Labour Representation (2)

There can be no misunderstanding or doubting the early determination of pioneering trade unionists, associated with Labour Representation. We should always stop to appreciate their commitment driven in the face of a barbaric, evil and exploitative Victorian owning and controlling class.

For only a few decades in the 19th century did British manufactured goods dominated world trade. Most mass manufactured items were produced more efficiently and competitively in Britain than elsewhere. She also had the commercial, financial and political power to edge out rivals at home and abroad. In some industries, most notably textiles, massive changes took place in technology and in the organisation of production causing dramatic productivity growth. This in turn brought a steep decline in prices. In many other sectors more modest organisational improvements coupled with greater specialisation and the employment of cheap labour brought similar, though less dramatic, results. An unprecedented range and variety of products thus came within the grasp of a new mass market both within Britain and overseas. No other country could at first compete so Britain became the workshop of the world.

And it was against this background, a time that Victorians became very much obsessed with the accumulation of wealth and I suppose this explains the building of an exploitative empire hence then: Britannia rules the waves; but let’s not forget that working men, and yes, women laid down the foundations of an expanding trade union movement at this very cornerstone of industrial development.   

Economic historian Arnold Toynbee (in a lecture he gave in 1884) described his then-recent times as:

 “A darker period - a period as disastrous and as terrible as any through which a nation ever passed; disastrous and terrible, because, side by side with a great increase of wealth was seen an enormous increase of pauperism; and production on a vast scale, the result of free competition, led to a rapid alienation of classes and to the degradation of a large body of producers.”

Capitalism was still a comparatively new social system, still in its phase of expansion. By today’s standards, its technology, though immensely productive compared with what went before, was backward being based on coal and iron. On the political side too capitalism was still in its growth stage.

In the1860s working class reform organisations existed; they mushroomed-up in different industrial arrears and attracted much working class support. When I consider this historical development; and let us just travel back to our own time and consider is there not something here that we in the 21^st century cannot learn from their development, not so much as seeking reforms but the drive and determination to build organisations that empower workers; organisation with an educational and political acquisition to bring about change?”

More about what short of change latter, but also just consider this: If we want a new start we must first look to the past. The present is too occupied, the future now too obscure.

The 1860s also saw developing pressure from the unions for legislation on a wider range of issues, including safety, employment contracts, the right of trade union organisation, the protection of trade union funds and the extension of the franchise. The Reform Act of 1867, which extended the franchise to sections of the male urban working class, came not from the Liberals but from Disraeli’s Tory Government. It was followed by significant social reforms. The Tories, with their main power base in the countryside, sought widen their support against the Whigs and the Liberals by introducing reforms likely to win sympathy among the working class.

Then in 1867 a number of leading trade unionists issued an appeal for the direct representation of ‘Labour in Parliament’. The appeal not only included the long-standing demands for the extension of the franchise and parliamentary reform but also put forward a programme of claims effecting working class interests. It was, however, in no sense a socialist manifesto.

In the General Election in the following year two trade unionist and a co-operator stood in support of  labour representation. None was elected. In 1868 the Trade Union Congress was formed. It was an indication of the thinking of trade union leaders at the time that the elected executive of the TUC was known as the Parliamentary Committee. It was only many years latter that the title was changed to what is now known as the General Council. And that makes me think that there are always the Generals in the Labour movement, who always hold back the country-dances of the workers.

Part Three coming soon!”

Click here for Labour Representation (1)          

Labour Representation (1)

Tower Hamlets Trades Council had real influence all of 25 years ago, it was active in many different campaigns throughout the 1980s when I was a T&G delegate, which is nowadays better known as simply Unite. The monthly meetings were always relatively well attended. The council had representatives sitting on the Greater London Association of Trades Councils, and which for some years I was an elected representative, along with about four others including and would you believe it Charlie Whelan, former spin doctor to Gordon Brown, now turned political influence peddler for the Unite union..

It is said that Whelan had run an effective "stop David Miliband" campaign in the trade union movement; which did it in for the elder brother, and delivered the Crown and laurel foliage worn now on the head of Ed Miliband as an emblem of his victory; well that might be a wee bit of a square peg in a round hole portrayal of how this recent Leadership Election was won and achieved from behind the scenes, and orchestrated, masterminded by the power brokers that now run the Labour and Trade Union Movement.

It has crossed my mind more than once, that with the decline of influence and strength of once a mighty movement in the workplace: for had this not its own advantages, and possibly recognised by some in the top upper crust of a far, far different union movement than say 30 years ago. Back then there was a strong network of shop floor activists and stewards, a different type of leadership even at the top. My own experience was in NUPE which is now absorbed into Unison. My recognition of leaders like Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Alan Fisher, Clive Jenkins and others of that era are very much still vivid and bright in my own memory. This was the time before Mrs Thatcher squeaked into Downing Street with a 30-seat majority in 1979.

Oh and how I can still hear the echoing voices, repeating by a shrivelled reflection of having read the Sun or swallowed rubbish that other Fleet Street titles churned-out to a sometimes gullible working class whom at times fell for the lie, that the unions ran or ruined politically and economically the country!”

Now this post is not particularly or specifically about the organizations that call themselves trade unions, but about working class representation in the political arena, or if you like in the amphitheatre of Westminster, and as we have come to know it through the development of the Labour Party from its forerunner the Labour Representation Committee. 

The concern about the need for parliamentary representation as a political weapon for workers’ interests has deep long roots, bedded in a blood drenched earth of struggle not just for representation but first the right to the franchise, the emancipation (may not be the best word) and winning by degrees, universal suffrage, that right to vote.

I have just decided, that this subject will need to be spread over three separate component posts in order that I am able to build a picture, an argument, and a case with a conclusion that takes on board some of the comments and concerns raised recently by fellow bloggers, Harpymarx and Chris H from Lansbury's Lido. I also promise to explain the so-called advantages of power and unaccountable leverage that trade union leader’s use with impunity, and what I believe to be an impurity in the everyday politics of the Labour Movement.

The Chartist movement, emerged in the second half of the 1830s and developed strongly wide support from the new industrial working class, this development must have shaken the very ground upon which the emerging developing capitalist class phlebotomised.

The Chartists had and promoted a six point Charter, of which the movement took its name, these were manhood suffrage, voting by ballot, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, the payment of MPs, and the abolition of property qualifications.

Their demands and at such a time of early capitalist development must have had its attractions and seemed very well thought-out, but was there a naivety on the part of the Chartists I do wonder?”

