THE BIGGER PICTURE

IT was a tough choice. Stay in and watch three middle-aged men posturing or watch friends and neighbours on the big screen. I chose the latter.
Nick Wilding's "Hebden Royd At The Movies," featuring footage of the area and its inhabitants from the past nine decades, was a rather more attractive prospect than Nick Clegg and Co strutting their stuff in a pre-prepared, stage-managed debate.
Maybe it was the thought of all the rules which had been imposed on the audience, the fact all three contenders knew what they were going to be asked about and had also been briefed to death by their advisers. Which meant the chance of a truly electric TV moment was minimal.
I saw Nick Clegg speak at a business dinner in Leeds a couple of months ago. He would have scored a massive 10 on the zzzzzzzz...ometer. So I find it amazing he should have apparently won the audience vote. Possibly because Brown and Cameron were so busy knocking lumps out of each other that he came up through the middle. At any rate, I doubt it will make much difference to the result. Whatever the hype.

SENSE OF AN ENDING

There is a certain irony I suppose in real life scuppering what I thought I would be doing at this General Election.
Hopes dashed of being a candidate, and with minimal time to do anything much beyond work and sort out family stuff.
I'm preparing to spend the next week working from my sister's home where dad battles on with remarkable determination.
But as I write, an unprecedented cloud of volcanic ash is threatening to destroy my sister's long-cherished plans to fly to New York on Monday from Manchester Airport.
It has been that kind of year.
In the past couple of weeks I have heard more distressing health news - both of other relatives and friends in the local Labour Party.
One, 89, the oldest in our constituency and a grand old chap, is particularly upsetting . But he wants no fuss and no bother because he is of a wartime generation which did not indulge in mawkishness.
Likewise, my dad.
I am under strict instructions from him not to be maudlin - today we handed back the keys to my father's old house. The house where I spent my teenage years and where, less happily, my dad spent 23 years as a widower.
No longer owned by Manchester City Council, it's now in the hands of a housing association.
I am proud to say my father never considered capitalising on his long long residency by buying the property.
He also voted against the recent transfer of Manchester housing stock to an ALMO. Against the policy which was advocated by "Manchester Labour" and its former Leader Sir Richard Leese.
No Schadenfreude, truthfully. We can all make mistakes and I take no delight in such misfortune. But it was another gobsmacking moment yesterday when I heard he had been forced to stand down in what alegedly was an argument over a cat.
Something no-one could in all honesty have predicted and I suppose another indicator of the fact that, as John Lennon said, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." And, usually, the news when Fate steps in is not good stuff.

CALDER VALLEY IN THE GUARDIAN

Martin Wainwright, journalist brother of Hilary, has a piece in today's Guardian on the General Election battle in Calder Valley. The only comment I will make is that broadly speaking it is a fair and measured piece........

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/09/general-election-2010

THE UBIQUITOUS CHIP......

Sad just now to read of the death of Ronnie Clydesdale, owner of The Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow's West End. Never able to afford the more upmarket Chip "downstairs" I used to eat there years ago usually in tandem with a former partner at the Upstairs eaterie where you got the cheaper offcuts. Lobster tails rather than lobster, haggis rather than venison......it was marvellous. And it's still there. Sadly, CND supporter Ronnie no longer is. I shall always remember the place fondly. So-named, of course, because there wasn't a chip in sight........

A PORTILLO MOMENT?

To get this one out of the way in 1997 I was at long-gone Mash And Air in Manchester where the newly funky Labour Party was having its post-election bash. I remember it well because the Old Labour activists were demanding pints of bitter and being told they couldn't have them as it was too "downmarket."In the end, they quaffed halves instead and in the end they threw us all out for being unruly but who can forget that glorious moment when Portillo lost his Enfield seat on a 17 per cent swing to Labour .

What we didn't know then ( though some did, and they warned me) was that the landslide which we'd yearned for would actually enable Tony Blair to hijack the Party and take it away from its democratic socialist roots.

So 13 years down the line Labour ( the "New" appears to have been thankfully dropped) is fighting for its political life in dozens of seats all over the country.

Just a few miles from where I am sitting at my work station is Morley and Outwood, a new constituency where Ed Balls is under some pressure despite a notional 10,000 majority. Ashcroft money has been poured in and, if you believe the Independent, Ed is sweating it out in fear of losing.

To be honest, I think they are just flying a kite - Leeds is NOT Enfield and Cameron's reception yesterday in Bolton shows how unpopular the Tories still are in northern heartland seats.

But many Yorkshire seats ARE in jeopardy. Current polls would see both Mike Wood (Batley and Spen) and Linda Riordan( Halifax) in trouble despite 4,000 - 5,000 majorities so all hands on deck are needed . Despite the over-riding concerns which make my election time minimal, I will try and get out there to help both these MPs, even if I can only manage a couple of days. But Ed Balls, I wager, is in no danger whatsoever.

NO TO TUSC

In the past few years, I have reviewed many of my previous political positions. But with the approach of the 2010 General Election I am dismayed that people I know and respect are advocating votes for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition- TUSC.
Today, I did the tot-up of candidates for the local elections in Manchester and this new invention of advocates of No2EU - which bombed spectacularly - has a handful of candidates. They will not even make a dent in the Labour vote. Why should they?
TUSC is another blind alley, and is even fielding candidates against other minority parties like Respect and the Greens. It is a pointless distraction with no future and most importantly no support apart from a few people who don't like the reality that the majority of the working-class still identify with Labour .
To suggest. as some do, that there is no difference between a Labour and a Tory candidate - or a Labour and a Tory Government - is disingenuous nonsense.
And what, exactly, will TUSC achieve? One per cent, two per cent, of the vote. At best.
It's not the start of a socialist alternative. I must confess that at no point in my long history of political activism have I been more distressed about the lack of difference between the main parties.
But that is to discount the hard work still being done by many Labour MPs - and the hope that with the imminent clear-out of the Augean stables of New Labour there will be the chance for a re-building of the Labour Left - and alignments with other socialists who share our concerns.
However disuillusioned I may be, I still retain a hope that after May 6 there will be a chance for a real platform for socialist ideas in and outside Parliament. The grandstanding of TUSC will do little to aid that. We have seen it all before.........and the results will be no different from the failed projects of the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Labour Party, and other abortive political projects

THANKS, CHRIS.......

I don't believe in telling fibs and our outgoing MP Chris McCafferty would be the first to confirm that she and I have not always agreed.
But, being in very different, happier, circumstances in 2005, I was more than willing to trot along to her campaign HQ every day and hit the phones to stop Calder Valley going Tory.
What I didn't realise, until just now, is that last time round Labour's share of the vote was exactly the same as the Tories - 35.7 per cent.
What swung it, on a wafer-thin majority, was the FTTP system. Whether or not that will save Labour again remains to be seen but what I do know is that Chris McCafferty will be missed by all of us in the Labour Party.
Neither particularly "left" nor New Labour, she was able to keep the constituency united - and when the occasion of a matter of principle arose, as it did over Iraq, Trident and foundation hospitals, she would rebel.
I still think Chris was wrong not to help us nominate John McDonnell in 2007 - we had a blazing row after that one.
But I have always appreciated her good humour and kindness in often trying situations. So, as Parliament dissolves , I just want to place on record the fact we will miss her terribly in Calder Valley, where she has been MP since 1997

GAME ON - BUT NOT FOR ME

As the rest of the political world gears up for the General Election, I'm likely to be a bystander.
I've just confirmed my presence in Manchester on May 6 to cover results for various news organisations but even that hangs in the balance as family matters take priority.
Today, as Cameron Brown and Clegg unveiled their election programmes, I was filing binbags with the ccumulated detritus of youth. I kept the copies of Tribune from 1976, the Militants from 1977, letters home about the local elections in Manchester from 1973.
And I reflected that for the first time in my adult life I am going to be unable to get even slightly excited about the result.
I wish all my friends and comrades the very best in their campaigns. I wish I could be out there camapigning and hope Labour can hang on. But, at one step removed from the process, I find little to get excited by in any of it.
At some poiint in the future no doubt my fervour will return. But, with my father's death waiting relentlessly in the wings, it all seems vaguely unreal.
One thing I have been able to do is make a donation to the LRC's election fund. I urge many others out there who want to keep ous socialist voices in Parliament to do the same.

