I've canvassed for the Labour Party for about 40 years.I canvassed in the good times and in the bad times and in the very bad times.
In the early seventies,when parts of Duston were in Castle Ward I remember a leading trade union official who lived there sort of secretly pledged support but wouldn't put a poster up-in case the neighbours would be offended!
Times changed of course and that trade union official went on to be a prominent Borough and County Councillor.
When times were good everyone wanted to show that they were part of 'New Labour'-millionaires and TV personalities and honest fresh faced property developers and bankers all flashed their party affiliation like it was going out of fashion.
Of course New Labour lost some of the features that made the Labour party distinctive.Socialism was an early casualty, and not long afterwards even Social Democracy took a bit of a tumble-but what the hell! After 18 years of Tory misrule we were winning and it didn't much matter how we won.
Old lefties were derided and hounded into either silence or exile.The New Labour project was always about winning regardless of what we were winning.
And that's the rub, a Parliamentary Party consisting largely of chancers and opportunists.
Principles-that's Old Labour-policies-who cares as long as we win-ideology-that's even older than Old Labour.
So what you are left with is a hollowed out shell of an organisation and what is happening in Westminster today os the result of the destruction of the values of the Labour party.
The nepotism and cronyism is endemic in the Labour party because all it has been about over the last few years is winning
Lets win Mondeo man,lets win suburban middleclass,lets win businessmen,lets win the high rollers.
Parachute our gfavoured sons and daughters into 'safe' seats and get rid of the awkward squad-those who thought the Labour Party was a political Party that cared about social justice and equality.
The events two years ago in my own ward of Castle here in Northampton should have been warning enough.The regional Labour party,that once had some real power and influence in deciding policy and even had annual regional conferences is an invisible bunch of forelock tuggers.
Did you know it is impossible to get a list of members of the East Midland Regional Executive!
Invisible little grey apparachniks.
the Regional Director(no less) decided on some very flimsy evidence that Castle Ward was not fit to select its own candidate-and imposed a useless creature from outside(but luckily a friend of S.Keeble MP,friend of tumble driers everywhere)
Imposing candidates on Castle wardhas become a habit of the Regional Director and she has done it again for the County Council(same candidate)
Two years ago the Regional party ,without telling the local branch or constituency spent over £800 of members money getting this woman trailing home a very poor second.
This time round,with no ward organisation and over 70 other candidates facing meltdown,they intend to spend over £800 again to try and get this pathetic candidate back!
This is the evidence of a Party without purpose or principle,simply perpetuating their own clique because there is nothing left to do.
What they are doing in our ward is replicated up and down the country and reaches its apex in the ugliness that is the PLP saving its own bacon!
There is now no purpose in the presently constructed Labour Party.
Forty years of effort and the end result is Sally Keeble and Tess Scott!!
and an authoritarian right wing political machine that leaves great swathes of social reform untouched.
Socialism anyone?
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Friday, 8 May 2009
Now is the time to come to the aid of the County
No,I don't mean the County Cricket Club-too early in the season for that but rather the County Council.
June 4th sees the County Council elections and already the turn out predictions are dire.Some commentators are talking about a 20% turnout, and something similar for the European elections.
This is the anti-politics nation and we are caught in a national consensus of 'I can't be bothered'.
Anyone who has canvassed over the past twenty(or in my case forty) years has seen the decline in interest in political ideas and activism.In fact canvassers are as rare as hen's teeth these days and for a number of reasons:
1.the reluctance of people to open their front doors because of television/fear/indolence/or a simple lack of interest in anyone from outside!
It is frequently argued that the rejection of the political process represents a healthy cynicism-that frankly is bollocks!
What the rejection of the political process represents is a fear of getting involved in thinking about ideas and consequences.It is interesting to observe how many people say that they are not interested in politics and then come out with an astonishing dribble of half baked opinions and second hand anecdotal evidence that consists of hand me downs from the popular press.
