grimmerupnorth

I'm furious. Absolutely. Bloody.Furious. UNISON Labour Link has just announced it will be backing the Dear Leader and Alan Johnson for the Deputy Leadership.
Cast an eye at the photo on the left. You will see UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis and some equally furious NHS workers protesting at last year's Labour Party Conference. I was there. NHS workers were angry at the privatisation of NHS Logistics. They were angry at privatisation and PFI. They have campaigned tirelessly against marketisation and pay cuts. How does the UNISON leadership reward them? Yes. By supporting the very team which SUPPORTS privatisation, outsourcing and profiteering. Brown is already Leader. He doesn't need any endorsements. Johnson, apart from Blears, is the most right-wing candidate for the Deputy Leadership and a fan of marketisation.
I hope Dave Prentis is pleased with himself. I hope next time he gets his microphone switched off by the Labour leadership during a speech which they don't like that he doesn't expect sympathy. Because thousands of UNISON members are going to be absolutely gutted that, yet again, their leadership has let them down.
The ONLY candidate who followed UNISON policy on pay and privatisation was John McDonnell and the union leadership didn't lift a finger to get their members' interests on the agenda and John on the ballot. I hope questions are asked and hell raised at the TUC conference in September.
As John McDonnell said :" In 1997 we campaigned with the slogan "24 hours to save the NHS". Public sector workers marched in their thousands to kick out the Tories and elect a Labour government. Today they are marching again in towns and cities across the country, not for Labour, but to oppose job cuts and the closure of accident and emergency units.
Labour party members are proud that we have ploughed resources into the NHS, but they are angry when they see public money being laundered through the NHS into the profits of private companies and former government policy advisers populating the boards of companies gaining from privatised contracts.
We were told in 1997 that it was what worked that mattered. But it has increasingly become what makes profit that matters. Why should we have to put up with primary care trust budget deficits, job cuts and closures, when we spend £6bn on the war in Iraq and plan to spend £76bn on replacing Trident? "
I would like the so-called "awkward squad" to answer those questions. But let's face it. They have rolled over and died. Every single one of them. Simpson, Woodley and Prentis are a disgrace and a sad disappointment to the Labour left.

Just to prove I'm not a sad git who spends all my life whingeing about Gordon Brown, there is political life beyond the environs of New Labour. As an unashamedly Labour Left councillor, I'm glad to report victory in saving a valuable green space for the children living in my ward.
Hebden Bridge is a property hotspot and all available land in the town is being snapped up - not for social housing but expensive executive homes. Residents in my backyard were determined to fight off developers who wanted to build on a meadow bordering on Victorian terraces lacking gardens or play space of any sort. The development would also have been a traffic and safety hazard. Planners in Halifax nevertheless recommended the green light but we argued our case at Tory-run Calderdale Council - and won. A small victory but one which means a lot to the people at the sharp end.Well done, everyone concerned.

Distinctly underwhelmed. And pretty much depressed by the lacklustre Muppet Show which was last night's Deputy Leadership hustings on Newsnight. The best 90-second soundbite came from Hilary Benn, who even managed to mention "socialism"and "redistribution of wealth." From then on in, things were deeply unimpressive. Six candidates -and not really a cigarette paper between them in terms of policy or principles. So it was down to personality. Blears and Johnson fared the worst - Hazel irritating as usual and Johnson's resemblance to Reg Varney becomes more marked each time I see him. Pity he's not driving a bus instead of aiming to be Deputy Leader. Hain didn't impress either and spoke so fast you couldn't really take in what he was saying. Yes I would say this wouldn't I but Jon Cruddas did not really come across as much different to the others. No to Trident, yes to nuclear power stations. And the disingenuous "sorry about the war" line. On that showing, he's just not going to do it.

I am not going to repeat my views on Jon Cruddas and his role in denying Labour members a vote on the leadership. But it's interesting to note that other former supporters with far more influence than me are now going to use their votes elsewhere. One such is Newport MP Paul Flynn, who actually signed his nomination papers. Flynn now says he will vote for Peter Hain, which takes the total of Welsh MPs supporting Hain to 16. Flynn says Cruddas "is not performing at the hustings" but I would also speculate he was less than impressed that Cruddas did not nominate his favoured leadership candidate, which was John McDonnell. As Flynn points out, Hain is a "consummate politician.” who has done a great job in Northern Ireland.And , given his most recent statements re draconian Home Office measures, I may well end up voting for him myself. Now, to those of you on the left still with illusions in Cruddas, let me offer you this gem.
Cruddas tells the Western Mail: “I was in the Labour Party in the 1980s, and one half of the constituency party wanted to nationalise the corner shop while the other wanted to invite the Russians in. I don’t want to go back to that."
Well I was in the Labour Party in the 1980's both in London and Manchester and those are not my memories. Let me remind him. The People's March For Jobs, The Miner's Strike, the women of Greenham Common, the fight against the Poll Tax, the GLC ' s stand against Thatcher, mass CND demonstrations. Difficult times, difficult issues and they should not be dismissed with crass remarks.

