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How to rebuild a political party – from the ground up	How to rebuild a political party – from the ground up
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There is something about defeat that brings people to the Labour party. In the week after the general election 20,000 new members signed up. That figure has now swelled to more than 40,000. Five years ago, days after Labour lost the 2010 election, I was one such person. I joined in a casual act of hubris that assumed party membership amounted to no more than an annual direct debit and a vague but satisfying sense of solidarity. I had always voted Labour, apart from a single Green protest vote in 2001. The sight of David Cameron and Nick Clegg smirking at each other in the rose garden, announcing their coalition government, drove me to ring the Labour party and give them my bank details, but it was never my intention to do anything other than vote in the leadership election. I am not one of nature’s campaigners or activists. I once had a column in the Guardian, in which my role was to snipe thoughtfully from the sidelines – as if critiquing policy made one a more serious person than the drones who did the manual work of fighting elections.	There is something about defeat that brings people to the Labour party. In the week after the general election 20,000 new members signed up. That figure has now swelled to more than 40,000. Five years ago, days after Labour lost the 2010 election, I was one such person. I joined in a casual act of hubris that assumed party membership amounted to no more than an annual direct debit and a vague but satisfying sense of solidarity. I had always voted Labour, apart from a single Green protest vote in 2001. The sight of David Cameron and Nick Clegg smirking at each other in the rose garden, announcing their coalition government, drove me to ring the Labour party and give them my bank details, but it was never my intention to do anything other than vote in the leadership election. I am not one of nature’s campaigners or activists. I once had a column in the Guardian, in which my role was to snipe thoughtfully from the sidelines – as if critiquing policy made one a more serious person than the drones who did the manual work of fighting elections.
Even if I had wanted to get involved, the constituency party lay in ruins, my local branch moribund and the membership list a shambles. There were no local leadership hustings because no one had got round to organising them. I didn’t know any of this. It took five months for emails to finally arrive inviting me to meetings, by which time the party leadership election had ended and, as far as I was concerned, my single task had been accomplished. At first I ignored the emails, then one night I turned up out of curiosity. It was an elementary error. By January 2012 I was the second most powerful official in the Crouch End branch of the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency party in north London. I would spend the next few years not so much a foot soldier as one of the pack animals of our parliamentary democracy, trudging the streets of my neighbourhood posting badly designed leaflets through letterboxes where they would, I was gloomily certain, be transferred directly into the recycling box, because that’s what I did with mine.	Even if I had wanted to get involved, the constituency party lay in ruins, my local branch moribund and the membership list a shambles. There were no local leadership hustings because no one had got round to organising them. I didn’t know any of this. It took five months for emails to finally arrive inviting me to meetings, by which time the party leadership election had ended and, as far as I was concerned, my single task had been accomplished. At first I ignored the emails, then one night I turned up out of curiosity. It was an elementary error. By January 2012 I was the second most powerful official in the Crouch End branch of the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency party in north London. I would spend the next few years not so much a foot soldier as one of the pack animals of our parliamentary democracy, trudging the streets of my neighbourhood posting badly designed leaflets through letterboxes where they would, I was gloomily certain, be transferred directly into the recycling box, because that’s what I did with mine.
It was seven months after I’d joined that I went to my first meeting. The constituency HQ was a shopfront in Middle Lane, in Crouch End. The dishevelled office was lined with papers, box files, piles of leaflets waiting to be delivered, rows of plastic stackable chairs and, on the walls, a series of old trade union posters from the turn of the 20th century – art nouveau designs of slender young women in flowing robes waving banners on which were inscribed inspirational slogans from the early years of Keir Hardie socialism. The place made me cringe – it was old Labour in aspic. But things were looking up: someone had managed to get Polly Toynbee and David Walker to come to talk about their new book. I assumed that the crowd of 50 or 60 people was a normal branch meeting.	It was seven months after I’d joined that I went to my first meeting. The constituency HQ was a shopfront in Middle Lane, in Crouch End. The dishevelled office was lined with papers, box files, piles of leaflets waiting to be delivered, rows of plastic stackable chairs and, on the walls, a series of old trade union posters from the turn of the 20th century – art nouveau designs of slender young women in flowing robes waving banners on which were inscribed inspirational slogans from the early years of Keir Hardie socialism. The place made me cringe – it was old Labour in aspic. But things were looking up: someone had managed to get Polly Toynbee and David Walker to come to talk about their new book. I assumed that the crowd of 50 or 60 people was a normal branch meeting.
At the annual general meeting the following month, to confirm the election of chair and secretary, there were eight of us in the room. Most of them I never saw again. A basic life skill of local party politics was explained to me by my brother-in-law the following day: when there is a call for the election of officers, on no account make eye contact. I suspect that the secretary elect was simply trying to rope me in when he asked, looking around, his large brown eyes coming to rest on me, if anyone would like to be membership secretary. I hadn’t even spoken yet. “What does it involve?” I asked timidly. “Just writing a welcome email to new members,” he replied. And I thought, well, OK, I could do that.	At the annual general meeting the following month, to confirm the election of chair and secretary, there were eight of us in the room. Most of them I never saw again. A basic life skill of local party politics was explained to me by my brother-in-law the following day: when there is a call for the election of officers, on no account make eye contact. I suspect that the secretary elect was simply trying to rope me in when he asked, looking around, his large brown eyes coming to rest on me, if anyone would like to be membership secretary. I hadn’t even spoken yet. “What does it involve?” I asked timidly. “Just writing a welcome email to new members,” he replied. And I thought, well, OK, I could do that.
