(1) The Trotskyist didn't cross the road. Those are Stalinists you see on the other side of the road, and centrists gathering at the curb and thinking about crossing. No genuine Trotskyist would ever attempt to cross the yellow class line in the middle of the road.

(2) To divert some of the advanced elements of the oncoming traffic in a leftward direction.

(3) Because the masses of pedestrians have illusions in road-crossing as a means to get to the other side. We must make this journey with them, but without ever abandoning our perspective that road-crossing is just another reformist illusion.

Only a genuine Trotskyist, armed with a petrol station map and an accurate programme, who must be in place during the road-crossing, can then lead the advanced elements of now-disillusioned road-crossing pedestrians in a successful struggle against oncoming traffic.

Only a genuine Trotskyist pedestrian will be truly able to expose crossing guards and traffic cops as the lackeys of the capitalist, racist traffic department, and lead the pedestrians forward to a pedestrian dictatorship, which will build a carless, trafficless intersection

The late Robin Cook used to argue that the problem with Turkey is that the politicians are accountable to the military, not the military accountable to the politicians.

Marxists would go one further, and point out that in all capitalist states, the ‘bodies of armed men’ are the ultimate guarantors of the ruling classes’s interests. It’s just that in Turkey, the problem tends to come to the surface rather more frequently than in most other countries.

With the latest round of political instability – centred on opposition on the part of secularists to soft Islamist Abdullah Gul assuming the largely ceremonial presidency – we can see these tendencies at work once more.

It is sometimes difficult for the democratic left to find its bearings in situations such as this. Yes of course we are secularists by sympathy. But a military coup against what is the functional equivalent of west European Christian Democrat becoming head of state will be a setback for all who want to see Turkey develop along democratic lines.

Whichever side prevails in this contest, the repressive policies of the Turkish state – from frequent torture of political prisoners to the clandestine war in Kurdistan – will continue unchanged.

Our solidarity should be reserved for the Turkish left. Whatever its Stalinist deformations, many of its activists are deeply entrenched in the Turkish working class, the only force that can bring about the kind of social change the country desperately needs.

Meanwhile, if Gul is entitled to the job under the rules set down by the Turkish constitution, we should argue that he be allowed to undertake it.

Industrial news just in. Railworkers, seafarers and many of Britain’s offshore workers are likely shortly to find themselves in the same union.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union and the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee have entered into the spirit of May 1st with the announcement that they are close to completing merger talks.

Both are outside of the Labour Party, and have a track record of willingness to use their industrial muscle.

It now remains for OILC’s conference in Aberdeen in October to decide on whether the proposal to become the offshore section of RMT should be put to a ballot of its 2,000 members.

RMT already organises divers and catering workers in the North Sea. Recently it secured a 45% pay increase for divers after a ten-day all out strike.

OILC includes engineering, drilling, construction and support workers, and was set up after the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster.

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.

"Well, there's so much to live for!"

"I'm just so depressed, I've been a communist all my life and the revolution seems as far away as ever"

"You're a communist?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I am as well!! Did you originally join the Communist Party USA?"

"Yeah."

"Me too! Did you join the pro-Trotsky Communist League of America in 1928, which later merged with the American Workers Party to form the Workers Party of America in 1934?"

"Yeah."

"Spooky, Me too! After the WPA was expelled from the Socialist Party of America in 1936 did you then go on to join the Socialist Workers Party USA and the Fourth International?"

"I did actually…"

"Me too! In the 1940 dispute did you side with Cannon or Shachtman?"

"Cannon."

"Me too! In 1962 did you join Robertson's opposition caucus, the Revolutionary Tendency?"

"Yep."

" Holy shit! And of course like me you were expelled and went on to join the International Communist League (Spartacist)."

"Well ... that goes without saying!"

"In 1985 did you join the International Bolshevik Tendency who claimed that the Sparts have degenerated into an 'obedience cult'?"

"No way!"

"Nah, me neither. In 1998 did you join the Internationalist Group after the Permanent Revolution Faction were expelled from the ICL?"

"Yeah! I can't believe this! Maybe I won't ..."

"Die, counterrevolutionary scum!". And he pushes him off the edge.

[Stolen from Red Left Review]

Waiseul Islam – a Respect councillor in Tower Hamlets – has defected to the Labour Party. Here’s how he explains his decision, in a press release issued yesterday:

"This has been a long and carefully thought out decision by me to leave the Respect Party and to join the Labour Party. I have always believed in the principles of Labour and what it stands for and I have never felt comfortable within Respect since the election in May 2006. I have been more and more frustrated with Respect which offers little in the way of policies, direction or service to the local community in Tower Hamlets, which is the real reason why I entered politics. I reject the notion of dividing the local community for political gain, which is what I believe Respect are effectively doing.

"Labour is the only party in Tower Hamlets with both the record and the vision to improve the lives of local people. I am glad that Cllr Islam will be joining us in this work and I am sure that his constituents in Whitechapel as well as the people of Tower Hamlets as a whole will benefit from his principled decision. Respect has long claimed to be what they are not and now we have heard the real truth from one who knows - he has said that Respect stands for division and inaction and have nothing to offer the people of the East End."

Anyone know the breakdown of councillors in Tower Hamlets now?

[Hat tip: Pregethwr in the comments box]

Ireland’s Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has called a general election for May 24. The contest will be the most open for some time.

On the level of returning a government, voters basically get the choice between re-electing Ahern’s populist Fianna Fail and its centre-right coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats, or opting instead for Labour and the rightwing Fine Gael, which have put together a joint platform.

However, gains are expected for both the Greens and Sinn Fein. Indeed, the latter are polling around 10%.

The attention of the left will be focused on the Socialist Party, affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International. Its existing parliamentarian, Joe Higgins, is likely to be returned.

What’s more, he could be joined in the Dail by a second Socialist Party TD in the shape of Clare Daly, a shop steward at Aer Lingus.

Daly topped the poll in the Swords ward at the last local elections and is standing in the constituency of Dublin North where she took 12.5% of the vote in 2002.

Observations from Irish readers especially welcome in the comments box.

From Hazel Blears MP.

Labour Party Chair

Much of the content comprises catchphrase bingo a go go; ‘aspirational hard-working class families’, indeed. Aren’t they what we used to call the working class?

And some of the dog whistle stuff – ‘tackling the unsettling effects of immigration’ - leaves a slightly bad taste in the mouth.

But what of the underlying political argument here? Surely New Labour has been doing all the things Blears lists, or at least thinks it has. And it is precisely these policies that have driven Labour’s opinion poll standing to the lowest ebb for a quarter of a century.

Voters are judging Labour on the basis of its record in office for the last ten years, a decade when the political influence of the left has been zilch. ‘More of the same’ is not the key to a fourth term; it’s a sure recipe for defeat.

Nobody on the left – least of all those of us that come from working class backgrounds - is suggesting that Labour antagonise the AHWFs. The task is to put forward relevant democratic socialist policies that appeal to the majority of the electorate.

