Reform of the Labour Party needs to decide what its for and how best to achieve it – not tinker with existing structures which disenfranchises many.

The @lfctv team put me in touch with the guys who are responsible for running and developing the All Red membership scheme which I criticised in an earlier blog post.

I’m really pleased that they responded, and said it was ok to publish their response, because I recognise that the scheme is aimed at everyone and my views are only really representative of me. The scheme is more popular, and more valuable than I gave them credit for. There are also a number of exciting development under consideration.

If anyone can turn online audiences into members it ought to be The Guardian – if only because they’ve got so many of them. However, building a successful membership organisation depends on more than finding attractive services to sell to a large audience.

There would be limited appeal to a membership offer based around events. Membership of The Guardian could be based on a much broader, political appeal around identity. The most radical option would be for the newspaper to constitute its membership as an ownership Trust. However, this vision reveals a central tension at the heart of some social media strategies.

keep looking »