ENDORSING THE LEFT CONVENTION

As I ponder whether can afford Visitor's Pass to Labour Conference, more political issues are likely to be discussed outside the ring of steel and expensive hotel bars.
Yards away, at the Friends Meeting House, there will be the Convention Of The Left, two days of debate and discussion and though plans are at the early stages the LRC is likely to be involved in debates on everything from climate change to globalisation and trade union rights. There are boundaries which Labour Party members cannot cross.
We do not support candidates standing in opposition to Labour and Left Labour still believes ( however impossible it seems at present) that our values can be fought for from within the Party ,
But that does not mean that we cannot find areas of common ground with those for whom joining Labour is not currently an option or, indeed, let's be honest, anathema.
The left is weak, we need to build it and we cannot afford to be sectarian. You can read my supporting statement here As stated, it is purely in a personal capacity and does not represent the views of any individual or organisation.
http://conventionoftheleft.org.uk/

CLOONEY OR BROWN?

Brown doing the Blair celebrity thing doesn't work.......frankly thought George Clooney was more to the left. On this occasion, seems to be on the right......... but oddly enough think would still win vote on the day. Answers why on a postcard......

SOMEONE SAVED MY LIFE TONIGHT........

A problematic evening.Lift home cancelled then managed to get the wrong bus in Halifax. Paid £10.00 to get taxi back from Ripponden and almost ended up in car crash (literally) to find we have second inquorate Branch meeting in a row. You could say it's a microcosm of the state of the Labour Party.You could say it's all seriously depressing.Given the pronouncements on 10p tax etc, anyone surprised? Hey, Gordon, this is how it is at the grassroots.But at least am alive........

OPINION POLL DRUBBING.....

Too busy teaching today to blog but my thoughts could probably be apprehended by regular readers . My sympathies to all the candidates who are fighting hard to retain ground at this seriously awful period for the Labour Party. No sympathy at all to MPs who sold people the illusion that Brown would be better......or chose to believe it themselves

GENERAL SECRETARY RESIGNATION RUMOURS......

Labour Home is running an extraordinary tale that the new General Secretary - the filthy rich David Pitt Watson - may not after all be taking up his post. So well done all those NEC New Labour apparatchiks who lobbied for a City businessman over a trade unionist. You really couldn't ( apologies for sounding like Richard Littlejohn) make it up.....

GIVE IT A REST, JACKIE

Talk about Groundhog Day. Wouldn't it be great to be Jackie Ashley and Polly Toynbee - getting paid for writing the same column every week. Today, Jackie A calls for Gordon to "return to Labour values." Oh, just give it a rest. What planet are these people on......
This is the man who has just given the 10p tax rate the chop, who loves hanging out with the money men in swanky hotels, an apologist for globalisation.
When, just when, are you going to get it? Gordon does not WANT to return to Labour values. No amount of cajolery, persuasion, whatever , is going to put the Old into Gordon Brown's Labour Party. Hell's teeth. he's even brought back the "New Labour " brand.......so please. If you're going to get paid a large amount of money by the Guardian find another topic to write about. Like how about it's time we had a new Leader and a Labour Government worth the name. Not this bunch of self-serving careerists.

REBELS WITH A CAUSE.......

Gordon, according to the Sunday Mirror, is set to clamp down on rebels. I have sensed and will not be remotely surprised if the leadership resorts once more to witch-hunting and kicking people out of the Party. Such stories make me deeply pissed off, angry and determined not to leave But last night, I spent some time trying to persuade a young woman who two years ago was seriously enthused about the chance for change in Labour ie a leadership CONTEST with a socialist candidate NOT to leave. Frankly , who can blame her. It just gets worse and worse.....

THAT SINKING SUNDAY FEELING........

Just back from Belfast after long tedious journey - flight was at 3.30pm but it's a long bus ride to airport , two trains back here. Despite the second lot of antibiotics, my horrendous chest infection is still alive and kicking and I'm going to have to return to GP ASAP. Industrial quantities of Guinness and Jameson's till ridiculous hours in the morning was possibly not the best way of dealing with it and have only self to blame for that.
We had a good turn-out for our LRC fringe meeting - overcoming unexpected time constraints to have a lively discussion. An equally lively one later on with an anarco-syndicalist NUJ member championing someone called Rudolf Rocker. I hadn't heard of him either.........Now home have to sort out what on earth am going to do for clases tomorrow. When what I really need is a day off sick....... ( casual workers of course do not get paid if they don;t turn in) Oh, well.......

WE WILL NOT WALK AWAY.........

Am currently in Belfast for the NUJ Annual Delegate Meeting. Last year I was in Birmingham where we passed motions in support of Alan Johnston. Today, we were privileged to hear him speak about his ordeal and how the solidarity and support of the trade union movement - and the NUJ - had kept him going in his darkest days.

It's truly humbling when you hear someone like Alan speak with such courage and conviction. Makes one feel very small indeed.........He said that the thoughts of fellow hostage Brian Keenan, heard randomly on a radio broadcast, had particularly inspired him. The words? "We will not walk away." The positive energy of the collective human spirit can still do remarkable things..........

THE TOWN THAT I LOVED SO WELL.........

The Irish are a sentimental race and I must confess that mawkishness is deeply etched in my DNA. Some years ago, I was reduced to a gibbering wreck watching the SDLP's John Hume and a school choir launch the Manchester Irish Festival with a wonderful rendition of The Town I Loved So Well - a haunting little number about Derry which is now part of most folk singers' standard repertoire. Tomorrow I am heading off to Belfast for NUJ annual delegate meeting and it is a place full of family connections. My grandfather worked at Harland and Woolf (on the Titanic!) and his home village of Portaferry, on the Aards peninsula about 15 miles away, is where my dad was brought up after being sent there in the 1920s as a small Manchester boy in a family where five kids were too many to feed. It's a beautiful little spot ( apart from the graves with my name on them!) which I first visited 8 years ago when my dad was 80 and made his first visit back for 70 years. In 2006, I returned with him and blubbed for Ireland after too many Jamesons in one of the local bars .
However, I have never had the chance to walk round Belfast and get a feel for the place . I hope to find time inbetween ADM sessions to do that ( probably won't) . I also hope the lurgy which I have had for the past two weeks ( and which is now threatening to remove my voice) dies down a bit. Paracetamols get top priority in rucksack

WHERE'S THE MORAL COMPASS?

As time goes by, it becomes increasingly clear that the COMPASS "left" is a chimera. I keep seeing articles by Trickett and Cruddas ( usually with policies first espoused by the LRC) calling for a change of direction but when it comes to actually standing up and being counted what do they do ? Very little.
At one time, such was Jon Cruddas's alleged championing of council housing that he was touted as a possible Minister - so where exactly was he when last night's rebellion over extra funds for social housing took place. Answer - nowhere to be seen.
Maybe he had a very good reason for not being there but I'm not impressed with the bridge-building which COMPASS is allegedly doing ( apart from with the Real Left)
Basically if you look at the list below, it is a mish-mash of long-standing Campaign Group MPs and mavericks like Kate Hoey and Frank Field. Where ( apart from Jon Trickett) is the so-called "soft left" I also note Ian Davidson MP, who signed a COMPASS Scotland statement calling for a return to "left" policies is absent from the list.
If we cannot defend more council housing then we're letting down those who need us most and we don't deserve their support. Sadly, it seems most Labour MPs , even those who like to talk left talk, prefer to hide their heads in the sand and carry on sleepingwalking, like lemmings, to electoral disaster. Cruddas said the other day there was "acres of territory" between him and the Campaign Group. Or, rather, clear red water.