In my book, they would include boosting job security by curbs on private equity. How many votes could Labour win in Kent commuterland by taking the railway network back into public ownership and then spending the money to make the system reliable?

And – pace Blears – the housing market has not been ‘volatile’. It’s been going up and up and up. The only answer to what is increasingly becoming a crisis is the provision of vast amounts of accommodation on a non-market basis.

Thatcher’s dogmatic proclamation that there is no such thing as society has been replaced by New Labour’s idee fixe that there is no such thing as market failure. If obeisance before market forces remains central to its political outlook, it can kiss Dartford - and dozens of seats like it - goodbye.

I’ll be posting interesting snippets from the English local government, Scottish and Welsh elections as they come in. Meanwhile, please can readers add details from where they live in the comments box? Opinions welcome, too.

As most commentators are already pointing out, the night was bad - but not as bad as it could have been - for Labour. At the time of writing, it was down 163 councillors and had lost five local authorities.

In Scotland, the SNP’s progress was muted. But Labour looks to have lost control of the Welsh assembly. The Tories topped 40% of the vote share, which is generally acknowledged as the benchmark needed to be in with a shout of winning a general election.

On to specifics. Let’s start with news from the Guardian website. Both Tommy Sheridan and Rosie Kane are out of the Scottish assembly. Whatever judgement one makes of the Sheridan libel trial antics, that’s not good news for the far left. But thankfully, the BNP did not make its threatened electoral breakthrough:

The Holyrood parliament loses two of its most colourful characters, as leftwing leader of Solidarity, Tommy Sheridan, fails to get elected on the Glasgow regional top-up list.

BNP deputy leader Simon Smith says the party's "mixed" results are "disappointing". They failed to make significant gains.

And this from the Respect website:

Respect won its 3rd victory early this morning when the count in Bolsover District Council, Chesterfield, revealed 295 votes for Respect and 264 votes for Labour.

Out of the 25 wards in which Respect has stood and where ballots have been counted, it has come second place in 4 councils and third in 10 councils, securing 18,919 votes across the country. Respect is expected to make further progress once more results come in.

UPDATE: This also from the Guardian website. The SSP also lost all of its seat, wiping out the far left at Holyrood. The Scottish Greens appear to have lost five of their seven seats.

In Wales, Davies and Marek -the former Labour MPs aligned to Forward Wales – didn’t make the cut either, although Trish Law is back in:

[T]he Scottish Socialist party, which went into the contest with six seats, was wiped out.

However, in Blanaeu Gwent, Trish Law, the widow of another Labour refusenik Peter Law, won the assembly seat as an independent.

UPDATE II:Voting figures for the SSP and Solidarity, courtesy of the Workers’ Liberty website, which also reports the loss of one seat for the Socialist Party in Coventry:

The Scottish Socialist Party, hard hit by the split forced for personal reasons by Tommy Sheridan, crashed to only 2,579 votes in Glasgow (it had 31,000 last time, in 2003), and lost its MSPs.

In England, the Socialist Party went down from three council seats in its stronghold, Coventry, to two. I don't yet have an overall picture of the scores for SP candidates.

UPDATE III: Green Party results here … and Respect results here.

In a nutshell, the SWO have gone ga-ga for Chavez, hailing political developments in Venezuela as 'the most important leap forward for the workers' cause since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution' and adding: 'The masses in Venezuela are behind a genuine revolutionary project in a way that has not occurred in the last 90 years.'

Accordingly, they upbraid the SWP for not getting sufficiently worked up about it all, and use this as a pretext to slam a proposal from IST supremo Alex Callinicos - pictured - for a Cominform-style body involving some - but crucially not all - sections of the tendency:

It is within the context of the deepening revolution in Venezuela that Socialist Worker-New Zealand responds to Alex Callinicos's proposal to create an IST "Coordination". Alex defines such a Coordination as consisting of "selected organisations" whose leaderships would consult and meet between annual IST gatherings "to deal with initiatives, problems, etc".

Socialist Worker-New Zealand has two substantive concerns with this Coordination proposal. First, it is not intimately linked to the global political situation, and in particular to how the IST needs to engage with the mass revolutionary process in Venezuela. Instead, the proposal is couched in terms of the IST's own internal processes.

Socialist Worker-New Zealand believes the unfolding Venezuelan revolution, if it continues to move in the direction it's currently going, will reshape the socialist and labour movements in every country on every continent, just as the unfolding Bolshevik revolution did from 1917-24. Therefore, rather than looking inwards, the IST needs to be focused outwards towards the most advanced revolutionary upsurge in 90 years and the global socialist regroupments it will inevitably set into motion.

At present, there seem to be real differences between IST affiliates over the nature of what is happening in Venezuela. At one end of the IST spectrum, Socialist Worker-New Zealand see Chavez & Co as being at the centre of the most important "revolution in the revolution" since the Bolsheviks proclaimed "All power to the Soviets" in 1917 Russia. At the other end of the IST spectrum, the Venezuelan revolution was a "non-topic" in the official discussion bulletins of the British Socialist Workers Party in the lead-up to their national conference in January 2007.

So how do we form an IST Coordination when the IST appears to lack real political coordination over the key strategic issue of Venezuela's revolution? If we were to do it just on the basis of IST tactical organisation, any such IST Coordination would be a sham from the outset ...

We all have a lot to learn from the world historic events in Venezuela. We cannot assume that any one Marxist group has readymade answers to everything. Any IST Coordination, therefore, must be based on facilitating this global debate among all Marxist groups, most of them outside the IST, in tandem with fusing the IST into a strategic engagement with the PSUV's leaders.

It's a global debate about the Venezuelan revolution that the IST needs to start coordinating, and that requires democratic input from all IST affiliates around the world.

Why can't every IST affiliate have one representative on the IST Coordination? With modern communications technology, face-to-face meetings in London can be replaced by extremely cheap "virtual" meetings that link all continents. The material basis already exists for an all-in IST Coordination that interacts on a global scale as frequently as needed. The real question is whether the IST has the political consensus and the political will to bring it about.

Granted, the SWO are an odd bunch, starting life as the official Third International Communist Party in New Zealand before going through pro-China and pro-Albania phases. Then the initiated contact with the Cliffites in London over the heads of the official franchise holders, who were subsequently forced into a shotgun marriage. Now the dominant component would seem to be reverting to type.

Any kind of criticism of all-knowing London inside the IST is hardly encouraged, as several expelled groups know to their cost. So the likelihood is that either the SWO will be kicked out in short order, or is it consciously heading for Splitsville, Tennessee, of its own accord.

And the sad thing is, the International Marxist Tendency - not to be confused with the International Socialist Tendency, of course - has already pretty much got the gig as licensed Trot bag carriers for Hugo, so it won't even do them much good.

For the record, personally I am broadly critically supportive towards what is happening in Venezuela. As a concrete alternative to neoliberalism, it sets an important example across the third world. But let's not make the mistake of painting left nationalist populism red. Socialism from below this ain't.

