Secretary's Annual Report 2003

  Introduction

2003 was the year when locally we "started all over again" with the formation of our new ward, made up mainly from parts of the former Deane-cum-Heaton and Blackrod wards. Nationally the year was quite a disaster with our Government divided and Tony Blair looking more and more weak in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the controversy over the imposition of Foundation Hospital Trusts and the coming vote on university top-up fees. With the replacement of Iain Duncan-Smith by Michael Howard as Tory leader things are beginning to look much more difficult for us.

  2003 The Year

Tony Blair took us into a war against the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, justified by the so-called imminent threat to the west by that country's claimed possession of weapons of mass destruction. Knowingly or not, it is evident that we were not told the truth about these because, at the time they were used for justification for the invasion of Iraq, they simply didn't exist. The war was hugely unpopular amongst the British public with enormous demonstrations taking place all over the country. In London as many as two million protested. Within the party many of us were disturbed to see our leader siding with extreme right wing politicians such as George Bush, Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar. In fact Tony Blair effectively became George Bush's Foreign Affairs Spokesman in the early part of the year, a demeaning role indeed.

The war resulted in the loss from the Government of several very able politicians, notably Robin Cook and Clare Short. In his resignation speech Robin Cook said "I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support" and many of us in the party agreed with him and applauded him for his stance.

I believe the war to have been the turning point where Tony Blair went from a position of near invincibility to one of increasing vulnerability. He was further weakened by divisions, especially in the Parliamentary Labour Party, over the imposition of Foundation Hospital Trusts and the continued controversy over the plans for university top-up fees.

The government's weakened standing was exacerbated by the controversy surrounding the death of David Kelly and won't be helped by the forthcoming report from the Hutton enquiry. On a slightly brighter note, Saddam Hussein himself was captured but that hasn't prevented the low-grade guerrilla war from continuing in Iraq.

Another unhelpful development has been the decision to put off a referendum on the Euro until well into the next parliament at the earliest. Peace in the Middle East is no closer and the Israelis and Arabs continue to slaughter each other, the threat of terrorism has been increased rather than lessened by the Iraq war, although, in my opinion, is often over exaggerated and many of us have real concerns over the very hard-line stance being taken by David Blunkett on asylum seekers.

On the whole it hasn't been a very good year and won't have been helped by the replacement of the inept Iain Duncan Smith by the rather more threatening and much more able Michael Howard.

  What About Us?

Away from the world stage we continue to work away at local level as best as we are able. In mid year, and in anticipation of the Boundary Committee's final report into Bolton's ward boundaries, we reorganised the five Bolton West wards forming the Lostock with Heaton ward from Deane-cum-Heaton, minus Deane and Johnson Fold, and the Lostock part of Blackrod. We objected to the name of the new ward and for once officialdom relented and we are now, and will be for a few years at least, the Heaton & Lostock Ward. The ampersand is in the official title!

At the inaugural Branch meeting in July, Graham was elected Chair, John Secretary, Eve and Sheila Vice-Chairs, Pat Membership Secretary, Sheila, Pat, Craig and Graham CLP Delegates, Terry LGC Delegate, Terry and Gwen REC Delegates and, latterly, Noelene Treasurer.

I very much hope that these will continue to serve the Branch in 2004 after this first AGM.

  Local Elections 2003

The local elections in Bolton went very much as expected with Labour losing overall control but effectively retaining it as the Tories and Lib-Dems fell out with each other in talks they had to form an anti-Labour coalition. The likelihood is that this year, with an all out election taking place at the same time as the European Parliament elections on June 10th, we will be in a very different position.

The results in the two constituent wards of our new Branch varied. In Deane-cum-Heaton, traditionally a Tory stronghold, we further increased our share of the vote with a small swing from both Tories and Lib-Dems to us, whilst we lost Blackrod by only 94 votes. The elections were an all postal vote affair but, because of the rules governing "signed declarations" which had to accompany returned ballots, a huge number of otherwise good votes were declared spoilt. In the case of Deane-cum-Heaton the figure was 780 and in Blackrod it was 373, almost four times the number of votes by which we lost the election in that ward. As a result the Boundary Commission held an enquiry into what many regarded as a fiasco.

In my view the all postal vote election is the future. It greatly increases voter participation, makes life a lot easier for us and almost certainly increases turnout amongst traditionally apathetic Labour voters. The 2004 election in Bolton will be a traditional ballot box affair but let's hope that we will soon adopt postal balloting as a permanent measure.

