The fact that this utterly damp squib is being written up as a challenge for the party leadership shows how banal mainstream politics have become today.

We’re in deep shit. The country is bankrupt; the oil is gone; we scarcely make or grow anything. And, as to people power, we’re further away from it than we were 100 years ago – all our organisations are corrupted and infiltrated, and the capitalist class are much better prepared.

Anyway, I agree that John McDonnell is right to distance himself from the Compass group – the history of the Labour party (and the Soviet Union) should show us that once you start compromising then you keep compromising until you’ve compromised yourself out of existence. John McDonnell is Ok; I wish him well, but wishing is all it’s likely to amount to.

The thing is, none of them get it, as the first comment demonstrates. The thought that the vast majority of people are to the left of them on all the key issues such as the war, tax and public services just cannot enter their heads.

Their default position is tacking to the right, which makes them even more unpopular and allows a rightward moving Cameron to portray the Tories as more reasonable. On current going, the Tories are to the left of Labour on many things, and on the vile welfare ‘reforms’, their strongest supporters, probably delighted that they will be able to inherit the new welfare regime rather than make themselves unpopular by introducing it themselves.

There was a throwaway comment in the Guardian that tickled me, something about the gamut of left to right in the Labour Party ranging from Ed Balls to Alan Milburn. Partly tickled because it said ‘Balls to Alan Milburn’, an admirable sentiment, partly because I can’t discern much of an ideological difference between those two charming gentlemen.

John McDonnell I’m afraid is fighting a losing battle in the Labour Party. Over at Socialist Unity, Andy Newman has branded him ‘ultra-left’ for breaking with some of his former supporters in the Compass group due to their support for 42 day detention. I think McDonnell is right to distance himself from such people, despite the consequences for any future leadership bid.

It does underline the paucity of genuine leftists in the Labour Party though, mainly because of the disgust many feel towards what it has done. It may be a hard slog, but building a genuine working class alternative is the only game in town now.

Change BNP to NF and you’ve got 1979.

That bit of detox worked out ok for the Labour Party and the people of Britain and was over quickly.

No wait, it didn’t, and it wasn’t.

New Labour has been a disaster its aleinated its core vote, its aleinated party members, 200,000 members have left, and most of them would have been activists. I was talking to a Labour Party member recently and he told me the last CLP meeting he went to only 3 people attended.

It’s a pity David Miliband didn’t listen to his father more when he was young, he might of been a Socialist.

And they certainly do have a Freud in the inner sanctum along with Brown’s other unelected capitalist and private equity pals.

“If anything, it’s you who doesn’t get it, Dave. Any deviation from the paths laid down by New Labour are certain to lead to defeat. A lurch to the left now would be disastrous.”

Er, Blairite do you exist on a alternate universe or are you sticking your fingers in your ears singing, “la, la, la…I aint listening cos NL is doing a fine job and you lot are being ‘orrible”….

Btw Blairite (and if you are for real) so the current neo-liberal political trajectory isn’t going to lead to further disasters? Defeat is inevitable, mate!

Wake up and smell the stench of NL…. the project has failed. The Tory avalanche is on its way.

This is a defining moment for the Left and it is possibly our last best hope.