I wasn’t at the Progressive London conference, not least because I’ve barely been able to walk a hundred yards for more than a week. Sandra Griffiths was there and she offers this account of the day for which I am grateful. Last time we discussed the subject Sandra was in the Labour Party.

According to the website (www.progressivelondon.org.uk), ‘Progressive London is a unique coalition, launched by Ken Livingstone, and involving people and views from across the political, cultural, community, generational and artistic spectrum, to promote the kinds of progressive policies which have made London such a success and a place where people from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds can be themselves and come together around common goals.’

The conference, held at TUC Congress House on Saturday 30 January 2010, didn’t entirely prove that statement correct but it showed that there is a small but strong base that is willing to build a resistance to the politics of the right in general and, specifically, a Tory election victory in 2010.

The number of young people at the conference was impressive – perhaps 20% of the audience appeared to be under 30 and maybe half of those under 21. They were involved with the debates and contributed in the sessions I went to. There were 17 workshop-style sessions with a plenary session after lunch in Congress Hall and another wrapping up session at the end of the day. Reports have been posted about some of the sessions on the Progressive London website.

As a general overview before I talk about the sessions I went to, the conference was a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, a lot of the speeches were the same old story from the same old people. On the other hand, there was an engaged and enthusiastic audience who had committed to being there and clearly wanted to do something. This is surely something to build on…

Organisationally, the small number of sessions in the first morning slot resulted in each room being uncomfortably rammed. I attended the ‘Defending Front-line Services’ session with Labour Councillors Lutfur Rahman (Tower Hamlets) and Paul Dimoldenberg (Westminster), Linda Perks (unison), Mick Shaw (FBU) and Alasdair Smith (Anti-Academies alliance). This was a bit like déjà vu for me as it was the kind of session where all the speakers talk about the pressures in delivering public services with reducing budgets, outsourcing, rationalisation and casualisation of staff. At the end where there were opportunities to contribute, a number of people made comments about their workplace or their council etc. In fear of ending the session with no plan for moving forward, I asked the panel if they could advise how we could influence the Labour government since most of the problems we are currently experiencing collectively are a result of Labour government policies. The panel, perhaps unsurprisingly, ignored my question when responding to everyone. However, it was clear from the some contributions later in the day that others were also concerned about the same issue.

I attended the Capitalwoman session next. It was a rather fortunate mistake on my part. I had intended to go to the session on homes and planning but its placement on the next page of the agenda resulted in missing it completely. I often find feminist theory quite simplistic and/or offensive so I wouldn’t usually go to this kind of session but I was pleasantly surprised. The women on the panel represented a range of feminist opinion and were informed and inclusive and, in general, had important contributions to make. In particular, Anni Marjoram, the former women’s issues adviser to Ken Livingstone, spoke about the shocking 200% rise in domestic violence murders since Boris Johnson cut the women’s issues post and a number of the projects Ken had supported. Matty Mitford talked about a campaign she started called ‘Boris Keep Your Promise’, which highlighted Boris’s failure to fund Rape Crisis centres at the level he had promised he would in his election manifesto. The campaign has been successful in that the budgets have now been increased, although not to the level Boris promised before he was elected. In the session we also discussed ‘Reclaim the Night’ and other campaigns. The panellist encouraged the women present to become active in campaigns, whether it be writing to GLA reps asking them to ask questions at Mayor’s Question Time or attending one of the marches or protests.

Thankfully I managed to miss Harriet Harman’s part of the plenary in favour of having a real coffee outside the conference venue! The main session that continued was called ‘A progressive Agenda to Stop the Right in 2010’. Frances O’Grady (TUC Deputy General Secretary), Ken Livingston and Bonnie Greer all had interesting and insightful things to say about how terrible the Tories would be and tackling fascism and right-wing ideology. However, the young people didn’t seem too impressed when Ken suggested they should be at school longer and more often to be internationally competitive! But for me the standout speaker was Johann Hari (http://johannhari.com/). ( I may have to start reading the Indy!) He raised the usual criticisms of a potential Tory government (real school privatisation Swedish style) but also had something to say about the lack of ambition of the Labour Government. Specifically – why are Darling, Mandelson and Brown promising to cut public spending when the economies that are coming out of recession have been increasing public spending? He even suggested a ‘Green New Deal’ as an actual plan to increase public spending in a labour-intensive area, creating jobs and investing in green energy that is expected to be in huge demand in the next few years. Clever.

For the final session, I went to ‘Tackling Climate Change after Copenhagen’. This was so popular I didn’t get a seat. No wonder, because the cabinet minister himself, Ed Miliband was one of the panellists along with Darren Johnson, Joss Garman and Eugenie Harvey as well as a Lib Dem Councillor, Serge Lourie. The latter can only have been invited because he was an old buddy of Ken’s. Eugenie Harvey spoke about ‘we are what we do’ and the 10:10 campaign. Joss Garman had a serious and detailed critique of Copenhagen and the failure of international Governments to act on climate change. Darren Johnson spoke about the GLA projects dealing with climate change and how they have been threatened by the Mayor’s new focus. Ed Miliband spoke about the relative progress made at Copenhagen while acknowledging it did not go as far as we wanted. His view was that getting China, India and the US to agree on something was better than nothing and would provide a platform to build on. The audience were relatively respectful and we ran out of time for contributions.

The final session –‘The Way Forward’ was a bit disappointing. Both Jenny Jones Green Party) and Serge Lourie (again! Liberal Democrat) used their platforms for cheap jokes aimed at Labour. Jones said that the Labour Party didn’t understand Climate Change (possibly true) but then undermined her position by saying she didn’t understand class and didn’t feel she belonged to a class – thereby reminding me why I rejected Green politics in the late 80’s. Len
McCluskey of Unite gave a rousing speech calling for class war and calling us comrades. That went down well but I wonder what he is doing within the union movement to push those ideas forward? I enjoyed Mehdi Hasan’s (New Statesman) contribution which was both entertaining and political.

This conference was never going to be a clarion call to socialists – I was a bit surprised that I didn’t see anyone I knew from the active left. It does prove there is a small activist base that we can call on in London to oppose the Tories and the BNP and maybe that is something to build on.

· The UAF national conference is on 13 February 9.30 – 5 at TUC Congress House.