Too many people talk and think scribble,and they of course are the raw material on which the bottom feeders of politics thrive.
The BNP and their ilk,UKIP and the Christian Peoples Allianceall exist in the shadowy world of anti ideological politics-the politics of hate,envy and bigotry.
Trouble is they exist in a vacuum that the major parties have created.Most particularly the Labour party,that over the past couple of decades have abandoned the social democratic/socialist principles it once stood for and become a party with no roots and no vision.
The labour party will evolve into radical party once again,but there may be a great deal of pain involved in that evolution and there will be casualties on the way.
But only a strong socialist party with a collective vision for the future will be able to resist the anti politics of the far right.
Part of that process will be the rebuilding of strong roots in the communities that need to work as communities,as local people organising together in the interests of all their neighbours.
The labour party was founded by trade unions who saw the need to combine together to improve the lives of everyone.
Right now we are back at the earliest stage of building such combinations and communities again.
That's why it may be necessary to create local centres to organise and fight on local issues and to encourage people to come from behind their front doors and forget whats on the TV-to hope again!
That's why the sort of campaign that Tony Clarke is fighting in Castle Ward is worth supporting!
And despite all the bluster and bravado the nazis of the BNP,with all the big bucks rolling into their coffers can only manage three miserable candidates in Northampton.
June 4th sees the County Council elections and already the turn out predictions are dire.Some commentators are talking about a 20% turnout, and something similar for the European elections.
This is the anti-politics nation and we are caught in a national consensus of 'I can't be bothered'.
Anyone who has canvassed over the past twenty(or in my case forty) years has seen the decline in interest in political ideas and activism.In fact canvassers are as rare as hen's teeth these days and for a number of reasons:
1.the reluctance of people to open their front doors because of television/fear/indolence/or a simple lack of interest in anyone from outside!
It is frequently argued that the rejection of the political process represents a healthy cynicism-that frankly is bollocks!
What the rejection of the political process represents is a fear of getting involved in thinking about ideas and consequences.It is interesting to observe how many people say that they are not interested in politics and then come out with an astonishing dribble of half baked opinions and second hand anecdotal evidence that consists of hand me downs from the popular press.
Too many people talk and think scribble,and they of course are the raw material on which the bottom feeders of politics thrive.
The BNP and their ilk,UKIP and the Christian Peoples Allianceall exist in the shadowy world of anti ideological politics-the politics of hate,envy and bigotry.
Trouble is they exist in a vacuum that the major parties have created.Most particularly the Labour party,that over the past couple of decades have abandoned the social democratic/socialist principles it once stood for and become a party with no roots and no vision.
The labour party will evolve into radical party once again,but there may be a great deal of pain involved in that evolution and there will be casualties on the way.
But only a strong socialist party with a collective vision for the future will be able to resist the anti politics of the far right.
Part of that process will be the rebuilding of strong roots in the communities that need to work as communities,as local people organising together in the interests of all their neighbours.
The labour party was founded by trade unions who saw the need to combine together to improve the lives of everyone.
Right now we are back at the earliest stage of building such combinations and communities again.
That's why it may be necessary to create local centres to organise and fight on local issues and to encourage people to come from behind their front doors and forget whats on the TV-to hope again!
That's why the sort of campaign that Tony Clarke is fighting in Castle Ward is worth supporting!
And despite all the bluster and bravado the nazis of the BNP,with all the big bucks rolling into their coffers can only manage three miserable candidates in Northampton.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
James Larkin Jones
Somewhere along the line I missed the tributes to Jack Jones from Gordon Brown,Tony Blair,Peter Mandelson,Jacquie Smith and the rest of New Labour.
Obviously somewhere they have paid their tributes to one of the outstanding leafers of the Labour movement in the 20c.-it's just that I missed their comments.