Activists are the lowest rung of the political process, the worker bees of elections, annoying constituents by ringing their doorbells on Sunday mornings like Jehovah’s Witnesses, attending tedious community meetings at which niggles about refuse collection and perennial complaints about dog poo are rehearsed ad infinitum, and trying by devious means to recruit like-minded souls to share the leaflet delivery. I became very good at ensnaring unsuspecting naifs like myself into the inner circle. People are suckers for a story – my day job is telling them – and Hornsey and Wood Green had a narrative arc, one which would turn out to buck all the trends, delivering us a series of victories in the teeth of Labour’s national failure.	Activists are the lowest rung of the political process, the worker bees of elections, annoying constituents by ringing their doorbells on Sunday mornings like Jehovah’s Witnesses, attending tedious community meetings at which niggles about refuse collection and perennial complaints about dog poo are rehearsed ad infinitum, and trying by devious means to recruit like-minded souls to share the leaflet delivery. I became very good at ensnaring unsuspecting naifs like myself into the inner circle. People are suckers for a story – my day job is telling them – and Hornsey and Wood Green had a narrative arc, one which would turn out to buck all the trends, delivering us a series of victories in the teeth of Labour’s national failure.
Within five years we would elect two councillors and win the parliamentary seat back from the Lib Dems. It was an infuriating and exhilarating time in which I came to understand the seams and stitches of parliamentary democracy, the processes that hold the whole thing together, without which elections would be hollow echo chambers between the media and the voters. Without the dogged footslog of the activists, few people would ever meet anyone from a political party (supposing, of course, they wanted to). This is the story of how you rebuild a party from the ground up, not through winning ideological debates, though those do matter, but through the often banal life of local activism.	Within five years we would elect two councillors and win the parliamentary seat back from the Lib Dems. It was an infuriating and exhilarating time in which I came to understand the seams and stitches of parliamentary democracy, the processes that hold the whole thing together, without which elections would be hollow echo chambers between the media and the voters. Without the dogged footslog of the activists, few people would ever meet anyone from a political party (supposing, of course, they wanted to). This is the story of how you rebuild a party from the ground up, not through winning ideological debates, though those do matter, but through the often banal life of local activism.
* * *	* * *
The parliamentary constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green runs east to west, from Wood Green – an inner-city area of poverty, working-class voters and ethnic minorities that was one of the sites of the 2011 London riots – to Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Highgate, the homes of the despised metropolitan elite, cafe culture, private schools, arthouse cinema. Along this axis were three of the most potent issues of the 2015 election campaign in London: in the east the bedroom tax, in the centre Generation Rent, and to the west, specifically in Highgate, the mansion tax (there are around 2,000 properties that would have been eligible in the constituency, each a potential vote-loser).	The parliamentary constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green runs east to west, from Wood Green – an inner-city area of poverty, working-class voters and ethnic minorities that was one of the sites of the 2011 London riots – to Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Highgate, the homes of the despised metropolitan elite, cafe culture, private schools, arthouse cinema. Along this axis were three of the most potent issues of the 2015 election campaign in London: in the east the bedroom tax, in the centre Generation Rent, and to the west, specifically in Highgate, the mansion tax (there are around 2,000 properties that would have been eligible in the constituency, each a potential vote-loser).
Hornsey and Wood Green is not a north London tribal constituency for any party, or even a marginal: it swings, and swings big. Barbara Roche won the seat for Labour in 1992 with a 5,000 majority, increasing to 20,000 in the 1997 Labour landslide. One of “Blair’s babes”, the cohort of new women MPs, she rose to become a Home Office minister with responsibility for the immigration and asylum bill. In 2001, the year I voted Green, her majority was reduced to 10,000 and in 2005 she lost the seat to Lynne Featherstone, the former leader of the Lib Dem group on Haringey council.	Hornsey and Wood Green is not a north London tribal constituency for any party, or even a marginal: it swings, and swings big. Barbara Roche won the seat for Labour in 1992 with a 5,000 majority, increasing to 20,000 in the 1997 Labour landslide. One of “Blair’s babes”, the cohort of new women MPs, she rose to become a Home Office minister with responsibility for the immigration and asylum bill. In 2001, the year I voted Green, her majority was reduced to 10,000 and in 2005 she lost the seat to Lynne Featherstone, the former leader of the Lib Dem group on Haringey council.