For what it's worth, here is the list of rebels:
Colin Burgon (Elmet), Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Martin Caton (Gower), Michael Clapham (Barnsley West & Penistone), Katy Clark (Ayrshire North & Arran), Frank Cook (Stockton North), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne Central), Ann Cryer (Keighley), Frank Dobson (Holborn & St Pancras), David Drew (Stroud), Frank Field (Birkenhead), Dr Ian Gibson (Norwich North), John Grogan (Selby), David Hamilton (Midlothian), Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney), Kate Hoey (Vauxhall).Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak), Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool Walton), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington), Bob Marshall-Andrews (Medway), Michael Meacher (Oldham West & Royton), Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby), Linda Riordan (Halifax), Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), Jon Trickett (Hemsworth), Paul Truswell (Pudsey), Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North)The two tellers for the ayes were Labour MPs: Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North), David Taylor (Leicestershire North West).

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......

NATIONALISATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION......

The above used to be the rallying cry of the Left. Read this below from The Times and you may see why............Mr Applegarth's pension BTW is worth an alleged £2million.......

Northern Rock is giving disgraced former chief executive Adam Applegarth a £760,000 pay-off, a £346,000 pension top-up and continuing to honour his cut-price staff mortgage.
The pay-off is much larger than the sum foreshadowed in December, when sources close to the bank insisted Mr Applegarth would get less than six months' pay.
Rock revealed today that it had plunged to a £167.6 million loss last year, compared with a profit of £627 million in 2006, because of the exceptional costs of the strategic review and write-offs on mortgages and unsecured loans.
New chairman Ron Sandler also warned that he expected the bank to continue to make losses for the next three years before breaking even in 2011.

SEPTEMBER'S SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

Tonight I'm heading off to Manchester for a meeting to discuss plans and practicalities for a Convention Of The Left which is being held to coincide with Labour Party Conference. That particular jamboree, as we know, will be an anodyne affair with lots of back-slapping and corporate junkets. There will be very little chance to actually debate policy and of course thanks to the stitch-up agreed last year by Gordon Brown and trade union leaders no contemporary motions to actually VOTE on. It's still worth hanging around I hope for the fringe events and the chance to debate a constitutional change resolution on the leadership threshold which has been tabled by Calder Valley CLP. No doubt we will have to fight the Conference Arrangements Committee to keep it on the agenda but rest assured there will be no back-tracking from our delegate.

By way of contrast, the Convention will include socialists and trade unionists both in and outside the Labour Party and I hope there will be an honest and constructive discussion on the way forward.

Every day, thanks to New Labour policies the Labour Party's standing is going down the plughole. It's time to get out there, stop pussyfooting around and win back our Party from the careerists and self-aggrandisers who have been in charge for far too long. I have been feeling rather quiescent and low in spirits of late. Time to fight back.....

BRINGING YOUNG PEOPLE BACK TO LABOUR....

Reports of the Socialist Youth Network conference on Saturday can be found on Union Futures and John McDonnell's blog

BREATHTAKING HYPOCRISY......

You may recall that last week's vote on Post Office closures was opposed by only about 20 or so backbench Labour MPs. Strangely, Ministers had a rather different take on the situation in their own constituencies. Jack Straw (pictured) , Tessa Jowell, and Geoff Hoon are among a coterie of Government members who joined picket lines and protests, received petitions and then voted AGAINST the interests of their constituents. This is mindboggling hypocrisy. No wonder Labour is trailing in the opinion polls. It is, to put it mildly, a disgrace. And the electorate won't forget it.

CUTTING ONE'S CLOTH....

How touched I am that the Queen has apparently cancelled a champagne banquet which was to have marked her Diamond Wedding. As recession looms for the rest of us commoners, she felt it would not be "appropriate." for us to see the aristocracy enjoying themselves.

No such qualms, of course, over the ridiculously opulent banquet whch greeted Nicholas Sarkozy on his state visit to Britain.

Back in the real world, it's been a tough week financially and like everyone else I am battening down the hatches for a rough time ahead.Food prices are going through the roof, utilities bills a nightmare.And just to make matters worse my teaching work is about to come to an end for the summer.

On the advice of a finance "expert" I recently switched some savings which were losing money hand over fist to a "low risk" ISA. Which in just threee months has cost me another £300 in lost cash and a complaint is in the pipeline. The money is now in a bog-standard deposit account where at least it will not be prey to the worst horrors of the stock market. I have no pension as I am self-employed and the likelihood is that I will have to carry on working in 15 years time when I am 65. Still, at least I only have to fend for myself and only have a few years to go on the mortgage. One of the lucky ones.....

Today, Ivan Lewis MP, not normally one to rock the boat, claims Gordon Brown has lost touch with the realities of life for most ordinary working class people. He's absolutely right. White tie and tails at Windsor Castle does not exactly endear him to the electorate.

FOR YOUTH AND SOCIALISM!

Today, the Socialist Youth Network is holding its annual conference in London which I hope is a suxxess. But the harsh fact is we have a mountain to climb re- building enthusiasm amongst young people for Labour.

Back in the Dark Ages, when I was a teenager, I was a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists. To put it in perspective, Manchester alone had around a dozen active branches with probably an active membership of about 20 in each . The LPYS conference was big enough to be held in places like the Blackpool Winter Gardens and there were ( it's a long time ago so forgive the lack of exact figures) about 500 delegates. We even has our own newspaper - LEFT - paid for by the Labour Party.

The LPYS was of course closed down by Neil Kinnock on the basis it had been taken over by Militant. What a great way of winning the argument, eh. Now we have Young Labour - an anodyne apolitical organisation . SYN is a counter to that. But the basic problem is that we have so few young members. In my CLP, there is currently ONE active member under 30. I suspect that's not an isolated case. So I hope that in the coming year he will be able to recruit more like-minded youngsters . Without them, the Labour Party will die.

CALL IN RENTOKIL!

I was just about to blog about it being another crap week for socialists ( a line which is frankly beginning to bore me rigid) when I picked up the following e=mail from a Labour Party comrade with impeccable sources. So instead of banging on about the usual suspects here is a tale which might make you smile........

At a meeting in London on 13th March a couple of hecklers were attacking John McDonnell for being a member of the Labour Party. Veteran trade unionist Harry Whittaker answered them in his typically forthrightScottish manner. He said: “What would a working man do if he had spent years building himself a house only to find it had become infested byrats? Would he give up his home and move elsewhere, leaving the housecompletely in the control of the rats? Of course not! He would never givein to the rats; he would fight them and he would not rest until he had ridhis house of the last vestige of this verminous infestation. And this is exactly the same course of action which the true socialist must take with the House of Labour." The full text is on the Socialist Appeal website.......

http://www.socialist.net/how-to-deal-with-hecklers.htm

NO SANCTUARY IN BRITAIN

Late blogging today for utterly trivial reasons but just want to place on record I was appalled, but not surprised, this morning to hear on the Today programme that Britain's asylum system is "marred by inhumanity" and "not yet fit for purpose".
Last week, I read about the woman from Ghana who was suffering from cancer yet still deported - she died shortly afterwards.Small wonder that the Independent Asylum Commission says that the treatment of asylum seekers "falls seriously below the standards to be expected of a humane and civilised society".
In its interim report, the commission warns:"
"The system still denies sanctuary to some who genuinely need it and ought to be entitled to it; is not firm enough in returning those whose claims are refused; and is marred by inhumanity in its treatment of the vulnerable."
It also criticises the policy of "using destitution as a lever to encourage voluntary return", adding: "The conduct of some enforced returns is tainted with inhumanity and causes unnecessary distress to the individuals and communities concerned."
Border and Immigration Agency chief executive Lin Homer says. "I totally refute any suggestion that we treat asylum applicants without care and compassion,"
I'm afraid that, having heard many Labour backbenchers speaj out on this issue, I don't believe a word of it.
Today's allegations are particularly shameful as they come on the day that 24 hours after quaffing chamnpagne with the Queen the deeply distasteful Brown/Sarkozy "brotherhood" will reveal an even tighter clampdown on immigration. Moral compass? Enough to make one despair

LYIN' EYES......