I expect we may have to wait until fledging Labour MP Georgia Gould casts her formidable political intellect in Jack's direction before we get the definitive NuLabour spin on him.
his name gives his history away- born in Liverpool of Irish socialist parentage, a docker on Merseyside,a fighter with the International Brigades in Spai and the most formidable leader of the TGWU in its history.
The T&G has had some fine leaders,Ron Todd,Bill Morris,Moss Evans-but it has also had some stinkers-Arthur Deakin and Ernest Bevin spring immediately to mind!
But Jack had natural courage-he was wounded on the Ebro-and was a natural leafer.But he never compromised and dspite all the offers of wealth and power he never forgot who he was and what he represented.
There are many in New Labour who would call Jack a 'dinosaur' and desmiss his politics and his values as old fashioned and meaningless in the modern world.
Well if the choice is between a man like Jack Jones and a waste of space like Peter Mandelson or Derek Draper I think I know whose side I'm on!
In the same way that the late Jack Jones always knew whose side he was on.
Obviously somewhere they have paid their tributes to one of the outstanding leafers of the Labour movement in the 20c.-it's just that I missed their comments.
I expect we may have to wait until fledging Labour MP Georgia Gould casts her formidable political intellect in Jack's direction before we get the definitive NuLabour spin on him.
his name gives his history away- born in Liverpool of Irish socialist parentage, a docker on Merseyside,a fighter with the International Brigades in Spai and the most formidable leader of the TGWU in its history.
The T&G has had some fine leaders,Ron Todd,Bill Morris,Moss Evans-but it has also had some stinkers-Arthur Deakin and Ernest Bevin spring immediately to mind!
But Jack had natural courage-he was wounded on the Ebro-and was a natural leafer.But he never compromised and dspite all the offers of wealth and power he never forgot who he was and what he represented.
There are many in New Labour who would call Jack a 'dinosaur' and desmiss his politics and his values as old fashioned and meaningless in the modern world.
Well if the choice is between a man like Jack Jones and a waste of space like Peter Mandelson or Derek Draper I think I know whose side I'm on!
In the same way that the late Jack Jones always knew whose side he was on.
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
"OK Jerk pork-come out with your rice up!-it's a fair cop!"
Can you believe it?Eight of the Met's finest in stab proof vests alongside a small posse of Council officials entered a Caribbean restaurant and ordered it to be closed immediately because ot was operating within 400 yards of a school.
Thats right, because it was operating 'without planning permission 400 yards from a school AND a park the Council instructed that it be closed to prevent primary school children nipping in at lunchtime for a quick dose of cholesterol building jerk pork, rice and peas.
Now apart from the fact that it had been operating for three years unmolested and had only closed for re-furbishment, that it was not in fact a take-away,that it is surrounded by numerous fast food burgeries ,and the school that was being protected is a primary whose children are not allowed out at lunchtime anyway!
Apart from all that,how does it feel to live in a society where it is possible for a hard pressed Police service to be used to enforce a pointless council by-law in such a heavy handed way?
Presumably the logic is that if the youngsters walk say 410 yeard to the nearest MacDonalds they will have burnt off enough calories to justify the exclusion zone , or maube of course the little tubbies will have to run back to avoid being late for school and that way get fit!
An ingenious bit more of useless legislation invented by the well named Minister Balls.
But what is harder to believe that there is a Council anywhere in the UK who can be arsed to try and enforce such a regulation with a council leader prepared to defend this in public.
So step forward Clyde Loakes-leader of Waltham Forest Council and PPC for Northampton South.
I now understand why Loakes spends so little time in town-he has important legislation to implement down south!
Strange to say the school children that he is protecting so assidiously in Leytonstone from the perils of Caribbean jerk pork are the same ones who cluster around the ice-cream vans after school !
But Loakes is obviously a New Labour drone(sorry clone) prepared to do the bidding of any passing Cabinet Minister.
Could that be how he won the postal ballot in Northampton South so convincingly?
