AND NOW THATCHER IS GORDON'S ROLE-MODEL

It just doesn't get any worse than this. The" grotesque spectacle " ( a favourite Neil Kinnock phrase) of a Labour Prime Minister praising Margaret Thatcher as a "conviction politician." Without irony, without qualification, quite wilfully. All in the interests, apparently, of wrongfooting the Tories.

Sometimes, in the political world, diplomacy and protocol demands being civil to one's enemies. I understand that. I even admit I met Thatcher myself at a literary dinner and had no option but to exchange pleasantries - though I wanted to run a mile.

But the way Brown is now behaving is simply beyond the pale.

Margaret Thatcher had convictions alright. I remember them well. I remember standing on the picket lines in 1984, and the generosity of mining families fighting with dignity and courage for their jobs, going to Greenham Common and protesting against cruise missilies and joining thousands of marchers in London on CND demonstrations. There was the People's March For Jobs, a couple of million on the dole, the deliberate destruction of mining and manufacturung industry in the interests of market forces. Trade union rights taken away.

And Brown now stands there at the podium and pontificates on Thatcher's qualities. How dare he! What exactly is he trying to achieve and why is no-one in Government stopping this relentless attack on the values we hold dear, the members of our Party and the struggles which at the time he wholeheartedly supported. To say I am disgusted is putting it mildly.

Gordon, why not go the whole bloody hog and cross the floor with your fellow neo-cons. Frankly, it would be a great relief to many of us. Because the way you are behaving at the moment, you are a disgrace to the labour movement.