One can understand ( if not condone) the reasons why then President Bill Clinton was economical with the truth re his "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky. Not so Hillary Clinton. Why on earth did she paint her trip to Bosnia as a scenario from Apocalypse Now when it was nothing of the sort? Anyone who saw her on Channel 4 News last night waxing wide-eyed and hysterical about the " danger"she was in - then seeing the actual film footage of said trip - can only shake their heads in bemusemenet at the antics of some politicians.

Bill Clinton's lie was borne out of desperate expediency. Hers was, well, totally unnecessary. It may well cost her the Presidency......

PR OPPORTUNITIES.....

My union, the NUJ, quite possibly has more lefties per capita than most. So wby don't groups who need publicity ( but have no money) get in touch? Just been catching up on publicity for Sunday's 50th anniversary march for Aldermaston and frankly there was bugger all.

OK, the media is agianst us but with a decent turn-out and good speakers the photo opps are still there. I also live in a town which per capita probably has more CND supporters than rest of Britain - was there any publicity for the weekend event? In a word, no. The reason I did not head down south was not inertia but simply because I had no idea the march was happening.........in the age of e-mail and the internet, no excuse for any of us not knowing what's going on. Including me. So next time let's get our act together........

HAVING IT BOTH WAYS......

So Gordon Brown has backed down and MPs with "issues" about the Human Embryology Bill will now be able to vote with their consciences - except that they won't. Yes, they will be able to vote against the bits they don't like. But then they will have to vote for the substantiove motion. What this means of course is that they will be able to say they voted "against" knowing full well the Bill would get through anyway. My view on the issue? I think it's a difficult one. Yes, I can see the obvious benefits of stem cell research and if mixing human DNA with animal cells helps fight terrible diseases like Parkinson's then it's an extremely positive option. However , maybe it's my residual Catholicism but I still find the notion of hybrid embryos being used in this way pretty disquieting.
What I do know is that if I had the unequivocal convictions allegedly possessed by allegedly committed Catholics like Ruth Kelly and Des Browne then I would not be happy with the fudge which Brown has proposed. I would want an entirely free vote . And, frankly, I don't see how they can square their beliefs with voting in favour........

TONY BENN'S DEBUT ALBUM

I have just been chatting to a chap who helped set up the National Girobank.Its great champion in the 1970's was of course the then Minister Tony Benn and it was a brilliant idea. A bank owned by the people.......Like many other things, the Girobank was sold off by the Tories ( to Alliance and Leicester) before Labour started getting in on the privatisation act.
Still, at least I was cheered to read in the Indy just now that Tony Benn as ever remains unbowed and a debut poem will feature on a new album by one Colin McIntyre, who he recently escorted round the House of Commons. You can read it here ......
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/house-music-tony-benns-debut-solo-album-800170.html

PART OF THE UNIONS

Hat tip to Tom Miller for this "splendid" piece of news. The World is truly Being Turned Upside Down and Cameron, seriously. has Labour on the run. Read it and weep.......the Tories must be crying with laughter as Labout sleepwalks to the right and to electoral disaster.....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-sets-out-to-woo-the-unions-away-from-labour-799633.html

LIVINGSTONE'S LABOURS IN TROUBLE

It's really not looking good for Ken Livingstone. No point in saying otherwise. But to those of us hundreds of miles away from London it still seems unthinkable that a bumbling right-wing toff like Boris Johnson should now seemingly have a commanding lead in the polls. The last time I blogged re this I failed to understand how the voting sustem works ( being a Northerner unfamiliar with anything but FPTP) but hopefully those voting first preference for the Greens/RESPECT etc and Lib Dems will all switch to Ken and he will still pull it off. Let's hope so because for the Left it will be an utter disaster if he loses. If we lose London, winning the next General Election will be even more of an uphill struggle than it's going to be.

EASTER MONDAY IS EAST.....

Have spent most of Easter Monday writing about curry for overdue article about Rusholme, aka Manchester's "Curry Mile." Postponement was not down to usual laziness and procrastination but illness which has more than a little blighted this weekend. Did have plans to go for moorland walk today but just not up to it. The keema curry I cooked on Saturday was, however, highly praised by all . The past few days have also seen vast chili consumption in bid to ward off bronchial bugs. To some extent, succeeded. The Crunchie bar I had a few hours ago was also highly therapeutic but now it's back to the cabbage soup as I get back on straight and narrow .
PS: The best restaurant on Manchester's Curry Mile is the Punjab, which does fab
Southern Indian vegetarian food along with the usual bog-standard kormas and karahis. I particularly recommend the tandoori mateer paneer and masala dosais ( potato pancake with coriander chutney) . which are difficult to find outside London.But THE best curry place in Manchester is currently Akhbars in Castlefield

ALDERMASTON 50 YEARS ON.....

This blog is now a year old and one of my first posts concerned the anti-Trident vote last March- in which over 100 MPs rebelled. It was a false dawn in many ways politically as the sheer weight of numbers gave us reason to hope that a post-Blair Government ,oght have a different attitude to nuclear disarmamaen and leave options open for the future. It also suggested 100 MPs woukld not give Brown carte blanche to be Leader without some kind of debate on policy.
Since then, the Government has announced support for the US "star wars" mossile system, the use of Menwith Hill to facilitate that, and a new generation of nuclear bombs is being built.
Which is why protestors were today at Aldermaston to mark the 50th anniversary of a march to the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) there.
The first march was held at Easter in 1958, shortly after the formation of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). I was not even one year old.
But throughot those 50 years nuclear weapons have cast a shadow over our lives.
I hope today's protest went well. Kate Hudson, chair of CND, has a piece in today's CiF and those on the march allegedly included fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and CND's 84-year-old vice president and Labour NEC member Walter Wolfgang.
In 1958, he was one of some 10,000 people who marched from London to Aldermaston in protest at Britain's first hydrogen bomb tests 50 years ago. AWE now provides the warheads for Trident - the submarine-launched missile system that constitutes the UK's nuclear deterrent. Activists from as far as Aberdeen and Penzance were planning to surround the base, which produces the warheads for the Trident nuclear weapons system.
The demonstration comes in the wake of recently-imposed Ministry of Defence by-laws restricting the right to protest on land surrounding Aldermaston. But police agreed to lift the bylaw for the event. A delegation of survivors from the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were also marching to Aldermaston from the former US Cruise Missile base at Greenham Common, 10 miles away.
Update: Apologies to Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Jon Cruddas who were alll also at Aldermaston which of course got bog all mainstream media coverage. People have been saying why only so few but to be honest I knew little about the event..... ( might have gone otherwise) .the crowds should have been bigger and the left needs to start getting its act together.Big-style.....

A WHITE EASTER.......

The view from my first-floor window is blue skies - and snow. But a welcome change from the dreary rain and wind which - coupled with debilitating bugs - has made the last few days pretty miserable. Not much solace, though, in the Sunday papers. Also just been listening to Alan Johnson defending the indefensible decision not to allow MPs a free vote on the Embryology Bill. Then the usual sycophants like Andrew Rawnsley applauding Brown's continuing lurch to the right. With more rubbish about flag-flying and National Days.......
The way things are, the only hope is to get involved in things at local level in the trade union and labour movement. Next week I'm off to Belfast for NUJ annual conference and before that I am also going to attend a meeting in Manchester of people on the left who are staging an "alternative" conferencec in September. In several weeks' time, well the beginning of May, I am also due to be elected Mayor of Hebden Royd. Which should make it a very interesting year ahead.......