Thats right, because it was operating 'without planning permission 400 yards from a school AND a park the Council instructed that it be closed to prevent primary school children nipping in at lunchtime for a quick dose of cholesterol building jerk pork, rice and peas.
Now apart from the fact that it had been operating for three years unmolested and had only closed for re-furbishment, that it was not in fact a take-away,that it is surrounded by numerous fast food burgeries ,and the school that was being protected is a primary whose children are not allowed out at lunchtime anyway!
Apart from all that,how does it feel to live in a society where it is possible for a hard pressed Police service to be used to enforce a pointless council by-law in such a heavy handed way?
Presumably the logic is that if the youngsters walk say 410 yeard to the nearest MacDonalds they will have burnt off enough calories to justify the exclusion zone , or maube of course the little tubbies will have to run back to avoid being late for school and that way get fit!
An ingenious bit more of useless legislation invented by the well named Minister Balls.
But what is harder to believe that there is a Council anywhere in the UK who can be arsed to try and enforce such a regulation with a council leader prepared to defend this in public.
So step forward Clyde Loakes-leader of Waltham Forest Council and PPC for Northampton South.
I now understand why Loakes spends so little time in town-he has important legislation to implement down south!
Strange to say the school children that he is protecting so assidiously in Leytonstone from the perils of Caribbean jerk pork are the same ones who cluster around the ice-cream vans after school !
But Loakes is obviously a New Labour drone(sorry clone) prepared to do the bidding of any passing Cabinet Minister.
Could that be how he won the postal ballot in Northampton South so convincingly?
Monday, 6 April 2009
Where do you hide a cabinet minister?
In the olden days when the labour party wanted people to notice what it was doing we invited the press to the opening of a matchbox.
In those far off days when I was a parliamentary candidate the visit of any old back bencher was an opportunity for the press to photograph some unknown old codger sitting outside Charles Street with me,an unknown young codger,mugging to camera!
How times have changed.
A couple of weeks Northampton South Labour Party had a visit from a cabinet minister-the iconic Hazel Blears(memorably described by Ann Treneman in The Times as the 'Duracell bunny') visited to town to support the almost newly selected (well about six months ago) invisible PPC.
Strangely the visit went unreported, no press,no photographs,no radio,no TV- just a deafening silence and an empty Hazel sized space where the cabinet minister should have been.
Why?
There are a number of explanations:
1.The Party are embarrassed by Hazel-that little packet of dynamite.
2.The party are embarrassed by their PPC-maybe he is especially ugly or wants to keep a low profile.
3.The Party are embarrassed that it couldn't afford to use the Labour Club and had to find a cheaper venue.
4.Northampton South has ticked the no publicity box.
Of course it is just possible that the combination of the eccentric cabinet minister and the monklike candidate is a step too far even for Northampton to contemplate.but it does raise the question- what on earth are they afraid of?
We are told that Haze met with a delegation of Post Office workers who were there to raise the issue of why the government wants to destroy the post Office as a public service and if it is true that the secretive PPC arranged that meeting one might have thought that he would have been pleased to publicise his role.
But maybe he's frightened of Trade Unions too!
One has to aeeume that if barack Obama turned up for ameeting in Northampton then Labour's PPC would turn up with a paper bag on his head.
There again its possible that the local party has been duped and they have selected a hologram-the ultimate New Labour creature!
In those far off days when I was a parliamentary candidate the visit of any old back bencher was an opportunity for the press to photograph some unknown old codger sitting outside Charles Street with me,an unknown young codger,mugging to camera!
How times have changed.
A couple of weeks Northampton South Labour Party had a visit from a cabinet minister-the iconic Hazel Blears(memorably described by Ann Treneman in The Times as the 'Duracell bunny') visited to town to support the almost newly selected (well about six months ago) invisible PPC.
Strangely the visit went unreported, no press,no photographs,no radio,no TV- just a deafening silence and an empty Hazel sized space where the cabinet minister should have been.
