The Heaton & Lostock Labour Party A Members' Branch of Bolton West Constituency Labour Party

Introduction

1999 was the start of Labour's second full year in government and some of the promises that we had made in opposition began to be fulfilled. The minimum wage was introduced, child benefit was given the largest increase since its inception and the working families tax credit scheme was inaugurated. These are all initiatives designed to combat poverty and help the worse off. Constitutionally, regional governments were instituted in Scotland and Wales and reintroduced in Northern Ireland. Peace seems to have broken out there at last. The right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords was abolished and we await the second stage of the Lords reform. These, plus a host of other actions by the government sit uncomfortably alongside several areas where they seem to have made little progress, notably in the Health and Education services and in improving transport.

The low point of the year must surely have been the European Parliament elections that saw ten NW Labour MEPs being reduced to only four. Fortunately, Gary Titley was amongst those who remain to represent us. The appalling turnout and our loss of position has convinced many of us who were previously inclined towards proportional representation to take a stronger line against it. The so-called "regional list system" must surely be the worst of all possible options.

Our membership locally has fallen slightly but there has been a slow and steady influx of new members. The local elections saw the Party losing ground in Bolton with a couple of knife-edge decisions and farcically low voter turnouts. In Deane-Cum-Heaton we turned in a creditable performance with the Tories failing to increase their majority over the previous year.

1999 The Year

The Branch AGM in January turned up few surprises with virtually the same team (the "usual suspects") being elected to run the Branch. I was appointed Secretary; Graham, Chair; Trevor, Treasurer; Pauline and Eve, Vice-Chairs and Joyce, Membership Secretary. We had a full complement of 6 Constituency Party delegates and George once more represented us on the Bolton Local Government Committee.

Our Membership in '99

We began the year with about XXX members, Joyce continuing her tremendous job of keeping our list up to date, weeding out the non-payers, those who'd moved, disappeared or were simply no longer interested! A few members didn't renew their membership as protest against the perceived continuing right wing policies of the government.

However, thanks again to Joyce's untiring efforts, we have retained the majority of members and recruited several new ones resulting in our numbers remaining fairly static.

The continuingly worrying trend is a decrease in active members, especially younger ones, and by that I mean those under 50! We do have young members and we should try to encourage them to play an active role in Party activities.

Fund Raising

Trevor again managed our funds magnificently despite being away from Bolton much of the time and immersed in the affairs of his busy business. A full statement of our accounts is presented separately.

Because of his business and frequent absence from Bolton Trevor has indicated that he will not be able to continue as Treasurer and will stand down at this AGM. Over the last five years he has given the Branch a firm financial footing and has managed the accounts in the most professional way possible. His efforts will be truly missed and our sincere thanks and gratitude go to him.

This year we held three and a half fund-raising socials although only two were intended to make money! First there was the excellent Brunch at Eve's house. Then we held the traditional Midsummer Barbecue, unusually in glorious warm weather, at Graham and Anne's. Finally we had the Branch Christmas party at Gill's. The "half" event was the, very wet but good fun, Bowls Evening at the Howcroft pub, not intended as a fundraiser but which made a small contribution nonetheless. These events combined raised more than enough on their own to finance the Branch's activities during the year.

This meant that the Branch's main fundraiser, the Deane-Cum-Heaton Stakeholder Society (100 Club) raised money that allowed us to prime a social evening with Claire Short, MP and to donate £XXX towards setting up a telephone bank at the St. George's Road Constituency Party offices. The 100 Club membership increased to about £XXX by the year-end and still includes a couple of contributors who are no longer Party members. Nevertheless, if we are to fully fund our own Branch's activities and help other sections of the Party wherever possible, we need many more members. I hope that we will consider ways of increasing the 100 Club membership during the next few months. With a little effort we should be able to set a target of donating upwards of £X,XXX to Ruth Kelly's next general election campaign.

Branch Meetings

Branch meetings have been generally well attended although numbers dropped off a little during the autumn but have picked up again as the year has ended. We have been very fortunate in that several members have offered their homes as venues and my special thanks to Graham and Anne, Pauline and John, Alan and Joyce, Eve and George (separately!).

We have not been as successful in getting guest speakers to our meetings as in the past but we have attempted to continue our policy of making political discussion the priority item on our agenda. A presentation was made on the reorganisation of Constituency Parties and Council Leader, Bob Howarth, gave us a comprehensive update on the activities of Bolton Council. 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.

The Branch has raised the issue of the very poor way in which the elected Councillors are reflective of the communities they represent in the borough. We are especially critical of the fact that Bolton, a town with an approximate 10% ethnic minority has not one Councillor from that community. We hope that our efforts at Constituency Party and Local Government Committee level will lead to measures being undertaken to improve this situation.

We would like to revive the idea of having a guest speaker at each meeting and suggestions of who to invite will be most welcome.

Surf the Web With Deane-Cum-Heaton

During the year I've done my best to keep the Branch's Internet Web site (http://www.gaijin.demon.co.uk/dchlp.htm) up to date although it's a bit like painting the Forth Bridge!

It continues to be well received by those who have accessed it and I get three or four E-mails each week as a result, some from other Members' Branches who want advice in setting up their own web sites. We have had more than 5,000 visitors during the year with contacts from all over the world

Local Election '99

The most notable thing about politics during 1999 must surely have been voter apathy. Appallingly low turnouts in the local elections were only exceeded by those during the European Parliament elections a month later. Deane-Cum-Heaton's candidate was Akhtar Zaman. He excellently represented us, worked very hard and managed to not only keep the Tory majority down to about 1,000 but kept the turnout at a reasonable, although low, level. It was especially low in the traditionally Labour-voting areas. We believe that a greater numbers of ethnic minority voters than normal actually participated. Joyce's network of leaflet distributors was at its most effective during both campaigns and managed to distribute half a Scandinavian forest to all parts of the ward.

At the time of writing we have not yet selected our candidate for this year's local elections.

Thanks

1999 was a very different year from the previous one and we now approach the half-way stage in the life of the first Labour government for almost 20 years. At the top of the Party they will be looking towards the 2002 election, if that's when it will be. We should recognise that our government has a most difficult task ahead and support it fully whilst rightly being critical should it take actions we consider against the interests of the most needy members of society. At local level we need to continue our efforts to make the next general election campaign as effective and inclusive as the tremendous one of 1997.

As Secretary I am proud to have served the Branch during the last year 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 thank Graham, Trevor, Pauline, Eve and Joyce, the other Branch Officers and all those ordinary members without whose help we would have been a pointless debating society.

Most of all, though, I would like to thank Noelene, my wife, who as well as a very hectic life as a student has had to put up with me monopolising the computer so much of the time and has supported me throughout the year.

Thank you and best wishes for 2000.

John Gillatt
Branch Secretary
January 2000