You know things are getting bad when they call in Blair!

It seems to me that the leadership of the Abstentionist labour party must be  getting into a blue funk over the leadership election when they drag out the living dead to rubbish Jeremy Corbyn.
Its come to a pretty pass when Blair,Mandelson. Hutton. Milburn, the four arseholes of the apocalypse are wheeled out to save the party they ravished for all those years.
I think perhaps the most crass and sickening manifestation of this dreadful panic was the intervention by the dreadful John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw.
What is it about the Labour Party in that part of Nottinghamshire.For years they had Joe Ashton, the beloved Sun columnist and frequenter of Northampton massage parlours as their member,only to replace him with Mann.
He managed to issue an open letter to Jeremy accusing him of doing nothing when Council run children's homes were covering up child abuse.As it happens Jeremy did raise the issue with several organisations involved, not least Islington Council, led at the time by one Margaret Hodge,Labour Mp for barking, and also on the Council was another Blairite MP, Stephen Twigg.
Nice one Johnny boy!
But then smear and innuendo is the stock in trade of these so called MP's,none of whom have any idea of what politics, and specifically socialist politics is really about.
The surge of support for JC is paralleled by events in Scotland, and it was an absolute delight to see the SNP take over the Labour front bench last Wednesday when Parliament was discussing of all things giving greater powers to Manchester.
But then what can we expect from a party that abstains on the Welfare Bill debate because they didn't want to appear as,well an opposition!
If they had turned up and behaved like a grown up political opposition they would have defeated the government.After all they had the boc of SNP members. the Lib-Dems ,Plaid,the Green Party MP and even the Democratic Unionists.
For fuck sake! What sort of Labour party is it that can be outflanked on the left by the DUP !
The attacks on JC are as vicious and unprincipled as they were on Tony Benn back in the 1980's.
And its the same old same old warhorses having a go, the Murdoch Press, well indeed every section of the British Press,as well as denizens of the House of Lords, and the now familiar voices of 'respectable' newspaper columnists.
To think that David Aaronovitch ,now favoured son of the Times has joined in-did the great lump learn nothing from his late father and fine Marxist economist Sam ?
Obviously not.
I fear that with the chorus line of Labour 'supporting' millionaires living up to say that they will give the Party no more of their booty, many of the weak willed and weak-minded will panic and vote for Burnham or Cooper.
Dear God they are even pulling out the spectre of Militant to frighten the horses!
It is possible that jeremy will not win, however a bit like the SNP in Scotland this battle may have unleashed forces that the whey faced 'statesmen and women' cannot control.
It may be that the young who are drawn to radical solutions will not get back in their boxes, and rather like events in Scotland,Jeremy's campaign will bring forth many Mhari Black's to challenge the hegemony of the spineless and cowardly!

A terrible beauty is born?

A few weeks ago I wrote Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour leadership election off as a bad job.I was perhaps too hasty and worse still I may have been wrong.
It would appear that JC (interesting initials when you come to think of them) may have a lot more going for him.There appears to be mounting fury amongst the Blairistas and dire warnings in the Murdoch Press.
Of course it could all be flannel and old tosh to scare the Mondeo men and Worcester women to death and to strengthen the paws of the three other dwarves!
I'm not surprised the Tories are gloating and indeed I have suggested elsewhere that Lord Ashcroft, if he really wanted to cause havoc and unleash the weasels of war the best thing he could do with his millions is buy a few thousand Tory supporters a three quid membership package of the Labour Party.
Whichever numbskull in the LP hierarchy suggested that wheeze should be included in Cameron's list  of new peers immediately.
But it might,it just might,suggest that lurking in the much diminished ranks of ordinary party members there is still a serious and heartfelt desire for real change and real fight.
maybe the collective woms of compromise have looked at Scotland and seen the shallow nature of the Labour party up there and have decided that to continue to support this bunch of careerist mediocrities is no longer worth a candle.
Who knows?
Without a paper of its own, they even snuffed out Labour Weekly decades ago, then they snuffed out conference and then they have been systematically snuffing out wards and constituencies all over the place.
It would seem that the only purpose members who aren't millionaires can offer is being leaflet distributors at election time or 'listening posts' for any passing celebrity careerist.
Perhaps members are at last getting it-without a vision and a purpose what's the point of the Labour Party?
When the acting leader thinks its a good idea to abstain on the Tories proposed welfare cuts, and Chuka Thingy thinks the only point of the party is to get people like him elected!
They remind me of Groucho's remark:
"If you don't like my principles,here's some others!"
Suppose JC wins what will happen/Well fairly obviously the PLP will be in uproar and many will leave immediately in a huff to form the SDP Mark 2.They could even complete the real Blair project and merge with the Liberals, and perhaps become the Liberal-democratic-social -mountebank party!They would of course take with them their rich backers,a handful of the living dead in the Lords(I expect Lord Sugar of Rubbish would rejoin) and some trade unions whose leaders  want a retirement berth on the red leather benches.
But we perhaps can suppose that some MP's would listen to party members and realise that the purposeof an opposition in Westminster is to,well,oppose.
A group of left Labour MP's aligned with the SNP as an anti-austerity bloc could really bollox up the Tories and the 'moderates' for the next four years.
And who knows, the people of this country might realise it's better to fight on their feet than capitulate on their knees.
And who knows, a 'terrible beauty ' might be born.
just imagine how redoubtable a large parliamentary grouping might be with Mhari Black leading it alongside JC himself.
    