Why?
There are a number of explanations:
1.The Party are embarrassed by Hazel-that little packet of dynamite.
2.The party are embarrassed by their PPC-maybe he is especially ugly or wants to keep a low profile.
3.The Party are embarrassed that it couldn't afford to use the Labour Club and had to find a cheaper venue.
4.Northampton South has ticked the no publicity box.
Of course it is just possible that the combination of the eccentric cabinet minister and the monklike candidate is a step too far even for Northampton to contemplate.but it does raise the question- what on earth are they afraid of?
We are told that Haze met with a delegation of Post Office workers who were there to raise the issue of why the government wants to destroy the post Office as a public service and if it is true that the secretive PPC arranged that meeting one might have thought that he would have been pleased to publicise his role.
But maybe he's frightened of Trade Unions too!
One has to aeeume that if barack Obama turned up for ameeting in Northampton then Labour's PPC would turn up with a paper bag on his head.
There again its possible that the local party has been duped and they have selected a hologram-the ultimate New Labour creature!
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Bye bye New Statesman-hello New Labour!
For years I have subscribed to the New Statesman-through the dreary years of righteousness to the radical days of sort of dissent.
I've tolerated everything, the days when it thought it was the house organ of the now defunct SDP,when it thought it was the vanguard voice of the revolutionary proletariat-even the recent innovations of piles of shadow cabinet members writing about their compassion.
I thought I could cope with everything,until last week.
A special edition with a big glossy cover edited by Alastair Campbell!
Now much as I loathe Mandelson with a passion in all honesty the creepiness of Campbell puts even Mandelson in the shade.If you want to know just how dreadful it really was inside the blair big tent-read Campbell's diaries.They make even Adam Bolton's collection of trivia almost worthwhile.
We all knew the Labour party was in trouble when they invited mandelson back into the cabinet,not so much a big beast but a dainty dinosaur, and then the NS invite Campbell as guest editor.
Forget about rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic-now we're playing deck quoits.
It was really like Private Eye with no jokes(actually that's just like Private Eye).All that was missing was the word balloons on the glossy cover,but then Alex Ferguson and Allie himself gave ample opportunity to invent your own caption.
Inside the Private Eye theme continued.The jokey interview between Fergie and Allie,leaden in the extreme, then a diary from Sarah Brown with all the quotes from Gordon(just like the Supreme Leaders page in the Eye, and finally there was the Vicar of St Albion prating on about God!
You couldn't make it up if you tried.So who edits the next edition? Lord Gould's 22 year old daughter about to be parachuted into a safe Labour seat!
Clive Loakes has got it all wrong, if he wants to win a seat he should have got Philip Gould to adopt him,and became Alastairs love child by way of a focus group.
I've tolerated everything, the days when it thought it was the house organ of the now defunct SDP,when it thought it was the vanguard voice of the revolutionary proletariat-even the recent innovations of piles of shadow cabinet members writing about their compassion.
I thought I could cope with everything,until last week.
A special edition with a big glossy cover edited by Alastair Campbell!
Now much as I loathe Mandelson with a passion in all honesty the creepiness of Campbell puts even Mandelson in the shade.If you want to know just how dreadful it really was inside the blair big tent-read Campbell's diaries.They make even Adam Bolton's collection of trivia almost worthwhile.
We all knew the Labour party was in trouble when they invited mandelson back into the cabinet,not so much a big beast but a dainty dinosaur, and then the NS invite Campbell as guest editor.
Forget about rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic-now we're playing deck quoits.
It was really like Private Eye with no jokes(actually that's just like Private Eye).All that was missing was the word balloons on the glossy cover,but then Alex Ferguson and Allie himself gave ample opportunity to invent your own caption.
Inside the Private Eye theme continued.The jokey interview between Fergie and Allie,leaden in the extreme, then a diary from Sarah Brown with all the quotes from Gordon(just like the Supreme Leaders page in the Eye, and finally there was the Vicar of St Albion prating on about God!