THE BLAIR EFFECT

Last week I attended a meeting at which I was assured by left-ish NEC stalwarts that Tony Blair was unlikely to be drafted in to help the General Election effort. Well, they were wrong.
One week on and there he is again in Sedgefield, looking rich and tanned and being used apparently in a Michael Winner kind of way to calm down the Tory dears of Middle England.
Whether or not this calms the fears of Labour supporters who think resuscitating the ex Leader is a recipe for disaster is another matter entirely.
In today's Daily Mirror, Kevin Maguire, no Blairite, argues his revival as an election weapon is a necessary strategy. I would suggest it is a sign of weakness on Gordon Brown's part to bring back a personality who is as likely to remind millions of the carnage of Iraq as the glory New Labour days of 1997.
At the last election , as all of us know who were campaigning last time, he was nothing but a liability.

A PEOPLE'S AGENDA FOR 2010

The LRC believes the answer to the current crisis of capitalism is NOT to inflict the "deeper and tougher" Thatcherite cuts which Alisdair Darling has warned of. The answer is socialist policies and making those responsible for the economic downturn pay. Not inflicting punishment on the rest of us...... To tie in with the General Election we have produced our own pamphlet on where a future statement on where Labour should be heading. Details here...........
http://l-r-c.org.uk/news/story/lrc-launches-a-peoples-agenda/

THE ASHFIELD PARACHUTE

One can expect an avalanche of "revelations" in the weeks to come as the Mail On Sunday gets stuck in to Labour candidates everywhere. The news that Gloria de Piero, the Brownite parachuted into Ashfield, the constituency of discredited Geoff Hoon, once posed for topless pictures is an irony in the light of others' unsuccessful attempts to beat the New Labour machine in the same constituency.
My LRC colleague Christine Shawcroft , an NEC stalwart for many years and campaigner for the left, was stitched up and excluded from the Ashfield shortlist. Grossly unjust
As things are, I am profoundly grateful I was not selected as a PPC in either of the two constiturncies I had a go at because I would actually have been unable to campaign properly due to family illness.
I still regard the imposition of All Women Shortlists in constituencies where they were neither desired nor necessary as a cynical way of excluding left candidates. Ashfield is only one of many similar stories. Gloria's youthful folly is not the reason why her selection was unjust. Party members everywhere are sick and tired of favoured candidates winning out over local activists.
I hear also on the graoevine that Peter Wheeler is to be shoo-ed in to Stalybridge and Hyde......

THIRD RUNWAY VICTORY

Well done to campaigners, local councillors, and local MP John McDonnell for leading the campaign against Heathrow expansion which today won a major victory in the High Court. This is great news for the local community and for all of us who want to see John re-elected in a few weeks' time at the General Election.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/26/heathrow-third-runway-travel-and-transport

HOON, HEWITT AND BYERS

The peripatetic nature of my life at present means I did not have the chance on Monday to share my horror at the craven greed of these three ex Ministers who have now justly been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Their greed is breathtaking. Well done to Dennis Skinner, Gordon Prentice, Paul Flynn and all the other MPs who successfully pressed for their immediate censure.

LEFT ALTERNATIVE BUDGET

You can check out the LEAP alternative to the cuts agenda here:
http://leap-lrc.blogspot.com/

FROM A DISTANCE....

It's almost 40 years since as a rather eccentric 12-year-old I was allowed to stay up late and watch the 1970 General Election. The one which Labour was predicted to win - and didn't. This time I will remember the 2010 Election for very different reasons.
Due to family commitments, I will simply be unable to do much beyond observe the next six weeks or so from a distance.
Yesterday, I sat with my dad ( re-located to my sister's with en suite facilities) for the day and listened to the (non British Airways) planes flying in and out of Manchester Airport as we watched escapist telly . We did also catch the news footage of the UNITE picket lines at Heathrow and it's been interesting to see the media drag out folk memories of the 1980s in their bid to discredit union leaders. Equating Charlie Whelan with Arthur Scargill, lots of shots of "union barons" with clenched fists and angry faces. The battleground is already very clear.
What is not clear is the result.
Last Sunday I was able to join the mass canvas in John McDonnell's Hayes and Harlington constituency, which includes Heathrow Airport. It was really heartening to see so many union activists and Labour supporters on the ground and utterly committed to retaining the seat for a socialist MP.
The LRC National Committee last Saturday voted to give the maximum we can afford to the 20 or so left candidates across the country who desperately need our help if they are going to get back to Westminster.
We don't have Ashcroft's millions. What we do have is bodies on the ground and candidates with a fjne track-record. In the last few weeks, they have been joined by Ian Lavery in Wansbeck and John Cryer in Leyton and Wanstead.
In the weeks ahead, the media attacks will become relentless. I am still hopeful that socialist ideals and track records of commitment and hard work at constituency level will see substance winning out over spin and left-baiting . In the weeks to come, the LRC website will be covering all aspects of the campaign. Katy Clark MP is the latest to explain what kind of Labour policies she wants to see after the election.

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU.....

The days when Labour courted the business community and attracted millions in individual donors are over. Without funding from the big unions like UNITE, UNISON and the GMB, Labour would not now be in any position to fund candidates or a General Election campaign. So it is deeply unfortunate that Gordon Brown, six weeks before an expected General Election, has chosen to side with management in the ongoing dispute with BA. More so because its Chief Executive last week in an astonishing attack made it plain that his aim was to smash the union - whatever the cost. In the forthcoming weeks, Labour is going to need all the help it can possibly muster . This won't be helpful, to say the least.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/15/brown-ba-strike-unjustified-deplorable

WOBBLING AROUND THE WORLD

Many years ago circa 1982 Warren Beatty took a short break from working his way through the entire female species to make a rather wonderful film called Reds. The three-hour epic focussed on pro-Soviet American revolutionary John Reed, author of and starred his then girlfriend Diane Keaton as early feminist Louise Bryant. More interestingly, it also featured interviews with the ( now long dead) real-life socialists and revolutionaries who populated the US in the 1920'as and 1930's. They included Emma Goldman and other luminaries and "Wobblies" - members of the Industrial Workers Of The World.
I thought the organisation was a mere relic of history so was intrigued to learn this week not only is it still extant - there are branches in the UK as well as the US - there is even a website http://www.iww.org/
Just rather a shame that 100 years after they began their struggle most of Middle America still seems to think Obama's modest plans for healthcare are a communist conspiracy......

PUBLIC SECTOR ON THE MARCH

Commentaors as moderate as Madeline Bunting have joined in the rallying cries of the left against the needless cuts agenda in the public sector. Figures to conjure with as all parties rush to slash and burn are the £78 billion which would be saved by axing Trident, the £100bilion -plus lost to the Treasurey in tax avoidance, and the immeasurable personal and financial cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This week's civil service strikes are the first wave of what will be a tsunami of oitrage if eother Labour or the Conservatives scapegoat public sector workers for the crimes of greedy global capitalism.


http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/87748

RAGE, RAGE

I've got message for people younger than I to whom politics mean everything. There will be days in your life when your world falls apart and it matters not an iota what happens other than the fact you are about to lose a dearly-loved member of your family.
I had such a day today.
My father, I learned today, is terminally ill and that matters to me more than who wins the General Election, who said what about some policy, and who said what about whom.
This blog was never meant to be personal. But sometimes the personal is political. And I am profoundly grateful to our NHS to pulling out the stops to ensure my dad will have a pain-free end to a long life.
I won't be blogging much in the coming period because my priority is to help ensure his last days are as pain-free as humanly possible. But I also pledge to carry on fighting for the socialist ideals he has believed in all his life. I am very proud of him and for the bravery he showed today. It's now up to me to have the same fortitude in what is going to be a dreadful time.

BROWN DEFENDS THE INDEFENSIBLE

The other day as I was driving ( actually, being driven) to work in Leeds by a colleague we heard a harrowing account on the Today programme of the many hundreds of birth defects in Fallujah, razed to the ground by US troops at the height of the Iraq conflict, as a consequence o the obscene amount of bombing and the weapons used..
Many thousands have died and the war itself generally regarded as a horrendous mistake which many Labour MPs now wish they had not supported. Not so Gordon Brown.
In defending Tony Blair's decision to go to war in 2003, he has disappointed many who believed somehow he had been coerced into supporting this illegal and unforgivable act .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8552593.stm

FAREWELL FOOTY

Late finding out this sad news as have been travelling all day and spent some hours with my dad in hospital.

By any standards, 96 is a great age. And Michael Foot was a great man whose frail physique contained an enormous political intellect. The last time I saw him speak was seven years ago , appropriately, at a Tribune meeting at the Labour Party Conference.

It was at the height of the furore over Iraq and he shared a platform with Clare Short and Robin Cook, also sadly no longer with us.