Who writes the hostory?

Today the people of Greece will vote in a referendum  that in the words of an Athenian will determine whether the country starves quickly or a bit slower.Either way the Government and people of Greece are being used as an example to the other peoples of Europe:
"Do not defy the power of the market,do not think that you can defy austerity-we will crush you like a butterfly on a wheel"
And who will do the crushing? Why the international financiers,the bankers,the IMF and the governments of the powerful European states, you know the ones-those that had their debts written off after WW2, because their governments were compliant 'democracies'.

Of course these governments of financial rectitude and their pure driven snow bankers never did anything underhand or corrupt did they?
Consider therefore the case of a guy Akis Tsochatopulos,.a former Greek defence minister who is currently serving a 20 year stretch in chokey for bribery and corruption, and who was bribing and corrupting this mainstream Greek politician,why a German arms dealer called Ferrostaal,who flogged the Greek government a bunch of submarines and Akis creamed off quite a bit for himself.

Of course borrowing money and allowing corrupt arms dealers to get their paws on public money is not new.The national debt started in England with Henry V111 when he wanted to buy a few boats to fight the French.
So here's the deal, corrupt Greek governments, of Centre Right or Centre left buy tons of military hardware from Germany and other European 'allies',and of course the dear old USofA,they discover the cost of all those subs,fighter planes,tanks and what have you, plus the middlemen's cuts get obscenely high and then the debtors come knocking on the Greek peoples door asking for repayment.
Merkel wants her money that was used to pay her dodgy arms dealers!-and who pays?
Not the corrupt politicians of Greece but the pensioners and the young and the unemployed and the sick!
Whilst billionaire's yachts drift at anchor off the Greek islands-the people need to be austere.

It is interesting that many of the people who now suffer are the sons,daughters and grandchildren of the men and women of Greece who fought the Nazis to a standstill in the resistance,whilst the Greek elite were cosying up to the fascists.
And the colonels who led a military coup to destroy Greek democracy 
I am reminded of a song from Ewan McColl's Festival of Fools, a warning to the leaders of the junta from the young of Greece:
"We are the young ones,
The readers the writers,the copiers,
We are the young and small,
And we are the writing on your wall!"
If ever a song was prophetic, it was written when the Greek Queen Fredrika ,a fascist sympathiser was visiting London and Greek students were arrested for protesting about her visit.
They were the mothers and fathers of the young in the streets of Athens today, and indeed they are the writing on the wall.

  

The Labour party leadership=I have a solution!

