Last conference post

Just to tidy things up here's my last set of conference links;

• Graham Wroe is very happy with the Afghanistan motion.
• Dr Richard thinks we're making slow progress.
• Joseph has his own round-up from conference.
• Croyden Greens ask, was this the Bangla conference?
• Adrian couldn't make it, but rounds up the news reports.
• I have a piece in tomorrow's Morning Star - the regular Green Party Bombay Mix.
• Natalie collects some resources together for the prostitution debate.
• Business Green; we blast government for not supporting renewables.
• E-politics Greens look ahead for election push.

Updates;

• Humanists welcome our faith school policy.
  

Final Day: GPEx elections

Results of the Green Party Executive (GPEx) elections. Congratulations to the successful candidates and all the others who stood. For a change everyone I voted for got in - but international in particular was a very tough choice and big commiserations to the unsuccessful candidates in that election - you'd all have been excellent.

RON refers to re-open nominations and spoilt papers were mainly blanks (all the posts were on the same paper and this should probably be read as abstentions).

Chair (postal):
Jayne Forbes 931
Rayyan Mirza 529
RON 18
Spoilt 18

Campaigns Co-ordinator:
Andy Hewett 184
RON 14
Spoilt 21

Equality and Diversity Co-ordinator:
Polly Lane 179
RON 16
Spoilt 24

External Communications Co-ordinator:
Tracy Dighton-Brown 163
RON 49
Spoilt 7

Internal Communications Co-Ordinator:
Natalie Bennett 201
RON 5
Spoilt 13

Local Party Support Co-ordinator:
Jon Lucas 196
RON 7
Spoilt 16

Policy Development Co-Ordinator:
Matt Follett/Maria Iacovou (Job Share) 196
RON 12
Spoilt 11

Publications Co-ordinator:
Edward Milford 188
RON 6
Spoilt 25

Elections Co-Ordinator:
Judy Maciejowska 148
James Youd / Adrian Windisch (Job share) 57
RON 2
Spoilt 12

Finance Co-Ordinator:
Dean Walton 107
Chris Haine 89
RON 5
Spoilt 18

International Co-Ordinator:
Farid Bakht/Phelim MacCafferty (job-share) 83
John Kent 55
Ricky Knight / Richard Lawson 53
Samir Chatterjee 16
RON 0
Spoilt 12

NB These numbers are the first preferences only but reflect the order in which candidates were eliminated.

The only reference to the committee posts I'll make is that I stood for the Green World editorial board and despite a very tough hustings was elected.

Day Three: Evidence based policy

One theme of this conference has been to start the urgent task of reviewing our rather inadequate and at times embarrassing science and technology policies. There were three main events of note on this. The first a motion on geo-engineering, the second a fringe on what treatments should be available on the NHS and lastly today we had a fringe launching the science and technology working group.

The geo-engineering motion, although well intentioned and certainly containing good points, made very robust claims on inadequate evidence. Conference soundly rejected it on the advice of outgoing policy supremo Brian Heatley (although it's an interesting area and I'd like to see more discussion on this). I think the fullness of the motion's rejection is partly a growing seriousness when scrutinising detailed scientific policy.

NHS treatments

The NHS fringe was extremely well attended and Stuart Jeffrey, health spokesperson, ran the session really well essentially handing over discussion to the floor and just giving it a guiding nudge when need be.

I and others put forward a radical proposal, that treatments that claim to be of some benefit to a patient should all be subject to the same kind of scrutiny and scientific testing no matter what heading they come under. I don't care if it's chanting, injections or crystals if it's meant to make you better let's see the proof - if you can't show it works then let's not treat people with it.

Currently our policy is a little out of step with this giving alternative therapies a lower standard of proof to 'conventional' medicine. I don't think that's necessary. I'm not going to reject acupuncture or other treatments out of hand, but I just believe we need a level playing field when it comes to assessing the evidence.

Thankfully the meeting gave a clear mandate for change. It was not unanimous, there were some comments about people being allowed to choose the treatments they receive for example, but the mood is there. I actually think we should explore patient choice, but I'm not paying taxes to fund your essential oils.

Sci-tech launch

Lastly we had the science and technology working group launch today. Cathryn Simmons has been taking a lead on this and invited freelance science journalist Martin Robbins to talk to us about his experience researching the Green Party's science and technology policies during the Euro election. I don't know how he felt it went but I thought it was an extremely productive session.