When he became Labour Leader , "Footy" was already pushing 70. In an age when 40 is considered median age to hit the high spot, that's almost unthinkable. And so is the total lack of spin surrounding his Premiership. Famously derided for wearing a "donkey jacket" to the Cenotaph ( it was in fact a Crombie overcoat) Michael Foot never gave a hoot about his image. Good for him

Predictably, some of the obits refer to the "longest suicide note in history" ie the 1983 General Election manifesto. It was a cruel phrase and an unfair assessment for what was a principled statement of Labour values at a time when Thatcherism was in the ascendancy. He was the right leader at the wrong time

Foot had to deal with the departure of the "Gang of 4" to form the SDP and in many respects kept the Labour Party together at a very difficult time. He never abandoned his commitment to CND and stayed true to his socialist values. A famous champion of Aneurin Bevan ( his is still the definitive biography) he was one of the the last of a generation which saw the Attlee Government take on the "commanding heights" of the economy and build the welfare state.

Most of today's politicians are, by comparison, pigmies.

IAN LAVERY WINS WANSBECK

I'm sure my comrades in the north-east will be delighted at the news that NUM President Ian Lavery has been selected to fight the safe seat of Wansbeck in Northumberland.

My understanding from people on the ground is that Ian is highly supportive of the LRC and will also join the Campaign Groip if elected - as seems certain given the massive majority in this heartland seat. With the latest YouGov poll indicating a minority Govt led by Labour, people like Ian and John Cryer ( who has just been selected in Leyton and Wanstead) will be welcome additions to our voice in Parliament.

JOHN CRYER WINS LEYTON AND WANSTEAD

For months it was rumoured that Jack Dromey , spouse of Harriet Harman, was to be "parachuted" into Leyton and Wanstead . In the end, Dromey's clout as a key player in UNITE landed him a safe seat in Birmingham.

Which left Leyton and Wanstead in complete turmoil after months and months of delay in the selection process.

The good news is that left candidate John Cryer, who lost his nearby Hornchurch seat at the last election, won decisively with a margin of 136 votes to 100 over his nearest rival. Last time round in Parliament, John was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and the news of his selection is both welcome and deserved. Go John!

A FUTURE FAIR FOR ALL

The language we use in communicating ideas is desperately important. Too often, the left resorts to mantras and platitudes instead of arguing its case in terms people can understand.

The populist way in which the Tobin tax has been re-named the Robin Hood Tax is possibly deploted by purists. But , hey. taking from the rich and giving to the poor is an idea which just might catch on.

Labour's slogan for the General Election, albeit recycled from the 2003 Party confeence, is a god one.But how can people believe it when the reality is so very different.

It is patently NOT fair that bankers still get huge bonuses espite being bailed out by us.Likewise that we are told a cuts programme is inevitable when £100billion every year is lost to the economy by tax avoidance. There IS a way forward which would help bring about a fair future , and which would involve cuts.

Cuts to massive spending on Trident, cuts on military warfare in Afghanistan, cuts to tax for the low-poaid and an increase in the number of rich people paying the tax they should be paying to redistribute the wealth.

We could also cut the profits being made by the private utilities capitalising on the recent cold weather by bringing water, gas and electricity back into public ownership.

We could cut the bureaucracy in the NHS and deliver the money to front-line services. Cut the profits made by the private pharmaeceutical industry and end the gross profiteering from PFI.

Let's also cut prescription charges and tuition fees and student loans.

Including all, or any, of the above in Labour's election manifesto would bring about a turn-around in the Party's fortunes and deliver a fourth term.

Mouthing platitudes which sound good is unlikely to do that .

BEING IRISH....

When things aren't so great reading can be a great escape from stark realities. And the older I get the more interested I become in my genetic heritage. Which is 100 per cent Irish.
I was born in Manchester which has one of the largest Irish communities in the UK but the various counties of Galway, Meath, and County Down are all entwined in my DNA .
I've just been reading a book on Irish America I found absolutely fascinating. Coming into Clover by journalist Maureen Dezell is no Angela's Ashes whinge-fest but an academic look at how people fared as the diaspora in various waves of immigration.
Interviewing hundreds of people in the cause of her research, she writes about America but much of what she says will strike a chord with anyone growing up in an Irish background. The study shows we are in many ways our own worst enemies.
My mother often told a tale of getting dressed up to go out dancing in the 1940's and asking her mother how she looked. My mother was a good-lookinmg, well-turned-out woman always but "You'll pass in a crowd" was the stock answer she got from her mum - which more or less sums up the way in which many of us were brought up to be self-deprecating, with low expectations, and an innate lack of confidence which belied any intelligence, charm, or positive characteristics other cultures are rather more upbeat about. If your parents didn't do you down, the nuns and priests most certainly would.
The fearsome Mother Christina, Deputy Head at Loreto College , specialised in a reign of terror which these days would be unthinkable. These days it would be called emotional abuse.
Too many Irish women in previous generations accepted their lot with resignation, put up with the drunkenness which is still endemic in the male collective consciousness and, of course, fell in with teachings from the Catholic church which today have been thankfully discarded .
At the age of 16, I argued with a Jesuit priest about contraception. At the age of 18 I joined the Young Socialists. I wasn't alone - in fact one of my school friends got expelled for selling "Militant" !
Politics and religion go hand in hand - look at any left-wing group and you will probably find a disproportionate number of second and third generation Irish men and women still fighting the battles their forbears did.
Political argument was the mainstay of our house and to this day I can't understand those who find such talk distasteful or "confrontational." In fact, I hope to go to my grave still shouting the odds.

HUNG PARLIAMENT

The last time there was a hung Parliament I was studying for O Levels. The result was so close that the outdome was not clear until the Friday morning following the February 1974 General Election. Our history teacher, a Labour supporter, brought a radio in so we could be part of the unfolding saga which saw Harold Wilson presiding over a minority Government.
The same might be true this time round when the votes are finally counted and I suppose the forecasts are an overwhelming relief given the dire predictions of a Tory landslide just 12 months ago.
Back in 1974, the result was so close of course that another General Election was held in the October. It is going to be an interesting night......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/23/hung-parliament-tory-support-crumbles

SUPPORT THE ROBIN HOOD TAX!

Richard Curtis is renowned for escapist films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and of course Love, Actually, in which Bill Nighy stole the show as an ageing rock star.

The sublime actor is also heading up Curtis's campaign for a Robinhoodtax on the bankers which has gained massive support.

It's not exactly revolutionary stuff but a stunningly simple idea - to tax the bankers a tiny amount and give billions of pounds in proceeds to tackle poverty and climate change. They are planning a lobby of Parliament and there is a real chance all the three main parties will be forced to sign up to it if enough of us rally round, You can find out more at the website here

BUILDING THE RESISTANCE.....

Yesterday to York for a meeting of LRC members from the North and East Midlands. Thanks to those from Durham, Carlisle, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield and Cambridgeshire who attended. Our mission was to talk through plans for after the General Election, which increasingly looks as though it will result in a hung Parliament, or minority Govt. We plan to meet again in June when the Election is over.......

NOT FOR CISSIES.....

Someone (I think it was George Burns) once remarked that old age was not for cissies.
Growing old is something most of us prefer not to think about. With good reason.
We spend silly money on anti-wrinkle creams and kid ourselves we are investing in somehow avoiding the inevitable ravages of time.
My own delusional behaviour has been brought up short by several weeks to-ing and fro-ing between Hebden Bridge and Wythenshawe 40 miles away where my previously defying the statistics father is suddenly at 89 a very frail old man- surrounded by people often years and years younger but even more incapacitated by ill-health.
We always hoped it would never come to this.Regarding the consumption of a whole banana as evidence that things were somehow getting better. Truth is they are not. And they won't.
And yet the sheer bravery I've witnessed in this place which needs tons more funding from central government should serve as an inspiration to all of us facing a possibly similar fate.
My dad told me tonight that the whole room he's been in for three weeks suddenly erupted in applause when a stroke victim suddenly managed to summon reserves from somewhere and stand up on his own two feet. There are people in their eighties determinedly hanging on by their Zimmer frames - and they are not going gently . They still want to live.
Whatever happens to my father, and believe you me he is still fighting the good fight against the dying of the light, I pledge to do my best to lobby and fight for better healthcare for our elderly people.
Martin Amis wants euthanasia booths giving "Martinis and a medal" for those who choose to end their own lives.
I regard such obscene pronouncements as a call to arms for all of us who call ourselves socialists to fight for a better-funded, universal healthcare system for the elderly people we will all one day be. No-one shoukld spend the last days of their lives in poverty- and alone

PURNELL STANDS DOWN

Breaking news: James Purnell, once touted as a future leader, is to stand down.
With the announcement of Hoon's departure, the sad and sorry bunch who tried to de-seat the PM are now going down like ninepins.
I shan't mourn Purnell's departure. One of the architects of the Welfare Reform Bill, and a career politician, he blew it bigtime when he resigned from the Cabinet.
At least he has had the grace to recognise that and leave Westminster. Which is more than one can say for others not so far away from Stalybridge and Hyde
Update:I hear from insiders that Purnell's news came as a complete shock to his local CLP which had already invested a siginificant amount of money in election leaflets etc. I also hear his replacement is likely to be a local candidate who might never set the world on fire but at least has a solid track-record in the area.Good luck to whoever is selected to fight the seat.

