NEC SUPPORTING STATEMENT

The LRC is backing two candidates for the NEC - myself and Christine Shawcroft.I'm going to be doing my best over the next few weeks to maximise my vote and give the left a real say in the elections. If you support my candidacy, please download the leaflet which is now on the LRC website and let's get our message out across the country.More here...

http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/files/LRC_susanpress.pdf

PAST LIFE

Today over to Manchester to collect a box of photos and family memorabilia.
Will i ever play the recorder again? Probably not. but I'm keeping it anyway along with tatttered exercise books and school reports. Were the 1960's another age? Seems that way, looking at the First Communion photos of 30-odd little girls in veils and white dresses. Most of whose names I can still remember. A far-off, innocent time.
Even my graduation photo is now 30 years old but I've hung it in the front room as a memento of times when university education did not put students in hock for the rest of their lives.
The Coalition's latest proposals for a graduate tax are nothing short of scandalous.They will mean fees will rocket through the roof.

WHY DIANE ABBOTT ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH

AT this stage in the game, I think most of us have made our minds up how we are going to vote in the leadership election. Some, I know, are not going to vote at all.

But I don't believe in paying £38 a year for the privilege of disenfranchising myself.

When the ballot papers arrive, I will cast my first preference for Diane Abbott and my second for Ed Miliband. and I will do so with no illusions whatsoever.

My vote for Abbott is to stop the left being humiliated. Her candidacy, however, was designed to ensure it.

An MP who had only two nominations after three weeks of campaigning was suddenly railroaded onto the ballot because of the real prospect of a credible left challenge.

As the grassroots clamour grew for John McDonnell to go on the ballot paper, so did Abbott's support in the PLP.

Mysteriously, people like Phil Woolas, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw appeared from nowhere and effectively - with the final vote from David Miliband - nailed a candidacy which they knew was no threat whatsoever to the status quo. And so it has proved.

At recent hustings, Abbott has agreed cuts have to be made (50 per cent rather than 60 per cent ) and ignored the socialist alternative of progressive taxation and nailing the tax dodgers .She has not impressed the grassroots outside London and many LRC members I know up here are simply cutting to the chase and backing Ed Miliband.

I will not do that.

Abbott's stance on Iraq, immigration and civil liberties distinguishes her from the rest

Buty had she really been interested in promoting the cause of Labour Left, she would have supported John McDonnell and done her best to get him on the ballot. He withdrew with dignity. The truth is he would not have had to withdraw at all if she had not stood at the eleventh-hour.

I don't think the Labour left will gain much in the long-term once the ballot papers have been counted. Those in the PLP who aided her appearance on the ballot will actually vote for others. The big trade unions have already swung behind Ed Miliband.

Reluctantly she will get my first preference. But don't expect me to be a cheerleader .

As LRC Secretary Andrew Fisher explains in this article, it could all have been so much better.

And once the contest is over, and Abbott is back on the sofa with Portillo, we will have to keep arguing the case for a real left alternative.

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/only_a_socialist_vision_can_defeat_the_cuts/

NEC RUNNERS AND RIDERS

NEC member Peter Kenyon has outlined why this year there is no Centre Left Grassroots Alliance slate. but there will still be a plethora of people to vote for. On the centre. And on the left. The bottom line for me I suppose is whether candidates really are of the grassroots and will put in the work.
The LRC is officially supporting two candidates - Christine Shawcroft and myself. On a personal level, I will definitely be supporting Peter who has worked his socks off for the past two years on the NEC on behalf of ordinary members. At the end of the day it is down to all of us as individuals to maximise our vote and put forward the best case we can.
I don't know what the final tally of candidates is but it is likely to be more than 12. No-one can argue they don't have a fair choice.......