Martin gave a very measured description of a number of things. Firstly, the things he found when researching our policy. Some of it would make your hair stand on end. Secondly, the official response from the party when he approached them with a number of questions. Thirdly, he outlined the basics of what he thought evidence based policy might look like, particularly in regard to moral questions. Essentially if you want to argue that all animal testing is ethically wrong that's fine, but don't try to back it up with bad science - even if only to prevent yourself from undermining your own arguments.

I thought he had a very strong case and whilst it was a bit of shock at the time his article came out in the long run he has done us a massive favour by letting party members know that there are sections of our policy that simply do not adequately reflect the way we think. I think any urge to shoot the messenger has to restrained because the fault is entirely with the weak parts of our policy.

He's going to put his talk online so I wont cover the whole thing here, but the fringe certainly felt he made good, persuasive points and there was little dissent. There was much talk about what we were to do to put things right though. That process has already begun, although rightly with all policy making a radical overhaul will take time.

The health group is already assessing its policies and I hope we'll see something on stem cells and alternative medicines at the February conference (as well as the longer term commitment to overhaul this policy chapter). The science and technology group, which I'm involved with, will hopefully be moving motions in February addressing the pledge I talked about before.

I'd also like us to pass something that might be a bit of a token of good faith. A symbolic statement that says 'technology is an indispensable part of the solution to the problems we face'. Greens should be, and usually are, about embracing new technologies whether it's smart metres, renewable energy sources, or energy saving devices to name a few. I think we can find a way of accommodating the sensibilities of the deepest greens without having to retreat away from enlightenment values and the scientific method.

Day Three: new conference round-up

Some more selected news, blogs and comments on Green Party conference;

• Peter Cranie is missing conference. Well conference is missing him too! I'd been eagerly awaiting seeing Peter to give him a famous Jim hug... I guess it will have to wait.
• Ben Duncan on his crime and policing fringe.
• Tom Chance is enjoying himself at conference.
• Natalie blogs on the need for quotas of women on boards of major companies.
  
• I also discovered that the infamous Chris Rose has a blog. I had to wring the url out of him he's so shy, but we got there in the end. Enjoy.
• I also discovered another green blogger. Mr Tom Harris.
  
• Yahoo news have noticed we use a sliding scale of delegates fees depending on your income. It's positive but is it news?
• Adrian Ramsay, deputy leader, gave a stirring speech this morning.
• Caroline Lucas tells us all to sign up to 10:10.
• Morning Star, rolling back democratic deficits.
• Guardian: government should 'buy back' PFI hospitals say Greens.
• The Independent says we are up against a rotten dysfunctional system.
  

Day Two: your pets are safe with us

Another excellent day at conference although not much time for blogging before I have to crash. I shall leave aside detailed reports of our dear leader's speech (excellent), the executive hustings (highly amusing) or my masterly handling of a tiny workshop on a minor constitutional change - there's just no time.

But I do have time to say - bring me your kittens. Bring me your puppies. Bring me your bunnies, your hamsters and your ferrets. They are all safe with me. More specifically they are all safe with the proposers of motion C15 who are proposing an NHS for pets.

An excellent idea in my view, although the workshop detailed to scrutinise the policy did have some friendly notes of caution. We shall see if we get to vote on it as it might just fall off the end of the agenda on Sunday.

It's actually more of a state sponsored insurance scheme for pets really that would ensure that basic health care provision could be provided to pet owners for a small annual fee (or free for those on low incomes). Partly it's also a scheme to help reduce stray dogs and cats and roll out a program of neutering and animal health checks, it also doubles as a way to monitor trends and encourage best practice when it comes to animal breeding etc.

I still have some concerns that the policy needs tightening up on the detail although, to contradict myself, it's probably a good thing that it painted a simple aspiration rather than attempted to create the entire blueprint for the part nationalisation of veterinary practices across the UK.

Day Two: links round-up

Selected posts and news articles about Green Party conference that I'm aware of. Certain there are more but I'm not really in the position to do a comprehensive search of the net to make sure I've caught everything.

In no particular order;

• Local councillor Ben Duncan welcomes conference.
  
• Amy Kennedy complains about the green fashions inflicted upon here, but there are compensations - she got to meet me! [Waves]
  
• Moments of clarity (an excellent Lib Dem blogger) has some comments on Caroline Lucas' opening remarks on the state funding of parties. More details of that speech here.
• Labour member Dave Osler also has thoughts on our conference.
  
• Caroline is also on comment is free.
  