THE SPICE OF LIFE.....

To say I feel rough would be an understatement. However I will keep taking the amoxycillin and venture out despite the cold weather tonight as the Trades Club is staging a tribute evening for a friend who sadly died last year . Dave Perkins was a good Labour Party member and curry aficionado - so tonight I'm going to make his favourite dish, keema peas, for general consumption. The last time we went out in Bradford was to K2, a tiny place near a pub called The Beehive. And he gave me a right telling-off for asking for a knife and fork. Solids were not high on Dave's list of priorities. But I will give the curry my best shot.......the evening is also featuring a bluegrass disco!

BROWN'S NEW "DEAL"

I am still getting over a particularly virulent bug - so my low spirits have not been exactly cheered by the news that Gordon Brown has struck a deal woth Sarkozy on nuclear power and immigration controls. The latter will be tightened up and the former will be championed by our Government. Every day, this apology for a Labour Government comes up with some new draconian right-wing policy. It's so depressing I can't be bothered to comment any further.

FACEBOOK FATIGUE

I'm on the point of quitting Facebook. I used to think it was a bit of fun but frankly when you're 50 years old and feeling really poorly ( the law of Sod ordains I have a bad chest infection over Easter) the last thing you want is to be notified ( as I just have been) you are 75th or whatever on the list of "friends" who compare you to others on lines of personal attributes. Let's just say I can live without it. Does the ego no good at all......
Of my 183 "friends" I probably know about 40 . I don't want to do stupid quizzes, have my personal details and political allegiances visible to total strangers, indeed have tried deleting them without success and am beginning to think the whole thing is vaguely sinister. Maybe illness is making me paranoid .But forthwith I do not wish to be "compared " to anyone and have deleted the option. And now I'm going to go and have a lie-down and hopefully feel better soon.......

COMPASS STILL IN LA-LA LAND

The Guardian reports today that "Labour party figures who backed Gordon Brown's rise to the leadership last year expressed deep disillusionment yesterday at his "disastrous" return to Blairite policies." They mean of course, COMPASS.
Hello...... when did Brown EVER in recent history promise anything else other than the New Labour status quo. Jon Trickett ( who backed Brown for leader like 300-plus MPs) now warns sagely, "We are in a very dangerous position where our core vote does not feel represented, and those people that moved across from Thatcher to Blair are now saying, for the first time, they can see themselves voting for Cameron. We are in a pincer trap."
Look, Mr Trickett. You were warned of this a year ago. What did you do? Completely ignored the warnings emanating from the left and supported a frankly New Labour agenda. Stop re-inventing history.
Likewise Neal Lawson, who told a joint Progress/Compass meeting that when Brown took over last summer, "we saw a new leadership style, with new ideas. Somehow over the autumn that got completely lost. The party has become demoralised as a consequence. The polls are showing this reversion to the old New Labour politics of Blairism is not where the country wants to be."
There is no "reversion ." Brown has been consistent throughout. One wishes the same could be said of COMPASS, which having fallen prey to self-delusion, now seeks to blame the Prime Minister for doing exactly what he said he would do .

NO MERCY FROM THIS GOVERNMENT...

Just read on the BBC website that a woman forcibly removed from this country has died
Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan stepped in to try and stop the deportation of Ama Sumani (pictured) who had been undergoing dialysis and was receiving other drugs at the University Hospital of Wales after being diagnosed with malignant myeloma.
She came to the UK five years ago to become a student but began working in contravention of her visa regulations.
The decision to remove Ms Sumani, who has two children, was described as "atrocious barbarism" by leading medical journal The Lancet.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams also criticised the way cases like hers were handled. What was the response of her local MP Alun Michael?
He said at the time: :"Isn't the debate really about the quality of treatment and medical services available in her own country?
"The question anybody has to ask themselves is whether it's right for somebody who has no right to be in this country to be given medical treatment which would not be available to them had they not become an illegal resident."
I am afraid that, in the face of such basic inhumanity, I am lost for words.One can only hope the law of karma returns to haunt Mr Michael. And the rest of his colleagues who impose such draconian rules with not an ounce of compassion.

STOP FEEDING THE FAT CATS.....

I got my winter gas bill today. Biggest ever. £227.00. Which cancels out a significant part of my earnings this month. Plus the double whammy of a letter from the taxman demanding almost £1000 "on account" for next tax year - despite the fact that I stumped up in January, last year earned very little and will probably be due a rebate. However if I don't pay up immediately, I will be charged seven per cent interest. A no-win situation.

So when people like John Hutton start waxing lyrical about "huge salaries" they need reminding that most of their core voters are people like me struggling to pay bills, being overtaxed proportionate to their income, and utterly fed-up with the fat cats in the utility compoanies making vast profits at their expense. Not to mention the super-rich in the City exploiting tax loopholes. They ignore us at their peril......

DALAI LAMA'S WORDS OF WISDOM

I'm glad that Gordon Brown is going to meet the Dalai Lama. It just so happens that I have a calendar on my desk which offers words of wisdom from the great man for each day of the year. So I hope Gordon takes note of today's thought when he meets him.

"In reality I believe that economic advancement and respect for individual rights are closely linked. Society cannot fully maximise its economic advantage without granting its people civil and political rights."

TRULY MADLY DEEPLY... SAD

The political connection here is pretty tenuous. Let's just say that the late Anthony Minghella's 2005 party political broadcast for Labour was not his finest moment. He won the Oscars for The English Patient. But I prefer the 1990 film Truly, Madly, Deeply, a real snapshot of the post-Thatcher times . It stars, of course, the deeply charismatic Alan Rickman as a ghost who still attends Labour Party meetings... and Juliet Stevenson as his griefstricken partner who doesn't. The rather wimpy Michael Maloney whisks her away in the end but, speaking personally, I would have stayed with the ghost...

The film touched on what happens to loved ones when someone dies an untimely and unexpected death . At 54, Minghella should have had had many years ahead of him. As I have the film on video and have been feeling under the weather today, I may well watch it for the umpteenth time instead of going to the pub.

JOB LOSSES AT NORTHERN ROCK

It seems extraordinary that the Government has already allowed Northern Rock to become another "lame duck"nationalisation. The loss of 2,000 jobs is justified by management on the grounds it will enable NR to pay back loans from the Government and then return to - the provate sector. Maybe I'm being naive but surely it would make more sense to try and make it a going concern and empower - not sack - those who work for it. It would also have helped if most of the assets hadn't been siphoned off of course.....

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"

MONEY CAN'T BUY YOU LOVE......

Financial independence is one of the greatest assets a woman can have. For the last 30 years I have been fortunate enough to have worked solidly , now own my own home ( well , have five years left of mortgage to run) and pride myself on never ever having demanded a BEAN from any man I've been involved with. When children are involved, such a scenario is, obviously impossible. And many women do not have such choices. So I don't mean to be unsisterly. But frankly the sight of Heather Mills whingeing and moaning outside the courtroom that she had "only " trousered £25million of Paul McCartney's fortune is an unedifying one.

It does us no favours. Men were not put on this planet to be our meal tickets and bail us out . The point of feminism was to put us on a level playing field - not rip off sexual partners . Women like Ms Mills are , to say the least, unhelpful to the cause. The words "greedy" and "grasping" spring to mind. I think most of us would find £25million more than sufficient to bring up a child......

THE BODYSNATCHERS .....

Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn are the Burke and Hare of New Labour .Their mission in life sems to be to "bodysnatch" Gordon Brown with the aim of deterring him from doing anything remotely "off-message" or un-arch-Blairite. Milburn is giving it large about how Labour could lose the next election and that Brown's policies might be one of the reasons why. In the last two weeks, Clarke has also kept up a barrage of criticisms and warnings - presumably to scare him into putting into place the last nails in the coffin of the labour movement. Both are still gutted they could not stop Brown becoming Leader but both are wasting their time in trying to cling on to the script of 1997. That's the very reason why Labour is trailing so far behind the Tories.

The hollow husk which is New Labour 's politburo has little to be picked at. It is devoid of any substance which appeals to anyone beyond a dwindling band of Progress supporters. In two winnable constituencies, Nottingham Soluth and Streatham, expectations that Blairites would win the day have been confounded.

Instead two Compass supporters have been selected ( much to the chagrin of right-wingers like Luke Akehurst ) Now Compass doesn't exactly have me whooping with delight but soft left candidates we share some policy positions on are, obviously, far preferable to uber-Blairites of the Burke and Hare tendency. Hard left ones ( much as I hate that terminology) would of course be even better,

THE IDES OF MARCH....

Just back from Cambridge where the March weather was as bleak as I remember it - still my welcome was extremely warm and thanks to Nick and Lauren for a great weekend.
I wondered whether people I had not seen for 28 years would have bought into the consumer culture and changed ethical and political direction. But I was glad to note ( as I expected ) that was not the case. The people there were variously involved in everything from housing co-operatives, to promoting Fair Trade, working with the Woodcraft Folk, writing plays and anti-war campaigning. Yesterday's party also included a trapeze artist who taught circus skills.It was, you might say, very much like Hebden Bridge.

LET'S HAVE AN INQUIRY, GORDON

It seems as though my misgivings about Saturday's STWC march may have been justified. According to my friend Miles the numbers were down and the whole thing had an "end of season" feel to it. Shame but I'm not surprised. However, no-one can detract from the fantastic effort which the anti-war movement has put in over the last five years. So let's not forget that.
The problem is we STILL have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and every day people are dying . So over time - and it's FIVE YEARS now - the motivation for going to such events decerases - even among the most fervent of campaigners.
Today, the papers suggest Gordon Brown is now minded to have an inquiry into the Iraq War. Which is good. The bad news is that his attitude as to when seems to be akin to that of the young St Augustine at the prospect of celibacy ie " not yet."I won der quite how low the opinion polls will have to go before Brown realises he's got to change direction and start distancing himself from Blair - not making a virtue out of Blairism.

TIME FOR TROOPS TO COME HOME

I can't make tomorrow's Stop The War march in London as I have been invited to the 50th birthday party of an old friend in Cambridge and will be meeting people I have not seen for nearly 30 years. Which is a pretty scary thought.... Attempts to turn back time and lose copious amounts of weight in the two weeks since I was invited ( well, the stone or so I've put on since 1980) have proved predictably fruitless but I daresay none of us will look the same as we did all those years ago.

It may be a place of undoubted privilege but in those days of universal grants student life was pretty radical stuff. I was a member of COLS - Cambridge Organisation of Labour Students - which had a fair smattering of Marxists, Militants and Fabians . In short, a broad church.

Even in those days, the Labour Party was not fashionable. But campaigns like Rock Against Racism and the Anti Nazi League certainly were and I was at the famous 1978 event in Victoria Park featuring Tom Robinson, The Jam et al. It's frightening to think how long ago it all was. We were also opposed to nuclear power at Windscale ( now Sellafiedl) and campaigned on issues like gay rights and women's right to walk the streets at night without sexual harassment. Long ago. Some - but not many - of those battles have been won.

I hope tomorrow's march goes well and would normally be there but I can't help thinking that with each march the numbers diminish and the publicity gets less. This week's announcement that the MoD is spending MORE despite the troop reductions only serves to emphasise the fact that it really is time to get the troops home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. With each day that passes, the terrible kiling goes on. We must continue to put pressure on the Government. Just not sure marches are the way to do that anymore.....but best of luck to all involved.

BAD NEWS IN NOTTINGHAM SOUTH

Commiserations to Christine Shawcroft, who came second to Lilian Greenwood in Nottingham South. A disappointing result of which the only thing which can be said is that at least the arch -Blairite Katrina Bull was defeated. We're in the process of selecting a candidate for Calder Valley......and it won't start till May. All hands to the pump to select a socialist.........UPDATE: The winner, apparently, is said tio be a COMPASS supporter and defeated New labour's favoured candidate. So it could have been much worse....

BACK TO BLACK.....

Tried changing the template and just didn't like it. So, in the words of Amy Winehouse, it's back to black.......I have spent the last 24 hours bashing out articles like a demon so am in no fit state to comment on anything. Aim to return restored and refreshed tomorrow.

I JEST NOT......

Humankind, as T S Eliot said, cannot bear very much reality. And sometimes you need something to bring a smile to your face. Which certainly happened this lunchtime as a posse of jesters descended on Hebden Bridge for a "jester's moot." A moot, for the uninitiated, is a gathering. And kids piled in to the Town Hall as a motley crew clowned around for the benefit of the TV cameras and the people of the town. The results should be on ITV'sCalendar tonight. Here'smy world exclusive pic of the events in St George's Square.

GO JANET!

We're a funny bunch in Hebden Bridge. This small town in the middle of nowhere is a melting-pot of people from all over the world.It's also a place with a ridiculously high number of socialists and campaigners for justice. I'm glad to say....... One of them is Janet OOsthuysen who is standing for Calder ward in May.

Janet's from South Africa and her parents had to leave the country because of their anti-apartheid stance. Before anyone starts screaming "photo opp" let me point out this photo of Janet with Mandela was taken in 1991. Janet has campaigned long and hard against racism and stood against the BNP in Halifax. She is a sincere and committed socialist and LRC member who is working her socks off in the community at the moment. Read her blog to find out more

JOHN McDONNELL'S TAKE ON BUDGET

This is pinched from the Independent's Open House blog........... and is also on John's blog

"In 1999 the Government said it would halve child poverty by 2010 - taking 1.7m children out of poverty. To date it has missed its targets and only removed 600,000 children from poverty. In the pre-budget briefings pouring out of Number 10 and the Treasury we were all led to believe that the Chancellor would make a major announcement today to get the Government back on course to meet its target.
Instead, the Chancellor has admitted defeat in the war against child poverty and has confirmed that the Government will not meet its 2010 target - and will leave over 2.5m children still living in poverty in the fifth richest countries in the world.
The measures announced today will only remove at most a further 250,000 children from poverty by 2010. But on analysis the situation is even more disappointing. In calculating child poverty the Government has massaged the figures by removing housing costs from the calculation. If these costs are put back the real assessment of child poverty confirms that in fact 3.5 million children will remain in poverty in our society.
At the same time the Chancellor has done virtually nothing to tackle the unfairness of our tax system. Big business benefits from the lowest corporation tax in this country in decades, which is to be cut further on 1st April. Proposals to tackle the scandal of non doms, some of whom are paying less tax than their servants, have been watered down and there are no measures to address the £97 to £150 billions the Treasury now admits to losing each year from tax avoidance.
If after eleven years in office, a Labour Government cannot meet such a basic aim of lifting our children out of poverty, many will judge this period of government as the greatest missed opportunity in the history of the Labour party. There is a growing feeling that the Government is running out of both time and ideas.

COMING OUT OF THE DARK....

Working so furiously today no time to take in details of the Budget beyond the fact that fuel allowances are going up to £400 for the over-80s ( good news for my dad) and increases in tax credits which are fine as far as they go - but not far enough. I will wait to learn from far more expert eyes than mine what the realities are of Darling's budget. But I have had time to change the template of the old blog and come out into the light! Fond as I was of the unremittingly grim template, I think this makes things more readable......

ANOTHER WAY IS POSSIBLE........

