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UK party conferences
UK party conference season
Over the last 3 weeks Britain’s political parties have held their first party conferences since May’s general election.
For ONE these events provided a chance to meet party activists and the many newly elected politicians. Together with the Institute of Development Studies and the Foreign Policy Centre we took part in well-attended debates on aid, trade and the role that business can play in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. And it was encouraging to see that political support for the fight against extreme poverty remains high across the political spectrum, even in the current economic climate.
UK Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, visits the Mum’s Cafe with Nicola Blackwood, Vice Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
Supporting our “Baby Protest – No child born with HIV by 2015″ campaign we were part of the White Ribbon Alliance’s “Mum Cafe”, which showcased the progress that’s being made on maternal and child health, as well as what’s still needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The event proved very popular with activists and senior politicians, and not just because of the tea and biscuits.
The conferences, however, were understandably dominated by talk of the forthcoming spending cuts due to be announced on 20th October (and Ed Miliband’s election as the Labour Party’s new leader).
Now more than ever we need to make the case for why international development matters – to politicians but also to everyone who votes for them, people like us. Party conferences are one way to do this but the work continues in constituencies, capitals and across the country…
Looking back at the Conservative Party Conference
The ‘Africa Dream Team’ sticker album that was produced for the Conservative Party Conference
Well, now that we’re rested post party conference season, I thought it was about time we filled you in on last week’s Conservative Party Conference in Manchester and the successful reception we hosted there.
As with the reception we held at the Labour Party conference the week before, ONE’s Oliver Buston said a few words of welcome and showed a video message from Archbishop Desmond Tutu in which he praised the progress that has been achieved so far in Africa. We were then privileged to have two footballers at our event – South African footballer Quinton Fortune and World Cup winner Marcel Desailly. They spoke about the importance of education and the 1GOAL campaign, which aims to aims to ensure that the lasting legacy of next year’s football World Cup is that every child can be learning in school by 2015. The Shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell MP, also spoke outlining policies contained in the Conservative Green Paper (PDF). People seemed really interested in ONE and our issues and there was a positive atmosphere in the room.
As a way of linking our reception events with the World Cup, we proposed a ‘2010 Africa Dream Team’ of MPs. So, for the party conferences, we created a set of 10 football stickers to collect and the opportunity to ‘join the team’ as the 11th player. Everyone was given a blank sticker album and, just like being back in the school playground, a flurry of swapsies was necessary to harvest the complete 10. The stickers even featured in The Sun, the Telegraph and the Guardian newspapers here.
At the receptions, people could join in and become the goalkeeper of the Africa Dream Team by having their face photographed, speedily photoshopped onto a football player’s body, and then printed out onto their very own sticker. It was hard work but worth it as people seemed to really get a kick out of them!
All in all the receptions were great successes. But in the coming weeks and months we will want to hear much more detail about what all the parties are committing to in their manifestos. Stay tuned…
The sticker album produced for the Labour Party Conference
Party conference season continues
Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaks at the ONE event.
Last week ONE was at the Labour Party conference, where we held an event to launch our ONE Vote campaign as well as celebrating 1Goal and the fact that the football World Cup will be held in Africa for the first time ever next year.
We were lucky to be joined by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who spoke about the issues. Two footballers also spoke, South African captain Aaron Mokoena and John Utaka, who plays for Nigeria and Portsmouth. They were followed by Glenys Kinnock, Minister for Europe, and Douglas Alexander, the Minister for International Development.
The ONE team is now in Manchester for the Conservative Party Conference, which started earlier this week, and we’re getting ready to host a reception this evening. We’ll be blogging more about the event soon so please stay tuned.
A significant step
Yesterday was a pretty incredible day. And no it wasn’t because the sun was actually shining in the UK (although that it pretty incredible). The Labour Party Conference is happening in Brighton this week and yesterday the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his big 59 minute speech to Labour supporters and the UK population more generally.
During his speech, Gordon Brown announced that the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on development assistance will become law under forthcoming legislation.
As the Prime Minister stated, “And let me say what was once an aspiration – 0.7% of national income spent on international development aid, has become with Labour a promise, and will in future become a law. We will pass legislation that the British government is obliged to raise spending on aid to the poorest countries to 0.7% of our national income. Others may break their promises to the poorest, with Labour Britain never will.”
This is a significant step and it will contribute hugely towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. We welcome this great news here at ONE but we will of course be working to ensure that money to help Africa adapt to climate change will be above and beyond the 0.7 per cent and not included within it, as well as making sure that the aid is spent effectively.
To read his full speech, click here
- Jessica Gomez-Duran
Development in a downturn
Last week, after a fringe event on democracy in fragile states, I rushed to the conference centre to catch the second half of a party policy motion being debated on development.
After being debated with various people called to speak, the MP John Barrett made the closing remarks. He said that it was this very type of issue that made him proud to be a Liberal Democrat and that development will be at the heart of their campaigns in the future.
As Nick Clegg wrote in the foreword of ‘Development in a downturn; Dealing with the Global Emergency’, “The Liberal Democrats have always been at the forefront of the debate on international development, but at this time of economic uncertainty it is more important than ever to argue the case for meeting our obligations to those so much less fortunate than us.”