Question Time is one of the last great programmes on the TV. If the panel is bad then it's not so great, but last night's was a treat.Where else would you get Michael Heseltine, Alan Johnson, and Bob crow arguing the toss in the same room? Wonderful stuff. RMT boss Bob Crow is 100 per cent old school.No bullshit, no spin, he just tells it like it is.Bob spoke upon behalf of many of the policies associated with the John McDonnell campaign. In favour of more council housing, anti-Trident, anti-privatisation. He got a good reception. Alan Johnson , it must be said, is less appalling than fellow candidates Blears and Harman. But he comes across as a slippery character who has sold his old trade union principles down the river for high office. And Bob Crow did not fight shy of reminding him about earlier battles in which they shared trade union solidarity. Sadly for us in the Labour Party, Bob's union, the RMT, is still disaffiliated. Long odds I know but I hope at some stage soon that changes. Brown's uncontested leadership is hardly helpful but it also illustrates why we desperstely need lefts back in the Party.

Checked my bank balance and concluded that £50.00 was a bit much to spend bowing down before the Dour Leader.No doubt the clapping seals and nodding dogs will be out in force but socialists less pleased at this Stalinist coup might care to put this date in their diaries......June 24 is the day when King Gordon is crowned in Manchester.The Stop The War Coalition is organising a demonstration on the theme of Change the policy - not just the leader. Check out their website for details. PS:My guess is they will be giving tickets away.
PPS: Having been one of the first to register for the leadership hustings in Sheffield TWO WEEKS AGO ( when it looked as though there would be a proper contest) , still haven't heard a sausage .Wonder why. Let's just say when Blair came to Huddersfield two years ago during the General Election campaign, certain comrades were excluded from the invite list.

From yesterday's Mail On Sunday:
Education Secretary Alan Johnson is heading for a showdown with Gordon Brown over his refusal to guarantee that the winner of Labour's deputy leadership contest will be Deputy Prime Minister. Labour sources say Mr Brown is considering giving the DPM role to Jack Straw as a reward for running his leadership campaign - with the new deputy Labour leader relegated to Party issues."
Mr Johnson is reported to have said"Over my f***** dead body." Frankly, I wouldn't goad the Dear Leader too much if I were he.......

Last night on TV, the unedifying spectacle of a woman protestor being bundled out of Brown's ridiculous "hustings" by a couple of heavies after daring to heckle the Dear Leader over Iraq. Looked just like the Walter Wolfgang incident. They have learned nothing..... and will pay the price. BTW there will also be a demonstration at Brown's "coronation" in Manchester in June. I believe it's being organised by Stop The War Coalition.

Hilary Benn and me go back a long way (well. sort of). Back in 1983 I campaigned for Hilary when he stood as MP for Ealing North.Yes, we lost.
Then two weeks ago I did a phone interview with Hilary for a publication I work for. I was impressed with his honesty and integrity and clear respect for those who are to the left of him. Yes I know he has to be nice to his dad but, on issues like Iraq and Trident, he agreed to disagree while sharing the same aims as me. ie peace, social justice and democratic socialism. That used to be the way in the Labour Party. It was a broad church. The way to champion one's beliefs was via honest debate. This week, the broad church tradition was renounced by the PLP. The deputy leadership candidate allegedly with "left" views, Jon Cruddas, failed to back the leadership candidate who shared his views on Trident and party democracy.So he lost my vote and, I suspect, the votes of thousands of others. The other candidates veer from unspeakable (Blears) to wishy-washy (Harman) . Alan Johnson is all things to all men and Hain will get my second preference if Benn doesn't make it. I cannot pretend I vote with the same enthusiasm as I did when Tony Benn stood as deputy in 1981.But it's better than the alternatives.

Last night , Calder Valley CLP passed unanimously a resolution calling for the leadership election threshold to be lowered from 12.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent. This measure would have ensured that John McDonnell was on the ballot. We told our MP Chris McCafferty we felt betrayed and disgusted by the behaviour of the PLP and MPs like herself who chose to ignore the wishes of thousands of ordinary Party members and trade unionists for a contest. She actually hadthe gall to suggest John McDonnell was not a "credible" left candidate. So I am cutting and pasting the following report from the PCS trade union website about its annual conference. It speaks for itself.......


