One of the most important campaigns being run by our union at the moment is against attempts to water down the Freedom of Information Act. More details from the Campaign for Freedom of Information here. Note too, that only one of the people who stood for either leader or deputy leader of the Labour party supports the early day motion opposing attempts to neuter the Act.
Meanwhile, today - a day and a bit into the fresh new era of "listening" and "being humbled" ushered in by Gordon Brown - MPs vote to exempt themselves from the already inadequate strictures of the FOI Act.
Here's a list of those MPs who voted this madness in. Apologies for the Mail link (I won't make a habit of it) but there's some people in there who really ought to know better.
Saturday 19 May 2007
Wednesday 16 May 2007
A party afraid of its members
So John McDonnell has conceded, having failed to get the 44 MP nominations needed to trigger a ballot of the Labour party's members and affiliated trade unionists. John fought an honest and upfront campaign, with policies on many issues (such as trident replacement and the Iraq war) that more than a hundred Labour MPs agreed with him on and rebelled on. But when it came down to it, very few of them had the guts to nominate someone who shared some of their views. Other bits of McDonnell's programme were perhaps further to the left, but to not allow members a contest is, frankly, a disgrace.
So Labour will line up at the next election not with a properly elected leader, like the other parties, but with one "elected", basically, over dinner in a poncey Islington restaurant 13 years ago. For this was where the facts on the ground of Brown's candidacy were created. And Brown has now succeeded in bullying and manipulating his way to the top job, with the help of a parliamentary party afraid of its members. Are we really that scary? Do they really despise and distrust us that much?
I get a fair bit of flack from mates for being in the Labour party, though I stand by my membership. With the Blair era coming to an end, there was and is a space within the party and the labour movement for imaginative and democratic discussion on changing the outlook and direction of the government. Blair-Brownism (for they are one and the same), in as much as it can be dignified with being called a political philosophy, *is* on the decline, intellectually and as a political and popular force. That hasn't changed. Nor has the progressive outlook of large numbers of people in the party; there's still probably more decent progressive socialists in the Labour party than there are in those parties further to the left. The only other one that really looked like making inroads, the Scottish Socialist Party, has imploded, and the left looks as weak as ever, outside and inside the party.
Yet the ideas put forward in McDonnell's campaign aren't weak and aren't, mostly, unpopular. We all need a good think about how to reconcile this gap between popular policies and unpopular (or relatively unknown) actual political movements. McDonnell, for his part, came across well during the campaign - articulate and impassioned without being smug and hectoring. Such a contrast with Brown himself, whose campaign leaflet came in the post today. Its aims were as vague and fluffy and platitudinous as the worst Blair produced - "Britain number one for education... every child the best start in life... an NHS that earns the trust of patients and staff... no pragmatism just soft-focus meaninglessness. We'll hear no more, I suspect, of the "Blair-Brown split" since it was never a political wrangle.
Meanwhile, I hope the intra-left recriminations and gloating are kept to an absolute minimum in the aftermath of this, and that we aim our fire where it belongs - on the spineless cowards of the PLP and the chief coward and bully himself, Gordon Brown. That's one thing he's got in common with George Bush already - neither came to power in a proper election. What a start.
So Labour will line up at the next election not with a properly elected leader, like the other parties, but with one "elected", basically, over dinner in a poncey Islington restaurant 13 years ago. For this was where the facts on the ground of Brown's candidacy were created. And Brown has now succeeded in bullying and manipulating his way to the top job, with the help of a parliamentary party afraid of its members. Are we really that scary? Do they really despise and distrust us that much?
I get a fair bit of flack from mates for being in the Labour party, though I stand by my membership. With the Blair era coming to an end, there was and is a space within the party and the labour movement for imaginative and democratic discussion on changing the outlook and direction of the government. Blair-Brownism (for they are one and the same), in as much as it can be dignified with being called a political philosophy, *is* on the decline, intellectually and as a political and popular force. That hasn't changed. Nor has the progressive outlook of large numbers of people in the party; there's still probably more decent progressive socialists in the Labour party than there are in those parties further to the left. The only other one that really looked like making inroads, the Scottish Socialist Party, has imploded, and the left looks as weak as ever, outside and inside the party.
Yet the ideas put forward in McDonnell's campaign aren't weak and aren't, mostly, unpopular. We all need a good think about how to reconcile this gap between popular policies and unpopular (or relatively unknown) actual political movements. McDonnell, for his part, came across well during the campaign - articulate and impassioned without being smug and hectoring. Such a contrast with Brown himself, whose campaign leaflet came in the post today. Its aims were as vague and fluffy and platitudinous as the worst Blair produced - "Britain number one for education... every child the best start in life... an NHS that earns the trust of patients and staff... no pragmatism just soft-focus meaninglessness. We'll hear no more, I suspect, of the "Blair-Brown split" since it was never a political wrangle.
