Annual Report 2016

It seems too early to reflect on the political events of 2016. The world, and the UK, and the Labour Party, all seem to have got more volatile and unpredictable.  Anyone who thinks they understand what is going on probably hasn’t been paying attention.

Domestically we were again involved in the Labour Party leadership contest, and got a lot of not very welcome publicity when our internal leadership poll was hacked. We never imagined that anyone would be sufficiently interested in our affairs as to want to hijack it. When we reran the poll securely of 642 members entitled to vote,  412 voted – 64% of those eligible.  The results was Owen Smith: 209, Jeremy Corbyn: 174, neither: 29.

Our online presence has increased, especially on Twitter.  Our website is now attracting significant advertising, and we need to balance the need to generate income with the need to stimulate discussion.  Sadly, as always, much of the advertising content is, at best, uninteresting to our audience.  We don’t carry advertising for anything we consider actually harmful, but carrying adverts does not imply that we approve of what is being advertised.

Hon Secretary’s report