Campaign Overview (cont'd)
Some of us, when assessing Brown’s statements, delivered as they will be by Jack Straw in his new role as Justice Minister and Lord Chancellor, in charge of constitutional affairs, will cast a thought about the role that Robin Cook would have played, had his point of departure not been followed so quickly by his untimely death. The relationship between Cook and Brown was beginning to be recreated, judged by the invitation by Robin’s family to speak at both his funeral and then his memorial. Some of us may have wondered why, as the Hustings opened, one of Gordon Brown’s first statements was “I am not against changing the voting system”. Maybe his moral compass is drawing him in a Cook direction. He seemed to be pointing to the review of voting systems, no doubt at Robin Cook’s insistence in our 2001 Manifesto, and a conversation on that review as yet unpublished. One of Robin’s last contributions to the electoral reform debate was to discuss opening up what has been a desk operation.
So perhaps when all the talk of the Brown/Blair relationship has died down, it will be the Brown/Cook relationship, begun in the same Edinburgh Labour branch meeting chaired by IPPR’s James Cornford, that makes the difference. “How great and enduring is his contribution” Gordon said of Robin. Just knowing that democracy was a value was indeed a contribution. It could lead to Change. Change in the way Labour is judged. Change in the connection between the voters and their governance. Change in the culture of politics. Change in the number of disillusioned tactical voters prepared to give Labour one more chance in the vital constituencies that decide the next election. If constitutional change is to come from the Justice Ministry, then a just voting system which delivers meaningful votes wherever we live, which gives ownership of decision-making to each of us, needs to be discussed, offered and delivered.
Meet the Challenge, make the change was Kinnock’s policy document in 1989. The very same words, “challenge” and “change” rang out at the Leadership Conference on Sunday 24 June in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. By the next year, 1990, in “Looking to the Future”, Labour offered to look at alternative voting system for the European elections, for elections to the Scottish Parliament and the new assemblies in Wales and the English regions, and for elections to a reformed second chamber to replace the House of Lords. It went on to make a grave error. It said: “Labour is opposed to changing the voting system for the House of Commons”. LCER managed to convert the terms of reference of the working party tasked with recommending the voting systems to include elections to the House of Commons. And so the Plant Commission was born.
