DEATH OF A SOCIALIST

Saddened just now to learn that ex-MP Terry Fields has died. He was a decent man and a socialist. For a short while, in my youth, I was a member of the Militant Tendency. I left because I don't hold much truck with democratic centralism as a modus operandi and disagreed with various Militant policy positions. But people like Terry, and Pat Wall, an MP in Bradford, took their socialism seriously. In my view, Militant made a great mistake disenfranchising itself from tjhe Labour Party and contributed as much to the mess we are in as the SDP in the early 1980's.

However. Kinnock's landmark speech in 1985 referred to the Militant in much the same kinds of terms as Mc Carthy did in America in the 1950's. Agree or not, the Labour Party was the poorer without them. Ask me who has done more damage to the Labour Party - New Labour or Militant? I think you know my answer........

GLASGOW EAST - THE FINAL TIPPING POINT?

I have just finished writing a piece about a wholefood co-operative in Glasgow .
In a previous life, I used to travel up to Glasgow every other weekend and one of my abiding memories is George Galloway, then Labour MP for Hillhead, standing on top of a battle bus and singing "Things Can Only Get Better" at the top of his voice. That ( as if you didn't know) was 1997.
Now it seems things can only get worse for Gordon Brown, who is now facing the grisly prospect of another by-election - and one which could oust him from office.
If Labour loses this constituency I tend to agree that it's curtains for GB. But IMHO that is the LAST thing which New Labour wants to see. Why? Staring reality in the face the truth is he would be replaced by a Government figure like Alan Johnson or Jack Straw. Miliband won't touch it with a bargepole ( though he may be forced to) as taking Labour to election defeat would spell the end of his career.
The harsh reality is however that 2010 could also spell THE END for Miliband and most of the current Cabinet. Who will be left? A frighteningly small rump of around 150 or so MPs ( if we're lucky) .As the vultures gather round the corpse of New Labour, it looks as though we're in an endgame which could see disaster for all of us - on the left as well as the centre and right. In the run-up to the next Election, we must endeavour to do our damndest to hang onto what constituencies we can. Because they are all at risk......In West Yorkshire, we could be wiped out.

UNIONS BOTTLE IT AGAIN

When you are in a position of strength then it is time to use that position . So somewhat dismayed to read this morning that Trade union leaders will NOT use the fact they have bailed out the Labour Party financially to campaign for key workers rights.
I do not have a problem with the demands which TULO has agreed will be tabled at the next meeting of the National Policy Forum. Free school meals for all primary children and new flexible working rights for parents are measures we can all agree with .
But surely other all-embracing workplace issues should all also be on the agenda? It's one thing not frightening the horses - quite another bottling out of campaigns which have received massive support from the wider trade union and labour movement.
According to the Guardian, UNISON is to propose that primary school children should all get free school meals to help families and increase healthy living. Fine. But what about public sector pay?
· UNITE is proposing that employees have better access to flexible workplace leave. Agree totally. What about the Trade Union Freedom Bill and rights of agency workers
Tony Woodley's call to arms is, "We may have words to say about this government about individual disputes, but let us be clear about one thing: the Tories would be an absolute disaster for working men and women."
Let us also be clear about another thing Tony. If the unions continue to let New Labour off the hook, the Tories are heading fior a landslide in 2010 . And you will have contributed to that

WHILE I WAS AWAY.....2

In London over weekend hence no posts . Last time in metropolis it was Jon Trickett falling on his sword. Now Wendy Alexander. Maybe I should go away more often......utterly exhausted and going to bed. Back to blogging tomorrow

LOYALTY AT WHAT PRICE?