NEC NOMINATIONS

My thanks to the following 27 constituencies who have nominated me. During the pre-nomination period, I was almost wholly occupied with family illness so contacted not as many CLPs as I would have hoped to. That will change in the coming period.
Alyn and Deeside
Barnsley Central
Bournemouth West
Bradford South
Brentford and Isleworth
Brigg and Goole
Bristol East
Bury St Edmunds
Calder Valley
Cambridge
Cardiff South and Penarth
Christchurch
Hayes and Harlington
Hazel Grove
Hyndburn
Leeds Central
North Ayrshire and Arran
North West Hampshire
Peterborough
Portsmouth South
St Helens South and Whiston
Tooting
Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Warrington South
Weston Super Mare
Workington
Wyre and Preston

HOMES FOR LIFE

It was a throwaway few seconds on last night's Channel 4 News and I would have blogged straight afterwards but post-work exhaustion set in. But I still want it on record that David Cameron's plans announced for fixed term social housing rank as aming the most despicable ideas yet the ConDems have come up with.
Back in March we faced the painful task of handing back my dad's house to the housing association and I believe it's now occupied by a young family complete with new renovations and a satellite disc . Strange to think the place we knew as home for 35 years has gone but that's how it works. Or rather, should.
The idea people who are unable to afford to buy somewhere ( or maybe don't want to) should be kicked out is pretty disgusting. So much for Cam's concern about 'broken Britain.'
At a time when millions more homes are needed for social housing, he is proposing the very opposite. How compassionate. And how very Tory.

MONEY CAN BUY YOU SUPPORT......

On Saturday I got a txt message from Ed Miliband asking if I was supporting him. Being a realist, I clocked that Miliband Junior was not actually at that minute staring at his mobile anxiously waiting my reply. He gets his minions to do it from Labour Party records.
By way of contrast, in the current crop of NEC elections, I did my best to contact as many CLP Secretaries as possible, with no help, and no money, just a wodge of second-class stamps donated by a friend and a list of CLPs donated by a well-wisher. The rest I did for free on the internet.
A few notches up the scale, there is a bit of a hoo-hah over the money David Miliband has put into his campaign. Around £200,000 or thereabouts.
Diane Abbott is right today to complain at the unfairness of canddates being able to buy support, infleunce and possible power just because of rich supporters.
The Labour Party apparently put a "modest" cap of £156,000 on the amount each leasdership candidate could spend. No-one apart from D Miliband has remotely approached that figure.
His camp say loftily it's all AOK because he just happens to be someone who has so much popularity that the money pours in. Wrong. Miliband has rich supporters which the others don't.
In fairness, David Miliband would be in a pretty good position to take a pop at the leadership with or without pots of money. So whuy does he feel the need to blatantly smash the opposition with expensive mail-outs .
Far fairer for the Party to allow each person the same access to membership records, CLP secretaries , envelopes and stamps. And a level playing-field. This contest has turned into an American-style contest where money is in danger of deciding the result.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS TOAST.......

Tonight a Town Council meeting in Hebden Bridge and look forward to passing on to the smug Lib Dems the news they are set to lose around two-thirds of their MPs according to a new IPSOS poll in the New Statesman. Labour are just two per cent behind the Tories at 38 per cent and the Libdems nowhere at 14 per cent.
Clegg may enjoy swanning and strutting and pretending to be a politician of substance. Hold your ire, comrades, because he is set for a serious kicking by an electorate incandescent at voting "progressive" and ending up with Thatcher's sons......climbing Brokeback mountain.


http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/07/puts-labour-poll-tories-mori

And another......