Last night I broke the Golden Rule of blogging.Never, ever post anything when you are drunk. In the sober light of day I have a mountain of writing to get through and money to earn. Unlike our new General Secretary, last year I did not trouser a £1.4million bonus. And, to those who say what's wrong with a filthy rich businessman being in charge, I say this. It's like the Tories appointing Tony Woodley to take care of financial business. And it just wouldn't happen... because the Tories still know whose side they are on.
Clearly, some at the very top in New Labour are obviously so "relaxed" about fat cats and hobnobbing with the rich that they have utterly lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent.
Last night, a friend of mine who is a UNISON full-timer expressed astonishment that the NEC had gone for a City financier over someone who at least might further an agenda in the interests of the very people who founded the Labour Party in the first place. And he's right.
Anyway, on a more constructive note the LRC's LEAP - Left Economic Advisory Panel - has produced its answer to Alistair Darling's Budget today.
‘New Labour's Moment of Truth’ can be downloaded for free from the LRC website.
John McDonnell MP, LEAP Chair, says
“New Labour came to power in the most fortuitous economic climate ever inherited by any past Labour government. The government had the opportunity in the economic good times to commence the transformation of our economy and public services in a way which would benefit the vast majority of our citizens.
“The reaction in government to the economic downturn has been to simply become more reactionary. Ministers are bringing forward almost weekly ever more brutal ideas for reducing public expenditure by attacking the poor. There is another way but it would take a radical rethink and a new set of priorities and policies which are anathema to Gordon Brown and New Labour.”

MY ALLEGIANCE

Utterly foul suggestions today about swearing allegiance to Queen as part of "citizenship". Someone said to me tonight it basically kills any hope that the Labour Party has a hope in hell of re-claimig its position as a left-of-centre party. I understand that thought. What I don't understand is the ever-rightwards drift which some seem hell-bent on continuing. The Daily Mail could not do better. Spent tonight in pub with comrades after our Branch meeting turned out to be inquorate.Hardly any bloody wonder........are we now the Party which encourages loyalty to inherited wealth and privelege??????

SPOILER CAMPAIGNS ONLY HELP THE TORIES

Our "friend in the south" Luke Akehurst has (just for a change) been having a go at the LRC and alleging that certain individuals within it are apparently backing Lindsey German for London Mayor.
I very much doubt that as such behaviour would of course guarantee immediate expulsion from the Labour Party. Which of course is what Comrade Akehurst would love to see happening to everyone in the LRC. But let's not get him too excited.....
Actually, nothing infuriates me more than when the SWP/RESPECT or indeed any ultra-left groups stage no-hope electoral campaigns which can only help the Tories. And this is one such campaign. God knows, I'm no big fan of Ken Livingstone.But it's a no-brainer that he's better for London than Boris Johnson and that voting for anyone else can only aid the Conservatives' bid to oust him. I'm also, frankly, disappointed to see UNISON's Michael Gavan on the Left List. Given the support he has had from Labour MPs like John McDonnell then I would have thought a bit of solidarity with Labour's Left was in order. But it's way out of my political territory and there may be good reasons for that. What's clear is there is a significant danger Ken might lose - so forget the token gestures and vote for him.

FROM OUR NEW GENERAL SECRETARY.....

Do I hear the collective sound of Keir Hardie, Nye Bevan, Clem Attlee spinning in their graves? This "manifesto" is written by David Pitt Watson - author of "The New Capitalists" It could have been penned by a Tory. Well done NEC.....


THE CAPITALIST MANIFESTO
1. Be profitable and create value.
2. Only grow where you can create value.
3. Pay people fairly to do the right things.
4. Do not waste capital.
5. Focus where your skills are strongest.
6. Renew your organisation.
7. Treat customers, suppliers, workers and communities fairly.
8. Seek regulations to ensure your operations do not cause collateral damage and your competitors gain advantage.
9. Stay clear of partisan politics.
10.Communicate what you are doing and be accountable for

UNREMITTINGLY GRIM....

I am about to go into a seminar so time is short but frankly the last 24 hours does not inspire me much. Oaths of allegiance to the Queen , a new runway planned at Stansted and of course the appointment of a multi-millionaire private equity boss as Labour's General Secretary to try and connect with the hearts and minds of ordinary people and build the Party.

WHY I'M RESIGNING FROM SAVE THE LABOUR PARTY

For some years, I was a very keen member of Save The Labour Party. At the time when I joined, in 2003, the Left was utterly moribund. Indeed, such was the dearth of leadership on the left that the first leaflet STLP put out had pictures of Aneurin Bevan, and Barbara Castle emblazoned on it - attracting (perhaps justifiably ) some ridicule.Let's face it. They were long-dead icons
I joined in the belief that its aim was to restore the Labour values which had been by-passed in favour of big business , New Labour cronies in the CBI and an ever-eroding democracy for ordinary members. Others on the left thought the same. Vince Mills, of the Campaign for Socialism and Elaine Smith MSP were both at one time paid-up supporters. Indeed, Elaine spoke with Christine Shawcroft and Ann Black at a fringe meeting I helped organise at the Spring 2004 Conference in Manchester.
STLP has some extremely decent people still involved. I cannot stress that enough and it saddens me to say this. But frankly I find it extraordinary that its Chair Peter Kenyon now extols the virtues of a private equity boss and City consultant over a trade unionist .In what way, exactly, Peter, will the appointment of David Pitt Watson further the cause of re-vitalising and recruiting the "mass membership" which has been STLP's stated aim for so long?
The admirable LabOUR Commission, put together after a lot of hard work by a broad church of MPs, trade unionists and activists was basically binned by Gordon Brown at the start of his premiership. But instead of going on the offensive STLP has increasingly been an apologist for Brown, whose nine months as Leader have been an unmitigated disaster for the grassroots. But plea after plea to him to "listen to the members" is a waste of time. How did Brown answer those pleas? By ending voting at Conference and riding roughshod over grassrots opinion. He did his damdest to ensure there was not a democratic contest for the leadership.
By way of contrast, the LRC, founded four years ago, has grown in the past 12 months to almost 1500 members nationwide. That number is set to grow even more as local activists mobilise and our network grows across the country. On a weekly basis, I am talking to people desperate for a change in the Labour Party.
Our new General Secretary is New Labour business as usual. And, frankly, I cannot believe that some of the people I know in STLP will be exactly delighted at his appointment. The role of the left -of-centre is now to go on the offensive, and not roll over and die in the hope that by courting New Labour we can somewhow win the argument. As the last nine months have shown, it just won't work.

STITCHED UP LIKE KIPPERS?

So Mike Griffiths WON'T be the new General Secretary of the Labour Party. Instead, David Pitt Watson, an extremely rich City whizzkid, pal of big business and inevitably pal of Brown's . Perhaps someone will enlighten us how the Grassroots Alliance reps voted - and why. Because that might just alter the way I vote in the forthcoming elections .....
It does not augur well. Here's his opening gambit."I am looking forward to working with members, stakeholders and staff to achieve our objectives." No mention of the unions, then ? And "stakeholders" ????????? Classic New labour guff. You were warned..... Mike Griffiths is no-one's idea of the perfect candidate. But at least he had a traditional background in the labour movement. I find today's news extremely disappointing.