[Hat tip: Socialist Unity Blog]

Murshid - pictured - last made the headlines when he was suspended from Tower Hamlets Labour Party two years ago, following his arrest on eight charges of theft from a local children's project. He was subsequently acquitted on all counts.

He told the paper:

"After more than two decades in the Labour Party, I have decided to resign and will do so publicly on Tuesday.

"The people of East London and particularly the Bangladeshi community have been treated very badly by Labour over the years."

As the Advertiser notes, Murshid's resignation comes after his exclusion from the Labour shortlist for the Bethnal Green and Bow parliamentary selection, and the selection of Rushanara Ali.

It speculates that he could be in the running for the Respect nomination when sitting Respect MP George Galloway steps down at the next election. Galloway will be joining Murshid at the press conference.

{Hat tip: Macuaid]

Now that Tommy Sheridan has lost his seat in the Scottish parliament, he's going to spend more time with his family, he tells the Edinburgh Evening News. There's a first time for everything, I suppose.

Meanwhile, there is speculation that Solidarity could merge with Respect. Presumably the Scottish section of the Committee for a Workers' International will flounce out if that happens.

Footnote: In the regional list vote across Scotland, Solidarity secured 31,066 votes (1.5%), compared to the SSP's 12,731 (0.6%). In 2003, the Sheridan-led SSP got 6.7%. So the fall in support for the far left was precipitous, anyway you want to slice it.

Meanwhile, the Socialist Equality Party declares last Thursday 'a debacle for Labour and an indictment of nationalism'. Their account of the campaign adds that their two lists got 292 votes in South Wales Central and 139 in the West of Scotland. You do the maths.

Sarkozy it is, then. But if he is remotely serious about introducing Thatcherism a la francaise, he'll have to take on the most militant and politicised working class in the developed world. And as the early reports make clear, the kids from the banlieues already look ready to rock 'n' roll.

The next few years on the other side of the Channel could make 1980s Britain look like a poster decade for social partnership. That's all for now. I'm just off to dust down my copy of Teach Yourself French.

All sections of the French left seem are calling for immediate mobilisations against the Sarko government, according to Le Monde. Well, all sections of the French left except for Lutte ouvrière, which doesn’t seem to regard the new administration as much of a problem.

Olivier Besancenot of the LCR argues that with the election of Sarkozy, ‘it is the programme of Medef [the French employers’ organisation] that is ingrained in power’.

He adds: ‘It is to the construction of social and democratic resistance that the LCR intends to dedicate all its forces from now on. It will take all initiatives in this direction in the coming days.’

The Communist Party’s Marie-George Buffet argues: ‘Our social system has already been badly damaged by years of neoliberal policies. Our democratic rights are in danger.

‘It is necessary to assemble to block the politics that the right is going to set in motion. I make an urgent call for the mobilisation of all the forces of the left to organise a ripost.’

José Bové – the preferred candidate of the SWP in Britain – wants ‘resistance in the face of a regime that promises to be authoritarian, and solidarity with all those who risk suffering in the coming months measures of discrimination and exclusion’. Even the Greens profess themselves up for ‘the battles’.

But LO’s Arlette Laguiller isn’t getting worked up on this one. She observes casually: ‘The world of work should not lower its head, because this election isn’t a catastrophe.’

In a way, I hope her contrarian view is justified, and that the French working class aren’t about to be subjected to the full neoliberal monty.

Maybe Sarkozy will play for time in the first instance, as he assesses the balance of class forces. That’s what Thatcher did for the first few years in office. But I suspect she is utterly, utterly wrong.

The message is that Sarko - pictured - means business and, yes, there is plenty of argy-bargy in the offing:

There is a real risk of social unrest, as France's new president tries to deliver on his promise of "rupture" with the past.

The biggest powder kegs in France are the run-down, immigrant housing estates that ring Paris and other large cities. It was these estates that experienced three consecutive weeks of rioting in 2005 - and Mr Sarkozy is deeply unpopular among some residents after infamously describing rioters as "scum"…

Interesting, Rachman argues that the social crisis in France today – from the point of view of the bourgeoisie – is not as pervasive as it was in the Britain of the late seventies/early eighties.

There hasn’t been the experience of the International Monetary Fund bail out, and while there have been plenty of strikes, industrial militancy is not on the scale seen in the Winter of Discontent.

Then comes what I found to be the most striking paragraph in the entire piece:

The second major difference between the Thatcher and Sarkozy programmes is that the new French president has promised to get cracking in his first 100 days in office. By contrast, Lady Thatcher moved quite cautiously. It was only after her second electoral victory - and the huge boost gained after winning the Falklands war - that she embarked on her biggest battle with the unions and the miners.

In other words, whichever way this is going to pan out, we are going to find out sooner rather than later.

The incident, during which Osanloo suffered an injured shoulder, occurred at the Seven-Tir metro station in Tehran. The men failed to present a warrant for his arrest; they were acting under orders from Colonel Zamani, a commanding officer of the security forces, it has been claimed. Osanloo resisted arrest, while passers-by and union colleagues, including Yaghoub Salimi, a union board member, helped to free him from the attackers. Salimi was later arrested, but was released shortly afterwards.

Another member of the union, Gholamreza Gholamhosseini, is also awaiting the verdict on charges of "propaganda against the establishment". He was arrested on 3 December last year and released on bail six days later.

That democratic socialists should implacably oppose any US aggression against Iran – by either conventional or nuclear means – goes without saying. But our solidarity should be with the Iranian labour movement and the left, and not the theocracy.

The SWP-dominated Campaign Iran raises no criticisms whatsoever of the Islamic republic, and I’m not aware of it even talking about the extensive working class struggles against the government’s neoliberal politics.

Far better work is being undertaken by the Hands Off the People of Iran group, initiated by the CPGB/Weekly Worker and well-known Iranian leftist in exile Yassamine Mather. Check out its website here:

Thinking of including Venezuela in your emerging markets portfolio? After all, the Caracas IBC index was one of the best performers the developing world last year, with a 156% rise in local currency terms. Well, think twice:

Venezuela’s stock market lost almost a third of its value yesterday after two of its largest, most liquid stocks were delisted, causing concern that the exchange would fall into insignificance.

"I can’t help seeing Venezuela reversing into a Bolivian bourse kind of situation, where stocks are non-existent and bonds take all the traded money," said Mark Turner, an equity analyst at Hallgarten, an independent research house based in New York.’

But Oliver Letwin (pictured) – irreverently dubbed Oliver Leftwing by sounder colleagues – is a brainy type of chap. And as the Conservatives’s policy review director, he is licensed to dabble in ideas.

Hence a speech to Policy Exchange earlier this week - posted a couple of hours ago on Conservative Home - in which he comes up with nothing less ambitious than a Cameroon critique of Marxism.