Many thanks to Uxbridge and South Ruislip CLP

MORE NEC nominations

Many thanks to Leeds Central and Cambridge CLP. The tally is now 16 CLPs

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Seventy years ago George Orwell famously commented on the poor diet of the working-class in The Road To Wigan Pier.
Orwell's fly-blown tripe shops may be no more but it seems the gap between life expectancy for the poor and the rich is back to where it was in the 1920's.
Bad nutrition and lifestyle among those with the least money is quoted as key to why people with money are twice as likely to live as their badly-off counterparts past the age of 65.
Teams at the universities of Sheffield and Bristol tracked the total number of deaths before 65 in regions where personal wealth was in the top 10 per cent from Britain , down to areas in the bottom 10 per cent. The figures showed for every 100 people dying under the age of 75 in the best-off areas, 188 were dying in the poorest tenth of areas -apparently the highest relative inequality recorded since at least 1921.
Why so? Last week I wrote a piece on obesity and itys health implications and spoke to a nutritionist in Leeds. She pointed out that these days people with less money are able to eat cheaply - and not feel hungry - but not necessarily well.
The problem is so bad in Yorkshire - second fattest county in the counntry - that Wakefield council is limiting the number of takeaways. Small beer in a world where lager is often cheaper than fizzy mineral water.
The Goverment is also storing up trouble for the NHS by its attitude to preventative health policy. It has just completely axed the £300M-plus budget for the Change4Life programme - launched only last year.
It also refuses to crack down on the bloated food and drink industry - which continues to mislead the public with ambivalent labelling as well as lure them in with loss leader deals on supersized sweets , cheap booze and junk burgers and pizzas.
The ConDems are also determined to cut down on welfare benefits even further so people can afford even less decent stuff to eat.
Ocado on Jobseeker's Allowance? Don't think so. These days, a root vegetable stew costs more to make than a family bucket of KFC.
Yes, people in poorer areas tend to smoke and drink more. They always did.
In the 19th century, gin palaces were said to be "the quickest way out of Salford" We know cigarettes are the number one destroyer of health and smoking is far more prevalent lower down the income scale.
But it is also true that many of the consequences of fags and booze are offset by a good diet and regular exercise.
Moderation may be the watchword of Middle England. It has never been the case amongst the aristocracy who tend to live to ripe old ages despite copious amounts of alcohol ( think Queen Mum and even chain-smoking, whisky-swilling Princess Margaret made it to 72) ) and rich food.
Authors of the recent study say the widening health gap is probably the result of the economic crash of 2008. With the prospect of a double-dip recession, the gap is likely to widen.

PRIORITIES

I've not blogged for a bit. Reason being I'm coming to terms with a very changed life in which me and my only surviving sister are what's left of a family of five.
I don't spend my days disassociated with what's going on politically. Far from it.
Every day brings more bad news about what this wretched Government is doing to dismantle our NHS, the public sector, welfare benefits we have taken for granted over 13 years of a Labour government which , despite its failings, protected the vulnerable and weak.If not enough.
This is a truth ( universally acknowleged) by all the would-be leaders of the Labour Party.Yet I hear the forthcoming Labour Party Conference will be same-old same-old with lots of speeches by ex-Ministers and precious little chance for you and me to have our say.
At the moment, I'm taking pleasure in the very small things of life. Cooking nice meals, drying herbs for winter, reading books (lots) and generally escaping from the facts of a mortality awareness which sometimes threatens to stop one engaging with the immediate.
If I had a time machine I would love to esacape back to the 1980's when death was an impossible. I know now it is an inevitable.
The experience I have had watching my father die has had a profound effect on my life. At 52, I have far more years behind than in front. So it's hard (and frankly pointeless) to get steamed-up about battles which in the long-term, are meaningless.
At the moment. am concentrating my efforts of forthcoming NEC campaign. The last year, though unremittingly bad, has taught me to concentrate on the things which matter. They are: family, friends and principles. I'm taking it all day by day and wish nothing more that in the months to comewe can start to re-build a Labour Party we can be proud of. That still matters enormously. But not as much as putting what's left of my family in order - and ensuring I look after them.

AND ANOTHER...

Thanks to Hyndburn CLP

NEC NOMINATIONS....

thanks to Portsmouth South CLP!