Let’s just capture for a moment the atmosphere of those times: ‘Civilisation works its miracles’, wrote the Frenchman, Alex de Tocqueville, who visited Manchester in 1835, and then proclaimed; ‘and civilised man is turned back almost into a savage.’   

I see this savage, roaming about aimlessly without any destination still today, in search of food, shelter and employment. And further more, well its 2010, and really I am not exaggerating, just look at the thousands that don’t have homes that sleep rough on the streets of our capital city, building workers visiting the dole office and soup kitchens doing brisk business.

So when Chartism declined many attempts were made to revive the movement for workers’ representation and parliamentary reform. The important point to note is the formation of the LRC many years later at the turn of the century was the culmination of many different efforts which we will consider in the next post!” 

Political depression...

You Know, there was I time when being apart of the Labour movement, as an individual that is; meant something and everything to me!" Well, I have to say of this week that has just begun to close; now legging into the weekend, and a strange depression has hold of me. So bad has it been, I have shut myself off from all things remotely political, even this blog and what the next post should be about, has been relegated to afar off place in my mind. The Labour Party conference, really did demonstrate the infestation that has its hold like a maggot breakfasting on its inner's.

Everything that I find repulsive about today’s Labour Party was on display.

Ed Miliband’s elevation as the new Leader has revelled, why it was right that many of us rejected and decided; that no longer was this the party of change, for me this wasn’t always obvious, I stayed on for along time, despite the uncomfortableness I felt when Labour under Neal Kinnock did nothing for mineworkers, this man really has a lot to answer for, and the mere sight of him and his wife makes me feel and without failure, nauseatingly disgusted. Every time I see him sitting in the front of the assembled Labourites, dutifully now playing the grand golden oldie, then someone will mention his part on the road to New Labour, his contribution hailed and acclaimed be it by both Blair and Brown always nearly moves the man to tears.

This week he cracked as he shed a tear as Helle Thorning-Schmidt his daughter-in-law and leader of Denmark’s Social Democratic Party, lauds him as her inspiration.

Give me a brake!”                                                           

New Labour to the New Generation – What a great gimmick!”

The Leaders speech at the Labour Party conference is always an occasion for the delegates, press and political pundits alike. And a new Leaders first speech is that defining moment he arrived the party began."  I remember Tony Blair’s first speech to conference, when he started to unveil his New Labour project, the jettison of clause 4, part 4 of the then party constitution, the fundamental political principle which had up till then defined and clearly characterized its mission – if not always to its leaders, but to the broad membership. I was at the conference where to all those assembled Blair made clear that he intended to rip up and rip out, as if something encumbering, had from his view to be cast aside, cast away!” The rest as they always say became history and New Labour was delivered.

So now the Labour Party fraternity 16 years and two months on from the election of a Leader who changed the Labour Party as millions had come to understand, know and rely upon it; was addressed today by a new Leader chosen in one of the closest almost cliff hanging finish’s ever staged in its whole history.

How then did Ed Miliband’s first conference speech scrub-up, what was it about and who was he reaching out to, what change if any could be seen from this his very beginning?

I missed the first few bars, which was about the first ten minutes of his speech, but joined it where he said that he was so honoured that the party had chose him to lead them. So I missed all the family background stuff that leaders like to wax lyrical about, remembering that Brown used to rumble and ramble on about his ‘missis’ and the Scottish upbringing, of his father, a minister of the Church of Scotland and a strong influence on his life, you know all that guff as if feeding cattle the fodder, but it never hit the trait of sincerity with me, it really did fall short.

Having read now the full text of Mr. Ed’s speech, I can understand why he built the picture and felt he had to build in peoples minds a visual representation of his own life and family background. The camera shots that I observed of the delegates, gave me the impression that some delegates were still really not that happy that he was king and not David; and whether this evaporates, and he is able to reach out to the membership in the time that lies ahead of him, remains to be seen.

However I did like his reminder about his Dad the late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband and what he said of him: that not everyone has a dad who wrote a book saying he didn't believe in the Parliamentary road to socialism.  

What is it about some generations, when they turn their noses up at their poor old parents?”

And the generation thing that Mr. Ed is clutching, kept reoccurring as the theme, melodic like, constituting or characterized he must have thought, a pleasing melody to win over the doubting Thomas.

“Conference, I stand here today ready to lead: a new generation now leading Labour.”

And then:

“Be in no doubt. The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.”

Well whatever all that means I don’t really know, but possibly a break from the Blair, Brown years of arrogance and bitter rivalries so unrestrained, which came to underscore them New Labour years. So have we now moved from New Labour to the New Generation?

It was interesting that the conference set had a glow of red about it, and that projected upon the walls was the images of the Red Rose. Not of course that this in the least means anything, but I do think that it indicates Ed making that break with the past, a break from the Cain and Abel politics that have dominated the top tear of the Labour Leadership for over a decade.

The image of Labour maybe changing then, but I am very certain that it’s content and approach to running capitalism will not. This was spelt out when the new leader said he supports a future where the small businesses and entrepreneurs can be the lifeblood of our economy, David Cameron will be telling us the same thing next week from their do!" 

Although I would like to know what those remaining few socialists in the Labour Party think of Ed’s reference to clause 4 when he said that it was right to get rid of it under New Labour.”

So on a quick refection then, I think that the new leader gave a good performance and-that's all it was, he has lots of work to do in winning over many within his party, but at the end of the day it really is business as usual from Britain’s second party of capitalism, with a new leader and from New Labour to the New Generation – what a great gimmick!”  

The state of Labour Representation?"

Our post, 'Miliband a new generation or same old, same old?" Which we are pleased to say and with modesty; attracted rather a bit of interest, particularly amongst fellow socialist bloggers. Harpymarx who we seem to mention quite a lot these days; although this is coincidental; posted a blog comment and authored, wrote a piece on her own blog, in a sort of response to our original post, where she asks some interesting, searching questions about the state of Labour Representation in the House of Commons. So rather than go into her concerns you can read them for yourself here: 'its about representation'.

Now her questions and concerns are very important, and we should be under no conjuration; that it is right, that those on what is called generally and broadly speaking the left, should examine as a matter of urgency, the role of those representatives (Labour), we send to speak-up for workers in the House of Commons and the European Parliament.   