The day ended with a powerful speech by John McDonnell MP, chair of the PCS parliamentary group. Speaking the day after learning he had not secured enough nominations to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership, he received a spontaneous standing ovation before he even began.
John thanked delegates for the welcome and noted wryly: “It’s been rough old week in Westminster.”
He added: “I’m disappointed, but not for myself. I’m disappointed for all Labour party members across the country. They are not going to get a voice or a say in the future direction of a Labour government.”
John thanked PCS for its solidarity, saying: “I’m really grateful for you standing shoulder to shoulder with me.”
He went on to outline the threat Gordon Brown poses to members’ terms and conditions, and public services in general, with increased privatisation and real terms pay cuts.
Other unions should come on board and show solidarity with PCS, he said, and the TUC should also show a ‘more robust interpretation of solidarity’. “We want them to lead, we want them to co-ordinate, to be at the forefront alongside us and brining others along.”
He hailed the Make Your Vote Count campaign as ‘tremendously effective’. “It put us right in the faces of those politicians making the decisions”, he said. “There could be a general election in the next two years and votes of PCS members and their families are enough to change an election.”
Closing, he promised to continue to wholeheartedly support PCS both in parliament and workplaces. “In PCS I see a membership determined. I see anger building and we can turn that into solidarity and action. Whether it’s in parliament or on the picket lines I’ll be there with you.”

Just looked in the dictionary to check I've got it right. Yep."Ridiculous distortion or misrepresentation." Thought I would give it 24 hours to calm down.But as of now Friday May 18 I still think democracy in the Labour Party finally died this week. The ultimate control freakery after years of Party hacks taking the piss and taking over conference, turning it into a Nuremberg rally, blocking resolutions, "encouraging" delegates to vote a certain way.
Thousands were heartened by the fact that someone had the guts to stand up to New Labour in the hope that things would change, if not now, then the future. I argued myself silly getting people to re-join on that promising basis.
Now we have a Leader who I have no doubt is backed overwhelmingly by the PLP. But not, as we knew, by a significant number of Party members, trade unionists and affiliated organisations. That division, however small, was unacceptable to the Brown machine.But let's not blame them entirely. Let's also blame the cowardly, spineless MPs who put their perosnal interests before the people who put then there in the first place, the "left" MPs who failed to deliver, the trade unions who preferred to put their money on someone who wouldn't frighten the horses rather than help advance socialism.Yes, I know it's "blame culture" ,notconstructive, not positive, not helpful.But after years defending the indefensible, accepting the unacceptable, being desperate for Blair to go, what do we get? Something a hell of a lot worse. A Leader imposed on us from above, whom many had already decided they did not want to vote for, and who will almost definitely lead us to defeat at the next election. And you know something? I'm not sure I care

There are the MPs to lobby
Anne Begg/ Joe Benton/ Colin Burgon/ Stephen Byers/ Charles Clarke/ David Clelland/ Ann Clwyd/ Vernon Coaker/ Michael Connarty/ Jim Cousins/ Jon Cruddas/ Andrew Dismore/ Jim Dowd/ Gwyneth Dunwoody/ Frank Field/ Bruce George/ Nia Griffith/ Mike Hall/ David Hamilton/ Dai Havard/ Sharon Hodgson/ Kate Hoey/ Brian Jenkins/ Piara Khabra/ Peter Kilfoyle/ Fiona Mactaggart/ Chris McCafferty/ Siobhain McDonagh/ Rosemary McKenna/ Alan Meale/ Alan Milburn/ Austin Mitchell/ Chris Mullin/ Jim Murphy/ Stephen Pound/ Terry Rooney/ Graham Stringer/ Jon Trickett/ Paul Truswell/ Rudi Vis/ Michael Wills/ David Winnick/ Anthony Wright/ Tony Wright/

I've heard it all now. Outgoing Deputy Leader John Prescott is throwing his three penn'orth in - urging Michael Meacher and John McDonnell not to challenge Brown, just for the sake of denying the chancellor a simple coronation.
“Who would want to vote for someone who is going to lose in the final analysis anyway? It’s cuckoo daft!” says Prescott. What! By the same token, one would perhaps abolish elections in seats where the result is a foregone conclusion. Some people vote Labour all theur lives and never get a Labour MP. And here the result is NOT a foregone conclusion. Yes it would be if it was just the PLP. But it's not. And, has Prescott never heard of democracy. Maybe it's been so long absent from the Labour Party he's forgotten the basic principles on which the Party was founded. Blair, he may have forgotten, was virtually certain to win in 1994.We still had an election. I hope there's a good result tomorrow.If this becomes a joint left campaign, then maybe we can get behind whoever goes forward.Maybe......

