Labour’s manifesto: who’s writing it and what happens next

There is concern within the party at the failure to agree a date for the crucial Clause V meeting.

(Photo By A Labour Party worker canvasses for votes in Battersea on January 31, 2015. Photograph: Getty Images. )

In advance of the start of the short campaign on 30 March, all parties are working on completing their election manifestos. The Conservatives’, overseen by Jo Johnson MP (Boris’s younger brother), is said to be nearly finished, while David Laws is refining the Lib Dems’. Ukip, meanwhile, recently replaced its manifesto chief Tim Aker with Suzanne Evans after he failed to meet an agreed deadline.

What of Labour? Unlike in 2010, when its manifesto was written by Ed Miliband, the party has not publicly announced an official author. But I can reveal the key figures involved in the document. The text is being written by academic Jonathan Rutherford, an adviser to Jon Cruddas, and Marc Stears, Miliband’s chief speechwriter and a friend from his Oxford days. The three politicians at the heart of the process are Jon Cruddas, the head of the party’s policy review, Angela Eagle, who is leading internal consultation, and Jon Trickett, who is leading external consultation. Torsten Bell, Labour’s director of policy and rebuttal, is handling the technical policy detail.

As well as the usual debate over which policies make the cut, one issue that remains to be resolved is when the party will hold its Clause V meeting: the event at which the NEC, the shadow cabinet and other stakeholders agree the contents of the manifesto (one source described it to me as “a parliament of Labour”). The meeting is usually held within 72 hours of a general election being called, but the innovation of a fixed-term parliament means the election date (7 May) has long been known.

Despite this, a date has yet to be agreed for the party to meet. There is fear among some that this reflects a desire for the centre to maintain maximum control over the process, making it easier to exclude radical proposals. Were a date to be agreed now, the trade unions and others would, in the words of one source, know the point at which to “pile in”. There is concern that measures such as worker representation on remuneration committees have yet to be confirmed as final policy. How this argument is resolved could yet determine whether Labour’s manifesto is as “radical” as billed.