Let’s put it this way; the life of James Keir Hardie is one of the legends of modern British politics, he admittedly, and what may seem long ago was the symbol of the ‘man in the cloth cap’ for many a Labourite, which passed from history into romance. But in reality the time of Hardie was not that long ago, the cloth cap may have disappeared and fashionably been replaced by say the everyday baseball cap, a bad import. But much that we must still articulate remains just the same in a great many respects, such as: two classes, an owning and controlling class, and of course a working slave class. Some changes more refined are that capital being more global, total control of technology by the few, who refuse to harness its advance to deal a devastating blow to hunger, homelessness and general poverty that billions are forced to endure and swim in everyday of their lives, if anything it’s the stable gear of an arrangement of leather straps fitted to the draft animal of the working class so that it can be attached to pull the cart in the pursuit of profits.

So what we intend is to do, is wait for today’s Miliband speech and then give consideration after to the very important, crucial question of so-called representation, possibly in a wholly separate post! 

Miliband a new generation - or the same old, same old?"

Chewing over what was yesterday’s election, no sorry, coronation of the young man crowned king of all Labourites has left me wondering; am I getting too old?”

These leaders, not just of the Labour Party, but all political parties, seem to be picking them younger and younger, although 40 is considered middle age by most. And Ed Miliband looks younger than his years; I remember watching him on Question Time and thinking that he looks rather like a well groomed student.

When I first joined the Labour Party in October1974 and just in time for that second general election held that year, Harold Wilson was the leader, and he already looked like someone’s granddad, puffing away and chewing the end of his pipe. He Wilson had been in politics for at least three decades before assuming and taking over the leadership, and for me Wilson will always be an icon of the 1960s just like the Beatles, that rock group from Liverpool who between 1962 and 1970 produced a variety of hit songs and albums (most of them written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon).

So when I think about it, leaders seem to be getting younger, even Margret Thatcher had been in parliament for 30 years before becoming the Queen Boudica of the Tory party, good comparison I think, for she was one formidable lady in history whose name will never be forgotten unfortunately. "She was like Boudica tall, the glance of her eye most fierce; her voice harsh. Her appearance was as we now know, most terrifying." - Definitely a lady to be noticed back then!”

Anyhow, better not go wondering off to far aloof into the distant past.

Here is some voting statistics to munch over.

http://www2.labour.org.uk/leadership-affiliates

http://www2.labour.org.uk/leadership-mps-and-meps 

What sort of a leader will Ed Miliband become?”

Well mine and Brian Hopper’s sentiments are this – don’t hold your breath!”

First thing to say is that the election statistics are open to interpretation, and could mean many things to many different people, for us we read that Ed Miliband just scraped home narrowly beating his brother David by a small 1.3% margin of victory", and who retains much support in the Parliamentary Party, will this mean that the new leader will be a prisoner of right-wing Blairite's, remains to be seen. The elections now to be held for the shadow cabinet will be reviling, will the old guard hold on, will they gracefully stand down, and I am thinking of the likes of  Alistair Darling, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, Nick Brown and Tessa Jowell just to name but a few. Nominations for the shadow cabinet elections officially open today, and voting begins on 4 October, with the result announced at 10pm on 7 October.

Well that’s it for now in regard to Mr Ed, we now awaited the leaders speech which he delivers to conference this coming Tuesday, and then we will make a fuller analysis of which way we think his leadership will take the Labour Party.     

Mr Ed the talking horse

Well I promised myself not to write anything about the Labour leadership election on what is tonight the eve of that coronation. But I just can’t resist the temptation, and I am an evil little bustard, sorry, but it’s true.

I think we are looking at Mr Ed taking on the rains, and no doubt will start talking a load of horse, as in fact he has been doing throughout the contest, which is a real joke.

Whoever wins from the slate of five candidates will be an advocate of the pro-market big business agenda pursued under the previous leaderships of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

None of them is opposing the austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund and being implemented by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition. They all agree that in some form or other these cuts have to be made and would do so if they were in power. The only disagreement some of them have is the method and speed with which they are imposed.

The full effects of the coalition’s first budget containing £11 billion in cuts are yet to be felt. They have been deliberately introduced in a staggered, piecemeal fashion in an attempt to divide the working class’s response. On October 20, the second round of £4 billion in cuts will be introduced just as the initial cuts make their full impact felt. There are widespread fears within ruling circles that this will unleash a mass movement in opposition, but one thing is for sure, don’t expect whoever is made king of the Labour Party to come out fighting, there only concern is as ever to get elected and run capitalism.         

Into each life a little rain must fall - and came the cuts!"

Years ago Friday night and the weekend were something to look-forward to with eager and impatient expectancy. Away from the drudgery of work and with shekels of hard "earned income" in ones pocket a night out on the Town was the then time turned ritual, and how I remember those days so well now. Thirty or so years down the line and I find myself sitting in front of this computer late on Friday night and early Saturday morning thinking about the composition of this post. It would indeed be an understatement if I was to say: how times change?”

Into each life a little rain must fall

I love the saying ‘that into each life a little rain must fall’. I use it often these days I find. But the truth is that as we wait for the Con/Dems to unveil their much talked about vile and morally reprehensible-package of cuts to frontline services and welfare, such a deterioration in vital services will have a knock-on effect and on the private sector; then we must brace ourselves altogether for a real drenching, and what I mean is prepare for two things; first they the government the agents of capitalism, and lets not beat about the bush here, for that is what they represent whether Labour or in this case the Con/Dems who are, and make no mistake about it, going to give us all a real good soaking as they start to dredge and remove material from the channel or riverbed of working peoples communities and real peoples lives. Oh sorry, am I being a little dramatic here? I forgot we have a deficit or rather the country has a deficit that needs to be addressed, and it falls to us all to make them much needed sacrifices to mend that broken play-thing the economy. But I am really sick to the back teeth of listening to politicians and economists mouth the oral vallecula, on and on about double dips and quantitative easing and so on. But let us just ponder the later, quantitative easing which if anything proves that if its broken, then its not only working and can’t be fixed ever. So what do these cuts mean to working people, well I think that what they will amount to will be like taking food away from the mouths of babies, making old people worry about the rip-off costs of heating this coming winter, and as the cost of food starts to rise in the shops we will see the poor become dependent on food-handouts, the streets fill up with the homeless. Then there are the almost daily attacks upon the unemployed and the poor amongst us and the blogger Harpymarx takes that up in a recent post when see writes: “The ConDems have upped the ante with their turbo-charged attacks on the poor aided and abetted by the right-wing press. “Benefit scroungers” is becoming a common feature in the lexicon of media language. It is pretty easy to scapegoat and blame the powerless in this society and point the finger at asylum seekers to welfare claimants as it is all a distraction from the real enemy. ConDems want to blame the poor. It is creating an oppressive climate that uses language to fan the flames of hate (‘benefit scroungers’, ‘workshy’). It is about vilification and scapegoating.”

