The results of Labourhome.org's June 2008 survey of nearly 400 Labour activists and supporters has produced some rather interesting results. In addition to the monthly tracker questions on the performance of Cabinet ministers and the level of motivation to campaign for the Party, we asked what the Leader of the Party needed to do to ensure the best possible result for Labour at the next election, and we also asked how much time activists and supporters would be prepared to give Gordon Brown to begin reversing Labour's fortunes, before wanting him to step aside.

Here's a summary of the results (full results are further below):

Our activists and supporters are a lot more motivated to campaign for Labour, right now. Based on scales of 1 to 10, in May 2008 we were at 3.58, whilst this latest survey (June 2008) reveals an upwards shift of 2.28 points, at 5.86 points.

When asked, "After Crewe, what must the Leader of the Party do to ensure the best possible result for Labour at the next election?" - the majority responded with these three choices:

• Provide direction and leadership, delegating detail to ministers
• Bolster Labour's core vote
• Restore the Party's financial situation

When asked, "How much time would you be prepared to give Gordon Brown to begin reversing Labour's fortunes, before you would want him to step aside?"

• More than a third of respondents said Gordon Brown should lead Labour into the next general election

We introduced a survey last month that successfully captured the mood of Labour's grassroots. Senior Labour figures have mentioned to us that they found the results intriguing and useful - and so we've now launched another one for June.

Here's the link for this month's grassroots survey - please do pass the link on to all the Labour supporters you know! We'll close the survey on June 15th, and announce the results on the 16th.

Labour Grassroots Survey: June 2008

Greater Manchester Fabians, a group that we like and who tend to organise good events, have organised a session called Unlocking Democracy - How far too much power is locked up in the hands of far too few people and what we can do about it.

Its on Thursday 5th June 2008 in Manchester City Centre and more details are here.

It's just been reported that the Conservatives in Crewe & Nantwich sent data to several media outlets which contained private and confidential data on voters within the constituency. The voting intentions, MOSAIC (socio-economic profiles), names, addresses and telephone numbers of more than 8000 voters contained in three Excel spreadsheets was sent to Manx Radio.

This looks to be a major breach of data protection laws. The Tories have admitted to this, but many questions still remain unanswered. We still do not know which part of the constituency the data related to, nor do we know if it was intentionally released.

It is still unclear if David Cameron will be making an apology to the people of Crewe & Nantwich.

The The BBC learned that the files were e-mailed around lunchtime on Wednesday (today). The Information Commissioner has launched an investigation, saying that the mishandling of data by the Tories was an issue that raised "serious concern."

The Prime Minister has promised to listen more - take part in our survey and we'll make sure the party's leadership is presented with the results. Pass the link on to all Labour supporters you know!

Labour Grassroots Survey - May 2008

Here's the link to the results: http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/5/14/103031/794

We're proudly backing a campaign to get MPs to vote for an 80% cut in emissions. This is an online campaign being run to persuade the Government to set a binding target of an 80% cut in Britain's CO2 emissions by 2050, rather than the 60% that is currently contained in the Climate Change Bill.

David Cameron has just announced that he's withdrawing the Conservative Whip from Derek Conway, hours after enduring a massive onslaught of criticism from the general public and his own grassroots and only hours after his initial reaction on the matter included support for Derek Conway.

David Davis is said to have been furious after Cameron's U-turn. Could this have been the end of Dave, or would it have been dealt swiftly by Lord Ashcroft? Cameron's latest statement came just hours after we learned that Conway's eldest son was also possibly siphoning taxpayers funds to subsidise his higher education costs. The internal dynamics of team Cameron have also been fractured, as there had been talk of various grassroots organisations preparing to overtly lobby Cameron on the issue.

With the atmosphere in Westminster being highly-charged and tense as it is, I'd like to know what the grassroots think about having non-MPs serve in the cabinet. What do we think of a US-styled structure, where only those who have earned the President's trust and respect are allowed into the Cabinet, and elected representatives focus on representing their constituents to the best of their abilities? We already have respectable members of society elevated to the Lords (eg Lords West and Brown recently), but what about an entire cabinet comprised of non-politicians?

If you've ever wanted insight into how 'ze Americans' run ultra-popular (and -hyped) online campaigns, then look no further. Click the 'Full Story' link to read the whole article.

Whilst I wouldn't recommend the more nefarious tactics he utilises, a significant number of the more general concepts are still valuable and don't cross any lines.

Disclosure: I've met Dan a couple of times since 2003 - that's the extent of my relationship with him and his methodology.

Labourhome.org's poll taken on the first day and a half of the party conference has produced the following results:

62% of the grassroots said Gordon Brown should call an election immediately, and 38% said he shouldn't.