After offering the standard Tory disclaimers that Cameron Conservatism is ‘radically pragmatic rather than radically dogmatic’ and indeed ‘profoundly sceptical of theory as a guide to political action’, he proceeds to reassure the world that it is nevertheless based on ‘coherent theoretical dispositions’:

‘First, it is an attempt to shift the locus of debate from an econo-centric paradigm to a socio-centric paradigm.’

Paradigms already! The man’s obviously been on the Thomas Kuhn, and the sun isn’t even over the yardarm yet.

‘Second, it is an attempt to shift the theory of the state from a provision-based paradigm to a framework-based paradigm, within which government (apart from its perennial role in guaranteeing security and stability) is conceived principally as an agency for enabling individuals, families, associations and corporations to internalise externalities and hence to live up to social responsibilities without the further intervention of authority.’

Nothing new here. This is straightforward advocacy of a Friedman/Nozick minimalist ‘night watchman’ state position. It’ll organise the armed forces, police and prisons – the ‘repressive state apparatus’, if we really are talking political theory - and that’s your lot.

Letwin’s call for individuals to ‘internalise externalities’ and ‘live up to social responsibilities without the further intervention of authority’ is Cameroon codespeak for greater freedom to pay for your own healthcare. The opposite of a provision-based paradigm is a no-provision-based paradigm, is it not?

Just to underline his admiration for the glory days of laissez-faire, Letwin evokes the world before the arrival of Marxism:

‘Before Marx, politics was multi-dimensional - constitutional, social, environmental as well as economic. But Marx changed all that. The real triumph of Marxism consisted in the way that it defined the preoccupations not only of its supporters but also of its opponents.’

That’s nonsense, of course. Politics before Marx – at least in Britain – was mono-dimensional, the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy and upper class families. The sort of people that used to send their sons to Eton. The sort of people that still do send their sons to Eton, as witnessed by … well, the Cameron Conservative shadow cabinet, for example. Little wonder Letwin and friends are nostalgic for that lost world.

Meanwhile, I know from researching my own family tree, at least one of my forebears died in a workhouse. Others probably knew what the inside of a Poor Law Bastille looked like.

Politics before Marx was the politics of rotten boroughs, the politics of the disenfranchisement of almost all men and absolutely all women, the people that the top Tory intellectual of the day, Edmund Burke, decried as ‘the swinish multitude’. Nor was politics ‘environmental’ in any meaningful sense. This was the period were the worst pollution excesses of the industrial revolution.

The real triumph of Marxism was to act as one of the intellectual catalysts that galvanised a labour movement that – through its collective political action – was a vital factor in every single worthwhile democratic and social gain reluctantly conceded by the British ruling class in the twentieth century, always in the face of Conservative opposition.

‘After Marx, socialists defended socialism and free marketeers defended capitalism. For both sides, the centrepiece of the debate was the system of economic management. Politics became econo-centric.

‘But, as we begin the 21st century, things have changed. Since Thatcher, and despite recent recurrences of something like full-blooded socialism in some parts of Latin America, the capitalist/socialist debate has in general ceased to dominate modern politics. From Beijing to Brussels, the free market has won the battle of economic ideas …’

Here Letwin is correct, at least for the time being. Neoliberalism has been the ascendant ideology of the last three decades. And the world we see around us – from the homeless of Britain to the malnourished of Africa – is the consequence of that ascendancy.

‘Cameron Conservatives have recognised the profound consequences of the fact that we have entered a post-Marxist era. Politics - once econo-centric - must now become socio-centric …

‘The first theoretical advance (the first paradigm shift) of Cameron-Conservatism is to see that fact clearly - to refocus the debate, to change the terms of political trade, to ask a different set of questions.’

The successor to socialism, Letwin reiterates, is the ‘provision-theory of the modern state’:

‘The provision-theory accepts the free market as the engine of economic growth. But, just as Clause 4 socialism once saw the state as the proper provider of goods and services through ownership of the means of production, so the provision-theorists of Brownian New Labour see the state as the proper provider of public services and of well-being through direction and control.’

Yet as Blair has made plain, state provision is not central to New Labour’s vision. It’s not even peripheral. New Labour has rolled back the frontiers of the state further than Thatcherism ever dared, from the privatisation of prisons to open up the NHS to private contractors.

‘The Cameron Conservative framework-theory of the state is fundamentally different … The framework theory of the modern state sees government as having two fundamental roles: to guarantee the stability and security upon which, by common consent, both the free market and well-being depend; and, much more controversially, to establish a framework of support and incentive which enables and induces individual citizens and organisations to act in ways that fulfil not merely their own self-interested ambitions but also their wider social responsibilities.

‘It is in emphasising this second duty of government that Cameron Conservatism distinguishes itself radically from the provision-theory of Brownian New Labour.’

Not so sure it does, Oliver. The last soundbite could equally well have been spoken by a Blairite of the Blears ilk as by a Conservative theorist. The serious twenty-first century left will have to construct a counter-hegemony to the common sense of both.

Three out of ten for the political sociology essay. And two of those marks are simply for having the chutzpah to try it on.

Oliver Letwin versus historical materialism? Bit of a no-brainer, really.

This press release in my in box this morning:

JOINT LEADERSHIP CAMPAIGN PRESS CONFERENCE

ON BEHALF OF
 
JOHN MCDONNELL MP AND MICHAEL MEACHER MP

4.00 pm
 
THURSDAY 10TH MAY
 
Macmillan Room
 
Portcullis House

TO ANNOUNCE WHICH CANDIDATE HAS MOST PARLIAMENTARY SUPPORT AND WILL BE CONTINUING WITH THEIR CHALLENGE FOR THE LABOUR PARTY LEADERSHIP
 
Thereafter the successful candidate will be available for interview from the Atrium, Portcullis House and elsewhere, as required 

 
-ends-

What on earth is going on?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

McDonnell and Meacher Campaign Update . . . Press Conference postponed

As agreed, the campaign teams for Michael Meacher and John McDonnell have met to assess the level of support for each candidate. The outcome is that the issue is too close to call at the moment and a number of clarifications need to be made.

The good news for the Labour Party is that there is clearly sufficient support to ensure that a leadership candidate will come forward from the Centre-Left.

The Campaign Teams will reconvene on Monday to clarify which candidate goes forward from the Centre-Left. There will be a press conference late in the afternoon. Time and venue tbc.

-Ends-

Yet another McDonnell press release, this time - perhaps significantly? - calling for the threshold for nominations to be lowered:

PRESS NOTICE................PRESS NOTICE
DATE
For immediate release

MCDONNELL ACCEPTS BROWN'S OFFER OF DEBATE AT FABIAN SOCIETY CONFERENCE

John McDonnell said: "I welcome Gordon's offer to debate the party's future direction and shall be participating. It is an opportunity to demonstrate that the party has nothing to fear and everything to gain from a contested election in which the policy choices we face can be fully explored."

"However if Gordon wanted a real debate when Labour party members had the chance to vote he could ensure that both prospective challengers were on the ballot paper by asking this Sunday's NEC to lower the nomination level required for a candidate to stand."