So my first point is; expecting the worst!

Then secondly; prepare for class war!” Yes that’s what I said; prepare for the class war. I was discussing with Brian Hopper and as we often do, the hits received by this blog and which posts have been successful or popular with readers, I told him that a post that was posted back in June had received and still receives hundreds of hits each month remaining in poll position at the top.  ' A full English breakfast the Budget and when Labour think they can run Capitalism! to read that just click the title  – Now I must admit that I was surprised at the hits that this post had received, but then again it was one of our earliest posts about the coalition budget and their warning to the world that they intend to deliver an austerity program of steps to be carried out and of goals to be accomplished in order to put British capitalism back into a healthy exploitatory position, and whatever the cost. We think for some reason of which we are not really sure that this post has hit a cord with some readers.

Now when I say class war that is precisely what I mean, a war against austerity, a war against capital and a war not of our making, we the overwhelming majority did not bring the world to the brink of financial collapse, and the leaders of the TUC would do well to remember that single-shelled fact, instead what do they do when they invite  to address their congress of  TUC and accorded a warm welcome to Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, who has insisted that the cuts must be introduced as quickly as possible. Remember him talking after the election; King warned Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that unless they announced immediate austerity measures there would be a run on the pound. So what do the higher-ranking priests of the TUC do by inviting Banker King to congress?  They lie down and crumple in the face of the class enemy. This man welcomed by the TUC is one of the chief architects of the government’s austerity programme. King told the delegates assembled at Manchester, “We at the Bank of England and you in the trade union movement should work together. That is why I am pleased to be with you today.”   

Following Kings un-believable appearance, the British media still continued to propagate as they only know how a cascading tissue of complete lies about this organisation that can best be described as a toothless pussycat. The Daily Mail for instance gave warning that the “Unions vow to halt UK with strikes”.

Rupert Murdoch’s the Sun claimed, “Union leaders are meeting to draw up plans for the biggest strike action the country has seen in decades, in protest at public spending cuts... Britain is teetering on the brink of an Autumn of Discontent”.

What utter bunkum!”

And just before I move on consider what John Monks, general secretary of the TUC from 1993-2003, said whilst speaking at the TUC congress for the last time in his capacity as leader of the European Trades Union Confederation. Shortly to become Lord Monks and take up a seat in the House of Lords, following in the footsteps of many previous trade union bureaucrats. When he was still leader of the TUC, in 1999, he told the Financial Times, “The days when trade unions provided an adversarial opposition force are past in industry”. However these were his last words on this occasion: “Let me say that I believe that influence on the boardroom will be better than influence on the picket line as a guide to trade union strategy in the future.”

Oh and I better not forget this, His successor, Brendan Barber, current general secretary of the TUC and a member of Court of the Bank of England since 2003. Makes it all to clear why King had come to address colleagues, and not adversaries.

“I want first to thank you for inviting me to address Congress.” King said, “Members of your General Council have made a huge contribution to the Bank of England by serving on our board.”

So there we have it, the TUC the Bosses friend cannot put up a fight even though they may call token demonstrations or lobbies of Parliament, which if we are honest posturing vain and conceited, and have never really achieved anything.

I have said many times before now, that the real fight and willingness to defend our communities; must be put up in our communities; we must build a movement of such opposition that makes the poll-tax of the 90s look like a small vicars parish tea party. It can be done and the imposable can be achieved – for a better world is possible!”

As we move into October we will be writing and reporting more about the new movement and the cuts!"

Just not ‘interested’

Driving home with friends after a pleasant day in the lovely Peak District, the Matlock and Bakewell area in general, a conversation sparked-up which had developed about and around the Labour leadership; one of the companions in our car said; he was very surprised at the answer I had given him after he had asked me directly, as to who I imagined would win the Labour leadership. I had deliberately started and finished my part in the conversation as abruptly as possible; “I am not ‘interested’ had been my brusk and curt reply, it was not my intention to be rude to these friends, but was I to be allowed to get away with the reply and be left to listen to their analysis of this particular boring question; not at all, his wife was to enter the debate with the question, why not? “I thought you were a Labour supporter”, I was came my reply, I was, but we don't have a Labour Party any more, not one that I know, we have New Labour, and that to me is a new political party that cannot in any true sense be classed as true Labour.

As soon as clause four was removed from the constitution the game was over, the party started by worker's, had been infiltrated and destroyed from within, even the Iron Lady congratulated Tony Blair on him winning the premiership and just to rub the salt into the wounds of what was known as old Labour, she was invited back to number ten for tea and cake.

This true vindictive enemy of the working classes.

The defeat of the miner's was the start of the end, this reformation of the workers, or the slave class, started by her Margaret Thatcher and now here she was being invited back, after her own party had stabbed her in the back and got her out of there, what was this saying to the would-be brains (the political class) of Britain, of whom I blame for the state of the country, and what is worse, all those brains of Britain of the last fifteen to twenty years are still out there hanging on.

This latest episode in British politics the election of a new Leader of the Labour Party is heaven sent for the ruling class along with the Lib-Con coalition; so don't let us be dupe, we are heading towards a real bad time, and for the worse off , the worse things are going to get!” But I don't need to spell that out for we read and hear about it everyday!!"

Post by: Brian Hopper or In the Box

Sir Robin Wales and the MP for East Ham, Stephen Timms support Mr Ed.

Just got time this morning to do two things, or rather bring two pieces of information. The first is some news that’s come my way in regards to the closing stages of the Labour Party leadership contest. I was gobsmacked to have learnt this morning, that Newham Labour party are holding in partnership with the Ed Miliband Campaign a meeting for new members hosted by Mayor, Sir Robin Wales and the MP for East Ham, Stephen Timms, and this event is taking place this Sunday. 

So it’s quite obvious then that Ed Miliband has the support of Sir Robin Wales and Stephen Timms, which in-itself says a great deal about Miliband Jnr.

Sir Robin, who regular visitors to this blog may know, runs the Labour administration which miss-runs Newham the Olympic Borough – one of the poorest areas in the country, his tenure of office was held-up and hailed by New Labour as a model of good local government; in fact it was the flagship most associated with Tony Blair and the last place he visited after standing down as Prime Minister,  thanking Sir Robin and Newham Labour Party members for their support over the years. So that confirms to me that whoever wins will simply continue to do the same old, same old!”

"Not the way to treat the King!"  

We received a comment to the recent blog posting about Arthur Scargill, and decided that that we should promote the information more prominently.

Just in case anyone is interested.