NICK WINTERTON - A FIRST CLASS PRAT

The other day I had something in common with Nick Winterton - I travelled first-class. I travelled that way because it was the cheapest way of getting from London to Manchester at a time when business travellers have long deserted their laptop stations and digested their business breakfast.
I almost had to pay twice because the kindness of a friend in dropping me by car at Euston station meant of course we hit wall-to-wall traffic en route and I missed the (first-class) train I had booked.
Subterfuge was called for.
I plonked myself in an appropriate carriage, ordered a coffee and hoped for the best. In the event, I got away with sitting on a train which left 20 minutes after the one I should have been on. And therein lies the madness of it all.
Not only do we have a class-ridden, two-tier railway service. The whole privatised caboodle is an on-line lottery where it is sometimes cheaper to travel first and enjoy the undoubted benefits - nice gin and tonic, wine, free tea and coffee, and sandwiches and snacks all provided too .
If you're unlucky, it's standing-room only, long delays, clapped-out kitchens and all at premium prices. Cheap tickets, much-touted in the trade, have to be booked weeks in advance. Fine if you're on a tourist trip. Not so great in an emergency.
What we want, and what Labour Party members have been demanding for years, is a first-class railway for all , back in public hands, and providing everyone with fair fares. Not the shambles which we have at the moment, whichever part of the train you choose to sit in.

WELCOME TO THE LABOUR PARTY!

Having been away from the blogging arena for a bit ( at the moment it is renewing my spirits in rather difficult times ) I was intrigued to see that Phil in Stoke has left the SP and joined the Labour Party.
I was particularly intrigued having spent a recent Saturday at the Right To Work conference organised by the far left, to which the LRC was invited.
As probably the most "right-wing" speaker there, I was arguing for the Labour left - and trying to argue against many who seemed to think the new Trade Union and Socialist Coalition was an answer. As Phil says in his post on the topic, the prospects eletorally are bleak.
It is pretty bleak also being a left-wing Labour member. No question. But to stand SP candidates against an excellent MP like Mark Fisher is madness.
So is the widely held view among many in the SWP that a vote for Labour is the same as voting Tory and that a Cameron Govt would be no worse. So, Phil, welcome to Labour. You have a long hard road ahead but we need people like you to carry on the fight. With no illusions..........

http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/

GO IAN LAVERY!

This Saturday I'm heading for York with other members of the LRC for a joint meeting of members from Leeds, Manchester, West Yorkshire and the North.
By the time we get to the Friends Meeting House at 1pm I hope to hear some good news regarding Ian Lavery, currently President of the NUM, who is favourite to win the PC candidature in the safe seat of Wansbeck. If he wins, it will be a triumph indeed.
I believe the usual suspects have been trying for years to stop him being a candidate andf the fact he was lambasted in last week's Daily Mail as a "hard-line union baron" shows that maybe for once a socialist candidate sympathetic to the LRC has a chance of winning against the machine.
Bad news though from Leyton and Wanstead where I believe the NEC has stepped in to the selection process and rather astonishingly kept its own member, Christine Shawcroft, from making it to the final shortlist.
I also understand that John Cryer, who lost his Hornchurch seat at the last election, is the left's last man standing . Serious commiserations to Christine, who has spent months campaigning in the constituency.

I WARN YOU NOT TO GROW OLD.......

When Neil Kinnock issued his famous speech re the danger of a Tory Govt many of us admired its sheer sincerity and raw appeal to Labour's sense of social justice.
Over 20 years on I wonder what has happened in a world where our old people are treated so shamefully and inadequately by an NHS which was once the envy of the world.
My eyes to the reality behind the slogans of the spin doctors have been opened by several weeks spent visiting my father, now desperately ill, in a Manchester care home where staff are clearly struggling with the impact of years of under-funding.
This place, by the way, is no Gothic horrorshow but a new Intermediate Care unit opened several years ago by a New Labour Minister. When my father was admitted several weeks ago, my hope was he would be restored to health with a simple combination of rest and good food. Neither has transpired.
Food is not cooked on the premises - but outsourced and brought in from a private company in Wales.
Little of it is suitable for my father, who has a chronic gall bladder problem, and most of it is frankful woeful and unpalatable. The consequence is he has not put on any weight - yesterday I resorted to taking in two tins of soup in a desperate bid to improve the situation.
The prospects are not looking good because staff seem to have little notion of nutrition - probably not their fault. But I ask what kind of world are we in when we cannot give elderly people in NHS care a decent meal? When relatives have to advise staff on the right diet for malnourished old folk? And when requests to hand out smaller portions to stop loved ones being overfaced are just ignored?
The bottom line Andy Burnham is we are simply not doing enough for a growing population living way beyond the ages of their parents and grandparents.
The people I saw yesterday suffering from the impact of strokes, long illnesses and chronic conditions like arthritis. This is will be you and I one day.
The least all of us deserve is a system where we willl be treated with dignity and respect.
Free care , first-class care, not £20,000 death taxes and punishment for the crime of living way beyond three score years and ten.
Are the staff where my dad is doing their best? Yes of course they are. The stark truth is that , because we don't raise enough money for a decent NHS elderly care, it is simply not enough. Better than the Tories - but simply not what we should be getting from a Labour Government

TIME TO STOP- FOR NOW

Tomorrow night I'm having dinner with Nick Clegg - and a couple of hundred others - at a do in Leeds. Last week I got a nasty jolt from a BNP leader who claimed he had been misrepresented. It's not grounds for expulsion. Journalism on a Yorkshire paper is my job for now - albeit a short-term thing. And, given the hours and the nature of the job, it's made blogging pretty much impossible.
For the foreseeable future, much of my spare time is going to be taken up with inventing marvellous fat-free dishes for my dad who has a serious gall bladder problem and is in need of care from us - his family.
Then there is the stress I have recently suffered from people locally whose only agenda was to get me into trouble with the Labour Party. They have not succeeded - but I am pretty fed-up with it all and have had enough.
So for now the blogging stops. It may resume once the general Election is called. I may leave it till afterwards. Whatever the time, blogs only work if you can really say what you think and be as partisan as you like. When you can't do either, it is pointless.
I will continue to be active in the local Labour Party and LRC.But for now it has to be in real time. Not the surreal and often nasty world of the blogosphere. Thanks to all who have supported the blog since 2007 - this time it really is a break. I will be back .....

HELP FOR THE AGED

I haven't lost sight of the bigger picture. Disaster in Haiti and the sight of people's terrible tragedies renders everything else a little insignificant.
Personal loss, if not national catastrophe, is something we all have to face . And when it is one's immediate family in trouble then external events must fade into the baclground for a while.
My interest in local and national politics hs been dimmed for the moment by trying to come to terms with my dad's growing frailty. Two years ago, at 87, he could still walk down to the pub for a sizeable pub lunch, enjoy a few pints, and entertain regulars with Irish rebel songs. He defied the laws of gravity. I suppose we thought that would go on for ever.
But at the moment he's in hospital suffering from what can only be described as self-neglect. And it has taken days of wrangling with the hospital to stop them discharging him and take on board the fact his food intake needs constant monitoring.
Like most men of his generation, he's a tough old bird who does not want to accept he needs help. It's the job of me and my sister to persuade him the point has been reached when he needs others to intervene - and make the most of the facilities on offer . But it is a rough road for all of us.
On Friday, despite our entreaties , the hospital chose to send him home. Less than 24 hours later, I was in an ambulance with him . I have to say the compassion and care shown by NHS staff is something which never ceases to fill me with pride about our health system.
But the kind of care my dad now needs won't be provided in a hospital.
As people continue to live longer and longer we need to look at how we can give our very old people - which will be all of us one day - the care and dignity they need in their final years.
I take heart, despite being desperately worried, in the fact that as we waited in Casualty my dad was still demanding his Brylcreem so he could look his best. And cracking jokes with the nurses. The end, I hope, is not imminent. But facing life's realities is something all of us in our middle years sadly have to do.

