COMRADES LIKE THESE ARE NEVER FORGOTTEN

I've had a really sad week. I was brought up in an Irish superstition household where one death means there will always be three. And. having heard in the past week of two deaths, tonight I learned that one of the Labour Party's most stalwart campaigners and someone who was a real comrade and friend has also died.

Joan Abrams made you proud to still be in the Labour Party. She was a Labour campaigner for decades, at last year's Convention Of The Left., at last year's LRC Conference. And no doubt she would have made it down to London ( as she did in 2008) on November 14 for the next of our AGMs. She was a socialist through and through. But Joan is no longer with us.

Coincidentally, I'm going to Joan's CLP in Hazel Grove next week where I was asked a bit ago to be a speaker. The only thing I can do in her memory is stand up for the values she believed in. Values she was expounding only a few weeks ago when she gave a lead-off to the COL about the Co-op Party.

Today, by chance, I happened upon a book about Bob Cryer, former MP in the Keighley constituency where I tried to stand earlier this year as PPC. Reading the testimonies from people like Tony Benn , Alan Simpson and Alice Mahon made me even more determined to stand up for the values which Bob, a founder member of the Campaign Group, believed in all his life.

I quote from a tribute paid by Alan Rye, a former secretary of the Keighley CLP.Written 15 years ago, his words still mean so much to all of us in the labour movement.Because in an age where so many Mps have let us down , they are particularly pertinent.

"Bob anticipated many issues which Parliament, Press and public woke up to only later. Two examples are MPs' business interests, and the need for public control and ownership of water. As for MPs who hold directorships, continue running private businesses or work "on the side" as journalists or lawyers, he never had any time for them, and some sadly, were Labour members. Bob declared from the time he entered Parliament that he would devote himself to the job full-time.

He went further, calling for a register of MPs' business interests, long before the House of Commons itself voted to do just that. And he long ago warned of the dangers of corruption and the deceit of Parliament and the public by unscrupulous MPs and Ministers who saw that large profits could be made through their association with the area's industry.

Bob told the House that if there were a register of MP's interests he would be delighted to declare his - five £10 shares in the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Company."

WHY I'M LOYAL TO THE LABOUR PARTY........

It is a long haul back on the last train back from Manchester ( which is why I won't be doing it at Conference) but a very interesting evening tonight in which, for once, I was on the "right" at a political meeting.
In September, socialists will be gathering in my home city for a "Convention Of The Left." Not the Labour Left, or the ultra-left, but the "left." And hopefully that will mean we can all debate and discuss - and disagree - without resorting to sulks or spats or physical violence.
I hate to break this news to comrades who think I am the Anti-christ. It's always nice to have a scapegoat. But actually, I am a Labour Party loyalist.
I spent a good hour this evening defending the Party warts and all against a comrade who believes that revolution is the only answer to the horrors of capitalism.
I rather suspect that, in the abstract she is possibly right. But in the real world, I have always concurred, Parliamentary socialism, aka reformism, is the only possible answer .
This , in the old days, placed me firmly in the mainstream of the Labour Party. The Campaign Group was never exactly Baade-Meinhof......
It is a mark of how ridiculously this Government has veered to the right that one can be regarded as a pariah for espousing views like anti-privatisation, anti-war, pro trade union. Not to mention civil liberties, fair taxation, and bridging the gap between rich and poor.
The good news was that I enjoyed a stimulating and interesting debate and met people I had not seen for many years. The bad news was that quite a few of them used to be in the Labour Party and I wish they still were......however it looks like September in Manchester is going to be rather more interesting than we thought......