-ends-

Sure, it’s a good thing that people are buying more books. Apparently even Posh read one. Once. But let’s have some context here. The non-fiction bestseller listings are currently topped by the autobiography of Wayne Rooney’s girlf.

When Prospect starts outselling Heat, and Newsnight beats Celebrity Big Brother in the ratings, then I’ll start to give Brown’s claim credence.

Remember the aftermath of 9/11? Several commentators solemnly reassured us that never again would newspapers be driven by vacuous celebrity and consumer drivel. It didn’t take long for most to revert to type.

These days, the first task after purchasing the Saturday papers is to weed out superfluous supplements, which usually amount to over half the bundle. Why bother with investigative journalism, when you can put on readers with a freebie gardening mag instead?

For a short period under the editorship of Piers Morgan – journalistic pedigree: Sun showbiz writer – the Daily Mirror made a credible effort to provide serious news in an accessible manner. Circulation fell, and after a scandal involving faked pictures of squaddies urinating on Iraqi prisoners, he got the chop. The celebs returned to the front page.

Some time after his ouster, I coincidentally happened to be in the Islington branch of Borders while he was holding a book signing. Let’s just say the queues weren’t snaking all the way down the Pentonville Road back to Kings Cross, so I decided to have a word with the guy, albeit without purchasing his tome on footie.

I said some nice things about the Mirror under his tenure, and told him I had consistently bought the paper while he was at the helm. He glared back and snarled at me: ‘Shame you didn’t get your fucking mates to buy it too.’ Zero out of ten for personal charm, Piers.

It’s the same story with television. Bruce Springsteen recorded the album track ’57 channels (and nothin’ on)’ in 1992. Some 15 years later, the main problem with The Boss’s prognosis is that he was out by a factor of ten.

Of all the criticisms that can be levelled at capitalism, its deleterious effects on the mass media and culture in general are probably way down the list. But the persistent drive for market share inevitably brings a generalised dumbing down in its wake.

I think it was Christopher Hitchens who – asked his opinion on the personal life of some starlet, or perhaps another matter of equally pressing importance – responded with a quip along the lines of: ‘Actually, it’s good of me to even notice her existence’.

I don’t particularly care whether or not Paris Hilton gets a 45-day stint in accommodation somewhat less luxurious than the kind that build the family fortune, or whether a 23-year-old bloke I’ve never met - and almost certainly never will meet - splits up with his girlfriend. Sorry, I really bloody don’t.

And despite his wish to reduce the union block vote at party conference, it’s quite clear that the unions themselves are lining up behind the bloke, as the Financial Times reports this morning:

The FT has been told that Unite, formed by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union, has been putting pressure on MPs to back the campaign by Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham and a former No 10 adviser, to become deputy leader. It has ploughed tens of thousands of pounds into his campaign. An Amicus official has lobbied MPs in parliament to support Mr Simpson's preferred contender.

The aim, according to union insiders, is to get a left-leaning MP into the cabinet to articulate the union agenda in a way that was not possible under Mr Blair. Mr [Unite joint general secretary Derek] Simpson has complained that ministers have been slow to implement the Warwick deal and has called for stronger employment protection for workers.

If Mr Cruddas were successful, his presence in the cabinet could make life difficult for Mr Brown. The MP has said the deputy leader should not have a ministerial portfolio and act as a "transmission belt" with the party, voicing its views within government.

I don’t quite follow the reasoning in that last paragraph. Given his political track record until now, it not immediately plain to me that Cruddas’s presence would in any way ‘make life difficult’ for the next prime minister.

Then again, John Prescott got the number two job on the basis of – among other things – his background as a trade union militant, as Old Labour personified. He proceeded to acquiesce with Blairism, every step of the way.

Maybe – just maybe – Cruddas has sufficient independence of mind to at least voice some pro-trade union soft left criticisms now and again. That alone would be an advance on the last 13 years. And yes, in case you were wondering, that is a grudging endorsement.

UPDATE: That said, I've just noticed another FT story based on a BBC poll of Labour MPs. Seems that deputy leadership hopefuls Peter Hain, Hazel Blears and Harriet Harman all have the necessary 45 nominations or more, while Alan Johnson will announce tomorrow that he has more names in the bag than any of his rivals.

Cruddas, meanwhile, has just 24 backers. That, in other words, is the most support the unions can rustle up in the Parliamentary Labour Party, which says a lot about the state of play. And if anyone other than his dad is interested, Hilary Benn has only 16 MPs behind him.

If the leaks are anything to go by, McDonnell is about to be confirmed as the left’s Labour leadership contender. But I won’t be able to post a comment immediately, as I have to pick Daddy’s Little Princesses up from school. Please talk among yourselves. Meanwhile, here’s today’s press release:

CALLING NOTICE................CALLING NOTICE................CALLING NOTICE..................CALLING NOTICE

LEADERSHIP CAMPAIGN PRESS CONFERENCE
5.00 pm

MONDAY 14TH MAY

Room C
1 Parliament Street

TO ANNOUNCE WHICH CANDIDATE, BETWEEN JOHN MCDONNELL MP AND MICHAEL MEACHER MP, HAS THE MOST PARLIAMENTARY SUPPORT AND WILL BE CONTINUING WITH THEIR CHALLENGE FOR THE LABOUR PARTY LEADERSHIP

Thereafter the successful candidate will be available for interview as required

-ends-

With the withdrawal of Michael Meacher from the Labour leadership contest, the field is finally clear for the John McDonnell campaign. As ever when launching into an exercise like this, it’s always good to start with a realistic assessment of the likely results and prospects.

First, what are the chances of McDonnell actually getting his name on the ballot paper? Well, according to the Financial Times this morning, he has 24 nominations. Meacher reportedly had 21. Together – assuming no-one features on both lists – that hits the magic number of 45. So it is likely, but not absolutely certain, that the boy will make the cut.

Second, if he does get on, how well will he do? The 45 nominations implies 12.5% support in the Parliamentary Labour Party, although some MPs may nominate McDonnell under pressure from constituency activists and still vote Brown. Polling evidence is that support among rank and file party members is about 9%.

That leaves the trade union section of the electoral college, where McDonnell suffers by being relatively little known. However, if the campaign does offer a chance to put his politics over to a wider audience, he should gain a layer of support.

My conclusion is that McDonnell has got about 10% of the votes in the bag and could hit 15% with hard work. I’d be delighted to be proved wrong, but that’s the score at which to aim.

Talk of a ‘political earthquake’ is sadly overblown. It’s more of a ‘small earthquake in Chile, not many dead’ scenario, I’m afraid.

However, the John 4 Leader effort is about far more than going down to certain heavy defeat. What is on offer is the chance to expand the limited political space available for socialist ideas and to win over a new and younger layer to a broad socialist perspective.

Whether the recruits go on to become active inside or outside the Labour Party is a secondary question. The important thing – after the setbacks of the last period - is that we keep the left’s life support system switched on. In that sense, the stakes could not be higher.

