LET'S HEAR IT FOR HARRY

The other night attended my local LGC meeting which was a pretty packed affair. Someone wagered this was the "Brown bounce." Hardly.

Today, I bow to the greater experience and wisdom of Harry Barnes, a former Labour MP whose blog is a fount of commonsense. Harry's from the centre-left tradition of democratic socialism and his analysis of Brown's first few days is chillingly bleak. But he's absolutely right.

We face a long hard haul and, if anyone out there thought Gordon was to the left of Blair, well it's been made horribly clear that he is not. Inviting Tories like Sir Digby Jones into the Cabinet, setting up a pro-capitalist Business Council, offering Paddy Ashdown a job as Minister.You really couldn't have made it up. As Harry says:" If Thatcher had gone as far as this we would all have screamed blue murder." The only answer I'm afraid is the serious slog of recruiting, attending meetings and getting into positions where we can start to stem the right-wing tide which effectively means we now have a National Government comprised of "all the talents" - as long as they are not on the centre-left.