The 2005 election was a sickening insight into what happens when a party’s activist base disintegrates. Looking out of my living room window it was blindingly obvious that Labour was going to lose. Teams of yellow-badged Lib Dem activists were pouring out of a block of flats opposite me. Rows of Lib Dem posters and garden stakes lined my road, but on the day of the election I had still not been visited by anyone from the Labour party. What altered the fortunes of both local activism and the result of the 2005 election was the Iraq war. “The war vote was cataclysmic,” said Steve Hart, then and now chair of the constituency party. “I remember the meeting on the night of the debate when the dodgy dossier was produced in parliament. There were 70 or 80 people there and Barbara Roche arrived holding the dossier. She came in, put it on the table hot off the press and I remember my heart sinking – there was a cartoon-like picture of a rocket on the front. I moved the motion to say that the case had not been made. We had a constructive debate that night and the [local] party voted against the war, though not by an overwhelming majority.” Barbara Roche voted with the government.	The 2005 election was a sickening insight into what happens when a party’s activist base disintegrates. Looking out of my living room window it was blindingly obvious that Labour was going to lose. Teams of yellow-badged Lib Dem activists were pouring out of a block of flats opposite me. Rows of Lib Dem posters and garden stakes lined my road, but on the day of the election I had still not been visited by anyone from the Labour party. What altered the fortunes of both local activism and the result of the 2005 election was the Iraq war. “The war vote was cataclysmic,” said Steve Hart, then and now chair of the constituency party. “I remember the meeting on the night of the debate when the dodgy dossier was produced in parliament. There were 70 or 80 people there and Barbara Roche arrived holding the dossier. She came in, put it on the table hot off the press and I remember my heart sinking – there was a cartoon-like picture of a rocket on the front. I moved the motion to say that the case had not been made. We had a constructive debate that night and the [local] party voted against the war, though not by an overwhelming majority.” Barbara Roche voted with the government.
Hart is one of the road warriors of grassroots politics, always seen in jeans and trainers, ready to door-knock and leaflet-deliver at the drop of a hat. He is the son of the former Labour cabinet minister, Judith Hart, and in his youth the future home secretary Alan Johnson was the family postman. Until ~~his~~ ~~retirement~~ in ~~May,~~ he was political director of the Unite union. His involvement with Hornsey and Wood Green began in 1994. Two years later, in the runup to the Labour landslide of the following year, the local party reached its peak membership of 2,400.	Hart is one of the road warriors of grassroots politics, always seen in jeans and trainers, ready to door-knock and leaflet-deliver at the drop of a hat. He is the son of the former Labour cabinet minister, Judith Hart, and in his youth the future home secretary Alan Johnson was the family postman. Until June 2013, he was political director of the Unite union. His involvement with Hornsey and Wood Green began in 1994. Two years later, in the runup to the Labour landslide of the following year, the local party reached its peak membership of 2,400.
“One set of people dropped out in anger, another group had the stuffing knocked out of them,” Hart said. “A whole layer of people left. In 2005 a small number advocated a vote for Lynne Featherstone, which was even more divisive because there is no sin greater than supporting another candidate. It was nasty on the doorstep. People were screaming at you with real hostility, and it was particularly difficult if you agreed with them. By 2005 only half the branches were quorate – the rest didn’t even have the requisite minimum 10% of members turning up. The election campaign was really weak, all the way through it felt like it wasn’t going to happen, there weren’t enough people on the street. I’m not even sure if my wife voted Labour.”	“One set of people dropped out in anger, another group had the stuffing knocked out of them,” Hart said. “A whole layer of people left. In 2005 a small number advocated a vote for Lynne Featherstone, which was even more divisive because there is no sin greater than supporting another candidate. It was nasty on the doorstep. People were screaming at you with real hostility, and it was particularly difficult if you agreed with them. By 2005 only half the branches were quorate – the rest didn’t even have the requisite minimum 10% of members turning up. The election campaign was really weak, all the way through it felt like it wasn’t going to happen, there weren’t enough people on the street. I’m not even sure if my wife voted Labour.”
For the 2010 general election, Labour had selected a new candidate, Karen Jennings. Then head of health at the Unison trade union, she made little impression. “The mood hadn’t changed much,” Hart said. “We did better on the doorstep but the riff was, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lynne Featherstone would never go into coalition with the Tories.’” She increased her majority.	For the 2010 general election, Labour had selected a new candidate, Karen Jennings. Then head of health at the Unison trade union, she made little impression. “The mood hadn’t changed much,” Hart said. “We did better on the doorstep but the riff was, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lynne Featherstone would never go into coalition with the Tories.’” She increased her majority.
* * *	* * *
The revival of the Crouch End branch had begun, unknown to me, in April 2010. Natan Doron and his girlfriend, both in their mid-20s, were watching the debates between Gordon Brown and David Cameron on TV in a tiny rented flat in Crouch End. Natan is possibly one of the most refreshing people ever to join the Labour party, coming from a background as a singer and guitar player in “a little indie band” and with no Labour credentials at all. He had recently graduated from university and returned to London after working on campaigns for Greenpeace in Beijing, his political views shaped by climate change rather than economics and social policy.	The revival of the Crouch End branch had begun, unknown to me, in April 2010. Natan Doron and his girlfriend, both in their mid-20s, were watching the debates between Gordon Brown and David Cameron on TV in a tiny rented flat in Crouch End. Natan is possibly one of the most refreshing people ever to join the Labour party, coming from a background as a singer and guitar player in “a little indie band” and with no Labour credentials at all. He had recently graduated from university and returned to London after working on campaigns for Greenpeace in Beijing, his political views shaped by climate change rather than economics and social policy.
