MAKE DO AND MEND......

This post was written three hours ago - interrupted by a power cut. Nice to know that rising utility company prices are paying dividends for the consumer......... still, amid the serious pain of rising food and fuel prices, we now know what to do . The advice to hard-up householders from our Great Leader is to re-discover the thrifty ways of our forbears and , hey, maybe the average household could save £8 a week.
Actually, I'm something of an expert in cheese-paring. Last week I bought a chicken ( free-range, reduced) for £2.50 and managed to make an excellent coq au vin for two AND roast the other half which meant there were two more meals for me - and the cat had the dodgy bits. Then I boiled up the carcass and made soup. My fridge is a beacon of non-waste. But, frankly, it is not enough to keep the wolf from the door. In fact the wolf is pretty much sitting down at my dinner table with his teeth bared and ready to tuck in.
In years to come, I will no doubt look back at this fallow period employment-wise and laugh about it. The reality at present is not so funny for me- nor millions of others facing penury.
And sitting round in the dark for several hours while electricity suppliers get their act together is even less amusing........
It is a gross miscalculation on the part of Number 10 to issue wartime-like pronouncements on belt-tightening when our oppos on the well-off side of the fence are richer than they have ever been. I always thought it was the job of a Labour Government to look after the less well-off and aim to make things more equitable. But no, it's all our fault for being wasteful.
Meanwhile, the vultures are gathering around Gordon Brown and the line seems to be if Glasgow East goes down the tubes then that, basically, is it.
Someone has suggested I will take great delight in the loss of this hitherto safe constituency. That is, to be blunt, bollocks. I think it will be an absolute disaster - and terrible news for EVERY Labour MP in the UK. So what to do? Can we really go on with a Leader who clearly won't take the steps necessary to turn Labour's fortunes round ie change of POLICY. In a word, no. And it is arguable it would be better to pull the plug now than carry on with a Leader who is, I'm sad to say, an electoral liability.

LET'S END THIS STERILE DEBATE - AND GET OUT IN THE CONSTITUENCIES

There is nothing more guaranteed to see the Left throwing rocks at each other than the endless debate about whether socialists should stay in the Labour Party - or leave. So let's talk about the real world. Where at the next election ALL Labour MPs face a struggle to stay in Westminster .

Such is the nature of the Labour meltdown that it's not just New Labour MPs who are in danger. My constituency Calder Valley has a wafer-thin majority( 1300) but as we're in the thick of the process of selecting a PPC I'll leave comment on that for later.

Next door is Halifax, where we have an LRC supporter Linda Riordan (pictured) and in the next valley Batley and Spen, constituency of Mike Wood. You won't see Mike on national platforms or on Newsnight. But he is a rock-solid, down-to-earth socialist whose voting record is impeccable on everything from 42 days to the Trade Union Freedom Bill. His majority is only a couple of thousand. Across the Pennine border in Pendle is Gordon Prentice. Gordon, unlike Mike and Linda, is not a member of the Campaign Group nor as far as I know officially signed up to the LRC. But he votes "left" far more often than some members of the Campaign Group and , unlike some of them also, nominated John McDonnell as Leader.

Talking to comrades from elsewhere in the country, we are pretty fortunate in this part of the country in having such traditional Labour representatives at Westminster. But we could well lose them. Pretty soon.

If Labour loses Glasgow East then Gordon Brown will be in an impossible position. Under pressure , he may stand down. In which case I don't think the public would countenance another unelected Prime Minister. There could well be a snap General Election in which case none of us will have the luxury of theoretical angst about the "reclaimability" of the Labour Party. Constituency by constituency, we'll be fighting to stop a landslide Tory victory.

Now I can understand there will be many with New Labour MPs who won't feel particularly inclined to bust a gut to return MPs who voted for war, privatisation , 42 days, and all the other policies which have brought us to the edge of the abyss. So my message is very simple. Put your energies into places where hard-working socialists are at risk of losing their seats. Here in West Yorkshire, we will welcome any help we can get. Because, like everywhere else, we are suffering from the loss of activists fed-up with this Government's endless triangulation to the right. BUt now we have a serious job to do......to try and ensure that Left MPs do not go down with the rest of the sinking ship that is New labour

HAZEL DRAGS US FURTHER INTO THE MIRE.......

Actually, I was just about to go to bed after a moderate kind of Monday night when up pops Hazel Blears on Newsnight and manages to seriously piss me off. Message from the horribly smug HB to all of you out there on the minimum wage. It's a "decent level of pay." Really ? Well, I would like to see Hazel Blears manage on £200.00 a week. The rather nice turquoise suit she was wearing for the TV cameras probably cost that - and more. Hazel's little number tonight will probably have cost Labour a few more seats and done nothing to improve our prospects whatsoever. What I find absolutely astonishing about these Ministers is their utter detachment from reality, mind-boggling arrogance and dogged determination to hack off core supporters and lead us with them over the precipice into a Tory Government. And the horrible prospect of Boris Johnson as Mayor.

WHY THE 10P TAX RATE IS A BIG ISSUE

This might astonish Gordon Brown but there are many reasons why the 10pence tax rate cut is causing such a furore. One is that, in the real world, not everyone lives in a "hard-working family" to use the horrid New Labour speak. Some of us, Gordon, work very hard indeed but we are single-income taxpayers already struggling on low incomes and frankly clobbering us and taking our money away - while failing to tax the rich at the appropriate level - just isn't a popular move.

Were I in a double-income situation, even so I would have to claim tax credits to make up the shortfall . Not good enough. Accoreding to the Institure of Fiscal Studies, three million of the five million families losing out because of this shameful measure will NOT qualify for these.

In any event, this means-tested system is no substitute for a fair, progressive , socialist taxation system which would end the obscenity of billions of pounds being lost every year via tax avoidance.

But perhaps the biggest reason of all why this policy is outraging so many people is that it epitomises the utter betrayal of traditional Labour Party values of social justice and fairness.

The fact Gordon Brown could not see that says it all about how far he has travelled from the days when James Maxton was his hero. Frankly, he is living on another planet from the rest of us.