Steven Shawcroft, Tower Hamlets BLP, reports from the front line of the battle to engage youth in politics.

The Bite the Ballot event on 14th April was designed to get young people interested in the vote, people who hadn’t yet registered or hadn’t planned on registering to vote. Where better to hold it than at the Ministry of Sound, home of people under-25, with promises of live performances to soften the blow of listening to all the mayoral candidates?

I say “all”. Boris Johnson failed to show up. He was only listed as a “to be confirmed” – but his failure to show up, when every other candidate had, did nothing to improve his image for working class students and school leavers. Once it was evident he wasn’t coming, a “Boris! Boris! Where the fuck is Boris?” was conjured up by the crowd, and we were reminded by the speakers that Boris was only concerned with the rich as that’s where his votes were. It was safe to say that he wasn’t missed.

The hosts likened his no show to being stood-up by someone you didn’t want to go out with in the first place.

Every other speaker came off reasonably well. The candidates present were all able to have their say and take questions from the crowd. Green candidate Jennie Jones seemed a little nervous but perked up as she decided to focus on having a laugh rather than lecturing us about her policies (which, as long as they were environmental, were well received by the audience). Jennie received quite a lot of questions and joked about not expecting anyone to care about her enough to have asked.

Independent candidate Siobhan Benita was well received for her non-allegiance with any party and for being held back by the BBC. Brian Paddick was able to feed on his knowledge of poor relations between young black people and the police. He was accompanied by his black cultural advisor, who argued the case for Paddick being more representative, pointing out Boris’s absence and the fact Ken was by himself with no one who represented the youth.

However, any doubts there may have been about Ken were surely thwarted after his slot. It felt like he hadn’t missed a beat at all: he took on every and all questions, listened to what people were saying and responded in his typical uncompromising manner. Every other speaker said that while they supported a lot of Ken’s policies, they were worried about him promising more than he could deliver. At no point did Ken leave any doubt that he intended to deliver his policies, and for that the crowd seemed to enjoy him (even though he didn’t dance when asked to do so).

Other speakers included a charismatic Owen Jones and urban musicians such as Sway and Princess Nyah and youth worker Shaun Bailey. Despite claiming to be close to the young people through his ethnicity and his job, Bailey got more interaction than he expected when someone from the VIP box brought up his ties with David Cameron. The argument that followed was quite intense.

A couple of other highlights were created by Lives Not Knives (one of the many groups who had a stall there) with their performances of stereotypical young people. One of these involved a mock stabbing in the middle of the dancing crowd – a real attention grabber. Everyone pleaded with the youth to register to vote and to participate in the election, even by abstaining and noting if there wasn’t a candidate that represented you.

• For more information about Bite the Ballot, visit www.bitetheballot.co.uk.

Darren Williams, Cardiff West CLP, sizes up prospects for this May’s local government elections in Wales.

All but one of Wales’s 22 local authorities will face the voters on 3rd May (the exception being Anglesey, where elections have been delayed for a year by the Welsh Government due to “governance issues”).

Labour will be hoping to recover much of the ground it lost at the last elections in 2008, when its councillors paid the price for Westminster policies like the scrapping of the 10p tax rate. Valleys strongholds were lost and the Party was left with overall control of only two authorities, Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff (it runs minority administrations in another two and is in coalition in several others).

In key authorities like Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham, Labour has been in opposition somewhat longer, having been turfed out in the 2004 elections. These defeats could not be blamed solely on national politics. There was also real disaffection with Labour councils that sometimes had a whiff of Tammany Hall about them. The Lib-Dems, as the main beneficiaries of Labour’s setbacks, will undoubtedly face a backlash for their role in the Westminster coalition and for their undistinguished record at local level. Even this may not entirely erase the memory of Labour’s own recent inglorious past.

This year’s elections will be primarily about how local authorities respond to austerity. Nowhere in Wales has been spared from cutbacks in local services or reductions in council staffing levels. Thirteen thousand public sector jobs were lost within the first 18 months of Con-Dem rule, the bulk of them at local authority level. There has not been a general council tax freeze in Wales, unlike in England. Instead, the Welsh Government has allowed councils to make their own decisions, on the proviso that a freeze must be compatible with “protecting frontline services”.  Four councils, ranging from Tory Monmouthshire to Labour-led Bridgend, have opted for a freeze.

The Welsh Labour Government has dealt with the budget cuts imposed on it in a fashion consistent with its egalitarian politics, seeking to safeguard vital services while also working with the unions to mitigate the impact of staffing cuts. The same principled response has not been forthcoming from Labour councils, however. Both Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taff bullied their workers into accepting inferior conditions, using Section 188 notices to threaten mass redundancies if the unions didn’t accede to their demands.

While there will undoubtedly be considerably more Labour councillors after 3rd May, and probably a couple of additional Labour administrations, one should be cautious in predicting sweeping political change as a result. Certainly, there are some dynamic and principled new candidates who will rejuvenate Labour’s presence in Welsh town halls – Siobhan Corria’s article (see page 19) reflects the passion that they bring to these elections. Unfortunately, there are also still far too many of the most reactionary, parochial and self-serving breed of Labour councillor, clinging on to office by any means necessary.

With significant gains in prospect, but by no means assured, County Parties have taken the manifesto process more seriously than in the past and in Cardiff and Swansea, in particular, a thorough and participatory process has taken place, producing coherent and appealing programmes for the hoped-for new administrations. The danger remains, however, of principled policies being sacrificed for short-term gain. In Cardiff, the 14 sitting Labour councillors decided (and promptly announced to the media, without consulting the wider Party) that they would freeze council tax for 2013 if Labour should win back control in May.

