The Party conference may be over, but whether you got there or not, there is still a chance to make an input into policy. There are four policy consultation papers inviting your comments with a deadline of this Friday. These are each likely to come to a future conference as a full policy paper. Given that it is pretty hard for ordinary members to change much if anything in a policy paper from the floor of conference, this may be your best chance to influence policy. The papers can be found here.

I could have tried to offer neutral summaries of each, but that would have been a bit boring. So to fire you up, whether in support or outrage, here is my very partial assessment of each.

21st Century Economy

There are some good ideas here but the paper is weak on the issue of trade and free markets, and the importance of attracting private sector investment to build a strong economy. With anti-trade sentiments higher than ever – with the government abandoning the single market – this is something we need to be firm and clear on.

Much is said about investing in the Green economy and this is a good idea, but this is a sectoral policy not an economic strategy – it is much too narrow to be an economic strategy.

The paper goes on to discuss alternatives to GDP growth as a measure of progress. Largely this is a straw man argument that has confused the Green Party for decades. GDP never was a measure of progress, and there is no overriding policy goal to maximise it. Instead we have, rightly, health care for retired people and restrictions on planning permission.

GDP is still important – it is linked to things like the tax base, and therefore the ability of governments to pay for public services and pay debts – and therefore an intention to grow GDP is vital to a country’s credit rating. If you really don’t want to grow GDP you will find you need to start with a massive austerity programme to balance the books.

Britain in the world

This is a better paper with good coverage of international relations, security, aid and so on. It could and should be stronger in defence of trade liberalisation, international institutions and a rules-based international order, given that today’s big question in foreign policy is how successful the Putins, Erdogans and Trumps of the world will be successful in unpicking and undermining all that, and what can be done to thwart them.

Education

The thrust of this paper is to weaken Ofsted and trust teachers to get on with it. This is unworthy rhetoric: challenge to improve is not an expression of distrust, in teaching any more than in any other walk of life.

This paper needs to be focussed on raising educational attainment across the board. That’s what parents rightly care about.

Rural communities

I find this one quite hard to summarise. It looks at a large number of policy issues from a rural perspective that may otherwise often go unheard. My unheard perspective would be that of the urban north, and many others also exist, not just geographically but around all sorts of minority communities too.

It may cause a muddle having papers based on both policy areas and perspectives, but a muddle would be better than leaving people unheard.

That link to the papers themselves again. Deadline Friday.

* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.