Question: How seriously does the youth representative get taken on the NEC?

Jonny Reynolds: I've only had two meetings but so far I've found that, especially in relation to issues with a particular "youth" angle, that there's a real chance to have my say and that the NEC are more than happy to take my views on board.

Question: What points do you want to get across on behalf of young members of the Labour Party?

Jonny Reynolds: Politically I'm looking at things like differential workplace rights for young workers, access to higher education and an acknowledgment that there is a much greater interest these days in the politics of globalisation.

In terms of how the Labour Party operates I want to change how we engage with young people and the way in which we support young members. We're simply not doing enough, and although there is a lot of sympathy for this point of view, not enough people are prepared to do something about it.

Question: What exactly needs to be done?

Jonny Reynolds: Well at the minute our strategy for young members is that we expect them to come to us and when they do, if they want to have any specific youth events we expect them to organise and pay for them themselves. We have to invest the resources into youth recruitment and retention and at the very least employ a full-time youth officer. Our competitors are already doing it, Liberal Democrat Youth and Students for instance have a turnover of around £80,000. We have to realise that a well organised youth movement is not an optional extra, but essential to the future well-being of the party.

Question: Is the NEC an influential voice or can the leadership push whatever they want through it?

Jonny Reynolds: It doesn't try and dictate polices to the government as it did in the 1970s, but then again nor should it. To get on the NEC, whether as trade unionist, a constituency party representative or whatever, you have to have won considerable respect within the labour movement - you can't be a patsy, and the meetings reflect this.

Question: Turnout and participation in politics has been falling dramatically for a number of years. What strategies can be taken to reverse this? Is enough being done?

Jonny Reynolds: Declining participation is complex and interestingly has affected most Western democracies to a fairly uniform degree whatever their political culture and institutions. In simple terms I think the institutions which in the past have significantly shaped people's political socialisation, for example the workplace, the Church, trade unions etc, have fragmented and declined and nothing has taken their place.

It means political parties have a much greater job to do as not only do they have to do their job, which is to convince people to vote for them, but they also have to do the job of the state, which is to convince people it is their civic duty to participate in a democracy. Frankly, volunteer political parties simply do not have the resources to do both these things simultaneously without greater financial support from the state.

Question: Is that a call for state funding of political parties?

Jonny Reynolds: The state already supports financially many areas of politics - from MP's researchers and political assistants to council groups, to direct payments to councillors or the Official Opposition. I see no reason why the development work side of politics should not be funded by the state given how important it is to the health of our political system.

Question: Has the government treated young people well? Issues such as the minimum wage exemptions, tuition fees and a failure to engage with environmental and globalisation debates prompt the question of why young people should bother with mainstream politics?

Jonny Reynolds: Young people have not done as well out of the government as perhaps some other sections of society, which is perhaps a reflection of the fact that in relation to other age groups within society, pensioners for example, their political power is negligible. Of course this is a chicken and egg situation: the less young people vote, the less power they wield over the system.

Young people should still be bothered with mainstream politics however because it remains the only way you can effect real and meaningful change. Third World aid is a good example - for all the good work and fundraising done by people on this issue, from Oxfam to Comic Relief, the sums involved are negligible compared to the tripling of the international development budget under Labour.

Question: Are top-up fees going to alienate Labour even further from young people?

Jonny Reynolds: Perhaps - I accepted that tuition fees on middle class students were a price worth paying to provide the funding to increase working class participation in higher education, but top-up fees alter the debate significantly. The key will be the regulations on opening up access to the prestige universities in exchange for them being allowed to charge more - the figures for state school participation in Oxbridge for instance are a national scandal, and if the government's proposals can change this it will represent a significant advance on dismantling the old elitism.

It's also important to realise that when we talk about young people this isn't really any longer a generic term. What is in the interests of affluent middle class young people isn't always what is in the interests of marginalised young people currently disconnected from society.

Question: Why should a sixteen or seventeen year old be considered old enough to be married, pay tax and serve in the army, but not old enough to vote?

Jonny Reynolds: Absolutely, taxation without representation can never be justified.

Question: Is a reduction in the voting age realistically on the horizon?

Jonny Reynolds: It is, but my worry would be that it will used by politicians as a palliative for the problems the political system faces in relation to engaging with young people and prevent them to really facing up to the reality of the situation.

Question: What is the reality of the situation?

Jonny Reynolds: The reality is that a lot of young people are not apathetic about politics, but they are deeply cynical. A campaign to lower the voting age might provide a distraction or an excuse to politicians reluctant to admit that serious work on engaging young people needs to take place regardless of the voting age. Let's be honest - we could enfranchise 16 year olds, but how many do we really think would vote?

Question: Labour Party membership is also in crisis. Should this just be accepted as an inevitable cost of being in government or can this realistically be reversed?

Jonny Reynolds: It is inevitable to some extent as no government can govern just for its party members and some people will always grow disillusioned. However we must admit that the Party structure needs an overhaul and a culture change - people are always surprised to find out that things haven't changed since Keir Hardie was leader.

The things that affect membership levels aren't often what you'd expect either - membership rose during the Iraq war for instance.

Question: In what specific ways should the structure change?

The key word is accessibility. Single issue campaigns are so easy to get involved in and yield immediate results for your efforts. The Labour Party is difficult to get involved in and often people just don't see the connection between going to several meetings and achieving real change in their communities or in the country.