I have to admire the tenacity of Margaret Beckett on Newsnight just now - and it must be said the loyalty as she was one of the first to be sacked from the Cabinet.But at what price? Labour comes 5th in a by-election , lowest poll ratings since polls began, but Gordon is doing an "extremely good job in difficult circumstances." In a word, no.
I think I admired her undoubted tenacity more when she lambasted Neil Kinnock in 1981 for not voting for Tony Benn. One can only hope(against hope) that as a friend of Brown Beckett is offering wiser counsel than the official line she was spouting on the media.It could all have been so different

LOSING OUR DEPOSIT

Three years ago I stopped off overnight in Henley on Thames en route to Brighton for the Labour Party Conference. Nice pubs, great curry house. Lovely spot. But hardly a bastion of labour movement solidarity. Nevertheless, in the three years since the socialist dawn of May 2005, Labour's share of the vote has dipped from 14 per cent to 3 per cent and a LOST DEPOSIT. Not just staring into the abyss, but sinking ever further into it. When , when , when is the Parliamentary Labour Party going to act to stop the relentless march of the Labour Party to electoral oblivion in 2010. And stop allowing Gordon Brown to get away with one ill-judged policy after another. At least Ben Bradshaw had the grace to say it was "a terrible vote." That, Minister, is putting it mildly. So where did Gordon get it wrong?
1.Ensuring there was no contest for the leadership
2. Ensuring there was no-one in the cabinet from the left-of-centre
3. Inviting Tories like Digby Jones and Quentin Davies into his "big tent" and excluding the left-of-centre
4. Not facilitiating withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan
5 Abolishing voting at Labour Party Conference
6 Dog-whistle politics on immigration and border controls
7 Macho posturing on 42 days, nuclear power, civil liberties
8 Further triangulation to the right and more Blairism
9 Public sector pay
10 10pence tax fiasco

I

AND ON IT GOES......

Reader, there was a time when even I thought Gordon Brown would be a step back from Blairite policies. How long ago that seems.
From the Press Association:
Gordon Brown has announced plans for a "new wave" of public service reforms intended to put more services in the hands of social enterprises and independent providers.
The Prime Minister - who is marking his first anniversary in No 10 - said that the Government had only just begun to harness the potential of these not-for-profit organisations.
The first step will come with the forthcoming publication of health minister Lord Darzi's Next Stage Review of the National Health Service, which is due out shortly.
Downing Street said that it will include new measures to enable front-line staff working in community health services to opt out of primary care trusts and set up their own, nurse-led organisations.
Writing in the foreword to a Cabinet Office report on public services, Mr Brown insisted that his approach did not mark a return to the days when the poor had to rely on charity for public services.
Nevertheless, the move is likely to alarm the public service unions at a time when they are already at odds with the Government over its determination to hold down public sector pay.

MESSAGE FROM GORDON

Post just arrived and don't WPB the stuff from the Labour Party as it has the NEC ballot inside. But don't expect to be inspired by Gordon's New Labour message .

"So this is the essential position of new Labour under my leadership. Fairness means, yes, we will address poverty. But fairness also means we are always on the side of aspiration and ambition. " ( ie the rich )

It gets worse:

"Building real fairness in Britain is also about people playing by the rules and government enforcing those rules. This is why over the coming months we are rolling out our Australian-style points-based system for immigration to make sure that only those who can contribute to Britain can come in." In other words, if you are an asylum-seeker, poor, defenceless, financially vulnerable, forget it.

Brown's enthisiasism for public sector reform and punitive welfare reforms complete this disgraceful betrayal of the values on which the Labour Party was founded. Gordon, whatever happened to your socialism

SPATS AND SPLITS

All hell has broken loose on the Socialist Unity blog following the defection of four former RESPECT councillors to Labour. The four, I understand, were all members of the Left List - the SWP breakaway group forced to re-brand itself when Galloway kept the right to the original name. Former comrades are effing and blinding and, of course, ballistic that the four have gone over to the dark side. Or have they?

Yesterday I was reading the RESPECT ( mark Galloway) newspaper and its manifesto loooks strangely familiar: Pensions linked to average earnings, troops out of Iraq, no more PFI, repeal of the Tory anti-union laws, fairer taxation, end to tuition fees, return to public ownership of the railways etc etc . Yes, almost every single one of the issues on RESPECT's policy agenda is in line with the LRC. And in his editorial, George Galloway makes it clear he is "united" with the Labour Left and John McDonnell in fighting for these policies. Albeit outside the Labour Party.

It is tempting of course to say well if you have the same policies as us why for God's sake don't you do the logical thing and join the Labour Party to fight from within.