Meanwhile, I hope the intra-left recriminations and gloating are kept to an absolute minimum in the aftermath of this, and that we aim our fire where it belongs - on the spineless cowards of the PLP and the chief coward and bully himself, Gordon Brown. That's one thing he's got in common with George Bush already - neither came to power in a proper election. What a start.
Sunday 13 May 2007
Blair bows out....
And amid a customary flurry of substanceless self-justification, and amid a cacophony of really rather tedious punditry. I'd challenge even the most earnest political nerd to read any of the "Blair's 10 years" supplements without feeling the sharpest urge to take respite in some juicy pointless gossip about Kate Moss or Lilly Allen or Pete Doherty.
And now Brown awaits, offering the odd hint of better things (parliamentary approval for any decision on war, a beefed-up constitution, though details are still vague), but amid much the same blether about remaining New Labour, not "going back 20 years" (the Blair/Brownite stock response to any criticism from the left is to accuse critics of living in the past; given New Labour's own evident obsession with the past perhaps it is they, not us, who are the ones fighting yesterday's battles).
So we need a contest. That the Labour party should elect its leaders seems such an obvious and basic democratic point it's depressing it needs to be made. It's also entirely predictable that the same point doesn't bother many political pundits, locked as they are in their "choppy waters for the government" sub-Day Today Westminster village court-gossippy world - compared to which, frankly, what the Sugababes and Girls Aloud are up to *is* more interesting.
Anyway, here's the letter in yesterday's Guardian that I and 339 other people signed, asking the Parliamentary Labour Party to be so decent as to permit us this contest. Don't hold your breath.
And now Brown awaits, offering the odd hint of better things (parliamentary approval for any decision on war, a beefed-up constitution, though details are still vague), but amid much the same blether about remaining New Labour, not "going back 20 years" (the Blair/Brownite stock response to any criticism from the left is to accuse critics of living in the past; given New Labour's own evident obsession with the past perhaps it is they, not us, who are the ones fighting yesterday's battles).
So we need a contest. That the Labour party should elect its leaders seems such an obvious and basic democratic point it's depressing it needs to be made. It's also entirely predictable that the same point doesn't bother many political pundits, locked as they are in their "choppy waters for the government" sub-Day Today Westminster village court-gossippy world - compared to which, frankly, what the Sugababes and Girls Aloud are up to *is* more interesting.
Anyway, here's the letter in yesterday's Guardian that I and 339 other people signed, asking the Parliamentary Labour Party to be so decent as to permit us this contest. Don't hold your breath.
Thursday 3 May 2007
Sing when we're losing
I love days like last Saturday. Leyton Orient were comprehensively outplayed at home by Nottingham Forest but, more importantly, other results ensured that we stayed up in League One, an eventuality that seemed highly unlikely back in September and October. So we were all happy.
And, with the weather glorious, it all provided a perfect backdrop to a languid day of drinking and socialising in the Birkbeck pub, followed by some magnificently raucous and shamelessly uninhibited karaoke later on. Loads of people I hadn't seen for a while stayed out, and we all went home overly refreshed but basically happy.
It's the delightful little mundane details of bog-standard days and nights like this that are why I wouldn't want to support any other team. Much sentimental nonsense has been written about football clubs as communities - small football clubs especially - but there's definitely something there. The most eclectic, eccentric and uncategorisable gathering of people I know is the one with whom I watch Leyton Orient matches. It's also one of the friendliest and funniest. Matchdays in the Birkbeck are what socialism should be like.
Which is why the idea that supporters of small clubs are 'jealous' of clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester United etc are so absurdly, ignorantly inaccurate. They're welcome to their pre-ordained, predictable, overpriced charade of a league.
And, with the weather glorious, it all provided a perfect backdrop to a languid day of drinking and socialising in the Birkbeck pub, followed by some magnificently raucous and shamelessly uninhibited karaoke later on. Loads of people I hadn't seen for a while stayed out, and we all went home overly refreshed but basically happy.
It's the delightful little mundane details of bog-standard days and nights like this that are why I wouldn't want to support any other team. Much sentimental nonsense has been written about football clubs as communities - small football clubs especially - but there's definitely something there. The most eclectic, eccentric and uncategorisable gathering of people I know is the one with whom I watch Leyton Orient matches. It's also one of the friendliest and funniest. Matchdays in the Birkbeck are what socialism should be like.
Which is why the idea that supporters of small clubs are 'jealous' of clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester United etc are so absurdly, ignorantly inaccurate. They're welcome to their pre-ordained, predictable, overpriced charade of a league.
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