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.......