RESPECT's 12-point programme is after all a far cry from the revolutionary demands which used to comprise the "Where we stand" creed of the Socialist Worker And it can only be furthered by more councillors and MPs with a left agenda. Much easier, let's face it, under a Labour Party banner.

However, we have to avoid the mistake of being sectarian and accept that, despite our differences, it is better working together than apart when we can. Just look at the mess in Tower Hamlets.......The Convention Of The Left will hopefully be the start of more positive ways of working together

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER REBELLION , ANOTHER SURRENDER

No details yet but only 17 Labour rebels apparently stood firm on the Planning Bill controversy which hands over crucial decisions on airports, nuclear power stations etc to an unelected quango. There were supposed to be 63.........Groundhog Day isn't it ?
UPDATE: The rebels were........Colin Burgon (Elmet), Colin Challen (Morley & Rothwell), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne Central), David Drew (Stroud), Paul Flynn (Newport West), John Grogan (Selby), Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington), Bob Marshall-Andrews (Medway), Michael Meacher (Oldham West & Royton), Gordon Prentice (Pendle), Alan Simpson (Nottingham South), David Taylor (Leicestershire North West), Paul Truswell (Pudsey), Mike Wood (Batley & Spen).

GETTING OUT OF THE ABYSS

There ARE ways in which Labour could avoid catastrophe at the next election. Many are outlined here and here . These are not the policies of what Neal Lawson so charmingly refers to as "the wilderness."
The list below also outlines some of the policies which would get us OUT of the wilderness we are heading for unless Labour changes direction - fast.
If they look familiar, that's because most formed part of John McDonnell's May Manifesto. Which many people signed.
In the light of the latest opinion polls, it needs to be said again. The Labour left does NOT want to see the Tories win at the next election ,But it is only by chaging direction that we stand a cat in hell's of avoiding disaster. As follows

• Nailing the 10p tax mistake by the introduction of a fair tax system removing the low paid from taxation and ensuring the wealthiest and corporations pay their fair share
• An increase in the basic state pension, immediately restoring the link with earnings, lifting people off means tested benefits and providing free care for the elderly
• An immediate start on a large scale council house building programme and assistance for those facing repossession
• Immediate end to programme of local Post Office closures and liberalisation of postal services
• An end to the privatisation of our public services
• A new pay deal for public sector workers to protect their living standards and tackle low pay
• Abolishing tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants for all students
• Scrapping ID cards and abandoning 42 days detention
• Introduction of a Trade Union Freedom Bill and measures to protect temporary and agency workers
• Rejecting the proposals to renew Trident

NEW BLOG ON THE BLOCK

Honourable mention for entertaining new leftie blog SPENNYPOST .Can't work out if the title refers to the blogger's name or where he lives. Maybe I will be enlightened. But sounds like he is an LRC sympathiser which is good enough for me.

ONE YEAR ON - GUARDIAN POLL PREDICTS TORY LANDSLIDE

There are some who read this blog who think I should be a bit more positive about Gordon Brown. Today's Guardian poll explains why there is little to be positive about.
One year after I was lectured, harried and shouted at by right-wingers for saying publicly that Brown's "coronation" would be a disaster for the Party. here is where we are.
74 per cent in a new Guardian/ICM poll say that he has been a change for the worse compared with Tony Blair, and only 24% think Labour has a chance of winning the next election while he remains leader.
The poll also gives the Conservatives a record 20-point lead over Labour, six points up on last month. Labour support has fallen two points to 25%, the lowest recorded in the ICM polls, which began in 1984.
Conservative support, at 45%, is at a 20-year high. That would give David Cameron a landslide victory as big as Labour's win in 1997, with some 400 seats. Labour might be reduced to well under 200 MPs, with many ministers losing their seats. The Tories would retain Crewe and Nantwich, won in a byelection last month, while Labour would lose previously safe seats such as Wakefield.
A year ago, Labour had a four-point lead over the Tories in the June Guardian/ICM poll. Support for the party, at 39%, was 14 points higher than today. Well done Gordon . Well done New Labour. You have taken us from the prospect of a modest election win 12 months ago to complete catastrophe.