“It was watching the TV debates that I realised that I identified with the Labour movement,” he said. “I didn’t join or canvass but I felt quite guilty when Labour lost. I’d just got an internship with the Fabians and they asked if I was a member of the Labour party, so in the September I joined. I got a call from Liz Santry, the constituency Labour party (CLP) secretary saying thanks for joining but there’s no party for you to join at the moment, would you like to come to a meeting to see what we can do about it? I thought I was going to be at a meeting of hundreds of people. There were four of us: me, Liz, Matt Downie [then chair of the CLP] and Vera Baird.”	“It was watching the TV debates that I realised that I identified with the Labour movement,” he said. “I didn’t join or canvass but I felt quite guilty when Labour lost. I’d just got an internship with the Fabians and they asked if I was a member of the Labour party, so in the September I joined. I got a call from Liz Santry, the constituency Labour party (CLP) secretary saying thanks for joining but there’s no party for you to join at the moment, would you like to come to a meeting to see what we can do about it? I thought I was going to be at a meeting of hundreds of people. There were four of us: me, Liz, Matt Downie [then chair of the CLP] and Vera Baird.”
I thought I was going to be at a meeting of hundreds of people. There were four of us	I thought I was going to be at a meeting of hundreds of people. There were four of us
Vera Baird, a tall, bracing red-head born in 1950, was from a different generation, and a barrister who had represented miners during the 1984 strike. A former MP, she had lost her seat in Redcar in May 2010. For many years she had had her London home in Crouch End, a house on the main bus route that always hosted the largest Labour placard during elections. Within a few minutes she and Natan were asked if they would like to organise the branch: “This was my first human contact with the Labour party,” Natan said. “I didn’t know who Vera was, I had to look her up on Wikipedia. She gave me the admin work, I had no idea what I was doing but we called a meeting and 20 people turned up, some who had been members for a very long time and a couple of people in their 20s. I handed round a sheet of paper and pen and asked people to sign in. Because I had the paper and the pen it was assumed that I was the secretary, and that is how I became the secretary.”	Vera Baird, a tall, bracing red-head born in 1950, was from a different generation, and a barrister who had represented miners during the 1984 strike. A former MP, she had lost her seat in Redcar in May 2010. For many years she had had her London home in Crouch End, a house on the main bus route that always hosted the largest Labour placard during elections. Within a few minutes she and Natan were asked if they would like to organise the branch: “This was my first human contact with the Labour party,” Natan said. “I didn’t know who Vera was, I had to look her up on Wikipedia. She gave me the admin work, I had no idea what I was doing but we called a meeting and 20 people turned up, some who had been members for a very long time and a couple of people in their 20s. I handed round a sheet of paper and pen and asked people to sign in. Because I had the paper and the pen it was assumed that I was the secretary, and that is how I became the secretary.”
Matt, then head of parliamentary and public affairs at the charity Action for Children, was thinking about how the branches could function between elections. He brought an unlikely element to local politics: warmth. He was always looking at the human element of party life, how people treated each other, how political parties often split into warring factions and how this could be avoided. His concern now was “complacency, a refusal to admit that the anachronistic and strange world of CLP politics was off-putting”, he said. “When we weren’t being an election machine, we were a loose-knit bunch of weirdos in need of intellectual stimulation. And the more we learned to let go of the political processes, the more fun it got and the more people got involved.” At this point there were no immediate elections to campaign for and no candidates, so he instituted pizza and politics nights, partly as fundraisers, partly as a way to keep people interested and to try to expand the membership. That was the temptation I had succumbed to when I turned up to listen to Polly Toynbee and David Walker.	Matt, then head of parliamentary and public affairs at the charity Action for Children, was thinking about how the branches could function between elections. He brought an unlikely element to local politics: warmth. He was always looking at the human element of party life, how people treated each other, how political parties often split into warring factions and how this could be avoided. His concern now was “complacency, a refusal to admit that the anachronistic and strange world of CLP politics was off-putting”, he said. “When we weren’t being an election machine, we were a loose-knit bunch of weirdos in need of intellectual stimulation. And the more we learned to let go of the political processes, the more fun it got and the more people got involved.” At this point there were no immediate elections to campaign for and no candidates, so he instituted pizza and politics nights, partly as fundraisers, partly as a way to keep people interested and to try to expand the membership. That was the temptation I had succumbed to when I turned up to listen to Polly Toynbee and David Walker.