No, I'm not a Putin fan. Let's just say that following Blair's speech - and the not very good news about the leadership ballot - my partner and I went out and got very very drunk. We found some other lefties in our local Trades Club and swapped e-mails and phone numbers. All Labour Party members. All supporters of John McDonnell.
I am going to hang fire until Monday when we will know what the situation really is. Blair has just endorsed Brown so he's finally fulfilled his part of the "Deal." Shame the rest of the Party don't get a say.

I What year is this? .........2007 May 9 Parade to mark victory over the Nazis, or is it a veiled threat to US hegemony? All power to the Soviets!! Solidarity with Putin!!

At 12 noon tomorrow Tony Blair is to announce his resignation as Labour leader. So why aren't I whooping with joy? Many of his acolytes will soon go with him and Labour has the chance to renew and change. But I have to say my gut instinct is that it won't under a Brown Premiership. Nor will it, obviously, unless there is a contest. Which is by no means certain.
Tomorrow, we will also find out who goes forward from the left to try and get the 44names for the ballot. I really can't believe it will be Michael Meacher. But, given the snakepit of Westminster, who knows......so for now the fizzy stuff remains unopened.

No blogging yesterday as up all night (literally) in Manchester then on to Halifax for count. Back on council but only just, disappointing but could have been worse. Good news is Labour now has seven councillors instead of 5 on Hebden Royd. Which means almost 50 per cent of the local council and a significant breakthrough. In Calder, our candidate failed to beat the budgie-breeder by only 76 votes. In Luddendenfoot, the BNP were beaten back into 4th place and we came third.
Nationally, not the rut everyone expecting but hardly good news . Scottish Socialist Party utterly wiped out in Scotland. So much for the great breakthrough which caused many comrades to leave Labour. So where now?
Charles Clarke appears to have ruled out standing for Leader so only a few days to go before a decision .Contest or no contest? Still in the balance I assume. Surely Brown must see it must be in his interests ? Well, possibly not. Mind still befuddled from exhaustion.
Quick hello (if he reads this ) to fellow Labour blogger Chris Paul. Nice to meet you at town hall......

Ignorance is bliss.Thus it was 10 years ago that I sat happily over a Turkish meze dinner with a friend following Tony Blair's arrival in Number 10."We were elected as New Labour, and we will govern as New Labour," he had just told a grateful nation. The thing was that most of didn't quite know what that meant. Well, we certainly do now.
I'd just like to say that sometimes we/I need reminding that this Govt HAS done good things. Earlier today, I was talking to a Minister who shall remain nameless -let's just say his dad is voting for a very maverick leadership ticket. Anyway, he was waxing lyrical about how under Labour we had done much to assuage global poverty, helped write off billions in Third World debt, and the "fantastic" job which Blair and Brown had done at the G8 summit and so on. Now I accept that's probably true .I also accept the Northern Ireland peace process, minimum wage, SureStart, and the money invested in health and education. But I honestly think most of the electorate have forgotten.
I think they are tired of being patronised and preached at, tired of seeing British soldiers being brought back in coffins, tired of sleaze , and what they perceive as the sheer hypocrisy at the top.
Now maybe that's unfair. After all, even the most rebellious of Labour rebels vote WITH the Govt about 75 percent of the time. I concede Gordon Brown MUST have good intentions.It''s just what he is saying that is the problem. More of the same. More New Labour. More fights against the "war on terror." It is all deeply disheartening. On Thursday, judging from the levels of public vitriol being hurled at Blair ( Socialist Worker has already switched its tack to Unite Against Brown) I think it will be far worse than anyone is expecting.The irony is that he is now doing what many of us in the Party asked him to a couple of years ago. He's going. But it's too little, too late. People still want to give him a "kicking." And Brown is now just as much associated with what has become a tainted brand.
According to my interviewee, we need "more straightforward politics." That's absolutely right. No spin, no sleaze, honest opinions, and honest difference of opinions. Unless Labour's "broad church" is allowed to congregate once again , and Brown starts listening instead of pontificating, he really is courting disaster. And, if he somehow manages to scupper a leadership contest, he is courting the biggest disaster of all. A Tory Government.