When asked when they expected Gordon Brown to call the election (two choices were given - "now" and "co-incide with the Mayoral election in 2008" - 34% of the grassroots expect the Prime Minister to call the election now, and 66% expect him to call it in 2008.

56% of the grassroots believe we are ready for an election, whilst 44% said we weren't.

66% of the grassroots said they felt more able to campaign for the party since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, and 34% said they weren't.

The poll had a sample size of 200 respondents and was conducted within a 16 hour timespan between Sunday and Monday. All respondents were Labour party supporters. Elected officials and people were for elected representatives were not included in the poll sampling.

Team Labourhome will be out in full force at this conference - if you see any of these slick lads stumbling around the BIC please do yell out and say "hi" - we'd love to hear your thoughts on the Labour blogosphere and online campaigning in general.

James Alexander has just been selected for the (to-be-created) York Outer seat.

Via YouTube, he was able to briefly share his thoughts and reflections. Congratulations, James!

In the right hand column you may have noticed a conference fringe events list scrolling past. If you click on any event that interests you, you can find out more information and receive a free SMS text reminder sent to your mobile phone on the day of the event. Quite handy if you have a busy conference week ahead and can't remember all the details. Besides, who really reads the party's heavy fringe/conference guide carefully anyway?

If you want to advertise (there's a small fee) your fringe event in the listings, contact MessageSpace or call them directly on 020 7107 2280.

Kate Allen, the UK Director of Amnesty International, was kind enough to sit down with Labourhome for a few minutes and offer some insight into how the Deputy Leadership hopefuls performed. She also offered her thoughts on the direction of foreign policy under a Gordon Brown administration, what the Labour party needs to work on, and how non-governmental organisations (like Amnesty) are also playing strategic roles as early-warning indicators in trying to highlight flare-ups around the world.
The event was hosted by Amnesty International UK, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and Save The Children. In the last 10 years the host organisations have pressed for a UK foreign policy based firmly on human rights, humanitarian law and social justice.

Arms Control	Iran	Palestine	Darfur
Iraq	Guantanamo Bay	Candidates Heroes	International Aid

Straw polls before and after the event asked attendees for their Deputy Leadership choice.

With the Prime Minister's departure timeline announcement due at noon today, where does the Labour Party see itself in 10 years? Where do we see Britain, in 10 years?

Welcome to the new and improved Labourhome. Labourhome will always be an open-access tool for Labour activists - in fact, the only grassroots-site that allows users to actively participate in directing and leading the flow of any conversation.

We'll also be introducing editorial guidelines shortly that we hope will enhance the user-experience, but we will welcome opinion and commentary from all the various Labour camps and groups, always.

The speech itself: Matt Wardman has the full audio version here, and Alex Hilton has the transcript here.

We've just received news that Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi leader, was executed about an hour ago. Do I sense an open thread coming into play? You guessed it!

Does this affect the direction that Iraq will head in over the course of the new year? (of course it does!)

Does Saddam's execution even matter at all? We have prevailing opinion that suggests that we're all about to witness a country torn apart at its roots by civil war - is this the precursor to such a  scenario?

It's official, at least from the North Korean standpoint. The DPRK has long claimed to have nuclear weapons, but had never before performed a known test to prove its arsenal - until just a few hours ago. The US has threatened an unspecified, but "severe," response, and though the KCNA claims that it was a successful test of the country's deterrent capabilities, it also carefully mentioned that this test brought it one step closer to its ultimate goal of establishing a Great Socialist Nation, or in other words, a Korean peninsula run by Kim Jong-il.

So where do we stand on this issue? Is doing nothing (as we have been for several years now) the best option? Is our government's nebulous stance the way forward? The DPRK's leitmotif that is Kim Jong-il has always been described as a "maniacal" and "crazy" leader, but with our armed forces facing both troop and equipment shortages, can we actually lend any credibility to our arguments against a regime that is on the brink of collapse on its own accord? Do we even need to, considering that the level of corruption within their secret police is bound to be a harbinger of bad things for the Kim regime?

Interesting reads for today. Consider this an open-thread - come on, you know you want to vent.

As we all wake up this morning, we'll be hearing about the foiled terrorist plot[s] targetting mid-flight airliners and their passengers. The UK's current threat level has been raised to [CRITICAL] .

It seems to indicate that although arrests have been made, there is a sufficient threat to increase the level at this time. Our intelligence agencies are doing their job, and we should provide them with all the necessary tools and support they need.

The G8 lacks the legitimacy required to tackle the problems of our time, and this problem is compounded with Russia being invited to join a grouping that is leagues ahead of the poorly scripted democracy we refer to as Russia.