Chipping Norton Labour Party

Summary of first part of discussion at November meeting: 

We began the branch meeting with a general discussion which touched on both party morale and the prospect of a general election campaign in Witney. Was it useful to attend Party conferences when a Labour government seemed to be paying even less attention to the membership?  Rob suggested that it could be a morale raiser to meet like-minded people and network with them: another view was that the real priority was to identify like-minded people locally. (This led to some discussion about reviving the practice of sending out birth card cards to teenagers about to come of voting age, also on how to make contact with the new migrant community, and the need to identify their voting entitlement/) 

There seemed little doubt that the party has lost that sense of enthusiasm which it had ten years ago with which people on the doorstep could be asked to identify. This was partly to due to the passage of time but also to the recent series of disasters. How would we, as a Labour campaign, be able to make a credible pitch on the doorstep when it came to an election with David Cameron as the high-profile opponent?  Some doubt was expressed as to whether the media really would focus on Witney when Cameron will be getting most publicity as he travels around the country, not here. But it was still important to find a Labour candidate who could make the most of the opportunity. Should we follow up the Tribune advertisement by a letter from our constituency officers inviting people to apply to “take on a Tory toff”?It was suggested that a Labour campaign in Witney could only credibly tackle Cameron if it did not feel obliged to defend every government policy. Indeed, it might be more attractive and newsworthy if a Labour candidate freely acknowledged, for example, his/her opposition to the Iraq war — and then attacked Cameron for Tory hypocrisy in first backing the war and then backing away from it. John Gitttings