Public Meeting
Speakers:
Arthur Scargill
Ricky Tomlinson
Tuesday 7th September 2010. 
7pm
The Green Room
Duke Street
City Centre
Liverpool
L1 5AA     

Miliband or Miliband - Two Little Boy's

It certainly reminds us of that song, ‘Two Little Boys,’ the race for the Labour Leadership that is, and whatever the outcome is, there will be room on that horse for two as the cavalry of odds and sods, that is today’s modern Labour Party elect a new leader.  

There is no doubt that a Miliband will be crowned with a laurel symbolizing victory and that New Labour will continue upon that path and itinerary which is now the established line of travel for this party that once represented the hopes, expectations, aspirations and interests of working people.

Just how the times have changed the Labour Party will be confirmed, if as expected David Miliband is coronated, invested with regal power and enthroned.

In the Sunday Telegraph, he Miliband has penned his own article of what he thinks under his leadership, should be the direction that the party takes to win power back. In doing so he offers a very scantly harvest analysis of why Labour lost the election. And in his own words:

“Labour lost in 2010 because its appeal collapsed across social classes. And the political coalition that in 1997 united all shades of opposition to the Conservatives - centre and centre-Left - broke down.”

Well could this be an insight into the thinking of the front runner carrying forth the banner of New Labour, the true successor to Blair, having bided his time now making his move to re-establish firmly the grip that his patron changed the Labour Party with, and that which is known as ‘The Third Way?”

In the blogosphere of political blogs there has been an intense debate going on between Socialists and Labour Party members in regard to this election, and there is very much a big difference between a minority of socialists who remain within the party and a majority who see being a member of the party as a past time, a hobby about winning elections to councils and parliament.

To get on in the Labour Party these days’s you have to be prepared to deliver leaflets, canvass or should I say solicit votes from potential voters in an electoral campaign, for which the modern party will provide training, meetings are not always held on a regular basis, and if you fit in and don’t complain then you have every chance of progressing and enjoying the limelight and trappings of even administrating locally capitalism as a councillor, and for those with real talent in talking through one's hat better known as bullshitting, well there is a career waiting in the House of Commons – but be warned don’t ever mention that ward, you know – Socialism…  


I will include two links the first to the Sunday Telegraph and the second to the Independent on Sunday which I've been taken part in an ongoing debate with others under this blogs name, it would be great if others did likewise!" However I've just noticed that the public posts have been taken down, they may come back in time, I did reasonably well and I think it a good idea to use other forums.    


Telegraph & Independent

'The Curse of the Labour Party' ( Part 3)

I started to compose this finale post to the entitled literary and political argument: 'The Curse of the Labour Party' some two weeks ago now, and have had to put things on hold due to family commitments, that are ongoing, and may well prove to be for sometime to come. So let me just apologise for the length of time that it has taken to bring this to a conclusion and at the same time leave two links to Part 1 and 2 Here and Here, so that anyone wishing to recap may do so.

Truth be told; well, I'm getting fed-up and a wee-bit even depressed just thinking about the Labour Party, the subject under consideration, and all the wasted years spent by many including myself, harbouring, just holding to the erroneous mental illusion of which I only see too clearly now; that somehow the Labour Party could be the vehicle for change and bring about that much needed irretrievable and for everyone and evermore - the simple banishment of Capitalism!"

I have just read the flash election leaflet sent out by Ed Balls to Labour Party members as part of his bid to try and become it's next leader, not that if the reports that I've read are proven correct, he stands any real chance. However, a couple of interesting observations from this nonfictional prose are worth noting, for insistence, his  claim, or rather use of words and the statement of Defending our values and Fighting for fairness.

Words that run around and easily cultivated by some, but have no meaning, such as values and fairness - what exactly is meant as values and fairness within the Labour Party these days?  I'm just not quite sure?"

Ed Balls sees things like this: "We need a leader who is rooted in values of the  Labour, co-op and trade union movements -who understands that to win again we must be tough opposition, develop a credible and radical programme for government and root our politics in the communities we serve."

Balls or what?

I think so, he is not saying anything he means (are any of them) or let-alone even understands, in fact the whole extravaganza of this election is a big jocularity. That vituperates the British Labour Party as an elitist top heavy and downward bearing organisation. The third thread is the Labour Party; helping to hold together; the vast and very tatty fabric of British Capitalism. Think about it? The “third way" in politics?

Politics, now there's a word, quite frankly I hate it! And I hate it because it's about control and running the existing system of capitalism. I would not describe myself as a Politician, a Politico or anything other than a Socialist, with a very good idea for a better world. A better world that has to involve the majority on this planet having free access to the world larder, that abnegates the millions gathered at it's door the necessity's even still in some parts of the world where a bearish minimum is only aloud, and still the world holds an abundance, which is more than an adequate quantity or supply to feed, cloth, shelter and fix what it can for all in need, that's not asking for an intravenous injection is it!"

What encapsulates the Blair era and the "third way" was this statement he made:   

"What are the foreign policy principles that should guide us? First, we should remain the closest ally of the US, and as allies influence them to continue broadening their agenda... The price of British influence is not, as some would have it that we have, obediently, to do what the US asks... But the price of influence is that we do not leave the US to face the tricky issues alone"

Tony Blair, January 7, 2003.

The way in which parliament has been bypassed on missile defence is not new, but rather typical of the way in which defence matters are treated in the UK. It is problematic, however, for a government that came to power proclaiming its commitment to Freedom of Information to behave in this way was nothing but a disgrace. 

The Government could have won a vote on missile defence with its willing New Labour poodles, but it was unwilling even to try. Why? Because a debate on missile defence would have highlighted that, as with Iraq, Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon were in the uncomfortable position of being closer to the Conservative front bench than to their own party. And that explains very much the high esteem that members of all capitalist parties held Blair in, reflected in receiving an unprecedented standing ovation following his final speech at the Prime Minsters dispatch-box.

So as we move past in time the Premiership's of both Blair and Brown and stand upon the turf of the Con/Dems, we can see that the Labour Party has clearly become a much different party to that which began with the likes of Keir Hardie and the many others in the Labour movement.

There is nothing remotely socialist about the modern New Labour Party, and what little there was, was sucked-out leaving a party that now exists only to win elections and run capitalism. The 13 years of power witnessed Labour bully and trample upon those it once swore to defend and stand-up for, our community's are shot full of holes leaving social equivalence being hammered in the chasm of a bottomless pit. Oh and how these things will come to hurt and destabilise in the fullness of time. I will remember that under New Labour, society took a turn for the worst, violence became widespread, and the force applied in many areas of policy. What stands-out are the wars, its incompetence even in running the system; remember what Brown said about the City of London, nothing but phrase!