Once I started my new role as membership secretary, I discovered that the database was chaotic. It consisted of a Gmail account’s contacts list. The problem was that names had been added to it who were not members, so I decided to give myself the task, unsuited to my unmethodical nature, of trying to reconstitute it. I had to get the official membership list from the constituency party’s membership secretary and match up the names from each list and set up a new database. This took weeks. Information was patchy and incomplete. Many of the members had no email address, some because they had joined before email was invented, or before anything you could reasonably call a computer was invented. Others had changed their email address or had moved out of the constituency without informing the party. A few did not have or want email.	Once I started my new role as membership secretary, I discovered that the database was chaotic. It consisted of a Gmail account’s contacts list. The problem was that names had been added to it who were not members, so I decided to give myself the task, unsuited to my unmethodical nature, of trying to reconstitute it. I had to get the official membership list from the constituency party’s membership secretary and match up the names from each list and set up a new database. This took weeks. Information was patchy and incomplete. Many of the members had no email address, some because they had joined before email was invented, or before anything you could reasonably call a computer was invented. Others had changed their email address or had moved out of the constituency without informing the party. A few did not have or want email.
I didn’t mind delivering my first batch of leaflets. It was a bit of exercise and it made me usefully familiar with the options for front door colours and the different designs of letterboxes and garden gate fastenings. The question was whether there was any point in doing it. The problem with all this door-to-door activity was that people were annoyed with you for cluttering up their halls with what they regarded as junk mail and even more annoyed when you banged on their door on a Sunday morning to ask them how they felt about local issues (one woman told me she thought the council should do something about the stocking levels at Waitrose). But if you didn’t interrupt their weekend or push leaflets through their letterboxes they complained that “We only ever hear from you during elections when you want our vote.”	I didn’t mind delivering my first batch of leaflets. It was a bit of exercise and it made me usefully familiar with the options for front door colours and the different designs of letterboxes and garden gate fastenings. The question was whether there was any point in doing it. The problem with all this door-to-door activity was that people were annoyed with you for cluttering up their halls with what they regarded as junk mail and even more annoyed when you banged on their door on a Sunday morning to ask them how they felt about local issues (one woman told me she thought the council should do something about the stocking levels at Waitrose). But if you didn’t interrupt their weekend or push leaflets through their letterboxes they complained that “We only ever hear from you during elections when you want our vote.”
In my very minor role as membership secretary, I decided that if there was one useful thing I could do for the party, it was to go round and hand deliver a personal letter to every member whose email address we did not have. It produced results and a few started to come to meetings. Looking though the list, I realised that some of my friends were dormant members. It would do no harm, I thought, to try to reactivate them. (I was already thinking like a party functionary.) I brought back in from the cold a TV comedy writer with superb contacts in the standup scene, who was happy to organise fundraisers for us.	In my very minor role as membership secretary, I decided that if there was one useful thing I could do for the party, it was to go round and hand deliver a personal letter to every member whose email address we did not have. It produced results and a few started to come to meetings. Looking though the list, I realised that some of my friends were dormant members. It would do no harm, I thought, to try to reactivate them. (I was already thinking like a party functionary.) I brought back in from the cold a TV comedy writer with superb contacts in the standup scene, who was happy to organise fundraisers for us.
One of the names I noticed was Martin Bostock, whom I had first met in the 1980s when he was head of press at Hackney council, overseeing the media response to rate-capping, Tory restrictions on council spending. Martin had gone on to found his own PR company with major clients, including Sony PlayStation and Canon. He was one of the people who had joined the party before the invention of email. When I met him for coffee one afternoon he was about to retire and had just had a hip replacement operation. “Look,” he said, “I don’t mind getting involved, as long as I don’t have to deliver any leaflets.” Of course not, I said, we wouldn’t dream of asking you.	One of the names I noticed was Martin Bostock, whom I had first met in the 1980s when he was head of press at Hackney council, overseeing the media response to rate-capping, Tory restrictions on council spending. Martin had gone on to found his own PR company with major clients, including Sony PlayStation and Canon. He was one of the people who had joined the party before the invention of email. When I met him for coffee one afternoon he was about to retire and had just had a hip replacement operation. “Look,” he said, “I don’t mind getting involved, as long as I don’t have to deliver any leaflets.” Of course not, I said, we wouldn’t dream of asking you.
I began to realise that we had a problem with our membership. The most active, the ones who came to meetings, fell into two categories. The first were baby-boomers who had bought run-down houses and restored them to family homes. Most of them worked in the public sector and had been party members since their 20s. Mainstays of the branch were Michael and Hilary Jacobs, both had grown up in working-class Jewish families; he is a retired lecturer in pharmacy, she is an artist. They were always available to do the legwork of the branch but felt their time serving on committees was over. At the other end were the young renters: recent graduates, who had energy and commitment but worked late, missed meetings as a result and tended not to stay long in the area. What was missing in the middle of our demographic were those in their 30s with young children. It occurred to me that the reason for their absence was that if they could afford house prices in Crouch End, where a two-bedroom flat without garden cost £400,000 and rising, they might not be inclined to any variant of socialism.	I began to realise that we had a problem with our membership. The most active, the ones who came to meetings, fell into two categories. The first were baby-boomers who had bought run-down houses and restored them to family homes. Most of them worked in the public sector and had been party members since their 20s. Mainstays of the branch were Michael and Hilary Jacobs, both had grown up in working-class Jewish families; he is a retired lecturer in pharmacy, she is an artist. They were always available to do the legwork of the branch but felt their time serving on committees was over. At the other end were the young renters: recent graduates, who had energy and commitment but worked late, missed meetings as a result and tended not to stay long in the area. What was missing in the middle of our demographic were those in their 30s with young children. It occurred to me that the reason for their absence was that if they could afford house prices in Crouch End, where a two-bedroom flat without garden cost £400,000 and rising, they might not be inclined to any variant of socialism.