Thus, in many ways, the really important battles will take place within Labour Groups – starting on 4th May. Labour Parties should not lose a moment before working on their new councillors to ensure the Party is as involved in their rule as it will have been in their election.

Siobhan Corria, Cardiff Labour council candidate, argues that the battle for Cardiff must be community-based.

In Cardiff, Labour is fighting to oust a Lib Dem-led administration that has governed since 2004, for the last four years in coalition with Plaid Cymru. I was selected last year as one of Labour’s candidates for the Llandaff North ward. I’d been an on-off member of the Party for many years, leaving first over Iraq and more recently after witnessing the horror that is the detention of asylum-seeking children. This time, however, I’m in to stay. I’m determined to help bring about positive change for individuals and communities and that means building a strong and effective Labour Group that can take back control of the Council.

If I’m elected on 3rd May, one of my main priorities will be to defend those public services that are delivered by Cardiff Council. My commitment to the public service ethos has been strengthened by ten years working in the public sector – first as a youth justice officer in Cardiff and now as a social worker in Newport working with children and families – as well as my experience as a UNISON rep and a governor in my children’s school. I believe passionately that some services should only be provided by the public sector.

Through my experience as a social worker, I have seen contracts to provide services to vulnerable children awarded to private companies driven purely by profit. In Cardiff, at the moment, our Lib-Dem/Plaid Cymru-led council is outsourcing fostering services to private companies. This does not improve the outcomes for the children involved, it is not financially efficient and it reduces accountability and transparency, as our democratically elected politicians lose responsibility for services. We should strive to bring services back in house and invest in our own services.

My ultimate goal is to improve the lives of our most vulnerable children and families. Labour in Cardiff needs to address the needs of our communities, as identified by those communities themselves. This is something that we have sought to do with our campaign for Llandaff North and is, in my view, real grassroots community activism. As a Party, we should strive to engage with residents at all levels. We need to be accessible to those experiencing the crass policies of the Con-Dem Government and support people to develop an understanding of national and local politics.

Local representatives and branch members are the foundation of a fully functioning and responsive Labour Party. We need to be visible, accessible and to be seen as working for our communities consistently – not just in the run-up to an election. My experience working with at-risk children and families has brought me into contact with people who often have never voted – the layer within society which has been totally forgotten by New Labour. If we don’t engage with them soon, we risk isolating millions of people who need the support of the Labour Party to improve their lifestyles and outcomes for their children.

There is potential power within every community in Cardiff: Labour must mobilise the energy and commitment of the people living in those communities and ensure their voices are heard. Even when there is no organisation within a community, and people believe they have no power, a well-organised and committed Labour Party branch can be a galvanizing force for change.

In Cardiff, we have mobilised activists across the city in order to ensure that there is well-organised campaigning in the run-up to the May elections, holding a series of campaign days in one ward after another. This should not happen just at election times: Labour needs to ensure that branches campaign consistently throughout the year. Llandaff North is the perfect example of a predominantly working class ward that should be safe for Labour – but the Lib-Dems have held it for many years. This illustrates why we should never be complacent or take voters for granted. We need to work hard for every single vote and to listen to every resident.

Why the fuss behind new party structures? Jon Lansman reveals all.

Grand plans to reshape the Labour Party’s management structure, end command and control, empower the members and weed out corrupt party officials have stalled in a public row. As one centrist blogger put it, “there’s been leaking, complaints about leaking and leaking of the complaints.”

When the Labour Party announced the appointments to its new executive board, it appeared that elements in the Leader’s office were trying to take over the running of the party machine. The chief culprit was – Lucy Powell, deputy chief of staff, chief fixer and elected to the NPF on the Progress slate.

The new board was to have consisted of six new posts plus General Secretary Iain McNicol, recently appointed against Powell’s wishes. That’s what had been agreed by the NEC. But three appointments were of people from the Leader’s office – one to an additional unadvertised post. Powell and her new boss were added to the board. The final insult to the new General Secretary was that the Board would be chaired by Sir Charles Allen, senior adviser to Goldman Sachs and former CEO of ITV, who’d been appointed to help review Labour’s management structure.

The NEC has been by-passed and the General Secretary’s authority undermined. The board is packed with people accountable to the Leader not the NEC and a chair whose accountability and objectives are as yet unspecified – so much for better governance.

On the other side of the row, you have the corrupt and rotten remnants of the old command and control regime which remain in the party machine – those who manipulated and cheated to deliver what they thought their Leader wanted, always happy (as Luke Akehurst would have it) “in giving the left a kicking”.

The press report that the good, loyal, Labour Party staff have reacted with fury to the plans. The truth is rather different. There are, of course, widely held concerns about change and how that will affect people’s jobs. These are legitimate trade union issues, and one must sympathise with and support the staff in demanding proper procedures (though change is certainly needed). However, the corrupt and rotten remnants amongst them are whipping up the fury, spinning and leaking and casting the blame widely – without concern about the damage to the Party.

In fact, destruction is their strategy for survival: damage the Leader, his staff, the NEC, the General Secretary – it’s all worthwhile, they’re all on the wrong side. If they don’t win, at least they’ll take a few down with them. The culprits here complain about “the lack of leadership” but what really infuriates them is that the leadership is not the leadership they wanted.

How this struggle will be resolved is not yet clear. The right course is for the NEC to take back control, and ensure the General Secretary they appointed is allowed to do his job, empowering the members and cleaning up the party bureaucracy.