New Labour - New Member

Well, well, I can’t believe it: I’ve been and gone and done joined the Labour party. 

I’ve never been a member of any political organization in my life (unless you count at college where I did a million things I’ll never do again, and which I’ve now thankfully erased from my memory banks).  But now I’m an actual card-carrying member of the Labour party.  Not just voting for them, not just slagging them off, not just despairing of them; I will vote for them, but also slag them off and despair of them from within, a very pleasant if slightly unEnglish experience.

I joined Labour online, like most people nowadays.  Of course, the key aim of the website – you quickly get the impression – is to raise cash.  On the Homepage, there’s a sidebar which contains three ways to help the Labour Party: Volunteer; Join; DONATE (my capital letters).  This sidebar follows you around like the moon whichever part of the site you click onto.  Whether it’s Labour Party History, Winning for Women or even Tools for Your Website, there is that Sidebar again: Volunteer; Join; DONATE (as I say, my caps).  If you do decide to Join rather than DONATE, the pop-up box explaining the membership rates asks: Can you afford more (my itals)?

Moreover, the first item on the Homepage (under 'Labour Vision') is a new intiative, so to speak, called Project Game Plan: ‘We're asking supporters to give £5 month to support Project Game Plan, a new plan to build a new generation of well-trained, empowered members who can put Labour in government again.  Click here to donate.’ (Their bold underline.)  I’ve watched the vapid, contentless 43-second video which accompanies Project Game Plan: as you might have divined, raising money is its one and only raison d'etre.  They should just have called this aspect of their Vision 'Click Here To Donate'.

Labour’s website is also big, again as you might expect, on showing off its Twitter and Facebook credentials.  This includes one of those little mosaics of its Facebook friends, among whom I spotted someone called Vicky McBollock who (when I clicked on her) turns out to be a ‘fat slag who likes sittin on anyones face married or not’.  She likes ‘scrounging off the dole and getting my clothes from charity shop coz its cool! i also enjoy commiting benefit fraud!’  She herself has four Friends.

She’s fictional, actually a very good parody, I suspect.  I hope.

Anyway, the website worked for me, because I joined and soon I’m off to my first local Labour Party meeting.  I’ll probably get to meet a few Labour party members, maybe even some of the more senior local party leaders and there’s going to be a real-life local-council speaker.  I’ve never really mingled with political people before and I’m looking forward to it, somewhat (assuming I don’t run into Vicky McBollock).

And despite (because?) of all the above, I’m glad I’ve joined.  I’m genuinely intrigued to know what the local political process is like.  I have no illusions.  There will be no penetrating political discussion.  This will not be the start of my rise to eventual Prime-Ministership.  Everything about the Party will no doubt be anodyne, cack-handed and misguided.  But as someone who believes that progress in 2010 happens, at best, in increments, I am – despite (and as I say, because?) of all the above – optimistic.