Both my regular readers will know I have been agonisng over the Labour party leadership.Should I try to make a one vote difference?It's a conundrum a bit like the great 'Daddy or chips' debate of yesteryear.
Things have changed a little since my earlier blog.The arrival of Jeremy Corbyn, an MP I have always respected has somewhat changed things,but really only somewhat.
My heart says ,like so many other good socialists currently outside the party that at last there is a candidate who speaks the language of socialism not of bloody aspiration.
I am sorely tempted!
But I fear that it is my heart that is speaking to me in beguiling terms and not my jead.
I know all the arguments-thye stronger the vote for Jeremy the more likely the party will listen and change its ways.
It is an opportunity for the case to be put to thousands if not millions,the anti austerity,the anti Trident,the pro- welfare,the pro -union....all the causes that we believe are central to a socialist transformation of society.
I can hear my old comrades,the Lore lei voices of temptation to swallow hard and join the great cause and get back within the people's party!
But as I'm on a roll with my cliches I cannot forget that the leopard really doesn't change its spots  and if I stop and think for just a few moments then the head rules again.
I have quite recently seen how shallow the Labour party has become.Northampton Labour party is a shining example of how shallow the whole enterprise has become.The recent de selection of Winston Strachan, a good and decent Borough Councillor in Castle ward was once again an example of the hollowing out of the party.
Career moves are the only aspirations left in the Labour party-bugger any ideology or indeed anything that reflects principles!
Now I'm not saying Corbyn lacks principles,far from it, but I fear he,like the few genuine socialists  left are being used as a fig leaf to cover the monstrous vacuum at the heart of the Labour party.
His candidature is being used in a cynical way to demonstrate how 'broad; and tolereant the party is.But as his nomination went in some of those who signed it were busily yelling that they had no intention of voting for him.
Some like the London 'running dogs' did it to pretend to the left leaning London membership that they were really really leftish-strange that they all appear to be seeking the Mayoral nominatuion!
And then there is the scrawled signature of Frank Field.Given that he is the nearest thing in the Labour party to a Tory,apart from Kate Hoey,his endorsement should never have been contemplated.
Added to the shoddy practice of a bunch of opportunists there is the other ploy by a bunch of Blairites who are pushing that if a candidate wins that they don't much like, then within a few montghs a secret vote o0f the PLP can ditch the leader, and the PLP alone will select the new leader-probably one Miliband D.The leader over the water!

Then of course there is the well thought out plan that with two tier membership,full paid up members and 'supporters' it will be easy to throw the whole process into chaps.If I was a millionaire Tory backer the best thing to do would be to distrute £3 's to Tory supporters and flood the Labour party with Tory supporters who would be instructed to vote for.....?
I( have a simple solution, my first choice woukld be Nicola Sturgeon to lead the Labour party, but as she already has a growing wello disciplined and principled party anyway she is out of contention.
So there is only one obvious candidatem, who speaks with directrness and clarity, who can address the really big issue in the counrty the way it is being tavckled in Greece and Spain.A candidate not tainted with either decades of failure on the front or back bench, a candiadate who is young and charismatic.
It's obvious really, forget the dreary hustings, I watched some of the first one and felt sorry for the people of Nuneaton.
There is really only one candidate who can ignite the people of this country-Charlotte Church to be the next Labour Leader.

I'm still a Marxist (tendency Groucho)

There is an unsubstantiated rumour swirling around the political salons of Old Northampton that I have somehow transmogrified into some sort of right wing old municipal grandee.
That I stand for the status quo, that I'm keen to aquire status as an elder statesman of municipal politics, perhaps sympathetic to the Liberal-Democrats,or worse....

Well time to make it clear, over the decades i have had dalliances with other ideologies.I was born as many know into what Americans call 'a red diaper baby'. I joined the Young Communist league at the age of 14 signed up in a Lyons Corner House by no less a Communist superstar that the late great Jimmy Reid!
Jimmy who later led the Upper Clyde Shipyard workers (remember the 'nae bevvying' speech)was at the time the National Secretary of the YCL.
My future was set to wonder under the red star of the east!
Four or five years later the young comrades expelled my under the rule 'actions harmful to the league'.I was expelled by the London District of the league,with only two defending me,and one of them was a Cypriot comrade with the magnificent name of 'Stalin'.
his parents were very loyal supporters of Uncle Joe.
I then began my political meanderings, a little time with the Revolutionary Socialist Students Association, a spell as the rank and file of the SCC(M-L)-in case you've forgotten us we were the Sussex Communist Caucus (Marxist-leninist)
There were only five or six of us, one has since become a senior lecturer in politics at a Midland university,another has become a prolific writer on South African affairs,one has gone back to highly lucrative journalism in the States,another may have gone back to his day job in the CIA.
I moved to Northampton.
Where we spent almost 40 years in a brief flirtation with the Labour Party.When we joined we only intended to give it a couple of years,but like an old cardigan,the Labour Party was comfortable and secure and sometimes even seemed on the cusp of doing something quite significant.
For much of my extended honeymoon with the Labour Party its great strength was at local level, and in the early years there seemed real possibilities that local government could provide the party with a platform to effect change.
Remember the conference where Kinnock called local government 'labour's batttered shield against injustice'.
I think that was before he vilified and excoriated the comrades in Liverpool for providing just such a shield.But then it was a Militant shield not a god fearing profoundly middle of the road social democratic shieldette!