You couldn't make it up if you tried.So who edits the next edition? Lord Gould's 22 year old daughter about to be parachuted into a safe Labour seat!
Clive Loakes has got it all wrong, if he wants to win a seat he should have got Philip Gould to adopt him,and became Alastairs love child by way of a focus group.
Saturday, 21 March 2009
A deep feeling of unease
I watched the 9/12 Lancers parade through Northampton Town Centre over a coffee and with a growing sense of unease.
it was abeautiful sunny day and the parade was a grand spectacular and the crowds were enormous but one had to ask -why?
Apart from the fact that the soldiers were not really local in any accepted sense, if you wanted a 'local' regiment then the Anglians or more appropriately the Pioneers were better bets.
Then again why at this time? I don't remember local parades when they came back from tours of duty in Ulster,or the Falklands for that matter.
Why did I get the feeling that it was all about instructions from on high to get a bit of gung ho patriotism for'our boys and girls' and the wonderful job they were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Best way to defuse unpopular wars is to run up the flag and see who salutes!
The demonstrations of patriotic zeal being re-enacted all over the country has really nothing to do with our returning heroes but cynically an attempt by the government to legitimise two useless wars under the guise of patriotism-the last refuge of the coward!
So if you don't support our heroes then somehow you are unpatriotic and are insulting the men and women who risk their lives 'protecting our freedom'
What utter balderdash, I have no doubt that our young men and women are brave and loyal,but in the end that is what they are paid to do and they act under orders.
it's a fair bet that most of them had never heard of Iraq or Afghanistan until they were sent there-and for what?
To prop up American oil interests in the middle east and reactionary war lords in the east!
Both wars are unecessary and meaningless in terms of 'protecting our freedom'.
It is not the fault of those young men and women that they had to go, it was the orders of the politicians-who should be ashamed that they ever got troops involved in the first place.
The old east India Company had it about right two hundred years ago.To protect their financial interests they raised their own mercenary army .it seems to me that if Exxon or Mobil or Esso want to protect their oil interests in the Middle east they should perhaps buy a company army-I wonder then if we would be so keen to rally round the flag!
it was abeautiful sunny day and the parade was a grand spectacular and the crowds were enormous but one had to ask -why?
Apart from the fact that the soldiers were not really local in any accepted sense, if you wanted a 'local' regiment then the Anglians or more appropriately the Pioneers were better bets.
Then again why at this time? I don't remember local parades when they came back from tours of duty in Ulster,or the Falklands for that matter.
Why did I get the feeling that it was all about instructions from on high to get a bit of gung ho patriotism for'our boys and girls' and the wonderful job they were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Best way to defuse unpopular wars is to run up the flag and see who salutes!
The demonstrations of patriotic zeal being re-enacted all over the country has really nothing to do with our returning heroes but cynically an attempt by the government to legitimise two useless wars under the guise of patriotism-the last refuge of the coward!
So if you don't support our heroes then somehow you are unpatriotic and are insulting the men and women who risk their lives 'protecting our freedom'
What utter balderdash, I have no doubt that our young men and women are brave and loyal,but in the end that is what they are paid to do and they act under orders.
it's a fair bet that most of them had never heard of Iraq or Afghanistan until they were sent there-and for what?
To prop up American oil interests in the middle east and reactionary war lords in the east!
Both wars are unecessary and meaningless in terms of 'protecting our freedom'.
It is not the fault of those young men and women that they had to go, it was the orders of the politicians-who should be ashamed that they ever got troops involved in the first place.
The old east India Company had it about right two hundred years ago.To protect their financial interests they raised their own mercenary army .it seems to me that if Exxon or Mobil or Esso want to protect their oil interests in the Middle east they should perhaps buy a company army-I wonder then if we would be so keen to rally round the flag!
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