NEC WRANGLE

Spent most of yesterday holed up in the Stubbing Wharf pub in Hebden for our CLP's AGM. I won't go into the details of the bitter wrangling over the NEC nominations. You would lose the will to live.........I don't mind people putting up alternative candidates but when they seemingly prefer to nominate no-one from their wing of the Party then try and stop lefties being nominated for the NEC well, you have to despair. In the end, after much haranguing and unnecessary debate, we nominated Christine Shawcroft, Mohammed Azam Fran Griffiths and Ann Black. It should not have taken over an hour to do so......can't wait for the Parliamentary election which is coming up soon

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

As I write, thousands of women will be marching to mark International Women's Day. One of them will be Mary Partington, of the Left Women's Network, who has an excellent letter http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/08/gender in today's Guardian pointing out that most women are still fettered by the twin bonds of capitalism and lack of adequate childcare.
The sharp-suited "career women", as she points out, are a tiny minority and what we need is better wages, and policies to address the real gap in gender and economic equality.
Mary is from a different generation to mine but when I think of the issues we raised in the 1970s and 1980s not much, fundamentally, has changed.
Yes, we have maternity pay and far more generous arrangements for maternity leave. But the fundamental block to women advancing as they could is still issues like the crippling cost of childcare and low pay.
For the past 30 years, since I left university, I have been able to support myself financially and earn a reasonable living . I own my own home , have significant savings. But that's probably because I never had children and never had to face the dilemmas they bring in terms of competing with men professionally and economically.
A generation back, my mother had to leave a reasonable job in the Post Office when she became pregnant with me and spent the rest of her life doing low-paid part-time jobs to supplement the family income. Let's not kid ourselves. That's still the lot of most women today.
So good luck to the marchers.
International Women's Day commemorates a 1908 march through New York by 15,000 female textile workers demanding better working conditions.It actually took the deaths of 140 women in a sweat-shop three years later for the law to be changed to give them better working conditions.
Those terrible conditions may not be prevalent today. But there is still plenty to fight for........UPDATE: Here'sthe pic of Maryand othr LRC women on the march...

THE RANTINGS OF THE RIGHT

The ever preposterous Luke Akehurst has excelled himself this week with two extraordinarily nasty personal attacks on Christine Shawcroft and the Labour Left. He clearly hasn't read the LRC's programme as he seems to think we are training up with Kalashnikovs and poised to storm the House of Commons ands set up worker's soviets. Except that he doesn't think that at all. But it suits his New Labour agenda to spread the myth we are a bunch of nutters hell-bent on destroying democracy. In fact, the opposite is the case. Democracy in this Party has been destroyed by his pals on the right.

We wanted a democratic choice for Labour Leader. That was quashed by Brown's Stalinist tactics. Decent, moderate proposals like the Trade Union Freedom Bill were talked out by Labour's apparatchiks and Andrew Miller's Agency Workers Bill only got through with the tacit support of John Prescott, who stopped that being talked out too. We also have a Government which promised a referendum in its manifesto and has weaselled out of it. Another blow to democracy. And don't get me started on what New Labour has done to our annual conference.......I want democratic socialism. Not bloody insurrection. Still, must go , need to buy a new set of military fatigues ........

ED FAILS TO IMPRESS....

Changed my mind last night about Ed Miliband. I was quite impressed by the style ( if not the substance) of the man when I saw him speak at Labour Conference. But he was frankly appalling on Question Time. He comes across as arrogant and petulant and worlds removed from the real lives of ordinary people. Abiding impression ? Another robotic New Labour Minister. It's about time the Labour Left got a look-in on this programme. At least the quality of debate would improve.

A LIFE OF CULINARY CONTRASTS

I did not blog yesterday as I was far too busy having a good time. Went out to lunch with a female friend ( sorrel and spinach soup followed by free-range chicken with wilted greens) and managed to spend four hours talking absolute nonsense. Aided by a rather wonderful aperitif with gin and apricot juice plus a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Tonight to pie and pea supper at Sowerby Bridge Working Men's Club. A life of stark contrasts.......

WE NEED A LIVING WAGE!

Good news. The government is to increase the Minimum Age.
Bad news - by only 21p an hour.
By my calculation, based on a 35-hour week, that's around £7 ( before tax) a week. Just not enough. The Living Wage has been calculated at around £8 an hour and is backed by a host of unions, including USDAW and UNISON. That's what Labour should be working towards. And that's what we have to carry on campaigning for

CONVENTION OF THE LEFT

This September, Labour heads for Manchester and for many of us who are stoically signing up for the Conference it's not an appealing prospect. So why are we going?
It was Bournemouth 2003 which opened my eyes to the damage New Labour had inflicted on the Party. I became determined to try and stop the rot and got involved in several pressure groups, gravitating ultimately to the LRC. Well, five years on as far as Conference goes I must be honest and concede that things have got worse, not better. Debate has been further stifled and G-Mex will be packed mostly with corporate sponsors and New Labour toadies. But we fight on......
The fringe is still good value for money and yes I do enjoy the camaraderie of it all and getting drunk with comrades I see only once or twice a year. But there are more serious reasons to still get involved.
My CLP has a rule change motion coming up on the leadership threshold ( lobbying to start soon) .This year there will also be an "alternative conference" organised by a new group called Convention Of The Left. From what I can gather, most of its members are outside the Labour Party.But that is not a reason not to get involved. I would like to think we can share common aims - without necessarily agreeing on the means to achieve them. The conference will be taking place in Manchester throughout the week of the Labour event. It already has a website and I have provided a link......good luck with it, comrades.

END OF AN ERA IN NORTHERN IRELAND

So the old bastard's going then.Sorry, forgot he's now a national treasure but the fact remains that Ian Paisley has not exactly always been a positive force in Northern Ireland. However, I must declare an interest here.
My view of the man is coloured by the fact that my grandparents were hounded out of the place because they had committed the cardinal sin of being of different religions. In the early 20th century, my grand-dad worked on the shipyards at Harland and Woolf and got the bus in every day from his home village of Portaferry. He lost his job when he married a Catholic. So they came to Manchester and built a new life.
In the 1960's, when the Troubles began, my granny was hitting 80 and she loathed Paisley with a passion. He was, in those days, a despicable bigot. A man whose irrational hatred of the Catholic community helped fuel the awful tribalism of the Orange Order. But I learn from those who have met him that the man can be a charmer and has a great sense of hunour. It's good that the world has changed and if Martin McGuinness can do business with him then we should be grateful. But the old man couldn't resist one last dig at his erstwhile opponents. Asked about the "succession" he stormed. "This is not the Church of Rome. It is not an apostolic succession....... Am I glad he's standing down? A heartfelt yes........in fact I shall be ordering a large Jameson's tonight in celebration

Nick Clegg - A Wet Lettuce

The Lib Dems sure know how to pick a winner (not). Just watched Newswnight and my God Clegg is an out and out wally. Did they really ditch Ming and Charlie Kennedy for this dweeb who would seriously have difficulty winning a by-election where I live? The man is a car crash. He comes across as David Cameron's twin brother - minus the intellect. Electorally, he has to be a disaster.If I were a Charlie Kennedy kind of person , I would be crying into my single malt.Whatever cred the Lib Dems had as some kind of radical alternative to New Labour must be shot down in flames. Back to a two-party serious political arena........

MILIBAND - STILL NEW LABOUR TO THE CORE

There seems to be a bit of a bandwagon building up over Ed Miliband as next possible Leader following Spring Conference. I saw him speak in Bournemouth and there's no doubt that he is a more than capable performer who has a personable air and I have doubt is utterly decent. However, sadly, Ed's "vision" is exactly the same neo-liberal line we have come to expect from New Labour. Which is kind of disappointing - but predictable. He is an absolute defender of the free market, "choice" and all the other Blairite/Brownite buzz words those of us on the left of the Party have grown to dislike so intensely. So, no, I won't be joining in the adulation Here is his defence of public sector "reform" ie privatisation

"I don't see a disagreement across the Labour party about these issues. I think choice and contestability make a difference, and they need to be accompanied by a range of other things like greater accountability, drawing better on the capacity of the individual to contribute, mobilising the skills of the workforce and making services more personal."