SOLIDARITY WITH UNISON!

Local authority workers are set to take two days of strike action next month it has been announced today.
Unison 's 600,000 council members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will walk out on 16 and 17 July. The union's strike committee will meet on Friday to ratify the decision.
Unison's head of local government, Heather Wakefield, said: "It is a tough decision to take strike action but our members have shown that they are willing to fight for a fair deal.
"Once the dates are finally agreed, we will be going all out to mobilise maximum support around those strike days.
"We are, of course, always willing to meet the employers. The solution to this is in their hands.
"They must know that we mean business and they must know that our members cannot afford to take another pay cut this year."

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER REBELLION, ANOTHER SURRENDER?

Today's Indepenfdent reports that more than 60 Labour MPs are threatening to rebel against plans to weaken people's rights to oppose the building of new nuclear power stations and airport runways in their own "backyards".
Ministers want to hand the final decisions to an unelected quango, and Labour whips are trying to head off a backbench rebellion when the Planning Bill is debated in the Commons tomorrow. So far, 63 Labour MPs have threatened to vote against the measure and ministers are once again offering concessions to avert a Commons defeat for Gordon Brown. Let's be positive and say that's not necessarily a badthing. But wil these "concessions" actually give the rebels what they want - OR be anoither exercise in bullying and cajolery
At present, major projects such as power stations, ports, airports, roads, railways, dams, water plants, hazardous waste facilities and critical gas and electricity works are subject to public inquiries.
Under the Bill, an independent infrastructure planning commission would decide whether to approve such projects. Environmental groups , including Friends Of The Earth and the CPRE have condemned the proposals as an affront to democracy. They say the final say on such developments should not be handed to an unelected quango but should be retained by ministers accountable to the public.
Last night, apparently, the Labour rebels held talks with the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, and the Planning minister, John Healey, to demand that the Government's role is strengthened. The Indy says Ministers are likely to give some ground, but ominously also reports that Gordon Brown has been telephoning potential rebels. Yet again, is he picking them off one by one on thr grouds that a dfeat will be a blow to his already dented authoroty? Or is he offering a constructive way forward?
Leaders of the rebellion include COMPASS-friendly John Grogan, and John McDonnell, who says, "This is a straightforward case of accountability. Even if you just put a secretary of state's name on the decision, it allows you to understand who is responsible. You cannot devolve these issues to a group of hand-picked bureaucrats. In my constituency there is the issue of Heathrow airport. It will be a huge issue in my constituency but also a major argument over global warming."
So tomorrow it will be very interesting to see how this one pans out. And if the Government really listens to the arguments - or just resorts to the usual scare tactics. let's hope for the former.

COUNCIL WORKERS VOTE FOR STRIKE ACTION

There was understandable scepticism last week when UNISON leader Dave Prentis finally started to talk tough overthe Government's attitude to public sector pay
But now council workers have voted in favour of industrial action maybe it is time for the union general secretaries to get out of their ostrich costumes and take on New Labour.
UNISON members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland voted by 55% to strike, after rejecting a 2.45% pay offer.
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis says this is "a clear message" to employers "that our members are willing to fight for a decent pay rise".
Prentis says quite rightly his members were "fed up and angry they are expected to accept pay cut after pay cut while bread and butter prices go through the roof.
"Most of them are low-paid workers, who are hit hardest by food and fuel price hikes, and they see the unfairness of boardroom bonanzas and big City bonuses."
It remains to be seen exactly when the Government will also see the injustice of lectures on belt-tightening when MPs have the gall to vote for huge pay increases - on top of salary levels way above the average public sector worker.

BENN AND DAVIS.......