A DIGNIFIED SILENCE

Calder Valley and its political travails are once more splashed over the newspapers. It is not a good situation.
In the circumstances, and for the foreseeable future, I think it best to say nothing.
In the past few days I have been fighting another battle involving a member of the BNP who is making trouble.
If blogging has been sparse that is because I am juggling professional commitments, trying to fit in meetings , and looking after my dad who is not in the best of health. The good news is that my recent mammomgram was fine. So that's one less anxiety to cope with........rest assured that at some point in the future I will comment on events in the Calder Valley. But now is not the time........

PERSONAL TRAGEDY?

Some words are over-used and "tragedy" is one of them. I find it profoundly irritating when politicans , as Peter Hain did last night on Question Time, use the word completely inappropriately.
Hain referred to the Robinson fiasco in Northern Ireland as a "personal tragedy." I disagree.
t was an entitrely avoidable error of judgment by a woman infatuated with a man young enough to be her grandson. Unfortunate, yes. Tragedy, no.
The word should be used sparingly and only in conjunction with truly catastrophic events - like in Haiti for example. A "personal tragedy" for thousands. And a world away from the seedy sleaze of the Robinsons. Which is entirely their own fault......

EPITAPH FOR DAVID TAYLOR MP

John McDonnell MP, Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group, attended Saturday's funeral for his Parliamentary comrade and Leicester MP David Taylor. Mr Taylor was only 63 when he died on Boxing Day while out walking with his family in the grounds of Calke Abbey, in his constituency.
People like David Taylor were/are Labour to the core. They represent the very best of what those of us who have grown up in the Party joined it for. Common decency, socialist values, a basic wish for social justice and a fairer society.
I think it is up to those of us often castigated for holding true to those values, for being "disloyal" to an orthodoxy which has no place in Labour, to stand firm and to continue the fight. However difficult that may sometimes be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/12/new-labour-rootless-pretenders

WELL SAID, COLIN

In today's CiF, Leeds MP Colin Burgon articulates the thoughts of many Labour MPs and Party members who desperately want to see the Tories defeated - but rightly state this will only happen if there is a major shift away from the cuts agenda which all three parties are currently fighting over like ferrets in a sack. Can we snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? Yes, we can. But no by adhering to the orthodoxy still being spouted by Mandelson and James Purnell.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/new-labour-purnell-election

POLICY CHANGE NEEDED

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has predictably ditched the dividing lines between his party and the Tories which made some Labour voters switch at the last General Election. Scrapping the policy on care for the elderly and tuition fees was not "grown-up poliics." It was a white flag of surrender to neo-liberalism.

The good news for Labour is that his sharp turn to the right will do the Fibs no favours whatsoever. The bad news that Labour is still hell-bent on sticking to the Tory cuts agenda.

Last night on Newsnight doyenne politicians Prescott and Hattersley were steadfastly loyal but also singularly blinkered in their dogged assertions that Labour still stands for a different way of governing. How Mandelson, chief architect of the GE strategy, praises Thatcher and continues to bang the New Labour drum.

I think it's excellent the coup led by Hoon, Hewitt and Charles Clarke died in the water. But what we need, as left Mps and trade union leaders are pointing out, is real policy change which helps, to use the cliche, "the many not the few." and which will bring our core voters back

The PLP most move fast to make the General Election campaign one which puts clear red water between Labour and the Tories. With the Lib Dems giving up any claim to being left-of-centre, now is the time for Labour to seize the moment.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/85247

WHY I'M KEEPING THIS APPOINTMENT......

Along with thousands of other women in the Calder Valley, I am due for a routine mammogram. And I suspect for most of us it is a traumatic business.

If you trawl the web, it is clear the jury is out as to whether or not three-yearly breast cancer screening actually makes a significant difference to death rates. Which, if you are one of nature's wimps like me, could be a convenient get-out.

But, anxious though I am at tomorrow's encounter with the radiographer, I will be keeping the appointment.

Unlike in other parts of the world, our NHS provides this service absolutely free. And two weeks of anxiety waiting for the result is a small price to pay for (hopefully) the peace of mind of knowing one is cancer free.
Which is why I will be keeping the appointment - and urge every other woman in the Valley to do the same.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORNING STAR

Today I should have been at a planning meeting for this year's Morning Star Conference but I have been laid low by illness .

The Star no longer has the "red gold" which used to come from the USSR nor is it any longer slave to any one political party. But after 80 years it still provides an invaluable role as the only newspaper whose bias and indeed very existence is down to the left and the labour movement.

While the likes of former Labour General Secretary Peter Watt peddle their revolting ( let's trash Gordon Brown from a great height because I'm no longer in a position of influence and swanning about so couldn't give a stuff if the Tories win) tittle-tattle to earn shedloads of cash , staff at the Morning Star survive on a pittance. Call them naive but they do that because they want to work for a newspaper which is not pro-capitalist and anti-socialist.

Most journalists don't have that option and do the best they can within confined limits.Meanwhile the Morning Star, for all its flaws , still shines as a beacon of integrity in the often grubby world of Grub Street. Happy 80th birthday.............

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/85337

PATRICIA WHO?

AS I observed a couple of days ago the Scottish actor David Tennant, who made his last appearance as Doctor Who over Christmas, is a long-time Labour supporter. In the latest edition of Doctor Who magazine, he reveals why he is backing Gordon Brown.

Which I suspect is possibly a little more helpful than the sad spectacle of the failed coup by disaffected Blairites.Perhaps they should shut the door on their way out......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8449895.stm

CAMPAIGN FOR THE NEW CAMPAIGN GROUP

With only months to go until the General Election, the LRC is drawing up a list of MPs on the left who will need help getting re-elected.

In every constituency, every MP and Parliamentary candidate will of course be doing their utmost to get back to Westminster and retain a Labour government. But, whatever the result, it is absolutely essential that the PLP retains its left voice.

Because of Mps standing down, or being in seats with tiny majorities, the sad fact is the left's ranks after May will be pretty depleted. But, with the inevitable losses elsewhere, a tranche of around 20 Mps could still play a significant role.

In our immediate vicinity, there are three MPs who have stood firm on issues like Trident, 90 Days and trade union rights. They are Mike Wood, Batley and Spen (pictured) , Linda Riordan in Halifax and Gordon Prentice in Pendle. All three also nominated John McDonnell in 2007 and they need support from across the north to get re-elected. The LRC will also be setting up a General Election fund which will shortly appear on the website. The money will go to help MPs with a consistent socialist record

In the past 20 years, the Socialist Campaign Group has been a principled voice in Parliament. We need as many people as possible out there helping to ensure it does not die.

MRS ROBINSON

Good to see religiously sectarian, homophobic, reactionary DUP politicians getting their comeuppance. Hopefully.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8448005.stm

WHAT A HOON.....

The latest attempt by the disaffected wing of New Labour to dislodge Gordon Brown is truly pathetic. Geoff Hoon, the worst Defence Minister ever, and Patricia Hewitt, schoolmarmy superintendent of NHS privatisation, join forces in the third attempt at a coup in less than 18 months.

It won't work, of course. By the law of diminishing returns such highly personalised attacks rightfully garner only disgust and incredulity that a matter of months before a General Election, these selfish beneficiaries of Government office choose to sharpen their (increasingly blunt) knives. And it's nothing about policy or principle.

They are terrified that if Brown loses he will not be replaced by another acolyte of neo-liberalism. Ther fears are probably groundless as neither front-runners Ed Balls or Ed Milliband would exactly frighten the horses of the City. Nor would the Guardian's favourite Jon Cruddas. But David Miliband is their man and they fear his time is running out.

What a distraction all this is. At a time when Labour COULD be clawing back votes by seriously changing direction, these buffions show how much they have lost touch with the grassroots by falsely imagining their back-door back-stabbing will get them the result they want.

Ex Labour MP Clare Short once referred to such characters as the "people who live in the dark." It is time their light of nasty cliques and cabals was permanently extinguished.

THE SOCIALIST DOCTOR.......

Like everyone else in the UK, not looking forward to Black Monday after the festivities. Prolonged Christmas by watching last ever performance by David Tennant as Doctor Who. Not only was he brilliant........ turns out also a socialist. Hope your Monday isn't too bad, comrades..........


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/david-tennant-the-good-doctor-802404.html

GIVE IT A REST , BARRY

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, the man who bottled out of challenging Tony Lloyd as PLP Chair ( he knew he would lose) is banging on about why Gordon Brown should stand down. I think it's time Sheerman shut up and did us all a favour. How dare he and the rest of these dreadful Blairites ( who are scared to death of a non New Labour leader after the General Election) lecture us on "loyalty." They are a disgrace. As were the "briefings" about the supposed Gang Of Five plotting to replace Brown with David Miliband. Don't the words "flogging " and "dead horse" mean anything to the control freaks in the Cabinet. If any Miliband is more likely to be a future Labour leader, the chances are it will not be the Foreign Secretary.