With the reconstitution of the membership list and the reactivation of sleeping members, I thought that my role as Labour party functionary had been fulfilled more or less, when Vera Baird, who had started to campaign to become Northumberland police commissioner, resigned as chair. Natan took over and he asked me if I would become secretary. What could that involve, I thought, apart from taking minutes? By this time we were doing quite well: the Observer columnist Nick Cohen had been in to talk about freedom of expression, the Guardian’s executive editor for opinion, Jonathan Freedland, on the prospects for the next general election (not great, with Ed as leader, he warned), Lord Faulkner on the alternative vote referendum, and we were getting large turnouts.	With the reconstitution of the membership list and the reactivation of sleeping members, I thought that my role as Labour party functionary had been fulfilled more or less, when Vera Baird, who had started to campaign to become Northumberland police commissioner, resigned as chair. Natan took over and he asked me if I would become secretary. What could that involve, I thought, apart from taking minutes? By this time we were doing quite well: the Observer columnist Nick Cohen had been in to talk about freedom of expression, the Guardian’s executive editor for opinion, Jonathan Freedland, on the prospects for the next general election (not great, with Ed as leader, he warned), Lord Faulkner on the alternative vote referendum, and we were getting large turnouts.
The Crouch End branch began to develop a reputation for being vibrant, friendly, energetic and even a bit cool	The Crouch End branch began to develop a reputation for being vibrant, friendly, energetic and even a bit cool
We always made sure everyone was invited to the pub afterwards to continue the conversation. As Matt Downie had told me, there was always going to be one member who tried to dominate meetings, telling everyone else where we were going wrong and we had one (had we thought of establishing an edible bus-stop?) but the Crouch End branch began to develop a reputation for being vibrant, friendly, energetic and even a bit cool. Other branches were told to take note of whatever we were doing right, but what that was, I think, was Natan’s energy and optimism, my contacts and our proximity to central London. We were a miniature powerhouse operating in one neighbourhood on top of a pile of natural advantages over constituencies far from the capital. And still it was all Iraq, Iraq, Iraq on the doorstep, while a friend campaigning in Sheffield said no one talked about Iraq – there the key issue was the economy, the economy, the economy.	We always made sure everyone was invited to the pub afterwards to continue the conversation. As Matt Downie had told me, there was always going to be one member who tried to dominate meetings, telling everyone else where we were going wrong and we had one (had we thought of establishing an edible bus-stop?) but the Crouch End branch began to develop a reputation for being vibrant, friendly, energetic and even a bit cool. Other branches were told to take note of whatever we were doing right, but what that was, I think, was Natan’s energy and optimism, my contacts and our proximity to central London. We were a miniature powerhouse operating in one neighbourhood on top of a pile of natural advantages over constituencies far from the capital. And still it was all Iraq, Iraq, Iraq on the doorstep, while a friend campaigning in Sheffield said no one talked about Iraq – there the key issue was the economy, the economy, the economy.
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At the ant-like level of branch membership, the national party had made no impact on me until this point. We were never consulted about any policy, nothing ever rose from the grassroots up. In the summer of 2013, we began the process of selecting parliamentary and council candidates. Now we were informed that we were to have an all-female shortlist. The frontrunner for our prospective parliamentary candidate was Catherine West, then leader of Islington council, who lived half a block outside our constituency. She had an impressive track record of campaigning for the living wage and against cuts to the educational maintenance allowance. She had run against Karen Jennings to become candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green five years earlier and lost; now it seemed obvious that that had been a mistake. Catherine was elected by a landslide at a meeting attended by hundreds of members that June. With a prospective parliamentary candidate we felt less adrift; our campaign for the general election two years later at last had a face and a name to put on the endless bloody leaflets.	At the ant-like level of branch membership, the national party had made no impact on me until this point. We were never consulted about any policy, nothing ever rose from the grassroots up. In the summer of 2013, we began the process of selecting parliamentary and council candidates. Now we were informed that we were to have an all-female shortlist. The frontrunner for our prospective parliamentary candidate was Catherine West, then leader of Islington council, who lived half a block outside our constituency. She had an impressive track record of campaigning for the living wage and against cuts to the educational maintenance allowance. She had run against Karen Jennings to become candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green five years earlier and lost; now it seemed obvious that that had been a mistake. Catherine was elected by a landslide at a meeting attended by hundreds of members that June. With a prospective parliamentary candidate we felt less adrift; our campaign for the general election two years later at last had a face and a name to put on the endless bloody leaflets.