“I congratulate you on these remarkable achievements, an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London ... I believe it will be said of this age, the first decades of the 21st century, that out of the greatest restructuring of the global economy, perhaps even greater than the industrial revolution, a new world order was created." 

Yep, that's it, makes you wonder?

Local government is not much better then, attracting meddling careerist types,  intent on furthering his or her career by any possible means and often at the expense of their own integrity, and with a Labour bureaucracy instructing along the way. Many disputes occur within Labour groups as power fights and differences breakout. I came across this about Kingsley Abrams, a veteran Labour councillor in the South London borough, who was first accused of leaking council papers to the local press back in January, a charge he continues to deny. The Lambeth Labour leader, Steve Reed, asked council legal officers to participate in a sting operation in March involving the interception of emails sent via Abrams' official Lambeth council email address. Abrams was sent false news that the chief executive of Lambeth Living - which manages council housing - had resigned, in the expectation that Abrams would forward this material to the local paper the South London Press. But the councillor duly forwarded the bogus notice to local Labour MP Kate Hoey and not to journalists. Despite this Abrams was suspended at a subsequent Lambeth Labour Party disciplinary hearing, held after May local elections where local residents voted in the left of centre councillor with an increased majority.

Now that's just one example of how the Labour Party in local government behaves, and I am sure that if I was to look for more, then I don't think we would be disappointed. And I couldn't possibly move on from this without mentioning one more example of what Labour has become in local government. In Newham my home Borough here in London we have an elected Mayor, and I have mentioned Sir Robin Wales on this blog before, he is the Mayor of one of the most deprived inner-city Boroughs in the United Kingdom, high unemployment, child poverty, rising crime and the Olympic Games, disfigure this part of the world that is known as part of the East End. However I just want to focus on the Mayor of Newham Sir Robin who having won re- election in May and then last month Sir Robin ensured that his salary would rise to more than £80,000. His pay is now 34 per cent more than the £58,500 he received when he was first directly elected in 2002 - and at a time when council staff face a two-year pay freeze and the loss of jobs… So that’s Labour for you then!”

History will record that New Labour followed in the footsteps of the Thatcher years. It was they, who introduced the carrot and the stick, and that stick is now in the hands of the real mean class enemy of all working people, and let’s make no mistake about it; the Con/Dems will use it.

In the time that lies ahead we will have to fight just to exist with any sort of dignity, in a world that hasn’t changed that much since the wasted conception of the Labour Party, if anything its worst than ever. 

“That’s life for you up to day down the rest of your life, but in the end we keep on trying to pull our selves up, sadly New labour or Labour will not do it, so what do we do, I've no idea.”

To that commenter I say never give up, reject the system of capitalism in its entireness!" 

The Curse of the Labour Party (Part 2)

The more I think upon the reign and sovereignty: of Tony Blair and New Labour; of the massive changes that he brought about within the Labour Party; then and only then do I realise that his elevation was indeed a coup d’état by the agents and supporters of capitalism, and the most successful ever executed in the history of that party. Oh yes, Blair was a winner and from the very start of his political carer, but before I consider his dramatic climb up the Labour ladder and some of the highlights of his leadership. I would like to draw attention to his albeit brief occupation as a barrister and his last case, in which he represented employers in a legal dispute. He appeared in the Employment Appeal Tribunal on behalf of the employers who were denying the unfair dismissal of garment home workers in 1984, his arguments to deny the woman unfair dismissal rights were thankfully and emphatically rejected in the judgment; incidentally and in point of fact, the employers also lost in the Court of Appeal.

Well I suppose then, that young Blair did not win everything after all, well apparently not in his first carer. However the point that needs to be noted; is that 10 years before becoming the leader of the Labour Party. Blair acted on the behalf of an employer in a nasty dispute with workers then engaged in low-paid, precarious home-based work. They often worked in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. They lacked rights at work, including to pregnancy and maternity protection. The long hours they worked were typical for the garment industry of the time, and often come into conflict with the women's ability to fulfil their other responsibilities as expected of them, to shoulder in their families. So this was the short of work he was doing then, so ‘how the hell’ did this enemy of workers become leader of the Labour Party, is a question that must be asked. And I will tell you; he went into the Labour Party with the sole intention of serving capitalism and his own class interests. He used every cunning method, tactics and playacting at his disposal or what he had learnt from training and practice in the capitalist courts, including lying, that deliberate act of deviating from the truth, as he must have done with the garment home workers.

His election as Leader of the Labour Party was built on a pile of lies, and one could spend all-day listing them, here is an early lie sent in a letter to then party leader Michael Foot in 1982: "I come to Socialism through Marxism" and considered myself on the left.

The letter was eventually published in June 2006.

Well the one thing that I don’t want to do is turn this into some short of long rambling post about Tony Blair. We all know what his contribution has been in the world and still live with it everyday and possibly for years to come, unless we can transform things in the time that is to come.

So under his leadership he was able to change the Labour Party into a vehicle that was more accommodating to capitalism, he won over middle England with his modern and moderate New Labour Party, by getting rid of it’s historical challenge to capitalism through it’s commitment to Nationalisation; this involved the deletion of the party's long stated commitment to "the common ownership of the means of production and exchange". He won over middle and working class Tories who keep him in power for ten of the thirteen years that New Labour governed the UK.

His transformation of the party has made it more undemocratic than ever, and remaining so, by the look of things and for the foreseeable future.

Statistics shows that much like Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, New Labour have firmly shifted the financial burden form the rich to the poor. The richest 1% has captured a higher share of national income than at any time since the early 1930s.

Aside from selling off Britain's gold reserves at rock-bottom prices, New Labour has cut corporation tax from 33% to 28%, whilst capital gains tax fell from 40% to 18%.

Taxing the first £2m of capital gains at only 10% via the entrepreneurs’ relief scheme and also raising the inheritance tax threshold from £300,000 to £600,000, in it’s acquisition on behalf of capitalism; to blocking the employment rights for temporary and agency workers (reminding me yet again of the garment workers), further bolsters the view that New Labour was and is in the hands of the business class as opposed to the working-class.

And let’s not forget that New Labour has created 3,500 new criminal offences, increased the number of prisons by 41%, seriously attempted to introduce 96 days detention without trial, and famously tried to ban a legal anti-war demonstration in October 2008 upon the return of Parliament.