• Doc Richard is having fun.
• Derek Wall in the Morning Star. (Also we're for more than the climate, and against troops in Afghanistan)
  
• Yahoo news spots we're having a conference.
• We're also in the Independent.
  
• The Guardian says Greens swap hairshirts for card votes. Sigh. And also gives us some time on the climate.
• Oh, and finally we're in the Guardian diary... it's been such a long time... this time Hugh compares Caroline Lucas to super nanny!
  

I'll add more later...

Day One: co-operation

Conferences don't always have the feel of love and kindness to them. Sometimes you have factions or deeply embedded divisions that can make the event a bit stressful. Thankfully there isn't much of that here at Hove and I've been pleasantly surprised at the great team working spirit in many of the sessions. That's a very good thing because if I'm going to be somewhere for four days I want it to be among friends, not egotistical windbags.

The workshop on co-operatives is a case in point. Whilst everyone knows that Greens are in favour of workers, housing and consumer co-ops our actually policy is a bit thin, apparently. So Brian Heatley very kindly put together a broad brush stroke motion filling the gap. There were fifteen people in the workshop and not one of them was opposed, but it was one of the most interesting discussions of its kind I've been to for a long time.

Because the policy was so broad it gave a lot of scope for people to explore the ideas. People discussed the projects they were involved in around mutualising football clubs, schooling, housing co-ops and food co-ops. They also pushed at the boundaries of the policy and we discussed the de-mutualised financial institutions and whether we should advocate sledge hammer legislation to make our point or a more nuanced approach to suit cautious and reasonable folk (boo!).

One of the reasons people got excited about the motion was that co-ops are not just nice things that encourage local ownership, they also present a different kind of economic model. One where workers own their workplaces, fans own their football clubs and tenants collectively own their housing. There's no room for landlords, profiteers or financial speculators in that model but plenty of room for a real and deep democratisation of everyday life.

Brian's policy was particularly good, I thought, because it went beyond simply looking to helping new co-ops get set up but also explored ways of turning existing for profit companies into workers co-ops - something far more controversial. I think that's brilliant and as we've already shown over our plan to save Vestas (using the Sustainable Communities Act to fund a workers' take over of the parts of the business being shut down) these are achievable aims in the here and now that can have real value for those effected.

Day One: Policy Committee

Most of the first day in Hove has been made up of the business of getting conference started, hugging old friends and legalistic arguments about how to conduct 'bullshit bingo'. Does it count if you say the buzzwords yourself for example? Clearly not, that would be wrong.

One of the interesting sessions I attended was the thrilling roller-coaster entitled 'policy committee report' in which we had a (genuinely) interesting discussion about how we formulate policy as a political party. Now, I'm going to stray into the 'what I reckon' territory here, but it was all said so let's count this as a report of the session.

One of the interesting things about our rather convoluted structure is that we have a Record of Policy Statements (ROPS) which is for up to the minute responses, the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society (MfSS) which contains all our policy and then we produce a Manifesto for each election we fight. Having two documents called a manifesto is not just confusing it also creates a difficulty around the status of each document.

I've now heard a number of people say we should rename the MfSS, and I really hope that translates into concrete proposals, my preference is for Policies for a Sustainable Society, which will help clarify, I think, the difference between the gargantuan document with every policy and the election manifesto that outlines where our party's priorities lie at any given time, without downgrading the status of what is currently called the MfSS.

However, whilst that is essentially a housekeeping issue the way in which the party produces policy is far more important. Whilst the formal process we have is, in my view, reasonably robust the culture around our policy documents is a little more lax.

Policy: too detailed, too unwieldy

Essentially we allow extremely detailed motions, with lots of facts and figures that go out of date very quickly, to get passed because we generally approve of them when we should be looking to more concise, punchy policy that gives the party guidance without creating hostages to fortune.

I'd also say that to some extent we fetishise policy motions. The fact is the party has plenty of things to say about issues that have not been precisely covered in a conference motion. We're not hampered by an absence of policy, but we are hampered when we have the wrong policy - or one that has a problem in it, that may only become obvious over the time.

For me the solution to this is to have less policy, and I'm definitely not alone in this. I'd like to see us produce more documents and briefings that our campaigners can use on a whole range of issues which don't need to have the status of policy in order to be useful and have the advantage that they can be written to be readable and can be distributed widely - as long as they are within the guidelines that policy has set out that's fine.