This from the Evening Standard:

Gordon Brown looks set to be unopposed this week after an admission from Labour's Left-wing that MPs are failing to unite behind sole rival John McDonnell.

Nominations close on Thursday and the Hayes and Harlington MP needs 45 endorsements to qualify.

This press release in response:

PRESS NOTICE…………….PRESS NOTICE……………….

For immediate release

Meacher campaign rubbishes Standard report and confirms MPs are switching to McDonnell

Alan Simpson MP, Parliamentary Manager for the Michael Meacher Campaign said: "The story in the Standard today is complete nonsense. Michael, myself and the whole of the Meacher team are absolutely committed to supporting John McDonnell. We are in the process of contacting all of Michael's supporters and we have no doubt that the vast majority will be prepared to switch their support to John."

ends

As I said earlier … McDonnell isn’t on the ballot paper yet. And, in all fairness, all Meacher can do is encourage his supporters to switch. He is in no position to give orders.

Labour leadership contender John McDonnell is making one last-ditch effort to secure the necessary nominations. But sadly it is starting to look like this just ain't gonna happen:

CALLING NOTICE................CALLING NOTICE
DATE: 15.05.07
For immediate release

PRESS CONFERENCE
4 pm
Jubilee Room
House of Commons

LAST CALL FOR LABOUR MPS TO NOMINATE MCDONNELL - AN APPEAL TO LABOUR MPS ON BEHALF OF LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS

With just 24 hours to go until the close of nominations for the Labour Party leadership, John McDonnell is issuing an appeal to Labour MPs to nominate him to ensure that Labour Party members and Trade unionists have a vote on the future leader of their party and the party's future political direction.

John McDonnell said: "In the last 24 hours I am urging Labour MPs to nominate me so that Labour Party members are given the democratic right to elect the next leader of the Labour Party."

"Year in year out we rely on Labour Party members to deliver our leaflets, knock on doors, and fund the party with their small subscriptions and yet they will be excluded from participating in this election unless Labour MPs nominate me in the next 24 hours."

"This is an appeal to Labour MPs on behalf of Labour Party members to give them a vote."

-ends-

UPDATE:

MP Nominations update - 1pm 16 May
Candidates for the leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party have received the following number of nominations as of 1pm 16 May.

Candidates for Leader
Gordon Brown 297 MP nominations
John McDonnell 29 MP nominations

Candidates for Deputy Leader
Hilary Benn 40 MP nominations
Hazel Blears 49 MP nominations
Jon Cruddas 46 MP nominations
Peter Hain 50 MP nominations
Harriet Harman 61 MP nominations
Alan Johnson 68 MP nominations

UPDATE II: Ladbrokes are giving Johnson 2/1, Harman 3/1, Benn a surprisingly short 7/2, sixes for Blears and Hain and 8/1 Cruddas.

McDonnell has reportedly thrown in the towel. Unsurprising, really:

Mr McDonnell has until 1230 BST on Thursday to get 45 backers. Only 27 Labour MPs have yet to nominate.

But according to BBC research at least four of the 27 are planning to nominate Mr Brown and three plan not to nominate anyone. That leaves Mr McDonnell needing 16 from the remaining 20 to nominate him.

And here’s Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney MP Dai Harvard’s reasons for not nominating the Campaign Group contender:

He told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme he was unhappy by what he called the "trading process" between the McDonnell camp and deputy leadership hopeful Hilary Benn's camp.

But Mr Havard added: "I'm not a stage army to be wheeled on and off by anybody frankly, I'll make my own decisions."

UPDATE: Looks like the rumours were wrong, and McDonnell will fight 'until the final whistle', as he puts it. Not that that changes anything, really.

DATE: 16.05.07
For immediate release

"The demand from Labour Party members to debate the issues that confront our country will not go away and we will continue to campaign for a democratic say in that debate."

-ends-

Meanwhile, Liam MacUaid – the Socialist Resistance writer who recently quit Respect – offers this thoughtful perspectivehttp://macuaid.blogspot.com:

This is more than a demoralising setback. This shows what Labour now is. Those thousands of socialists who remain in it have been told by the parliamentary party that they much prefer a privatising neoliberal and they are content that the party continue evolving in that direction.

He fought well and he was right to fight.

My own assessment? I’m not disillusioned, because I never had illusions in the first place. I am mildly surprised – but not exactly shocked – that McDonnell didn’t make it onto the ballot paper.

However, although his leadership campaign was one factor in my decision to rejoin the Labour Party, it was not the key factor.

Based on my involvement with the Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Alliance, it doesn’t look like there is currently any possibility of building a meaningful left political formation outside of Labour.

As the electoral wipeout of the Scottish Socialist Party underlines, even if Respect or the CNWP were to make limited headway, it is most unlikely that they would be able to consolidate it.

Then again, the McDonnell campaign illustrates that it is currently impossible to build any meaningful left current within the Labour Party, either.

Let me just sum all that up. All tactics have been tried; all have been shown to fail. Not only are there no short cuts, there isn't even a long way round.

About the only useful work Marxists in Britain can undertake right now is to utilise whatever limited avenues for activism are available– which might be the Labour Party, the Greens or leftwing parties that have a local base, or more likely the trade unions or single issue campaign based – while rethinking the perennial politic question; what is to be done?

This is a very changed world from the one in which the Marxist classics were written. Stalinism has collapsed. Social democracy’s relation to the working class is quantitatively different that of the classical period. The working class itself has been substantially reshaped, both in the developed world and the global South. Political Islamism represents a qualitatively new form of reaction. Finally, environmental catastrophe threatens the future of life on this planet.

The analysis and the answers to all this cannot be found in Lenin’s collected works, however deeply one trawls them. As Elvis nearly sang but didn't, this time we could do with a little less action, a little more conversation.

It now likely that Gordon Brown will be elected Labour leader and prime minister without a contest. If John McDonnell does get 44 MPs to support his candidacy, we should activate our critical support tactic by demanding every workplace/union branch and every Labour ward/constituency holds a meeting, open to all workers to discuss "Blair-Brownism" and what alternative the workers need.

We shall warn workers that the mainstream union leaders will try and use Brown's succession as yet another excuse to refuse to defend our interests against the government. We must demand that they launch a united, all-out and indefinite, public sector-wide strike to smash the pay cut and reverse the cuts and privatisation.

Reality check, guys. The leaderships of Trot microsects are in no position to demand anything from anybody in the real world. This is not the way to act if you want people to take you seriously.

Most of my energies will be expended on drinking, listening to Scottish comrades explain what went wrong, eating deep fried Mars Bars, drinking, and seeking out decent live music, so I may not have much time to post. Instead, let me reinstate that ever-popular blogging standby, the Friday open thread.

Contributions on the state of Scottish politics - particularly the state of the far left - are one suggestion. So is the outlook for Britain under a Brown premiership. And anything else people want to raise, really.