DEATH OF A DECADE

I won't be sad to see the end of 2009. In truth, it has been an awful year which I shall be glad to see the back of.
Good friends I have known for decades died this year, the health of immediate family members continues to give cause for concern.
And, until very recently, personal financial penury was most definitely looming.
At the start of the year, I invested much time and a considerable amount of cash in pursuing a Parliamentary seat in Keighley.
Last weekend, friends "kidnapped" me in an impromptu lunchtime drive up to Appletreewick, around 20 miles from the northernmost part of the Keighley constituency, for a splendid lunch. I reflected along the way that it was not - and nothing ever is - a complete waste of time. I met some great people - and learned some very hard political lessons.
My Christmas was less than wonderful thanks to the stupidity of a local DIY man who switched off next door's water supply ( therefore also curtailing mine). This took five days arguing with Yorkshire Water to ascertain.
Still, I now know it takes three litres of cold water to flush a toilet. And that there are far more important things in life than hot water. Like friends, family and basic facts like being healthy and relatively prosperous in a world where most people are not.
So I sincerely hope that 2010 is better. For all of us. A Happy Socialist New Year

DAVID TAYLOR MP

Sad to hear just now of the death of David Taylor MP, who represented North West Leicestershire. I interviewed him a couple of years ago and he was a decent old school Labour MP, Campaign Group member, who championed his constituency with conviction. He died while out on a Boxing Day walk with his family.

NO WATER WORLD

There is still no water to speak of in my house. My powers of British stoicism are running out and I have had to rely on the largesse of friends to have a bath. It has ruined my Christmas.
Yorkshire Water, to whom I pay over £30.00 a month in water rates, say there is nothing they can do and with temperatures set to plummet over New Year, it looks as though the situation will continue. I am at the mercy of the elements.
But what I didn't expect this morning was a dismissive phone call from the Yorkshire Water "helpline" to say it was an entirely private matter, there was nothing they could do, and basically to sod off.
I know that in the great scheme of things this is a trivial matter. But, as every woman knows, the simple joy of taking a bath is one of life's great pleasures. So forgive me while I contemplate crawling under the duvet and howling until the Big Freeze is over. It is nice to know the vast profits made by the privatised utilities are paid back in customer satisfaction

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW......

All I actually want for Christmas is a bath. And running water. There has been more bloody snow overnight and what little water I had has now gone completely. The plumber said there is nothing which can be done until the Big Freeze is over - when gallons of water are likely to flood the basement. God bless us every one......

Fortunately, I am going to friends for Christmas lunch. I may also join the gym down the road just to have a shower. As I look out the window, the scene could not be prettier. The reality is that sub-zero temperatures have truly messed up my Christmas.And yes, I know I should not whinge.But sod it........

On a more positive note a truly Happy Birthday to my friend Pete Lazenby who is 60 today. Pete is a lifelong socialist , journalist and lives in Hebden Bridge. He works for the Yorkshire Evening Post and writes on the Guardian's Comment Is Free too . The only man I know who can stomach vindaloo curry for breakfast in the office at 9am in the morning. Have a good one and see you later for a birthday drink.....if I can find some hot water

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

I'm waiting for the plumber. I face the grisly prospect of Christmas without hot water - thanks to the Arctic weather we have had in Hebden Bridge. What joy.
Snow is great on the Christmas cards. Not so great when you are at the mercy of the elements and hoping against hope for an overnight thaw.
Trivial stuff, really, compared to the perils of being elderly and vulnerable in this kind of weather. Which at least are currently being assuaged by the severe weather payments which will now go out automatically to people like my dad who has not been able to leave home for a week. Payments which, under the Tories, are likely to stop.
But it's seemingly way too much for Peter Mandelson, that little inch of clear red water which still separates Labour from the Tories.
Apparently, he is letting his displeasure known to the press that Gordon Brown refused to be nice enough to the bankers and still wants to fight an election on the differences, not the common ground, between us and the Tories. The differences let's face it which keep many of us in the Labour Party despite everything.
No coincidence, surely, amid this talk of renewed plots against Brown that uber-Blairite John Hutton should finally own up to being the Minister ( which we all knew anyway) who said Brown would be a "f***ing disaster" as Prime Minister.
Once again Miliband, it's rumoured, is preparing to position himself for a leadership contest in the New Year.
I've always found it amusing ( in a wry kind of way) that what's left of the left gets accused of undermining Labour's chances when members of the Government feel free to brief the lobby they are not happy with the PM.
But they are living on another planet if they think a cynical pre-election coup will do Labour any favours whatsoever.
Is it the threat , not of election disaster, but of a hung Parliament, which has suddenly resuscitated the anti-Brown camp? It could well be they would prefer Brown to go down in flames rather than hang on - with a majority dependant on a de-New Laboured Party shorn of many of its most right-wing MPs , including people like Hutton who is standing down. We shall see but one thing is sure - Mandelson is up to his old tricks and Brown should also start positioning himself - around Labour's core values .

FESTIVE GREETINGS.......

A snowman greeted me this morning as I trudged through the town in Dostoyevskian fashion this morning to the railway station. He was still there as I trudged back tonight.

It is COLD, dark and I am looking forward immensely to the Christmas break which starts on Wednesday evening.

I just want to take this opportunity ( not having had much time to blog of late) to wish everyone I know a happy and peaceful Christmas.

2010 will be a challenging year for all of us I have no doubt. In the meantime time to recuperate and gather one's energies for the struggles ahead.

The good thing is that from now on the nights start getting lighter. And hopefully I will have time to return to the blog in the New Year. Thanks particularly to all who have supported me politically and personally in 2009. Happy Christmas, comrades.

FESTIVE READING -THE LRC RED PAPERS

One of the most disheartening things about the immediately pre-Christmas period is the sales signs going up . Now the majority of the UK population has spent up for the festive season, High Street retailers are already gearing up for the capitalist bonus of "bargains" which will increase their killing even further.
Today I finally got my act together and had a tree delivered. Tomorrow, I will frantically sign and address cards and maybe this weekend buy family and friends some modest presents but on the whole I find the corporate spectacle which Christmas has become pretty dispiriting.
One thing I've not had the chance to do recently is digest some serious reading on the economic prospects (bad ) for 2010 and, with some days off work over Christmas, I plan to go throught the Red Papers published by the LRC and get my head round some serious socialist analysis
The Papers are here and can be downloaded.They are an invaluable resource for those of us in need of facts and figures
http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/policy/LEAP

MARCH 25 - WATCH THAT DATE

A March election is on the cards according to the BBC - and according to many at Westminster.
Interesting times........
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8410502.stm

IRAQ - STILL JUSTIFIED BY BLAIR

At the last election, the Labour vote was decinated by the shadow of the Iraq war. Six years down the line, Tony Blair shows little remorse - seemingly discounting the WMD excuse which was used at the time to persuade otherwise ambivalent MPs to vote for the war.Astonishiing, really.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8408918.stm

GREED IS NOT GOOD......

I'm no saint but one thing I am not is greedy. Unlike MPs on all sides of the House who seem incapable of moving an inch without filling in their expenses forms.
One expects the Tories to be unpalatable toffs. One does not expect Labour Mps to be swimming in so much money that they claim the doubtful accolade of being the wealthiest MP in Parliament.
Shaun Woodward was of course once a Tory, He has four homes, land in the West Indies and a Northern constituency where he was parachuted in following his defection.
Rather amusingly, his CLP is actually affiliated to the LRC thanks to the stalwart efforts of the CLP Sec John Wiseman. But it's not very funny, is it, that this greedy Parliamentarian claimed £21,417 for his second home expenses despite being as rich as Croesus.
Likewise Quentin Davies, another defector from the Tories, who submitted a claim for more than £20,000 for work to the bell tower and roof of his 18th century mansion - a £5million pad in Lincolnshire.
These two jokers ( at our expense) make a nonsense of any attempt by Labour to adopt a "class war" strategy in the run-up to the General Election. What on earth are they doing , frankly, in the Labour Party? And why on earth did we allow them in ? Their sheer avarice and waste of public money is an absolute disgrace.

FIVE THINGS I WOULD HAVE BLOGGED ABOUT.....

