Conference Agenda Oct 2021 PRINT - Flipbook - Page 24
Using our Expertise; Building our Credibility.
Maximising the benefit to the party from our
list of national speakers
Appointing our leading members to named positions is
a power that we have as a party that we can accord to
them, enhancing their platform and giving them a greater
opportunity of being heard in both formal and social media.
In return, we expect them to develop an expertise that they
will then share with the party as required.
The process for selecting our speakers, outlined below,
should include clear criteria with some objective measures
undertaken by elected party officers based on assessment
according to the criteria by party staff before political
judgements are taken by a small panel drawn from the
party leadership.
The role of a national speaker
There has never been clarity over what the role entails,
partly because it works on a few different levels. There has
also been concern amongst staff that, if people have the
title of national speaker, they may feel a right to claim the
time of national press office. We should establish a clear
contract that being a national speaker is an honour and
a way of conferring authority but is a commitment to the
party rather than the right to claim anything from the party.
The press office and External Communications Coordinator
then remain free to choose who is best placed to lead
or respond to media stories, as well as calling on the
expertise of national speakers to support the national
media effort. It will be clear that the leadership and our
parliamentarians will take preference to most media slots
with speakers offering expert advice and briefing, providing
back-up and focusing on specialist media. We hope that
we will be offered more media space and that speakers
will develop their role and step into these over time.
We don’t want to create a parallel policy process but it may
be the case that speakers develop media-focused policy
lines extrapolating from existing policy and in discussion
with the Policy Coordinator and, where necessary, through
GPRC’s rapid policy-making process.
How should we choose?
We choose our national speakers to benefit our party, and
five criteria are important here. These should form the
basis for the selection process. Applicants should be asked
to rank their three preferred positions.
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•
Strategic political importance – it makes sense
to give a higher profile to our target candidates
[Assessed by Chris Williams]
•
Media skill – some evidence of this can count in
the applicant’s favour although we should also
offer support and training to support inclusiveness
[Assessed by Gemma Walker]
•
Expertise – members who already have an
established reputation, knowledge-base or
grounded are obviously of key value in terms of
building credibility [Assessed by Russell Warfield]
•
Grounded personal experience [Assessed by
James Rush]
•
Inclusiveness – we need our spokespeople to
represent the society we seek to represent (in
terms of gender, class, ethnic or community
identity and sexual orientation) as well as achieving
regional representation [Assessed by Party’s
Equalities Officer]
Process for selection
The process deliberately includes some objective criteria,
assessed by staff, before political judgements are reached.
The final decisions will be made by a small group comprise
of the External Comms Coordinator (or stand in), GPRC
friend, Policy Coordinator, Campaigns coordinator, one of
the party leaders.
The formal selection process would begin with an email
appeal for applications via party mailing including link to
application form which asks candidates to include details
according to the four criteria listed above.
Which positions?
It has been the received wisdom so far that adopting a title
like ‘Shadow Cabinet’ would not be taken seriously when
we are still so far from government. In addition, we choose
these roles to reflect our political priorities rather than the
existing cabinet roles. But it makes sense for speakers
to have an idea about how these positions map onto the
existing Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet roles so that they can
follow their brief accordingly.
Labour have used the shadow cabinet the way I suggest
we do: finding a role for everybody who they want to
enhance and ensuring as much diversity as possible. The
table shows how Tory and Labour party assign some key
positions (both have many more than this, obviously), with
suggested GP roles added in the third column.