STAFF IN the sex club at the centre of the Tommy Sheridan defamation trial are said to have claimed they were offered bribes not to co-operate with the police inquiry into the court case, the Sunday Herald has learned.

She claimed she was told by a man with a criminal past that she could make money by changing her evidence.

If only half the things I was told by SSP members turn out to be only half true, the SWP and CWI could end up sorry they threw their lot in with comrade Sheridan, pictured above.

Meanwhile, everyone was open enough to admit that the SSP project has been damaged by the electoral setback of May 3. It looks like all party full-timers will now to be made redundant, for instance.

And without the platform provided by having members in the Scottish Parliament, the most likely perspective is a return to more traditional fields of far left activity, although the internal discussions are still ongoing.

Travel hints: The Southside guest house in Newington Road was several notches up from a standard B&B. True, at £90 for a double room it isn’t cheap, but it’s far better value than most hotels in the city.

Music-wise, the main rock venue is a place called Whistlebinkies, with two-three live bands every night. We caught a band called Bad Boogaloo, who were entertaining in a Nick Cave strangles Howlin' Wolf kind of way.

Meanwhile, plenty of pubs offer ceilidhs and folkie singer-guitarists as free entertainment. Don’t laugh. It can be quite enjoyable once you are a few single malts to the good.

Listing on London’s Aim market today is Plantic Technologies, an Australian company that has developed a low-cost fully biodegradable soft plastic based on corn starch. This is potentially wonderful news for the environment.

For a start, traditional plastics are manufactured from non-renewable resources, such as oil, coal and natural gas.

What’s more, they are a significant source of pollution. The stuff last decades. Some 95% of all plastic produced since the material was introduced in the 1930s is still in existence, much of it buried in landfill sites. Plastic bags have even been found littering relatively untouched Himalayan mountains.

Bioplastics have been available for some time. But they have not been widely used, because they cost between two-ten times as much. Conventional economics takes no account of such ‘externalities’ as disposal costs.

If Plantic’s products live up to the hype, a sane society would ensure that the use of bioplastics of this type are widely and rapidly generalised. But they won’t be. Plantic has a patent.

So on the one hand, an innovation developed under the free market offers the possibility of solving a major environmental headache. And on the other, free market mechanisms mean that this just won’t happen.

Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones has pulled out of discussions with New Labour, and as head of the second-largest party, is now trying to put together a coalition with the Tories and the Lib-Dems.

That is, of course, difficult to reconcile with even a nominal attachment to socialism. So it’s pleasing to hear that over a quarter of the Plaid’s assembly members – all of them women, incidentally – have rejected the move.

But four of the 15 Plaid AMs broke rank. Helen Mary Jones, Leanne Wood, Bethan Jenkins and Nerys Evans said the so-called rainbow coalition was "not the way forward".

Ms Jones said: "There is a clash of values and principles between Plaid and the Conservatives."

Hopefully the four will do more than reject any deal verbally, but lead the opposition from the Plaid left if the deal goes ahead.

Multinational corporations have many powers in this world. Thankfully, these do not include – at least, not yet – the right to dictate the meaning of words in the English language.

The prerogative should not be conceded. Otherwise the next move from the company Ray Kroc founded will be to get the term ‘McLibel’ excised from legal texts and history books.

The authority to write newspeak rests solely with the Ingsoc Party in George Orwell’s 1984. And that was a work of fiction.

Whether or not ‘McJob’ is an insult to the 67,000 McDonald’s employees in the UK is beside the point.

In the 1950s, the term ‘words that can’t be found in the dictionary’ was an established euphemism. It isn’t in 2007, because there are no such words. Rightly so.

The words ‘nigger’ and ‘cunt’ remain offensive to many, including me. But they mean what they have come to mean through the spontaneously determined processes of the free market in words. Nobody maintains they should not have a place in the OED.

So here’s a suggestion for Mr Betts. If you really want to do something to further the lot of McDonald’s workers, why don’t you instead pressurise the business to stop sacking employees who try to unionise burger flips?

I'll be appearing on the internet television show Vox Politix at www.18doughtystreet.com between 10pm and midnight tonight. Other guests will be Phillip Lee, the GP and Westminster hopeful who secured a deposit-losing 816 votes for the Tories in Blaenau Gwent at the last general election; Labour activist Mark Hanson; and Boni Sones, author of 'Women in Parliament'. Host, as ever, will be Iain Dale.

An interview with John McDonnell - the leftwing Labour Party leadership contender unable to secure sufficient nominations to get his name on the ballot paper - appears in the latest edition of The Socialist. You can safely skip most of it. The interviewer's impatience is palpable until he finally cuts to the chase:

Of course the crunch for you is the Labour Party. You know that the Socialist Party is part of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. We sympathise completely - we hoped you'd get on the ballot paper. We were saying to our supporters in affiliated unions that they should demand that their union back John McDonnell if he gets on the ballot paper, putting the likes of UNISON and TGWU on the spot. So what conclusion are you going to draw now?

What my campaign demonstrated was that, within the Labour Party and affiliated trade unions and beyond, there was massive support for the policy, programme and political perspective I was pursuing. So that gives me a lot of confidence, particularly about the new generation that has come in as a result of that campaign. But we fell at the stumbling block of the Parliamentary Labour Party, so that's the target for the future.

But you don't think it's time to leave the Labour Party and join the campaign for a new party?

No, I still think the Labour Party offers us the opportunity of a mass workers' party. But at the same time my campaign was completely non-sectarian, working across political campaigns and that's the future. We want to see a broad united front on a whole series of issues and industrial struggles will be part of that.

Were they seriously expecting him to say 'yes', or something? Let's leave aside the issue of whether or not the SP did put all of its limited but genuine weight in the unions behind the McDonnell campaign. I've heard it said that the attitude varied from union to union, although I personally have no way of knowing whether or not that claim stacks up.

Mostly these are predictable answers to predictable questions, purposely skirting the tactical issues that face the Marxist left both inside and outside the Labour Party. On the one hand, McDonnell's failure to make the cut does mark a setback for any hopes of building a broad socialist current within Labour.

On the other, beyond holding an annual rally in London and putting on SP-dominated fringe meetings at union conferences, the CNWP's raison d'être eludes me, despite my initial enthusiasm.

Much hinges on what McDonnell does now. He has accumulated a considerable amount of political capital as a result of his campaign, making him the undisputed leader of the Labour left. Trouble is, these days the job puts you in charge of a far smaller workforce than once it did.

Brent London Borough - Dudden Hill: Lib Dem 1262, Lab 1177, C 412, Respect 160, Green 156. (May 2006 - Three seats Lib Dem 1460, 1277, 1195, Lab 1163, 1099, 1017, C 579, 551, 527, Green 381). Lib Dem hold. Swing 1.8% Lib Dem to Lab.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hold with the argument that far left groups should never run against Labour. All political parties have the right to stand for election.

And of course, it cannot be assumed that Respect voters would opt for Labour in the absence of the chance to back Respect. Indeed, comparing the figures for May 24th with those of May 3rd, it looks like most Respect support actually came from former Greens.