I've ranted on far too regularly about the hollowing out of the party,although interestingly enough in a disgusting blairite love fest in the Times this week his Chief of Staff wryly observed that the Labour Party in Scotland has been 'hollowed out'
But amongst the great balls-ups of the Blairite ascendancy was the cackhanded reorganisation of local government.The vision was the American model with elected Mayors and grafted on the Westminster model of a powerful executive (cabinet) and select committees (scrutiny) to hold the executive and the Mayor to account.
It was a system of checks and balances that could have worked.
But it didn't, elected Mayors have proved a complete waste of energy and resouces, indeed if Boris Johnston is the answer then indeed it was a fucking stupid question.
Cabinets gave too much power to a small tightly knit group of politically motivated men and some women.Scrutiny from day one had no power,everything it did was after the event, and at best call in could only delay the inevitable.
The Lib-Dems in Northampton tried to put a motion calling for the return of the committee system, but as there are only two of them their efforts were doomed.
The tories like the Cabinet system, because it gives power to a small number of their group and the rest merely collect their dosh and sit quiet-not a lot to do!
The Labour Party on the otherhand sided with the tories-they argue that the old committee system was slow and 'Victorian', did not reflect the dynamic and thrusting politics of going out and 'listening to people' and allowed a small group of Labour members to call themselves 'shadow portfolio holders', although I think they meant 'shallow portfolio holders'
Whilst the committee system was slow and cumbersome it allowed many more elected members to participate in decision making and for instance a decision like the new bus station would pass through a number of committees, like Traffic,Finance,Planning and ending up with Policy-ample opportunity for many members,and members of the public,to examine plans.
Slow yes,but maybe more effective.Right now Northampton Borough Council has half a dozen Councillors who take decisions and almost 40 others who are mere bystanders.
Of course I keep making the mistake of suggesting that councillors have power-silly me, with the Cabinet system the real power resides where it always should-with the senior management team!

maybe all my years have made me too cynical,perhaps I'm a Marxist (tendency grouchy) !

Maybe what we need is a movement not a party

It seems to me that all the values that the Labour party once had are long gone.It comes to something when an old left wing warhorse like Dennis Skinner is more concerned about where he sits in the House of Commons than who he aligns his politics with.

Of course the SNP are not a socialist party,but its about five decades at least when the Labour party could claim to be a socialist party.The last leader I heard describe the party as such was Attlee after his election victory in 1945.

The SNP are however a party of a different type.They are predominantly young, they mostly don't come from the 'political class' of special advisers, political groupies,party hacks or London based mediocrities who once,decades ago,worked on a trade union journal for a few months!

The SNP are also a mixture of folk like those who elected them, and they are exuberant and irreverent and do things normal people do.

When someone says something they agree with-they clap-they don't say 'hear hear'.They are disciplined and they are prepared to argue for what they believe in with a passion.

last week there was a debate ob zero hour contracts,albeit it was about such contracts in Scotland,but it was about an issue that during the election we were told the Labour Party cared about.I don't remember them putting geographical limits on zero hours,we only care about them in England!

So in the debate, 56 SNP MP's were there, 8 tories and believe it or not the people's party managed to turn out a whole half dozen!  

now I invite my few remaining friends in the Labour Party to explain this curious situation.Perhaps they were all spending more time with their families,maybe they had an important PLP dinner to attend,but one thing is for sure, they didn't give a flying fuck for their constituents on zero hour contracts!

Interestingly the SNP left a space for Dennis Skinners arse, and it is possible that he did later occupy it.But where were the rest?

I was thinking of trying to rejoin the Labour party as a £3 member,if only to write 'none of the above' on the ballot paper.

The candidates on offer are a sorry apology for the leadership of any party that claims to be left of centre.Right from the start they have conceded the ground to the tories, they all prate on about reducing the deficit,about making welfare cuts,about limiting migration and about continuing the privatisation of the health service.

