'Wasteful' Labour election attacked

LABOUR will ask for a bigger financial contribution from unions on Saturday, ahead of the party's electoral college meeting which was attacked yesterday as a waste of money.

Larry Whitty, Labour's general secretary, will tell senior union officials that he wants to increase their affiliation fees per member from pounds 1.60 to pounds 1.70p next year, and pounds 1.90p from January 1994. While it is hoped that the unions will accept the new rates, there are misgivings about the cost of the electoral college conference which will choose the new party leadership. Bill Jordan, president of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, yesterday denounced it as 'the most expensive ballot box in history'. Labour was in financial difficulty and 'the money could be better spent on strengthening the party at the grassroots where the next general election is going to be won'.

By Saturday all the unions, which command 40 per cent of the college, will have chosen their preferred candidates and many officials argue that the exercise could have been conducted adequately by post. Instead union delegations, together with MPs and constituency representatives, who share the rest of the vote equally, will be expected to attend the meeting at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London.

Many unions will send along a token representative; others a full delegation. The National Union of Mineworkers, has also denounced the conference and has decided to send one member of staff to cast the union's block vote. An NUM executive meeting declared that the party was treating unions with contempt by allowing no speeches and debate at the conference.

However, the Transport and General Workers' Union, the party's biggest affiliate, will send more than 80 members. The T&G's rules allow its delegates to choose which candidates to support, rather than follow the line previously laid down by the union. A vote by the delegation against the preferred Smith-Beckett ticket, however, would provoke a big political row and hasten the demise of the block vote system within the party.

While it is expected that unions will accede to the higher affiliation fees, the figures are much lower than originally intended by party officials. But the number of members affiliated to the party by unions may also be adjusted downwards to compensate for the extra amount demanded.