In the autumn, we began the process of choosing council candidates for the local elections that would take place in May 2014. This proved to be the most mentally taxing and exhausting two months of my life. Each of Haringey’s 19 wards elects three councillors. The procedure involved hopeful applicants being interviewed by a Labour party panel before they could apply for a seat. At the Tottenham end of Haringey there were mainly safe seats; anyone really keen on becoming a councillor would want one of these. The wards were ranked on the basis of potential winnability, with Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Stroud Green, Fortis Green and Highgate at the bottom. We were the insurance places, the ones people applied to in case they were not selected higher up the chain. The juggling act involved advising members to shortlist people who, I had to guess, would not be snatched away from us by being selected somewhere more promising. I can’t fault the Labour party’s commitment to eradicating gender inequality, but it reduced me to a frayed knot of anxiety as I rang around trying to find applicants. It was an unbreakable rule that one of our candidates had to be a woman but fewer women than men had applied to the panel – there weren’t enough of them to go round.	In the autumn, we began the process of choosing council candidates for the local elections that would take place in May 2014. This proved to be the most mentally taxing and exhausting two months of my life. Each of Haringey’s 19 wards elects three councillors. The procedure involved hopeful applicants being interviewed by a Labour party panel before they could apply for a seat. At the Tottenham end of Haringey there were mainly safe seats; anyone really keen on becoming a councillor would want one of these. The wards were ranked on the basis of potential winnability, with Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Stroud Green, Fortis Green and Highgate at the bottom. We were the insurance places, the ones people applied to in case they were not selected higher up the chain. The juggling act involved advising members to shortlist people who, I had to guess, would not be snatched away from us by being selected somewhere more promising. I can’t fault the Labour party’s commitment to eradicating gender inequality, but it reduced me to a frayed knot of anxiety as I rang around trying to find applicants. It was an unbreakable rule that one of our candidates had to be a woman but fewer women than men had applied to the panel – there weren’t enough of them to go round.
Natan was only interested in representing Crouch End so we didn’t have to try to prevent him from being selected elsewhere. Jason Arthur, 25, had narrowly missed selection in Tottenham. “A rising star,” as one veteran member shrewdly remarked when she read his CV. Born on a Crouch End council estate, he had become the first black president of his Oxford junior common room and spent two years teaching in one of the most deprived areas of London. I managed to talk Lourdes Keever, a recently retired probation officer with extensive knowledge of the impact of Haringey’s social services, into being our female candidate.	Natan was only interested in representing Crouch End so we didn’t have to try to prevent him from being selected elsewhere. Jason Arthur, 25, had narrowly missed selection in Tottenham. “A rising star,” as one veteran member shrewdly remarked when she read his CV. Born on a Crouch End council estate, he had become the first black president of his Oxford junior common room and spent two years teaching in one of the most deprived areas of London. I managed to talk Lourdes Keever, a recently retired probation officer with extensive knowledge of the impact of Haringey’s social services, into being our female candidate.
Once selected, the three of them, Natan, Jason and Lourdes became a formidable team of activists, each with different skills and interests: Jason, who had been a member of the Labour party since his early teens, was the veteran campaigner; Natan was the blue-sky thinker and idealist; Lourdes had a human understanding and empathy for the impact of austerity. On the night of the 2014 council elections we all turned up to the count at Alexandra Palace. Natan and Jason were elected, Lourdes sickeningly missed by fewer than 100 votes. Ward after ward went Labour. Only Highgate now had no Labour councillor. The party had taken seats in some of the most middle-class wards, including Muswell Hill and Fortis Green, reducing the Lib Dems from 27 to nine seats.	Once selected, the three of them, Natan, Jason and Lourdes became a formidable team of activists, each with different skills and interests: Jason, who had been a member of the Labour party since his early teens, was the veteran campaigner; Natan was the blue-sky thinker and idealist; Lourdes had a human understanding and empathy for the impact of austerity. On the night of the 2014 council elections we all turned up to the count at Alexandra Palace. Natan and Jason were elected, Lourdes sickeningly missed by fewer than 100 votes. Ward after ward went Labour. Only Highgate now had no Labour councillor. The party had taken seats in some of the most middle-class wards, including Muswell Hill and Fortis Green, reducing the Lib Dems from 27 to nine seats.
