Keep the focus on Forde!

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rebel notes

At a demonstration earlier this year, by chance, I bumped into a former Labour MP and veteran activist, unafraid to speak out about Palestine, whom I hadn’t seen for ages, and we had a lively chat. She told me about her neighbour’s deep frustration about the endless delays regarding the publication of the Forde Report. Her neighbour was Martin Forde.

Just a few weeks ago, I was reflecting that all those social media posts I had written since late 2020 that ended: “Forde Report now!” might as well have said “Waiting for Godot”. But this chat certainly lifted my low expectations about it, if it did eventually appear.

Whatever pointed criticisms Forde might draft, I still anticipated they would be watered down enough so that Starmer, and his closest New Labour advisers’, might have to acknowledge it.

Partly, that is what we got. Its pervasive framing is a party at…

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The spitefulness of Keir Starmer takes some believing

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TheCritique Archives

by Martin Odoni

Audrey White, a veteran Labour activist of many decades’ standing, made the news in the past, and has made news this week. When Keir Starmer, grand dictator of Die Arbeiterpartei, made a very half-hearted move to deliver a speech in Liverpool this week, he did so by trying not to let people outside the press know. The reason of course was that he knew that the locals would be out in force to give him the kind of welcome they once gave to Michael Heseltine. Starmer is not popular in the north-west, especially after the party HQ’s anti-democratic interference in Liverpool’s local affairs.

Audrey White found out where Starmer would be. As I say, she has a major history, including in the 1980s playing a critical role in changing the law of the land to ban sexual harassment in the workplace. So she was never…

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Forde Inquiry – prompt reply? Yes. Reply worth a damn? Not a chance

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TheCritique Archives

by Martin Odoni

I sent a disapproving response to some of the details in the Forde Report earlier. Well guess what? I have already had a reply. Well done, Fordies! Good work, really eager to engage the public and get to the nitty-gritty of your analysis…

Dear Mr Odoni

Many thanks for email and for taking the time to read the report in full.

We believe that the report is robust both in its use of evidence and conclusions.

Yours sincerely,

Forde Inquiry Secretariat

Ah. Well that really… completely ignored all the points I raised and questions I asked.

Now, five years ago, long-time readers may recall, I sent a complaint to BBC Question Time for the show’s blatant tendency to put Tory plants in its audiences. I am very much reminded of that experience because the reply I received was very, how can I put this?… very generic. In…

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At last, the Forde Report

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Labour Hub

The Inquiry into allegations of bullying, racism and sexism at the top of the Labour Party bureaucracy has finally delivered its Report to the Party’s National Executive Committee. Mike Phipps reports

The Forde Inquiry was established by Labour’s NEC in May 2020 to investigate the explosive contents of the 860-page Leaked Report into the functioning of the Legal and Governance Unit, originally proposed to be an annex to the Party’s submission to the EHRC, as well as its unsanctioned release to the media.

What was originally intended to take weeks has taken much longer. The Panel’s Call for Evidence received more than 1,100 submissions, running to many thousands of pages. Multiple threats of legal action against the Panel further hampered its work. Now more than two years later, Martin Forde QC has finally produced his 138-page Report. What does it say?

We were provided with a wealth of evidence of…

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