  Our Membership in 2003

Membership of the new Branch is approximately XXX and we are the largest Branch in the Bolton West CLP. Perhaps it's not too surprising that we haven't recruited any "new to the Party" members this year and we lost several over the Iraq war. However, the situation now seems to be stable and I think that this is the way it will remain in the year ahead.

   Fund-raising

The new Branch held it's first fundraising social together with members of the former Deane-cum-Heaton Branch, "The Last and First Barbecue" at the traditional home for such events, Graham and Anne's house. Although held much later in the summer than would be normal (August rather than June), it was a wonderful success with members of the two constituent Branches getting together socially for the first time and enjoying the good food, drink and company that always makes such events great fun. In addition about £XXX was raised for Branch funds.

The Branch's main fundraiser, the former Deane-cum-Heaton Stakeholder Society (100 Club) continues to operate in the new Branch, although we need to work on recruitment of new members, and has made a significant contribution to our funds. We have informally set a target of raising £X,XXX towards Ruth Kelly's re-election campaign and that should hopefully be achieved as long as a general election isn't held too soon!

Branch funds currently (end of December 2003) stand at just over £X,XXX and we were able to fully fund our activities during the year as well as purchase a new PA system for use by ourselves and in other Bolton West wards.

  Branch Meetings

Branch meetings have been generally well attended with XX to XX members usually being present. We've been very fortunate in that several members have continued to offer their homes as venues and my special thanks to Graham and Anne, Pauline, Alan and Joyce, Pat and Craig and Anne.

We look forward to continuing to rotate our meetings between members houses and maybe, if the summer this year is as good as that in 2003, we'll even have a outdoor meeting as Deane-cum-Heaton once did in 2002.

Later in the year, but earlier than usual, we shortlisted and selected our three candidates to contest the 2004 local elections. I was honoured to have been chosen and will join Barbara Sharples and, hopefully, Ghulam Raja on the ballot paper in 2004. The new ward is very likely to be the safest Tory ward ever. But we'll give it "our best shot" and hope to maximise the Labour vote for the forthcoming general election, which will possibly be held as early as next year.

We would like to continue the practice of Branch meetings being occasions for us to participate in political discussion and debate and we made a good start in 2003. In August and again in November we debated a resolution opposed to the establishment of Foundation Hospital Trusts with opinion being very balanced. On the latter occasion we were very pleased to welcome guest speaker Martin Rathfelder from the Socialist Health Association. In December Sheila talked about her experiences and the benefits of attending the Labour Party Conference as a "non-delegate" and we are very much looking forward to hearing from our very own Gary Titley, MEP, at the AGM.

Most gratifying has been the vigour and enthusiasm with which members have entered into the discussions regardless of whether or not there has been a speaker.

Members are urged to think about the topics they believe we should be discussing and all suggestions for guest speakers will be most welcome. Our Chair is very good at twisting people's arms up their backs to come along and address us. He does it ever so gently!

Our last meeting of the year, in December, was very special with Joyce and Alan laying on a magnificent buffet to celebrate the year's end and to enable us to look forward to the year ahead in the spirit of comradeship that we genuinely do share. Our very sincere thanks to them for their sterling work and wonderful generosity.

  Heaton & Lostock Online

During the year the Branch's Internet Web site (http://www.boltonwest.org) was revamped to reflect the change from Deane-cum-Heaton to Lostock with Heaton and then Heaton & Lostock and I've struggled to keep it up to date, although doing so is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge and it's currently a couple months behind! However, I hope to rectify that very soon. Shortly after each Branch meeting there is usually a summary of what took place and a link to any talk given by a guest speaker.

I continue to get responses to the site, although not all are complimentary! However, all messages left in the guest book are left there for at least six months regardless of their content. We've had almost 5,880 visitors since the counter was reset in July 2001 with about 1,200 hits in the year just gone.

  Thanks

As Secretary I am happy and proud to have been chosen by the new Branch but it would have been impossible for me to carry out my job without the help and support of very many Party members. I would therefore like to specially thank Graham, Pauline, Eve, Pat and Sheila, the other Branch Officers, the members who deliver the Branch meeting notices month on month and all those ordinary members without whose help we would have been a pointless debating society.

Most of all, and as always, I'd like to thank Noelene, my wife, who has had to put up with me constantly monopolising the computer so much of the time and has supported me throughout the year.

Thank you and best wishes for 2004.

John Gillatt Branch Secretary
January 2004