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In January 2015, Lord Ashcroft’s poll for Hornsey and Wood Green predicted Labour on 43%, with a 13% swing from the Lib Dems. Once we had councillors, the life of the branch altered. Natan and Jason moved from being activists to elected politicians, held weekly surgeries (where local residents bring their problems) and were formally committed to campaigning in the runup to the general election. With Labour councillors, we had more influence with the decision-makers. Jason was immediately appointed cabinet member for resources and culture, responsible for the future of the town hall. We still had speakers but everything was now subordinated to general election campaigning. All the pundits were saying that Lynne Featherstone would lose the seat, but on the ground, we were worried that her personal popularity and her responsibility for seeing the equal marriage bill through parliament would save her. In March, the Lib Dems commissioned their own Survation poll, showing Labour only a single point ahead. Not long before the election, tipster Nate Silver called it with Lynne Featherstone just over the line to win.	In January 2015, Lord Ashcroft’s poll for Hornsey and Wood Green predicted Labour on 43%, with a 13% swing from the Lib Dems. Once we had councillors, the life of the branch altered. Natan and Jason moved from being activists to elected politicians, held weekly surgeries (where local residents bring their problems) and were formally committed to campaigning in the runup to the general election. With Labour councillors, we had more influence with the decision-makers. Jason was immediately appointed cabinet member for resources and culture, responsible for the future of the town hall. We still had speakers but everything was now subordinated to general election campaigning. All the pundits were saying that Lynne Featherstone would lose the seat, but on the ground, we were worried that her personal popularity and her responsibility for seeing the equal marriage bill through parliament would save her. In March, the Lib Dems commissioned their own Survation poll, showing Labour only a single point ahead. Not long before the election, tipster Nate Silver called it with Lynne Featherstone just over the line to win.
Ten days before the election I spoke for the first and, I hope, the last time at a political rally outside Hornsey town hall. Catherine West asked me if I would speak as a local member and supporter of her campaign, after a lineup of neighbouring MPs and the journalist Owen Jones. Steve Hart handed me the megaphone. I pointed behind me to Waitrose and said that it was shameful to walk in there for balsamic vinegar and Ottolenghi recipe ingredients, past the food bank collection box. Why, in one of the wealthiest constituencies in the country, where residents were moaning about the mansion tax, were we collecting food for hungry families? Jason Arthur, talking after the election, remarked: “Our seat looked like what Ed Miliband wanted the whole country to look like, a liberal electorate and a young energetic campaign team.” We voted Labour in Hornsey and Wood Green because we were doing OK, apart from the housing crisis, and we wanted to mitigate the effects of austerity on others who lived often only a 10-minute drive away in our own constituency. Unlike the shires or the suburbs, we saw all around us the effect of coalition policy. But we were about to learn how atypical we were of the rest of the country.	Ten days before the election I spoke for the first and, I hope, the last time at a political rally outside Hornsey town hall. Catherine West asked me if I would speak as a local member and supporter of her campaign, after a lineup of neighbouring MPs and the journalist Owen Jones. Steve Hart handed me the megaphone. I pointed behind me to Waitrose and said that it was shameful to walk in there for balsamic vinegar and Ottolenghi recipe ingredients, past the food bank collection box. Why, in one of the wealthiest constituencies in the country, where residents were moaning about the mansion tax, were we collecting food for hungry families? Jason Arthur, talking after the election, remarked: “Our seat looked like what Ed Miliband wanted the whole country to look like, a liberal electorate and a young energetic campaign team.” We voted Labour in Hornsey and Wood Green because we were doing OK, apart from the housing crisis, and we wanted to mitigate the effects of austerity on others who lived often only a 10-minute drive away in our own constituency. Unlike the shires or the suburbs, we saw all around us the effect of coalition policy. But we were about to learn how atypical we were of the rest of the country.
On the day of the election. I went to the centre of Crouch End. Natan and Jason were handing out cards with the details of our candidate at the bus stop, a lot of people were taking them. At nine, I took over from Martin Bostock at the Hornsey library polling station on telling duty – getting the polling card numbers so we could tick off those who had promised to vote for us and door-knock those who had not yet voted. Martin was driving round the polling stations picking up the polling data and taking it back to our campaign HQ at Michael and Hilary Jacobs’s house, where manically energetic activists were diving in for short periods to grab coffee and biscuits before joining Jason and Natan who were leading five-strong teams banging on people’s doors asking if they’d voted yet and if not when would they?	On the day of the election. I went to the centre of Crouch End. Natan and Jason were handing out cards with the details of our candidate at the bus stop, a lot of people were taking them. At nine, I took over from Martin Bostock at the Hornsey library polling station on telling duty – getting the polling card numbers so we could tick off those who had promised to vote for us and door-knock those who had not yet voted. Martin was driving round the polling stations picking up the polling data and taking it back to our campaign HQ at Michael and Hilary Jacobs’s house, where manically energetic activists were diving in for short periods to grab coffee and biscuits before joining Jason and Natan who were leading five-strong teams banging on people’s doors asking if they’d voted yet and if not when would they?
I’d made arrangements to go to the count at Alexandra Palace. The result was expected around 3am. At 10pm, I watched the exit poll and couldn’t face it. I had a bath and went to bed. I slept for a few hours. When I woke up at 4.45am, the result had been declared. Catherine West had won with an 11,000 majority, a 19% swing. The turnout was 73%, the second highest in a Labour seat and the second highest Labour swing.	I’d made arrangements to go to the count at Alexandra Palace. The result was expected around 3am. At 10pm, I watched the exit poll and couldn’t face it. I had a bath and went to bed. I slept for a few hours. When I woke up at 4.45am, the result had been declared. Catherine West had won with an 11,000 majority, a 19% swing. The turnout was 73%, the second highest in a Labour seat and the second highest Labour swing.
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