Yes, we have heard it all before, Ed. And it's just not working.....

WISEMAN FOR NEC 2010 !

LRC member John Wiseman has now withdrawn his bid to stand for the NEC. But along the way some important concessions have been made which will hopefully ensure that an accountable and properly elected left of centre slate is de rigeur in the future. That must include proper hustings and representation from groups including the LRC, COMPASS Campaign for Socialism and others.
No longer must smoke-filled rooms and over-sized egos hold sway over democratic process.
It's five months since I argued for slate elections ( and lost) at an exec meeting of the Campaign For Labour Party Democracy. I think I have since been proved right. And I also think that John's candidature, however much it was opposed by some, has done much to bring some fresh air and accountability to things in the future.
John was never a "spoiler" or kami-kaze candidate. He is a decent honest bloke who simply wanted to stand on a left platform - the principles of which I and many others entirely agreed with. But, having weighed up the options and thought about the long game, he's perhaps wisely decided to stand down.I very much hope he continues to fight for the values he believes in. We need more John Wisemans in this Party - not less.

SPIN DOCTORS NEED EMERGENCY TREATMENT

For my sins, I spent a fair few years working for the Government. I've even done the odd bit of PR ( pre New Labour days) for the Party. Frankly, whoever is churning out the kind of drivel I quote below should be ashamed of themselves. And so should the senior staff who are presumably clearing it. I mean, do they think we have an average mental age of 10 or what? It would appear so.........
The particularly naff bits include awful adjectives, cringeworthy alliteration, terrible grammatical errors and crass cliches ie hard -working families - delivering the goods - which mean absolutely nothing. Frankly, this stuff is an insult to the intelligence. Bring back Labour Weekly - it might have been boring, but at least it was political.

Dear Subscriber
After an uplifting weekend at Spring Conference in Birmingham, Labour have left renewed, confident and ready to take the fight to Cameron's Tories on May 1st .
From the opening session with Hazel to Harriet's final speech, all of our team really delivered the goods.
And Gordon's speech - "A common purpose for the age of ambition" - really summed up why I'm Labour; so that we can build a society in which all individuals, no matter wealth, race, colour, creed or religion have the opportunity to go as far as their talents can take them.
Gordon set out how Labour will continue to deliver for hard working families across the length and breadth of the country and set us on the right foot for victory in May.
But modern campaigning costs a lot and to deliver all that we need to, we need your help now.
Please help us fight by contributing £5 now.
The Tories are flooding cash in left, right and centre ( the only political bit!) to place Boris Johnson in the Mayor's office and to stop many of our hardworking councillors doing what they do best - serving their communities.
If we drop our guard now it'll be the weakest of our society that suffer - with your help we can stop this.
I believe that we are stronger when we work together.
By acting together, by building on the momentum from our Spring Conference and contributing to our campaign funds we can make a real difference.
And just think about how much Britain has improved over the past ten years - let's not risk this progress for a fiver.

Thank you and best wishes.
Alicia Kennedy, Deputy General Secretary

SEE SENSE GORDON......

Good news maybe as the Telegraph reports that chief executives of the utility giants are being asked to subsidise a new nationwide "fuel poverty" scheme aimed at the 4.5 million poorest households.Apparently, the fuel poverty programme will be part of the Budget on March 12.
Gordon brown is also said to be reconsidering the REMPLOY issue in relation to two factories after lobbying at the Spring Conference.

NO SPRING IN MY STEP

It's several years since I attended Labour Spring Conference. Four in fact. In spring 2004 Blair was probably at the nadir of his leadership and I recall sitting up with a pal till 5am arguing the toss with a group of Young Labour people .I hope they have learned the error of their ways because actually, they were enthusiastic Party members who had simply never known anything other than New Labour. In those days, I naively thought that the removal of Blair would be some kind of panacea for the ills besetting the Party. Which was pretty stupid. It is different policies, not different leaders, which change things A mixture of both would of course be udeal......

Looking back, the conference itself was a mish-mash of speeches by Ministers, seminars and, of course, no votes. Not even a fringe to make it worthwhile.
Four years on, the Guardian reports an absence of corporate sponsors, absence of stalls and most importantly, an absence of members. Not surprising. Only those with a vested interest ie PPCs, would-be PPCs and carerists could be enthusiastic about it. One delegate on CiF reports that Brown's speech was received in a lukewarm fashion with many delegates sitting stony-faced . UPDATE: Yet the Guardian on-line is now reporting a "rock star's welcome." for Brown So which is it ?
My guess is somewhere inbetween. These days, those who go to Spring Conference really are the New Labour faithful, an ever-dwindling band of true believers. The rest of us stay at home.
I've now had the chance to look at Brown's speech and depressingly butnot surprisingly he's still using the "n" ie New Labour word. Still banging on in DailyMail[-style about the "British way of life." Blending decent enough aims like worming to fight child poverty with frankly indecent proposals like a points systems for "managed" migration, "personalised" services , consumer "choice." . In short the same tired old mantras we heard under Blair for 10 long years.
I hope some people HAVE had positive experiences at the conference.I'll save my pennies till the autumn - when at least we might be able to rally some opposition and dissent .

THE REAL ISSUES WHICH ARE RUINING THE LABOUR PARTY

I don't normally spend my Friday nights in a state of insomnia. But a combination of a howling gale and an alcohol-free day ( am on something of a health kick) has combined to leave me wide awake at midnight. And counting.....
So, casting an eye over tomorrow's papers, I find them a dispiriting read. While people fuss over the frankly relatively minor issues like who is , or not, on the NEC , the Labour Party's credibility is crashing round us day by day
The awful James Purnell and his privatisation plans I mentioned yesterday . Then there was a nice pic of Gordon Sarah and kids in the Daily Mail with loads of guff about plastic bags . Worthy though that is, why does Brown care so much about b eing bigged up in a Tory paper ( 10 pages about Prine Harry) when the heart and soul of Labour is being ripped apart on a daily basis. Last night on Channel 4 news we heard that under New Labour's latest plans only immigrants with cash and qualifications will find easy access to this country. How shameful is that.
Now the Morning Star reveals that five senior GMB union officers have resigned from the Labour Party over the government's "despicable betrayal" of REMPLOY workers.
In a letter to Gordon Brown, GMB national secretary Phil Davies said that he had been a member of the Labour Party for nearly 30 years, but that his party's treatment of Remploy workers was so unjust that he had no option but to resign.
The letter said: "We have been misled by the Secretary of State, who made assurances at the 2007 Labour Party conference which he did not keep.
"I have been a national trade union officer for 20 years and have never seen workers treated in such a despicable way. Our members are being ignored and bullied into submission.
"Promises were made at last year's Labour conference designed to create a smokescreen, which was total dishonesty at the highest level,"
And he's absolutely right. I was there at a high-spirited REMPLOY rally when UNITE'S Tony Woodley and the GMB's Paul Kenny were practically punching the air with glee - such was their faith in then DWP Minister Peter Hain to rescue REMPLOY.
The four other co-signatories to the resignation letter are GMB senior convener Les Woodward and senior stewards Steve Sargent, Chris Williams and Phil Brannan, who have demanded that Brown "shows compassion towards the Remploy workers before it is too late."
I can only concur with the sentiments of John McDonnell MP who says,"People like Phil are the salt of the earth within our movement and I will be urging Phil and his brothers and sisters to join the Labour Representation Committee and continue the fight,"
I also have a message to the 136 MPs who helped get Andrew Miller's Agency and Temporary Workers' Bill thorugh the House of Commons. Unless you truly start working together on a regular basis to fight New Labour, this Party will die. There's no point singing the Red Flag ( as they did last week) when every day working people are being betrayed.