Agenda 2019

Allow the membership to take a view. Dorchester Branch members The West Dorset Constituency Labour Party, of which I am a member (Dorchester Branch), has again chosen not to hold a special meeting to discuss endorsement of one or other of the candidates in the forthcoming Labour Party leadership election. There now seems to be some debate if not controversy in Dorset, as the CLP management committee came to the same view prior to the leadership contest of last year. The following exchanges with the CLP, outline the extent of the controversy: "It is noted that the recent instructions from the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, sent by e-mail to Chair and Secretaries by Isobel Laing, Regional Administrator, Labour South West has suspended Constituency Labour Party meetings together with Labour party branch meetings ", during the period of the Leadership election". It is further noted that the NEC instructions are qualified to exclude, ...

 “The last five years have seen a low level of house building, less than half the new buildings that are actually needed",       Median gross weekly pay for full-time employees, 2014 in West Dorset is £506 (Residency based figures) or £26,312 pa. In Weymouth and Portland the figure is £469 or £24,388 pa. These figures are taken from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2014, Office for National Statistics The reason for reproducing these statistics, is an article in today’s (15th October 2015) “ Independent” under the headline “David Cameron defends 'starter homes' that only the richest can afford”. Now, admittedly he was talking about London where the average house price is £522,000 and adding that his previously quoted figure of “starter homes” at £450,000 was an “upper limit” and he would prefer to see a “starter home” at a significantly lower price. No doubt thousands of people in London would agree with that bit. However, the fact remains th...

West Dorset CLP gaining new members.   Add caption   I was at the the West Dorset CLP Annual General Meeting last night. It was reported that membership of the Labour Party in this constituency had increased almost threefold over the past 12 months. Of that figure,the highest increase in membership had taken place in the last 6 months. A very well attended AGM learned that of the new and (like me) returning members, a significant majority gave their motivation for for joining as support for Jeremy Corbyn. The leadersip ballot closes at 12 noon today (10th September) and the result will be announced at a special Labour party conference on Saturday 12th September (live coverage on BBC 2 at 11:00am). Who ever emerges as leader, the Labour party will be a very different party from next week and going forward. The attendance of many hundreds, if not thousands of people at Jeremy Corbyn campaign meetings around the country (and the usual overflow rallie...