Britain now has more CCTV cameras than any other nation on earth; and New Labour famously turned its back on its promise to renationalize the railways after the Conservatives had privatized it.

Despite a 2million strong march in London opposing the impending war, British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair (along with a majority of Labour MPs) ignored public opinion and sent British troops into Iraq standing alongside U.S President George W. Bush, two years after Blair had sent British troops into Afghanistan in a U.S led NATO operation.

This of all things will always be engraved on New Labour’s political tombstone for decades to come.

So what more powerfully persuasive evidence than that above which suggests that New Labour is the creation of a class of infiltrators?

Just one thing stands out amongst everything; is the fact that from 2004 to 2007-08, the number of people in households living on less than 60% of median income rose by 1.3 million - producing a total better than in 1997, but worse than in 1989. This was of course prior to the recession.

In addition, the average real incomes of the poorest tenth in Britain declined by 2% in the 10 years to 2007-08 under New Labour.

The gap between rich and poor in Britain is wider today than when Charles Dickens wrote Hard Times.

After 13 years of Labour government, the UK has higher levels of inequality than after 18 years of Tory government, its predecessor!”

When Kier Hardie, the first ever Labour MP founded the Labour Party, he envisaged a party which would safeguard the whims, needs, desires and aspirations of the average working-class man.

It is an ideology which many British voters encapsulate when they mark their ballots for the Labour party. But is this still true today, and can the Labour Party under a new leader work ever in the interests of working people, that question will be given consideration in my last and final post coming soon.

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• How Blair failed the working man (newstatesman.com)

The Curse of the Labour Party (Part 1)

“That’s life for you up to day down the rest of your life, but in the end we keep on trying to pull our selves up, sadly New labour or Labour will not do it, so what do we do, I've no idea.”

Was the comment sent in response to my last post ‘Summertime Blues.’

It’s all too easy to be critical of the Labour Party and the road that party has taken over the last decade and a bit. And it’s important to say from the onset of this piece, that there are many good socialists for whatever reason who choose to remain members and stay attached to a party that is not capitalism first preferred fix, but nevertheless has proven ready and able to do the biding and look after the interests of capital as we know it today. What people don’t seem to understand is that a two party system such as ours or like that in America really accommodates and helps to keep the system we all live under in place.

Now I don’t have to go into great detail about what has happened under New Labour. Wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, or tell you that the rich in the UK became much richer whilst the poor much worst off under the swashbuckler stewardship of this party.

Many things have changed since the formation of the Labour Party, the way we do and go about our daily lives, the way we earn a curst; we have fast and quick forms of communications such as this internet thing that I’m using, which our grandparents or even parents, depending of course how old you are; would not have dreamt possible in their youth, or to put it better than that, in the 1970s I would never have been able to foretell that in 30 years time I would be sitting at home writing and helping to run this political blog that can be, and has been read all over the world.

In the late 1970s the Labour Party started to purge its party, or a better way of putting it would be oust politically leftwing groups such as the Militant Tendency; which was an entrist group based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964. It described its politics as descended from Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky who had their own agenda and ideas what socialism meant and how it would come about. I remember this very well being a then young and naive member of both Militant and the Labour Party. There was dishonesty on the part of Militant as I remember denying always that they were not another organisation when in fact they meet secretly as the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) up and down the country and eventually managed to get three MPs elected along with winning control of Liverpool City Council. However form 1985 onwards, a series of moves led by Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock against Militant ended its influence in the Labour Party and with it came the loss of its three Militant supporting Labour MPs. Now this is all part of the history of the Labour Party, but the relevance that I wish to highlight is that of Entryism a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely. I’ve highlighted the activities of Militant, but what about that of the agents of capitalism? There is a history of manipulation and backing of the rightwing within the Labour Party that stretches back years. Following the end of World War II, the Labour Party was elected on a platform of extensive domestic social reform, and of peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union in Europe. Fearful of the spread of Communist influence, the right wing of the party, under the then new Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, organised themselves around the journal Socialist Commentary, which became their most important mouthpiece. Throughout the post-war period, Labour's Gaitskellite right wing worked closely with MI5, Special Branch and a variety of CIA front organisations to advance its cause and curse on the party and in the process keeping the left at bay. Channelised with massive CIA funds, the right grew in confidence and influence, and vigorously campaigned against left-wingers like Aneurin Bevan, whom they denounced as "dangerous extremists".

Then there was the Campaign for Social Democracy that became a minor political party operating in the 1970s.

They were formed in September, 1973 by Dick Taverne, who had resigned from the Labour Party, after falling out with his Lincoln Constituency Labour Party over the European Economic Community.

He had formed the Democratic Labour Association in Lincoln elected as an MP for Lincoln under that banner in a by-election in March, 1973. He formed the Campaign for Social Democracy, which included members from my own Labour Party in Scunthorpe as an attempt to build a radical non-doctrinaire social democratic movement, and at the February 1974 general election they stood four candidates against leading Labour left-wingers (including Tony Benn).

All were unsuccessful (the highest polling only 2.4% of the vote in their constituency), and the campaign was wound up when the Labour Party won the February general election, making a split in the Labour Party less likely.

Such a split did occur in the early 1980s, when leading Labour moderates formed the Social Democratic Party, including those members from Scunthorpe.

I have written briefly about my small fender-bender with them on this blog in the past and you can read that (http://thesocialistway.blogspot.com/2009/08/real-labour-man.html) here, but the point is that we should not underestimate or even dismiss the lengths and determination that the enemies of the Labour Party will go too in order to undermine workers organisations. I’m only touching a small part of this trojan horse type activity that really did go on and for all we know still operates today.

I’m sorry if this post that was meant to be a reply to the comment that I posted at the beginning, has rambled on without as yet answering the question, but it has given me the opportunity to get some things as they say off my chest, and put things into real perspective which will then furnish the commentator with an answer. So for the time being I’m living it there so that interested readers can take-in what I’ve already said and will continue in the next post.

The Summertime Blues...

The annual, yearly summer holidays are upon us, schools and colleges up and down the land adjourn for what may seem to be an endurance contest to many a parent. Just keeping them (children) occupied for the duration and out of harms way can be stressful and taxing at the best of times, and lets hope that with the recent hot weather, that none come to any harm this year, thinking about holiday tragedies of the past, such as swimming in canals and deep water without adult supervision, the dangers are more real today when you consider that more families than ever have both parents working just to make ends meet in these hard times.