Our MEPs already produce some great examples of this (the example I often use is Jean Lambert's Working Time Directive briefing) and there's no reason why other parts of the party, like working groups, can't produce work of similar high quality as long as they are aimed at popularising the Green agenda rather than making some pedantic point and that speaks only to ourselves.

Part of this cutting down the policy is about recognising that we don't have to dot every i and cross every t. It's also about creating a culture where we amend out of motions anything that doesn't really need to be there, whilst keeping the substance. I guess my concern is that sometimes we spend too much time trying to win an argument within our own circles when we should be trying to win the broader arguments in society.

Making policy making an open process

My last point is this. Ultimately policy is voted on by conference. Conference is made up of several hundred activists who do not all possess expertise in every area of policy that comes before them. I'm happy for that to happen, but we need to make sure that before we get to that point our policy has been given as wide a consultation by experts both inside and outside of the party in order to ensure we can make an informed decision.

Creating a more open culture of policy formation, possibly including think tanks and certainly debate from all sides, where we can say very clearly that we had the best advise possible and where all the extra detail goes into briefings rather than the policy itself would, in my view, make our policy documents sharper, better and help the party become more outward looking in its approach.

Green Party Conference: Day 0

Am off to Green Party conference tomorrow and I'm not sure how much blogging action I'll get done in the next few days. I know you like to be kept informed so I'll do my best to blog some highlights, tweet, and also link to selected observations made elsewhere.

Conference posts will be filed under Brighton09 (see tabs below). In the meantime - here is a doodle;

marriedtothesea.com

Interview with Judy Maciejowska

As I mentioned the Green Party conference is starting on Thursday and as part of that there are going to be a series of elections to some of the most exciting committees and governance bodies you can find. It's just a roller coaster of raves, illicit sex and fashionable cocktails, or at least so I'm told.

Anyway, we have a very important year ahead of us with a general election where there is a general expectation that the Green Party can and should be winning its first ever MPs. That means whoever our elections coordinator turns out to be they are going to have a whole weight of expectations on them and are going to be required to be cool under pressure, highly experienced and have a proven record of national level election organising.

Judy Maciejowska is standing for the post (and you can see her website here) so I thought I'd ask her a few questions to see if I could find out a little more about her;

You've got experience of national election strategy going right back to the Greens' high point of the 1989 European election, what do you feel are the key principles in getting an election strategy right?

First of all the strategy must have the support of the whole party. The election isn’t only going to be contested by GPEx and the target constituencies, but by all the local parties and every activist up and down the country.

So the election strategy needs to be addressed early in the election cycle to give activists the chance to have an input. Fortunately we already have an excellent paper produced by Sarah Birch, a former Elections Coordinator, and passed by Conference last year. Certainly it needs updating to reflect the current position, and this will be one of my priorities, but the framework is there and I’m very happy to adhere to it.

Secondly you need a good ‘nose’ for the important issues around the party, and how to get our message across to opinion formers and voters. It’s good then to be able to bounce thoughts and ideas around with colleagues and the elections team.

How do you see the role of national elections coordinator?

On a day to day basis there needs to be tight coordination of all the relevant teams and departments. It’s no good, for example, having Publications producing leaflets without liaising with Policy or External Communications. Also everybody needs to know that the fund-raising is on target, and budgets are being adhered to. So probably first and foremost the Elections Coordinator must have his or her finger on the pulse of all the campaign’s work, or you end up with a horrible mess.

But no election campaign goes according to plan. You have to expect the unexpected, and that’s where the coordinator’s role is so important, keeping in touch with the candidates, the communications teams, GPEx chair etc.

I also think the Elections Coordinator needs to be prepared to balance the expectations of the wider party with those of the outside world. Of course, that should be said of all GPEx’s externally focused coordinators, but none more so than the Elections Coordinator. Targets and messages must be challenging but realistic, and the figure work and statistics of Chris Rose, our so-dependable National Agent, will be crucial in those sorts of decisions.

How do we balance the crucial need of winning our target MPs at this election and the needs of the national party?

Of course we are putting our maximum efforts into our target constituencies. This is an exciting time for the party and we have a real chance at last, to get representation in Westminster and really start to put our agenda at the centre of policy making.

But we mustn’t forget that there are equally important elections all over the country, not least on local authorities, and these must be given as much support and validity as our target Westminster seats. The London Borough elections only come up every four years and success here is not simply a platform for Westminster, but a genuine way of making a difference in our communities, the foundation of the green agenda.

