JEREMY CORBYN ON WHY GORDON SURVIVED - AND WHAT LABOUR MUST DO NOW

Last night's PLP was not the bloodbath the media were hoping for. Jeremy Corbyn explains why..........

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/features/brown_lives_to_fight_another_day

BACK ME OR SACK ME......

Predictably, Party Whips have told MPs that a vote against the 10p tax cut is a vote of no confidence in the Government. So I sadly must predict that the PLP will yet again don their turkey costumes and vote for Christmas . However, it will be interesting to see who does have the courage to rebel. I will be keeping a close eye particularly on Messrs Cruddas and Trickett. Let's see just how much they really care about Labour's core values.......no-one, and I mean no-one who claims to be left of centre can possibly support this disgraceful policy. Here in Calder Valley, a vote for the Government on this one will be the final nail in the coffin for our hopes of hanging on at the next election

TRICKETT'S TESTAMENT

Yorkshire MP Jon Trickett has a piece in today's Guardian criticising New Labour. Its content is nothing we haven't heard before many many times and I would agree with all of it. But I take issue with a piece of new political jargon presumably coined by Trickett's Compass colleagues rather than the man himself . He refers to the "modernising left" - which means what exactly? It sounds horrible and is an unnecessary semantic device which frankly sounds more like Neal Lawson media-speak rather than blunt and rather blustering Trickett. As does the piece.......
Why can't the word "left" be used in a posiitive fashion. Why the need to qualify and apologise ? The point is that all left-of-centre Labour MPs need to start working together - and stop kow-towing to the leadership - if Labour is to have a hope in hell of winning the next election. To state exactly that - and then attempt to distinguish yourself from colleagues not of the Compass left - is not a clever move.....I hate the terms "hard" and "soft" left, too. So let's just start talking "left"

CHANGE OF LINE ON AGENCY WORKERS?

Is there good news, finally, to report from Number 10. The Guardian seems to think so. Today's edition says that Gordon Brown's aides have opened talks with senior backbenchers on the issue of offering employee protection to 1 million agency and temporary workers.
Apparently, 15 senior MPs, including the PLP chair Tony Lloyd MP , have been in talks with Downing Street aides to discuss a compromise.
Last year of course the government blocked an EU directive on temporary and agency workers, partly by insisting that equal protection rights could not be considered until the workers had six months of continuous employment.It also killed off the Trade Union Freedom Bill. A shift in direction would be very welcome. Could it be perchance because , as one Labour MP told the Guardian, there was a threat of a huge rebellion by the PLP? I would like to think so.