Pressure of time is making serious inroads into my blogging time. But even when I had several hours a day to muse on the political arena there are matters best left to the experts. These include the Pre-Budget Report.
Other events have occurred in the past few days I would have liked to say my piece on. For the record - they are.
1. The 100th soldier to die this year in Afghanistan
2. The Iraq War inquiry and the increasingly damning evidence against Blair - with even Prescott jumping ship
2. The NEC's decision to take over all remaining Parliamentary selections
3. Michael Meacher's Coalition For A Labour Victory campaign
4. An interview in which Cherie Blair ( with husband Tony now worth an estimated £12million) said she still worried about money.
5. Rumours that the General Election will now be in March
I hope to take up the cudgels on some of these at least in the weeks ahead.
For the moment, unlike Cherie, I am blissfully happy to have a modest income coming in, even if it does require 5.30am wake-up calls and a two-hour commute.

NOT QUITE ENOUGH......

The Pre-Budget Report had some welcome measures like the rise in NI contributions, one-off tax on the bankers. But, as Dave Semple makes lucidly clear on Though Cowards Flinch, not quite enough...........
http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/

See also LEAP

A PHONEY WAR

It's all very well for Gordon Brown to start using the "class war" tactic against the Tory toffs who largely live on a different financial planet from the rest of us. Given that 19 of the 29 Conservatives on the front bench are millionaires it is a justified tactic in the cut-and-thrust which is Westminster politics.
If only it were reflected in Labour's policies.
Instead of dog-whistle rhetoris, this Government should start REALLY attacking the rich - sacking the greedy bankers, taxing the highest earners, and making a serious fist of closing the gap between the rich and the poor ( which it has failed to do in 12 years in power) .
Jokes about Lord Snooty and his Pals may be frated hilarious by backbenchers. They won't find it quite so funny if they lose their seats at the General Election due to Gordon's failure to match rhetoric with action. NB: Former Tribune editor Mark Seddon has an excellent piece on this topic in today's Daily Mail. Yes, I know, but it is still a very good article......

NO CHRISTMAS BONUS FOR THESE GREEDY BANKERS

It's kind of difficult to fathom the greed of bankers at the Royal Bank Of Scotland. Already earning salaries most of us can only dream of, they see it as their right to demand a "bonus" adding up to an estimated £1.5billion. £75,000 each. At our expense.
The Government has an 84 per cent stake in the RBS yet bank bosses are telling the Treasury to get lost over its veto of the bonuses. Unbelievable, isn't it?
What also beggars belief is that the Govt is seemingly allowing them to call the shots.
It's time for the Treasury to take control, end the perks for already rich directors, and give the public, most of whom are coping with LESS money this Christmas, an early present.
Such a move would win widespread public suport, and boost Labour's chances of a much-needed boost in the polls.

MORE TIME FOR JOURNALISM

It's been difficult in past days to find any time for blogging. Today back from London from meetings, hauled in to do some volunteer stuff for Oxfam, then to another meeting and just finishing article before I head off to bed and up at 5.45am. So please bear with me while I adjust to a new routine.
Glad, however, to note Tim Gopsill, the recently retired editor of The Journalist, has a new blog, Victor Noir, which I have linked to ......
Tim, sadly, did not cover our last ADM due to internal union issues which don't belong on the blogosphere. But his contribution was massive and he will be sadly missed.
Tim says he will now have "more time for journalism." I hope that's true.

COALITION FOR A LABOUR VICTORY

At the recent LRC AGM we had a useful fringe meeting comprised of people from all part of the country. One of them was Sarah Evans from Andover, who has just been selected as PPC for NW Hampshire.
I'd like to wish Sarah the very best of luck in what is not, sadly, a Labour stronghold. But I know she plans to use the campaign as a chance to stand on a socialist platform and win back support for Labour in her constituency.
It takes guts to stand in places where the chances of winning are slim and months of pounding on doors is unlikely to result in victory .
In the past few months Michael Meacher has been trying to rally people to put their names forward as part of a "Coalition For A Labour Victory". The idea was to encourage more PPCs standing on a left ticket and make the most of the unprecedented number of vacancies before the General Election.
However it seems the NEC are now to take over the remaining seats where there isn't a candidate and I fear that will not be good news for more potential candidates like Sarah.
So what we need to start doing now is building a tranche of talented candidates from the left who will be ready and able to try and stand as PPCs in the years to come.
Whatever happens in 2010, we need a new generation with socialist ideas and principles to stand as Parliamentary candidates. I hope the LRC can do its bit in the months ahead to start that process.

NO MORAL COMPASS - PART 2009

Because I have been squirrelled away in a conference hall for the past few days I missed the Guardian story about Compass supporting some alleged leadership coup.
However I was pleased to note that Tony Lloyd MP has tonight been elected unopposed as the Leader of the PLP.
By no stretch of the imagination is Tony hard left. But I've known him for 20-odd years and the Manchester Central is a decent man of integrity and principle who I would back any day of the week against Barry Sheerman, the Yorkshire MP allegedly aiming to replace him.
The Guardian story ( which I can't link to as their website is rubbish) suggested Compass would back some alternative to Brown in a New Year coup. I ask the question- what's the point? Ironic really that Brown's erstwhile biggest cheerleaders are now aiming to ditch him.
I think those of us outside the Westminster bubble recognise the General Election is imminent, we're going to be immersed in a salvage operation, and maybe, just maybe, the result won't be as bad as some of us have feared due to lamentable own goals by the Tories and a change in the political weather. If anyone thinks a leadership election at this stage would be a good thing they are living in a parallel universe. Neal Lawson and his Management Committee should get real. And what a great pity they didn't in 2007. Now we live with the consequences. And do our best to hang on

WHAT'S ON THE HORIZON.......

The following article appeared in Friday's Morning Star. Truly frightening - but valuable ammunition .
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/83512


Also see LEAP

POLITICAL GENDER BALANCE -

AT the NUJ conference held last week in Southport there were very few issues that were contentious. Which made, if I'm honest, for a very boring agenda.
When you are in a conference hall for nine hours at a stretch there is nothing like a good old spat to get the adrenalin going and stop one nodding off in solidarity with everyone else who agrees with you .
The one major barney was between delegates backing a rule change to insist on 50 per cent nominations male/female for the union's NEC and myriad committees and sub-committees.
Rather surprisingly, it was defeated. Largely on the grounds it would be nigh impossible to carry out and that our union is struggling to find ANY nominees at all for bodies like the NEC, Ethics Council etc etc etc.
Now I've been a delegate to NUJ ADM for at least five consecutive events. Not because I'm the only person in my Branch with anything to say, not because I'm the greatest activist. But quite simply because no-one else ever seems to want to spend four days holed up in a hotel listening to motions they are probably going to agree with anyway . In short, we are very thin on the ground.
And that's why......I voted for an amendment calling on the union to campaign for more involvement by women - but stopping short of a statutory requirement for gender balance.
I know this will incur plenty of wrath from other female comrades.
But for some time I have been ambivalent about the outcomes achieved by hard-and-fast enforcing of all-women-shortlists, and other policies which are /were well meant and ethically right but in practice actually used to facilitate political gerrymandering.
Yes, the leftie world is still male pale and stale. No question. At the recent RMT conference which I spoke at, it was depressing to see an audience comprised of around 90 per cent men - mainly middle-aged and white.
In such a macho environment, many women would feel utterly intimidated and no doubt discouraged from getting more involved.
And there's no doubt most men find issues like speaking at rostrums, standing for positions etc far less stressful .
In the LRC, our National Committee is 50/50 gender balanced and actually works rather well. But the upshot is of course that very good male comrades have a more difficult task getting elected.
I think we need to ask ourselves why more women are disengaged from the political structures - and stop assuming it is because they need their hands held or because they have childcare issues.
At the recent LRC Conference we rightly provided a creche with properly certified carers. The take-up was tiny. That does not mean we abandon a commitment to enabling women to be there. But we do have to ask ourselves what else we need to do to change the overwhelmingly male world of politics. Imposing quotas is not enough......

BINMEN STRIKE ENDS IN SIGNIFICANT VICTORY

The solidarity shown by the Leeds binmen in their 13-week dispute has finally paid off with a significant victory . After weeks of negotiations between council chiefs , UNISON and the GMB the workforce have secured their previously threatened wages - in return for agreement to sign up for productivity and efficiency deals. It would be over-egging the pudding to describe this as a 100 per cent result but the men have saved their pay packets thanks to a refusal to kowtow to serious determination by the management to smash them completely by employing private contractors and bringing in scab labour.
A similar result soon I hope for the Superdrug workforce in West Yorkshire who are holding out against terrible pay and conditions .


http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Leeds-binmen-strike-ends.5848422.jp

PARACHUTES AHOY!