From the Press Association: I know a lot of people on the Left don't agree with TB on this one (and I sympathise) but it's an interesting conundrum........
Veteran left-wing politician Tony Benn said people will one day look back at David Davis' decision to force a by-election on the issue of civil liberties and say "thank God".
The controversial former Labour cabinet minister was speaking alongside Mr Davis as the pair shared a stage in Hull as part of the former shadow home secretary's bid for re-election.
Mr Benn said he supported the leading Tory's stand adding: "David's courage in fighting it - people will look back in the future and say 'thank God'."
Mr Davis introduced the evening of questions in the hall of the Hymer's College private school by praising Mr Benn.
He said the two men had been friends for about 10 years, but added: "You couldn't probably, in some sense, get two people further apart than Tony and myself. The truth is that on this issue we are as one."
During a series of largely sympathetic questions, Mr Davis told the audience of around 100 people: "This campaign is, frankly, aimed at changing history. We're trying to stop the erosion of our freedoms."
He again criticised Labour's decision not to put up a candidate as "running away from the argument" and repeated his contention that ministers and former ministers had been barred from publicly debating the issues with him.
"They know that when they have the argument, and the facts get out, they lose," he said. "If the Government won't turn up we'll have to find other ways of having this debate. We're going to have a very, very unusual campaign. It's going to be fascinating."
Among the jokes and the clear warmth between the two men, Mr Benn did manage to make the point that he believed the threat of terrorism would be reduced if troops were withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Davis smiled as he responded: "That's a debate for another day."

BENNITES 4 DAVIS?

Interesting debate over at Dave Osler's blog as to whether Tony Benn should have announced his support for David Davis. In truth, I am a bit ambivalent about this one as those of us in our middle years go back an awfully long way politically with TB and it's weird and miore than a little unsettling I agree to see him advocating a Tory. But let's ask ourselves why.

Firstly, a craven PLP caved in utterly and allowed Brown to get away with the 42 days legislation. The Cabinet is similarly supine and unprincipled.

Brown manipulated the vote as one of "no confidence" and thereby thought the issue woul,d be dead in the water once he had got it through Parliament not by winning the argument but by bullying and deals.

Once Davis had announced he was resigning Labour almost immediately said it would not stand a candidate. Sorry - but if you think you have the public with you ( and that was the New labour line) and the moral high ground then you shoukd be prepared to put it to the test. By NOT standing a candidate, Labour has allowed its standing to sink even further in the public's estimation . Big tactical mistake.

Of course if Labour had stood a candidate neither TB nor Marshall-Andrews ( or anyone else on the Labour Left) could have spoken up for Davis. They would be expelled from the Party.

So, in the context of the situation as it stands, and the fact that 42 days has been another tipping-point for many Party members, Benn is right to carry on campaigning. But I do understand why some will disagree....

TED'S BED

Today a bit of a do at the birthplace of our most famous local literary protege Ted Hughes - 1 Aspinall Street. A modest terraced house where the late Poet Laureate spent the first eight years of his life. Sundry luminaries in tow including poet Simon Armitage , who lives in nearby Marsden, and Ted Hughes's widow.

Best of all was the chance to talk to Ted's boyhood pals(pictured) from Burnley Road Primary School. It seems he never forgot them and stayed in touch all his life , inviting them down to his farm in Devon and keeping tabs when visiting his Aunty Hilda in Mytholmroyd.

The house is now a holiday let - with plaque outside - and will no doubt be a place of pilgrimage for writers and creative types. It should also be seriously good news for the Elmet Trust which has been trying for years to fund a Ted Hughes Centre. And for Mytholmroyd.

The other highlight was clambering up to the attic where Ted shared a bedroom with his brother and peering out of the very skylight which looks over to Scout Rock and the surrounding valley which inspired so many poems. - Being of diminutive proportions had to stand on a chair to do so which broke the health and safety regulations apparently but it was well worth it..... Buffet and pots of tea afterwards where I discovered that Ted and his poet pal Seamus Heaney often fetched up in town a little the worse for wear from literary readings - and ordered fustian trousers in several sizes too small ( ah, the vanity of poets) . Ted apparently liked a pint , Indeed the Stubbing Wharf pub a few hundred yards from my house has an entire poem devoted to it. Good spot for another plaque methinks. .......A nice change from plannng applications.

GNOMON- THE UNVEILING

Actually, it looks rather splendid. Sculptor Mike Williams has reminded us that Hebden Bridge was originally a textile town at the height of the Industrial Revolution - not a tourist stop-off en route to the Dales. Some pics attached.