 Brigid Brophy Religious education in state schools 15p393 Adrian Sinfield Which way for social work? 25p396 Tony Lynes Labour's pension plan 20p397 John Hughes The TUC: a plan for the 1970s 25p399 R. H. S. Crossman Paying for the social services 15p400 Anne Lapping (ed) Community action 30p401 Rodney Fielding A socialist foreign policy 20p402 Anthony Wedgwood Benn The new politics 25p403 Thomas Balogh Labour and inflation 40p404 Anthony Crosland A social democratic Britain 15p405 John Kenneth Galbraith The us left and some Briish comparisons 30p406 Giles Radice, J. 0. N. Vickers Divide and rule: the industrial relations bill 15 

young fabian pamphlets 

18 YincentCable Whither Kenyan immigrants? 20p21 James Bellini The new France : heirs on trial 30p22 M. Blades, D. Scott What price Northern Ireland 20p23 Colin Crouch Politics in a technological society 30p24 Elizabeth Durkin Hostels for the mentally disordered 15p25 James Kennan Au~tral~an labour: a •time of challenge 25p 

books 

Bernard Shaw and others Fabian essays (sixth edition) 

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Brian Abel-Smith and others Socialism and affluence 
Brian Lapping and Giles Radice (eds) More power to the people 
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Peter Townsend and others The fifth social service 
Geor e Cunningham (ed Britain and the world in the 1970s 
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