This was something that my colleague Alexander raised in his earlier blog post and it was a recurring theme throughout the events I attended at the Lib Dem party conference actually.
The motion (and all its amendments, including one on microfinancing) was passed with pretty much full support from all the voting members. It was reassuring to hear so many MPs, and Lib Dems more generally, talking so encouragingly about the importance of development.
-Oliver Buston
Discussing democracy and conflict
Today was the last day of the Lib Dem party conference which officially finished with the leader’s speech this afternoon. I thought it was about time I fill you in on some of the really interesting fringe events I’ve attended over the last couple of days.
So, yesterday lunchtime I trekked up the hill to a fringe event entitled ‘Democracy in danger? The future of conflict-affected states’, organised by the Foreign Policy Centre, BBC World Service Trust and International Alert. It was chaired by Baroness Northover who began by introducing the panel of speakers – Edward Davey MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent; James Deane, BBC World Service Trust; and Dan Smith, International Alert.
Yasmin spoke quite bluntly but did say that despite all the problems and issues she mentioned, she does feel optimistic (which was encouraging to hear!). It was interesting to then learn a bit more about the BBC World Service Trust which is actually the BBC’s international development charity. I found a leaflet for them on my chair which states that the charity ‘uses creative media to reduce poverty and promote human rights, enabling people to build better lives for themselves’. In his talk James Deane paraphrased Larry Diamond who coined the expression that we have entered a “democratic recession”. In Deane’s view, the international community has invested too much in elections as a way to obtain democracy and we need to look at the cultural aspects of democracy such as fundamental freedom of speech and accountability. As President Obama said when he was in Ghana during his Africa trip, ‘we need strong institutions, not strong men’.
Following the brief words by each of the speakers, there were many eager hands that shot up; it was clear that this was a subject people were passionate about. Yet before we knew it, just as the discussion was really warming up, it was time for the session to end. And so it was time for the lady who’d been busy knitting whilst she was listening to the speakers to pack up her wool and for us all to head to the next event.
Hello, is it me you’re looking for?
The Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) have gathered in sunny, sedate Bournemouth for their party conference – showing the world they are serious. Since the recent expenses scandal here in the UK more MPs are staying in cheap Bed and Breakfasts than swanky hotels. According to one activist there are more suits than ever before, especially black ones. I thought as a ONE worker the Jeremy Clasrkson, jeans’n’jacket combo would strike the right sartorial chord. I was wrong: suits all the way, ties for the politicians, open neck shirts for those, like me, eager to rebel.
It’s a difficult balance: the Lib Dems want to be recognised as progressive, authoritative and ahead of the curve politically – their Treasury Spokesperson and Deputy Leader Vince Cable has led the charge, throughout the economic crisis he has bestrode the sofas of political chat shows like a 21st century, economic Colossus. At the same time the Lib Dems also want to be “different” – unlike Labour and the Conservatives who they say don’t care about “normal people”.
Who are these “normal people”? What do they care about? Does caring about them mean getting them interested in issues which don’t obviously affect their everyday lives?
The truth is out there but political parties don’t know what it is. They have polling yet still disagree about what it means.
That’s why ONE is launching ONE Vote 2010 campaign. 2010 will be the biggest year for British politics since 1997 when Labour came to power. The economic climate means every single pound of Government money will be scrutinised as never before. ONE Vote 2010 will start a conversation about why we must both keep our promises to the world’s poorest people and get better at helping them.
Some will question whether we can afford to increase our help to Africa when Britain faces so many problems: is this a priority? Do people care? I think so, and we’re going to find out.
Few thought Africa and development would be a big issue in the last US Presidential campaign. But ONE ran an unprecedented, non-partisan, hugely successful ONE Vote 08 campaign which won the support of all the major candidates and a major award from the Center for Global Development. Since coming into office President Obama has pledged to double aid to Africa despite the US’s financial problems.
We live in an interconnected world and 2010 will be a huge year for Africa: the first football World Cup to be hosted in Africa, 25 years after Live Aid, 5 years after Live 8 and Make Poverty History and 5 years before the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals.
2010 will be a moment to celebrate the achievements of recent years and accelerate progress in the years to come. The UK is seen as a global leader on international development. As the Lib Dems and other parties think about how to make the public like them, everyone reading this needs to let their local candidates know that being serious about eradicating extreme poverty matters more than whether they’re wearing sharp suits or staying in a B&B.
Party (conference) time!
It’s that time of year again – party conference season in the UK. A bit like political conventions in the US, the autumn party conferences are a pretty big deal over here. This year they are particularly significant as they will be the last ones before the general election to be held in the first half of next year. So a small team from the London office will be going to the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), Labour and Conservative party conferences. The first one is the Lib Dem conference which started on Saturday in Bournemouth, on the south coast, and we’ve headed down there today! There are literally hundreds of different events happening at these conferences which cover a whole spectrum of policy issues, ranging from agriculture to young people. I’m planning to attend some interesting fringe events around the subject of international development.
Make sure you check back regularly for our updates, from the ground, throughout the three party conferences (especially as we’ve got some excited things planned!)
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: ONE, UK, UK party conferences