Ultimately, no candidate ever loses a contest because another candidate 'split the vote'. They lose because they do not convince enough people to vote for them.

But far left electoral interventions - especially those which have zero chance of success - need to be properly judged. That's why the Socialist Party's decision to fight John McDonnell in Hayes and Harlington in 2001 was tactically a bad call. And where's there is the risk that the Lib-Dems or the Tories will gain as a result, there's a reason to think twice.

This article has been removed.

First, this is not a 'clause four moment': the Tories will continue to support private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, as the best way of securing the full fruits of other people's labour for their mates.

And second, nothing that New Labour, the Tories or the Liberal Democrats envisage doing with secondary schooling will of itself redress the problems facing the education system.

Empirical studies suggest that 64% of the variance in pupil achievement is explained by initial attainment and social background.

It follows that the only policies capable of increasing educational equality are policies systematically designed to rectify class inequality. And in British politics today, that really is thinking the unthinkable.

Consider some of the facts. The best performing Local Education Authorities include Richmond and Surrey. The worst include Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Even a cokehead should be able to spot a discernable pattern here.

Anyway, middle class parents bypass all this entirely and simply buy education advantage for even their thicker offspring. Last time I saw the stats, the top 50 schools ranked by A-level results were all private. Indeed, only 20 of the top 200 were state schools.

Private schools educate one child in 15, but account for one in four university students and about half of the Oxbridge intake.

Whatever Alan Johnson might argue, there is nothing public schools can do to justify their charitable status. That's because they are not charities. They are businesses. Their product is the reproduction of class privilege, and they shouldn't get tax breaks to facilitate them so doing.

Tory and New Labour attempts to introduce quasi-market arrangements have proven any more felicitous than their efforts to do the same in healthcare. The result has been selection by house pricing or parental clout, with obvious winners and equally obvious losers

The likes of London Oratory get the privileged middle-class intake. So they shoot up the league tables, leaving the bog standard comprehensives far, far behind.

You can call the selective schools grammar schools if you like. Or you can call them city academies. The name tag doesn't matter. The class content says it all.

I'll start taking Cameron a little more seriously on this one when the ratio of Old Etonians in the shadow campaign falls to something closer to the ratio of OEs in the population as a whole.

You can check out three more blogs by clicking on the links on the left. First up is the long-established Hak Mao, who I recently had the pleasure of meeting of meeting in person. Then there's Grimmerupnorth, a relative newcomer written by comments box regular Susan, and specialising in Labour left matters. And finally, big it up for Berlin-based Karl-Marx-Strasse, the new 'serious political blog' from an unknown German comrade.

Newsnight tonight will see Jeremy Paxman cross-examine all six candidates for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. Hilary Benn, Hazel Blears, Jon Cruddas, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson will take part in the first televised hustings of the contest.

Or … you could watch me on 18 Doughty Street between 10pm and midnight instead. I’m on with David Canzini, the Tories’ director of campaigning, and Lib-Dem internet guru Mark Pack. Decisions, decisions.

Bad news for the Socialist Party in the Irish elections. Its sole TD, Joe Higgins, lost his seat in Dublin West. And his comrade Clare Daly failed to make the cut by the narrowest margin imaginable:

Socialist candidate Clare Daly has been eliminated from the Dublin North constituency by just two votes following a nine-hour recount.

A request this evening by Daly's election team for a further recount has been refused on the ground that she was not present for the first recount and so could not challenge its validity.

Nor did the anticipated breakthrough for Sinn Fein materialise. The party lost one of its five seats.

Meanwhile, Bertie Ahern did better than expected, and could be close to an overall majority. But his coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats, underwent electoral collapse. The likelihood is that its two remaining TDs will collapse back into Fianna Fail.

Coming after the wipeout of both the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity in the Scottish elections, and the far left’s loss of ground in the French presidential contest, the Irish results underline just how hostile the climate is for revolutionary socialism right now.

The shadow chancellor will then proceed to make a complete fool of himself with the charge that under Gordon Brown, Labour will "lurch to the left", as if this were the early eighties revisited.

It plainly isn’t. New Labourism remains completely hegemonic, as the Newsnight debate between the six Labour deputy leadership contenders last night made perfectly plain. The dirty half dozen reportedly struggled to differentiate themselves.

Within the narrow spectrum that makes up mainstream politics, it would probably be impossible for them to come up with six distinctive platforms.

Yes, there are still differences both within and between the major parties. But these are differences of emphasis rather than differences of substance. The electorate is certainly not being presented with coherent alternative directions for the country.

With that in mind, I was not surprised to read that former New Labour health secretary Alan Milburn has taken a £25,000-a-year part-time job to help PepsiCo build a healthier image for its particular brand of sugar-laden soft drinks, which tastes all but identical to all the other brands of sugar-laden soft drinks on the market.

Welcome to a world where political choice reduces to New Labour's taste for Pepsi and the Tory taste for Coke.

The leftwinger Jon Cruddas has jumped to second place behind Hilary Benn in the running for the Labour deputy leadership after a hustings appearance on Newsnight last night, according to the party's latest figures …

Mr Cruddas also has the support of the two largest unions, Amicus and the TGWU, which are still operating separately after their recent merger as the new Unite trade union.

Another reason to give the guy critical support, I reckon.

There is one "known unknown", however, that could be the biggest surprise of all. Something the Chancellor mentioned at his proleptically victorious campaign launch. Just what did he mean by wanting to form a "government of all the talents"? Some of his loyal assistants, the sort who already regard the prospect of Blairites in a Brown government as a gesture too far, have been quick to play down the plans. They suggest that Brown simply means consulting more widely and appointing the likes of the Tory lords Sebastian Coe and Chris Patten to public positions.

Brown could claim to be completing the plans for "a progressive century" of centre-left government, abandoned by Blair when his landslide meant he didn't need Liberal Democrat votes in parliament after all. Things have got a lot tighter in the division lobbies since then. Rebellions are habit-forming, and a decent quota of Lib Dems would at least cancel out the "John McDonnell" faction.

Far-fetched? Silly, even? Possibly. But food for thought to those that hope against hope that Brown is some kind of closet Old Labourite.

And remember how Sarkozy surprised many recently with the appointment of Bernard Kouchner – one of the most popular politicians in the Socialist Party – to the foreign minister portfolio. Brown would not be above taking a page from the French president’s playbook.

In addition, one factor that Boulton doesn’t mention is that such a move would be a good way of neutralising ludicrous Tory claims of a ‘lurch to the left’.

And if we are talking about reviving ‘The Project’ of the mid-nineties, suggestions of severing ties with the unions could be about to join The Police in staging a comeback tour.

That may well crop up on the agenda anyway after Sir Hayden Phillips finally publishes his report on party funding.

Sure, it’s all speculation. But I’m still convinced that the political action for the left in the period ahead will be inside the Labour Party, and not outside it.