Yet we have a possible parliamentary and extra-parliamentary movement emerging that is at the very least social democratic in outlook and potentially an even larger activist base that will move people in emulate what has happened in Scotland.

But its not just Scotland where there is movement, In Madrid and Barcelona it would appear that they are electing mayors not of a traditional party but from a broad anti-austerity movement.

I read a piece by John McDonnell, the left Labour MP arguing that there needs to be a mobilisation of all the left forces in this country if we are to take on this government.

I think he sees clearly that the Labour Party is unable and unwilling to make a fight that could involve thousands if not millions, that could re energise the trade union movement, bring young people into the battle and assist the dispossed to fight for their rights.

Strangely in his piece he made no mention of the SNP, perhaps he'd seen the letter from Labour's head office expelling a member in Scotland for urging support for the SNP.

It seems to me the traditional party model is as dead as King Henry, and we on the left need to understand clearly that the issue is no longer about selecting photogenic stooges to mutter platitudinous rubbish about aspiration and empowerment and hard working middle classes.

The Labour Party must change-or simply die.

What's left for the Labour Party?

We went  to the civic reception on Thursday to celebrate the election of the new Mayor.I(t was a decorous affair with the Tory Councillors quietly on their best behaviour and the Labour Councillor,well quiet.

In the press they are boasting that they will hold the Tories to account, and they have announced a shadow cabinet that will 'hold the Tories to account'

Given the fact that decisions taken at cabinet are not open for discussion with the opposition and are presented to full council as decisions already taken, the best the opposition-shadow cabinet member or humble backbencher can do is to question the report.

To appoint a 'shadow cabinet' largely of first time councillors is as futile a gesture as you can make, they've had there five minutes of fame by making thr announcement.The future is quiet obscurity for five years.

But then the Labour party locally and nationally are all about playing the games by the rules that exist-for Christ's sake there was more conflict in Cromwell's parliament than ever there is now.

it's easy to see how the Parliamentary Labour Party can fall into the torpor of being part of the establishment.

The bunch of young SNP members have clearly annoyed the Labour Party,that pompous arse Gerald kaufman called them 'goons' because they did such naughty things as took photographs in the chamber,clapped and made mockery of the 'oath of allegiance

For fuck's sake!

Simon Burns, another pompous arse lectured the SNP members on how to behave in the chamber, and told them not to clap but to say 'hear,hear' or 'rubbish'.

He was horrified when they clapped him

i suppose the most disappointing aspect of that whole charade was the behaviour of Dennis Skinner.Once a powerful voice on the left now reduced to a 'national treasure' a tame parliamentarian prouder of the traditions of the House than his radical past.

There was a time when Skinner would have welcomed the young anti-austerity Scots to join him on the front bench and strengthen the voices against the establishment,against the policies of austerity,against the growing inequalities and against the slimy racialism that is seeming to pervade the political discourse.

But the old 'Beast of Bolsover' is more concerned about where he plants his arse than his principles!

And that sort of sums up the Labour Party May 2015.

The choice for leader seems to be between Andy Burnham,a former minister,Yvette Cooper another former minister and Liz Kendall,another former minister and a reincarnation of all that was wrong with the Labour Party.She is a supporter of Free Schools, defence spending,helping big business and kicking the unions.Peter Mandelson in high heels!

Of the whole sorry parade of potential leaders the only one I have any time for is Tom Watson who is running for the Deputy leadership.

But we all know what is going to happen, Burnham will win and in an effort to 'balance the ticket' some snivelling Blairite will emerge as the deputy.

Business as usual in the people's party.

Yet there is an opportunity for the first time in my lifetime for a real progressive alliance to be built inside and outside parliament to mobilise in the way that the SNP did in Scotland,to create a progressive agenda that could bring about real change.

Just think of a bloc in Westminster the SNP,Plaid,the Green party,and whar socialists are left in the Labour Party.Why it might even attract some real left leaning Liberals( I know that is unlikely given they are utterly useless,clones of Lord Adonis0 and outside parliament the trade union movement that is getting more than a little fed up,the extra parliamentary groups,Left Unity (that hopeful grouping inspired by Ken Loach's film 'Spirit of 45') and others willing to bury sectarian differences.

Remember Shelley's line:

"Rise like lions,fresh from slumber

in unvanquishable number,

We are many, they are few"

The world does not belong to the aspirational middle class-it's still ours!   

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