FUTILE, FINISHED AND F........KED

The latest racy instalment of Peter (Ker-ching) Mandelson's memoirs reveal the above slogan was dreamt up by him and the equally droll Alisdair Darling as the rest of the Party gritted its teeth and tried to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. As I said yesterday, Mandelson's spilling of very dirty linen in public is a gross disservice to the Party he claims to love. One can only hope the said slogan applies equally to Mandelson himself.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/12/mandelson-brown-labour-party-finished

PETER MANDELSON

I have always found it ironic that the left is blamed for disloyalty to Labour while the likes of Peter Mandelson have been allowed to get away with Machiavellian posturing for years. Now he shows his true colours by publishing a book slagging off Brown, Blair and everyone else who stopped his narcissistic wishes to be Mr High Command of Labour.
The timing of his book, The Third Man, could not be worse for the Labour Party. This clearly does not matter to someone who has pursued rich friends and high places for over two decades.
If he wishes to use Graham Greene -esque titles for his self-indulgent moneygrabbing, I have another suggestion. He is A Burnt Out Case.

THE MARCH OF TIME.......

Saturday's Durham Miner's Gala was a first for me but the 126th "Big Meeting" to be held. It was a great day.

The banners which were once proudly held aloft by local lodges of the NUM are now in the care of their local village communities but the day still serves as a reminder of the endurance and commitment of the socialist movement to building a better world.

I got my spot under the County Hotel balcony at 8.55am and was still there as the march ended at 13.35. Each banner is accompanied by a brass band and they played everything from the Internationale and Red Flag to Sex Bomb and Let Me Entertain You!

Watching from the balcony were stalwarts like Tony Benn , Bob Crow, and Jeremy Corbyn.

Despite advancing years, Tony Benn joined the march in honour of the banner (pictured) which bears his image- along with Nye bevan and Keir Hardie. But what a blip we all are in the march of time.

The most moving part of the day was at Durham Cathedral, where new banners were blessed and the building resounded with the magnificent sound of the bands marching them out. The stirring rendition of Jerusalem at the end moved many, including me, to tears.

Contingents from UNITE, the GMB, PCS and RMT, added their presence also to the march. I hope next year to be back - with the Labour Representation Commitee banner.

ANOTHER NOMINATION....

From Bournemouth West. Thanks comrades......

CASH FOR CANDIDATES

At last week's UNISON leadership hustings in Leeds, Andy Burnham remarked, quite rightly, that it was time to retreat from "the old ways" of parachuting candidates in and the culture of control freakery which for years has disallowed debate and discussion at events like Party Conference. So it's immensely depressing to note that, yet again, money and famous connections are likely to determine the outcome of the Labour leadership election.
David Miliband has received an astonishing £185,000 from pals like Lord Putnam and that geezer from Blur who fancies his chances as an MP.
Ed Balls has a mere £28,000, from novelist Ken Follett, Ed Miliband £15,000 and poor relations Burnham and Abbott have declared nothing.
Maybe I am naive - but I view the fact that money can seemingly buy expensive leaflets, PR machines and ultimately the highest office in the Labour Party as deeply wrong.
This campaign should be about ideas, not who has most friends in high places. There should be a cap on individual donations -or the same amount allocated to all.

THE BIG MEETING.....

This afternoon I'm up to Durham for the annual Miner's Gala, or the "Big Meeting" as it's often dubbed. I'm looking forward to it immensely after a roller-coaster week in which we finally said goodbye to my father - his funeral was on his 90th birthday July 7 but was happily more a celebration of a life well lived than a day to be sad.
I think anyone who has seen loved ones endure months of suffering will concur with me that there is an immense sense of release when they are finally at peace. After a time of great diostress I have no more crying left to do so, as he would have wished, I shall get on with stuff and be as positive as I can. The Miner's Gala is a good start.

PS: Last week I was sent to cover the Labour leadership hustings in Leeds . Completely uninspiring. None of them really has the gravitas required to be Leader. So in the end for many of us it's going to be a case of "Anyone But David Miliband." Sounds like Blair, talks like Blair, but without the charisma.........at least all the others agree we have to undergo a sea change and admit they got stuff wrong. Miliband senior is yesterday's man and yesterday's politics. Ed Miliband is, realistically, the only one with a chance of stopping him. But, compared to previous contenders, ie Michael Foot, Denis Healey, John Smith, Anthony Crosland, Tony benn, they are all lightweights