There’s another group of term servers, who brake-up for the summer holidays, and I’m not offering any prizes for guessing correctly that our legislators of Honourable or Dishonourable men and women, depending how you view them, will be taking their mammoth vacation, as the Americans call it. Of course the Prime Minister will still be running the country, or so he will have us believe; more like running it down and preparing his blueprint of austerity cuts to be presented in the autumn, but in the meantime the press are reporting that his party, under his leadership are enjoying the so-called honeymoon period, for now! However the same cannot be said for his joiner partners in the coalition, poor old Liberal/Democrats they are slipping dramatically in the polls, well that’s an arranged marriage made in hell for you then!

So as we head into what is commonly known and often referred too as the silly session, it is obvious that many amongst this great mass of people, and through no fault of their own, still do not see the wealthy wolfhounds dressed in sheep’s clothing and ready to draw blood and slaughter those of us who are poorer off.

Just who will fend off these wolfs, not the Labour Party; who are running a side show of a beauty contest to select a new leader that no one seems to be interested in. It’s as if we keep going around in ever decreasing circles, time after time, after time. Let me say one thing about the Labour Party; they are totally and utterly bankrupted and stand a million miles away from ordinary working people, and I still cannot for the life of me understand why some who claim to be socialists still cling to their comfort blanket and pretended that socialism will come though this vertical and pointing always in the wrong direction vehicle with four wheels that fell off long ago, which is the Labour Party.

So let me just qualify myself by quoting this from an article I came across in would you believe it The Economist:      

“The previous Labour government fought a kind of covert war on poverty. It redistributed billions to the poor in the form of generous tax credits but did not talk about it within earshot of richer voters. Poor children and pensioners benefited in particular (childless adults got less help). A minimum wage was introduced. So was a Child Trust Fund, in order to boost the wealth of the poor and not just their income.”

A fool’s paradise nothing more and nothing less and that’s what happens when you run capitalism; and all that, will in the fullness of time be taken away from those in most need by this obnoxious government.

If I may make one more quote from that above mentioned publication to rest my case:

“In the end, these efforts struggled to overcome low pay, runaway salaries at the top, single-parent households and other real-world trends that kept poverty and inequality stubbornly high. Britain has more of its people living in households of relative poverty (ie, with income below 60% of the national median) than all but six of the 27 members of the European Union (EU). According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a think-tank, the proportion of the population in relative poverty fell only slightly, from 19.4% to 18.3%, between 1996-97 and 2007-08. (The drop is a bit more impressive when housing costs are taken into account.) There is also some evidence that severe poverty (measured as income below 40% of the median) actually rose, though this is more contested.”

Well what ever is going to come will happen soon, and I think that when working people awake they will see the wolfhounds for what they really are and reject the hush poppies of the Labour Party.

Enjoy summer whilst you can…

Leadership extravaganza?

My friend and co-blogger of The Socialist Way, Brian Hopper (In the Box) is a man of great depth, intelligence, but above all else integrity, and whenever I feel that I need a second opinion about a post he is the man I call, all the way up in Scunthorpe.

Just before I left for a trip to Cardiff today, we had one such chat.

We discussed the developments within the Labour Party, the significance of John McDonnell pulling out of the farce that is the race for the leadership of Nu Labour, and I’m glad that I do this, for its easy to shoot off at the hip, and none of us hold all the answers, do we?

It did not come as a surprise then, discovering that my friend and comrade felt more or less the same as I do when it comes to the Labour Party; he has sent the following post of thoughts which are under this introduction along with comments sent by Chris H of Lansbury's Lido blog fame and in response to an earlier post, as Chris makes a simple, passionate and accurate assessment of the Nu Labour Party – Now we have all been members of the Labour Party at one time or the other, with different experiences, specking for myself I remember meeting a Labour Councillor, called Hamilton Spencer, a nice man, who use to say many times at my ward meetings that the Labour Party is a ‘Broad Church’. Well old Hamilton Spencer who reminded me in appearance of Manny Shinwell, and like him he died of old age over twenty years ago, and so did the Labour Party that's all so clear now!

We are heading into a storm, it’s not the leader of the Labour Party that matters, but arresting and casting aside the world system of capitalism that matters, we have our work cut out for us, but I believe that working people, come the day will rise to the task and overturn the system and establish sanity, we must all play our part now!  


Brian Hopper:

It is some time since, I sat down to put my thoughts to the key board. Well May 3rd to be precise three days before the General Election, and I sat up most of that night on May 6th watching the Election results come in eventually, then  I took myself of to bed very heartsick,  many of us  predicted a hung Parliament long before voting day, and so having looked at all the scenarios that might accrue, I should have been well prepared for what might be, but no I was not, not until it was staring me in the face, and oh boy did  it really hit me, just how broken Britain was, I have to admit  I just don't know what I felt?. Just completely lost seems to be the best explanation.

Watching things unfold over the next few days and weeks just have not helped in any way at all.

I followed The Socialist Way and other blogs every couple of days, and found most of the things that came to mind was being said already but better, it was the reading of the socialist blogs that has made me realise I am not alone in my feelings of despondency.  

Still, why do I feel so bad, as the saying goes, look for the best in man and you won't all ways see it, but look for the worst and it is sure to appear, maybe it is my eye sight I just don't see best at all.

It seems the banner of the working classes has fallen into the dust and everybody is just walking all over it, and there does not appear to be anybody that will pick it up, dust it off and hold it high with pride, and I feel I have to repeat my self when I say anybody there?

Just look at the candidates that are putting themselves forward for the New Labour Party leadership, all New Labour to the back teeth, and Diane Abbott you don’t count – for anything!

Chris H:

In terms of improving life in the 80s and beyond John's comment was likely to have been along the right lines in terms of practical results. Thatcher inflicted so much violence against the working class and their communities, the poor, the sick, the unemployed and the trade union movement.

My cousin, a miner, took his own life after a year on strike such was the pressure on him. And why did it get to that position? Because Thatcher is a spiteful, vindictive cow who cares nothing for people but only that the working class needed to be taught a lesson, regardless of cost or common sense. When she dies I will be cracking open a classy bottle of red, not in celebration but in rememberance of a society and millions of lives ruined by her.

And as for the Labour Party leadership extravaganza? The fact that the only left-wing nomination is struggling to reach the bar speaks volumes for the future. Kinnock et al restructured the Labour Party to be a top down organisation controlled by a clique of PLP members and their 'advisors'. The fact that most of the Labour MPs could fit quite happily in the coalition government and not look out of place leads me to believe that the Labour Party is dead in the water in terms of representing the working class. Why places like Socialist Unity keep gassing over the Labour Party leadership elections is beyond me. Waste of time.