In terms of specifics I think we have to look flexibly at Party structure rather than prescribe a rigid and uniform structure across the whole country regardless of local circumstances or membership, and the officer roles must reflect what tasks we need to do - campaigning, recruitment, liaison with other local organisations etc. - rather than the 'one size fits all' way of doing things.

Question: How damaging has the triple whammy of Iraq, foundation hospitals and top-up fees been to the relationship between the party leadership and membership?

Jonny Reynolds: In particular the Iraq debate has been a bruising time for the party, but more between party members at a local level than between the leadership and the membership. The idea that the Party and the government are at loggerheads is an easy story but rarely reveals the true nature of the argument. Many people, for instance, see foundation hospitals as a welcome return to an earlier Labour tradition of local mutualism as opposed to the post 1945 belief in centralisation.

Question: There have been three Labour Party chairmen in less than a year. Is this post worthwhile and does it conflict with the position of chairperson of the NEC?

Jonny Reynolds: The post is essential and there is much [current chairman] Ian McCartney needs to do. Technically it is clearly distinct from the chairperson of the NEC, whose role it is to ensure the organisation and smooth running of the NEC and to occasionally be its representative, and the Party chairman whose remit is the link between the Party and government.

Question: What does Ian McCartney need to do?

Jonny Reynolds: A lot. But my top priorities would be to rekindle the 21st Century Party debate on our internal structure, to establish Young Labour as a properly funded and valued section of the Party, and to use the National Policy Forum as the means of linking the Party in government to the Party in the country. It can do this, but too many members of the NPF see it as an attractive junket rather than the hard work it is.

I think we also need to start the process of being more outward looking in our approach to local politics. I firmly believe there are many people who share Labour's values who are not members who would make great activists, councillors and MPs but we're not looking for them. The NEC has recently made some tough decisions to try and attempt to make elected Labour representative more representative of the people they serve (we recently made a commitment to having a 50/50 gender balance amongst our local councillors) because this is a change we must facilitate.

Question: Is the Labour Party conference now just a showpiece event as the Conservative conference always has been? Or does it still retain an influence on policy?

Jonny Reynolds: I think many people forget that conference still votes on our policy positions, but there are two important things to remember here. Firstly, just because the conferences of the past tended to show the Party "warts and all", they didn't necessarily have any influence on policy. Labour governments frequently ignored clear cut conference resolutions, perhaps most famously on [nuclear] unilateralism. Secondly, the whole role of the Party's policy making process is to ensure that Party members have a say in policy, but no-one seriously expects that the Party has a monopoly over all aspects of government policy. The important thing is maintaining a dialogue and allowing fresh ideas to come forward.

Question: Doesn't the example of Peter Hain's remarks on tax prove that New Labour does not value internal party debate?

Jonny Reynolds: No - the furore over Peter Hain's remarks show just how badly scarred the present generation of Labour politicians were by the 1992 general election.

Question: Is that right? Why shouldn't a party that boasts about the benefits of extra investment in public services be allowed to talk about how to fund them? If a Cabinet minister is not allowed to raise an issue, what does that say about how much ordinary party members' opinions are valued?

Jonny Reynolds: We won the last election by making the case for increased investment versus tax cuts, and personally I would actually agree with what Peter Hain almost said - that we should have a debate about it. However we have to face the fact that for a long time the public simply did not trust us on tax. We have worked hard to erase that unfair image and, let's be honest, this didn't help.

On your second point when a Cabinet minister speaks on something many people not unreasonably assume it might become government policy, and that's why it causes such a furore. A party member should not and would not have to be so cautious over what he or she said.

Question: Are you worried about the popularity of Charles Kennedy, whose positions on Iraq, higher education and Europe seem to chime more with young people than Tony Blair's?

Jonny Reynolds: Not significantly. To be frank, I think if the opinions of most young people changed on these issues then Charles Kennedy would change his position too. Being populist may have short term gains, but eventually people see opportunism for what it is.

Question: Do you at least take comfort from the Conservative Party's reliance on a membership whose average age has risen over 65?

Jonny Reynolds: Of course - but it's not to say the Labour Party couldn't got his way too. We currently put the least resources into youth recruitment of any major party, and obviously that's something I'm hoping to change. Interestingly in 1983 when we had just suffered, as the Tories have just done, our second successive defeat by a three figure majority the average age of our members was 48, with 22 per cent being under 35.

This age profile is significant for more than just the obvious reason. The relative youth, perhaps even idealism, of the Labour members in the 1980s was a catalyst for many of the rows between Bennites, Militant and the modernisers. While the success of the modernisers was never realistically in doubt the experience they gained in the 1980s in forming their own political identity was invaluable. It is no surprise that the veterans of those battles now pack the ranks of our MPs and advisors and is one reason why the government has been so successful. I see nothing similar happening in the Tory ranks yet, though that's not to say it never could.

Question: Given that polls show the public's trust in the prime minister falling, was Clare Short right to call for "an elegant succession" and who should succeed him?

Jonny Reynolds: No. Whatever people think of Tony Blair, he has shown he is a conviction politician who will act on what he believes to be right whether or not it happens to be popular at the time. I fully believe he will win a third term for the Labour government.