The same must be said of our candidates all across the country. I’d like to pull together a team of all the regional agents, to get advice and feedback from them, and ensure the campaign is as relevant to activists in the wider party as it is to the target constituencies.

If you're elected next week what do you think the most difficult challenges of the job are going to be, and what's going to be the most fun?

In one sense the biggest challenge comes after the election, when the excitement has died down and activists flop into exhaustion, hoping never to see another leaflet. That’s precisely when our successes and disappointments need to be managed even more carefully.

It will certainly be an exhilarating year, and I guess it will be a challenge just to keep the national election machine running smoothly without pulling my hair out, but that will also be the most fun.

Debating policy: prostitution

One of the interesting discussions that we'll be having next week at Green Party conference is on our prostitution policy. Whilst there's no motion this time there are two workshops aimed at rethinking our current policy - a policy I've expressed some pride in on a number of occasions.

In short our current policy, which was developed in liaison with organisations representing sex workers themselves, is aimed at taking the criminality out of the industry, pro-unionisation and enabling women (and men) to be safe, working in environments of their own choosing.

There will be two fringes at conference, the first (Friday at noon) is hosted by Eaves Housing for Women which describes itself as a "Debate on the demand for prostitution and human rights". Eaves oversees the high profile and heavily government funded Poppy Project which works with trafficked women.

The second is at four on the Saturday "Prostitution Рis it time to update our policy?" which has Jenny Jones, Caroline Lucas, Sandrine Lev̻que (of Object) who will be arguing for us to change our policy and Natalie Bennett who will be the case for the defence.

Now, leaving aside the fact that there are two fringes booked both aimed at changing our policy on the same issue with one outnumbered speaker allowed to argue for the Party's policy, I'd like to say that this looks like a bit of push to at the least tone down our liberalisation message and at worst will be for greater emphasis on law enforcement, sidelining the views of those sex workers and advocates we consulted when formulating our original policy.

For my money policy should be directed towards helping the vulnerable protect themselves - by joining unions, by forming co-operatives, protected at work by legislation rather than criminalised. Our focus should be on the rights of the sex worker not the criminalisation of sex work.

Whilst the trade remains illegal those who work in the industry will be disadvantaged, and even where it is just the clientele that are criminalised, sex workers themselves say it makes them more vulnerable to attack and leaves them on the wrong side of the law.

I certainly hope that these fringes do not mark the beginning of the end of what I regard as one of the best social policies in the Party's manifesto. I guess I'll just have to attend the fringes and see what happens.

Green Party conference

Warning: this post might only be of interest to Green Party members.

The preparations are underway for Green Party conference in September (3rd - 6th). That means it's the opportunity for members to do things like book fringes, nominate for the national executive elections, and take part in the prioritisation and amendment of motions.

The deadline for fringe requests is the 15th July and the deadline for GPEx nominations (the national executive) is 14:00 on the 24th. My dream is that every post is contested, so if you're thinking about going for it - do! Every uncontested post is a little bit less democratic accountability.

You can check out the motions at the members website - 21 policy motions (including subjects like health care, Afghanistan, public ownership, and co-operatives) and 7 organisational motions.

I'd like to encourage members to take part in the prioritisation ballot here which helps determine the order that motions are heard in (and which motions may fall off the end of the agenda). The deadline for this is the 15th July.

You can vote for three of each and whilst I haven't quite decided which policy motions I'm going to favour I do know which organisational ones I'm voting for - as I have my name next to them as a kind of bookmark.

There are two motions proposed by other people that I'm supporting, and I shall prioritise one of them;

D53 Amendments to decisions made by membership ballot: This motion amends the current Standing Orders for the Conduct of Conference to ensure that in general amendments to the Constitution and Philosophical Basis introduced by a referendum of the whole membership can only be made by a further referendum.

D55 GPEx standing orders: This motion is intended to obligate GPEX to advertise its meetings, publish its minutes in good time, and adequately explain its structure to the Party membership.

Then there are the two motions I wrote, both of which I'm going to prioritise;

D51 Block of three on GPEx: This motion removes the posts of management co-ordinator and publications co-ordinator, replacing them with a block of three executive members to be elected on one ballot paper (as with committee posts). Their tasks and responsibilities will be determined by GPEx as a whole to fit the needs of current circumstances.

D52 Joint lists: This motion removes the constitutional bar on joint election lists with those outside of the Green Party in proportional representation (PR) elections. The current section of the constitution was written before there were PR elections in the UK and so was not designed to consider such a possibility.

Oh the excitement!