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Showing posts from March, 2014

A speech not delivered at the Labour Special Conference on party reform

The Labour Party overwhelmingly backed reform today (1st March), and it was a pleasure and a privilege to be there with friends and colleagues. Myself, I had a little speech written to come up and deliver but was unfortunately (for me at least) not called. This is what I had to say: Hello everyone, my name is Ben Cobley and I am from Wimbledon CLP. It’s great to be here, and I’d like to say thank you to all the people who have been involved in preparing for this event, and for managing this process of reform. Our thanks must go especially to Ray Collins, who has done a fantastic job with his report . I think it gives a very honest appraisal of where we are as a party and how we need to change as a party to be more engaged with people out there in the country. The specific proposals I think are all sensible and will help involve more people in what the Labour Party does – from trade unions, but also from those who are not union members. Being from London, the proposal