Whatever Parliamentary aspirations I once had have been well and truly smashed this year. But life goes on and as I write I am back in a newsroom and perfectly happy with my lot.
But it would be great if others still with the grit and determination to succeed against the odds were able to get through.
Alas, it seems that the NEC is already swiftlly drawing up a strategy to fill what seats remain ASAP. And, without being conspiratorial, we know that will reduce the chances of any more dissident voices getting off the starting-block.
There is already a strong rumour in Westminster circles that UNITE's Jack Dromey, husband of Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, will be parachuted into Leyton and Wanstead. And up my end of the woods I have heard a little whisper that Alisdair Campbell could be doing similar in Burnley. Interestingly, the latter seat WAS going to be AWS but has been referred back to the NEC.
In fairness to Campbell, he could well be the man to take on the bully boys of the BNP in Lancashire. But, once the NEC takes over selections in a couple of months' time. don't expect any more mavericks to be joining the list of PPCs.

OFF TO THE SEASIDE....

How I wish it were for a holiday.......instead I'm Branch delegate at the NUJ AGM in Southport. Before embarking on Thursday I will be writing up my report from the LRC AGM for Labour Briefing.
I note with interest Adam White's remarks on Labour Home. Congrats to Adam for being elected to the National Committee from Greater Manchester LRC.I will have a chat when I see you next about your thoughts.....
The NC has several new members this year which is A Good Thing and dare I say also a Even Better Thing they are from Cambridge, Chesterfield Manchester and Merseyside.
The LRC needs its Friends In The North ( and South, East and West) if it is to progress in the coming period.We need to get out more. So thanks to my erswthile Manchester NUJ colleague and new NC Committee member Miles Barter for his offer of going out on the stomp in the south. All such offers will be gratefully appreciated ...PS: Yes I know I said I wasn't blogging but as several people have asked me to carry on I will, albeit more sporadically.PPS. Commiserations to Rochard Simcox, NUJ Left candidate for editor of The Journalist.

LAST BLOG FOR NOW....

The fact that I have had no time to report back from Saturday's LRC Conference says it all, really. In my defence I'm now juggling a part-time job with politics, one which requires 6am starts so am utterly exhausted and have spent the last three weekends in London with a union AGM this weekend in Southport. Blogging time is almost non-existent.
So because I don't think blogs work if they are half-heartedly done I'm packing it in for a while. At some point in the future things may change but for now I'm blogged out.
Thanks to all who voted for me on Saturday. I was really pleased to get the top vote for LRC Vice-Chair and delighted to win the NEC slate nomination with Christine Shawcroft. Commiserations to Gary Heather and John Wiseman.
The hustings was pretty tough but at least the LRC can say their candidates really have been democratically chosen. Our bottom line is clear and unequivocal. Two candidates , two places on the CLGA slate.

BUILDING THE RESISTANCE - AND REBUILDING THE LEFT

On Saturday at the LRC AGM Chair John McDonnell MP will be outlining our policy platform and work programme for the coming months in the run-up to the General Election. For those of you who can't make Saturday's conference, our strategy is here:

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/83153

CALLING ALL REGIONAL LRC MEMBERS.....

I hope this year's LRC Conference will see more members from outside London making it down the M1 (or M6). In 2009 we've made a start to build groups outside the Smoke but there's still much to do and we will be discussing the way ahead at a lunchtime meeting after the NEC hustings. It won't be top-down but a chance to discuss issues, challenges and problems we're likely to come up against in the coming period.
Steve Brown from Newcastle will be leading off and then there will be an open and honest discussion........
Saturday should be an interesting day and as I have much to do before then I will leave it there. If you're wavering, remember it's only £5 to register if you're not from London.

PHOTO FINISH

My thanks to friend and comrade Stephanie David for e-mailing me this picture which, coincidentally, I bought a postcard version of at Labour Party Conference.
Steph has "adapted" it for use on my Facebook support group for the LRC Vice-Chair election. And, on a Monday morning when I am still recovering from a nasty bout of bronchitis and frankly sick to death of faction fighting, it has really cheered me up! The "Susan" in question was Susan Lawrence, one of the first three women Labour MPs ever to be elected and the first to chair Labour Party Conference........

THE 200th TO DIE

This morning I was too ill ( blame a walk in the pouring rain in Central London Friday because of a Tube fire) to make the annual Remembrance Day service at the war memorial in Hebden Bridge. I was, though, well enough to hear on the radio that the 200th British soldier to die in Afghanistan announced and I wonder how many more deaths it will take for the Government to acknowledge it's time to bring the troops home.

IN THE FIRING LINE......

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that this blog is in its dog days. I set up Grimmer Up North nearly three years ago and the problem is that I can no longer really do what I intended to do when I set it up. So, pretty shortly, I am going to close it down.
It's been an interesting few years involving campaigns for an election for Labour Party Leader ( that never happened) . several Parliamentary selections , a year of activity locally as Mayor and of course more general observations on the political scene.
Today I was speaking in LRC Vice-Chair capacity at the RMT's conference on the crisis of working- class representation in London . I knew it would not get an easy ride - I was right.
People clapped politely but for the most part they were all fired up with the far more enticing prospect of a New Workers' Party/ Socialist Alliance at the next election and obviously I wasn't going down that road. The speeches, by Joe Higgins, Bob Crow, and Pat Sikorski, were absolutely brlliant and their rhetorical skills stunning but the conclusions?.
The problem is that if you start believing , as one Socialist Party comrade clearly did, that a one per cent share of the vote ( which is what No2EU got) is some kind of victory for socialism then it's a parallel universe you're living in.
The hard truth is that minority candidates get minority votes. And maybe the electoral system needs to change to give more people more of a say but we are where we are.And that is facing the prospect of a Tory Government and a resurgence of the right - not socialist utopia .
The LRC attracts criticism from the far left for focussing on retaining socialist Labour representation in Parliament and most of the audeince clearly wanted no truck with Labour at all . But I hope I made my case and thanks to the RMT for the invite to the LRC. So why the prpblem with the blog?
If they are to work, have to be individual, quirky, and fearless. They also only thrive on regular posts. And as I now have some extremely welcome journalistic work , I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep the whole thing going. Though I would hope to continue contribute to the official LRC website , LabourHome etc
I will keep everyone informed about the LRC Conference and maybe one or two other things to come. But after that, Grimmer Up North may be taking a well-earned holiday. And, with the prospect of some money coming in after an extremely difficult year, hopefully so will I.

BAILOUT OF THE BANKS PART TWO

If you're outraged, as I am, by the latest news about the banks, bail-out and potential sales to the private sector, read on......how much more of our money is going to be wasted? A lot, it seems
http://leap-lrc.blogspot.com/

WHY I'M STANDING FOR THE NEC

At the LRC Conference on November 14, there will be hustings for the NEC nominees. And, with so much misinformation already flying around the blogosphere, I thought it best to set the record straight.
There are four nominees and two places. They are NOT gender specific. So any combination of candidates could make it to go forward to the CLGA slate. ie two men, two women, one woman, one man. I am not on any slate .I am standing on my own merits with Christine Shawcroft, Gary Heather and John Wiseman. May the best person win.
But it is NOT about individuals. It is about why it is crucially important the left strengthens its position on the NEC. So, whoever wins is not on some personal bandwagon but there to represent LRC policy AND to stand firm on our agreed position of two places on the CLGA slate. That's the bottom line. And all of us must be prepared to stick to it.
I am standing because I don't think the CLGA has worked collectively . I think ordinary Labour Party members have been let down. And I think it's time we had CLP representatives who stand up for them.

FACTION FIGHTING - NOT A FUTURE THE LRC WANTS

In the forthcoming contest for LRC Vice-Chair ( the only one to be contested) I have set up an entirely personal Facebook support group and I think that's fair enough.I would expect other candidates to do the same.
What is NOT fair, to put it mildly, is to suggest there is a joint slate against me. So I would like to thank Andrew Fisher, who is standing as LRC Secretary , for setting the record straight by making it clear he will be supporting me
I am very disappointed that others have chosen to suggest otherwise via what looks like a quasi-official Facebook group but I will happily, if re-elected, work in tandem with whoever else wins one of the two Vice-Chair positions. And the rest of the Exec, National Committee and anyone who has constructive ideas on how to progress the LRC.
At the end of the day, I stand or fall by the work I have put in. And that's down to the people who actually turn up on the day on November 14 to vote for me. But I would like to thank the affiliated groups and individuals who have given me supporting nominations so far.
They include Greater London LRC, Cambridge LRC, Greater Manchester LRC, Lambeth and Southwark LRC and of course my own LRC in West Yorkshire.