What a silly and petty response Tessa Jowell has given today to Conservative initiatives on cooperatives. She says that we don’t understand them and shouldn’t be involved in what she seems to think is an area exclusively owned by Labour. The Ya Boo sucks school of politics at its best.

Mutualism, Cooperatives, Shareholder involvement, staff/employee participation, jointly owned practices etc come in many different forms: There is of course absolutely no reason why Labour should have a monopoly of action and belief in this area.

Indeed cooperatives and mutualism precisely capture Conservative values and the vision we want to act on. Cooperative principles, developed in the 19th Century, have a big resonance to now. They are about voluntarism, personal responsibility, team work, shared ownership, the importance of education, entrepreneurship, concerns for the wider community: all central to Conservative thinking and the communities of the UK in the 21st Century.

Labour are running scared because they have no new ideas They just want to keep the status quo, with more bureaucracy, less real accountability, and are frightened of new, imaginative, creative ways of working: They are afraid of upsetting all their vested interests, especially in parts of the public sector.

We are interested in making a real and positive difference in the ways that we live. Exploring and developing new and radical ideas on how we can harness the potential of cooperatives are just one area that we are engaged in: And yes we welcome debate and dialogue from those who have views and experience in this area. But please not the fatuous point scoring approach of the likes of Tessa Jowell.

Colin Hann

Read Tessa Jowell article: http://www.labourlist.org/failure-conservative-co-operative-movement-tes...