Harry berates me for 'refusing' to link to him. But there is a backstory there. Only a few months ago, I was still barred from even looking at his site on my home computer. And perhaps I've missed it, but I still can't see a link to Dave's Part on the HP sidebar. Still, hatchet formally buried. I'll link next time I update my template.

There's no point in denying that Harry's Place is to contemporary British leftwing blogging what the Sex Pistols were to the late seventies punk explosion. I didn't even know what a blog was until I accidentally stumbled across HP after a google search for something or other.

I was instantly hooked, wasting far too much work time arguing the toss in the comments box with the man himself and his supporters during the run up to the invasion of Iraq. But I soon realised that the blog playing field is sloped in favour of the blog owner. Hence Dave's Part. A bit like the response of the guys that went on to form the Buzzcocks after seeing the Pistols at Manchester G-Mex.

Meanwhile, commenting on Harry's generous post about yours truly, modernityblog asks: Maybe if Dave Osler ever reads this, then he could comment on a few points. What is the intellectual future of Trotskyism? Does it have a future?

With the demise of the Soviet Union, does Trotskyism have anything unique to say about the contemporary world? What theoretical body of work from Trotsky is of any use today (or the near future)?? Won't Trotskyism simply die off in 60-80 years time, when its current adherents pass on?

Serious questions. My next post will offer the answers, as I see them

To tell the truth, the only time I can remember hearing that shit and actually liking it was when a younger workmate gave me something to swallow at the start of a night out. Whatever it was, it certainly transformed my perception of the music.

I have some other interesting contributors lined up, too. Expect well-informed stuff on Irish and French politics from writers of generally Fourthist persuasion, as well as your opportunity to take part in some academic research.

If anyone else would like to submit anything for publication on this blog - and the readership is now larger than most leftwing publications in the UK, I'd guess - these are the groundrules.

First, material should be of interest to the Dave's Part readership, which is chiefly politics and music

Second, it will probably come from a Labour left or far left perspective, but not necessarily. If anybody of a radical liberal or even non-authoritarian rightwing viewpoint would like to offer a reasoned critique of socialism, I'd probably run with that.

Third, you may be lightly edited for spelling, grammar and style. Trust me, I'm a journalist. But I won't distort the underlying politics.

Fourth, in the final instance, it's my blog and the editor's decision is final. If I don't like a submission for whatever reason, I won't publish it. But we still stay friends, right?

Lastly, on a housekeeping note. More comments and more tip-offs, please. And don't forget to update your links to take people to this new site.

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.

(2) The Inveresk Street Ingrate himself, aka Darren, is about to become a daddy. That's a turning point in any man's life. Congrats to the only living SPGBer in New York and partner Kara.

Darren - self-professed Indie Kid - evidently still has his sources in the UK. He has emailed me from Gotham City to highlight the decision of employees of the right-on Workers' Beer Company to unionise in the face of such standard working class gripes as health and safety and working conditions. Read all about it at the Dreaming Neon Black blog.

(3) Marshajane, of Union Futures and Team Stroppyblog fame, emails to highlight the threat of legal action from not-for-profit employer Freemantle against the execellent trade union website LabourStart. Read all about it here.

(4) Schlepping down to the supermarket yesterday, I came across an SWP NUJer - how's that for leftie shorthand? - doing his Saturday paper sale outside the shopping centre. I asked as politely as possible what the party's line on the Galloway document is, and whether or not Hackney branch had discussed the issue yet.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't really want to talk about the whole affair. According to him, Galloway is seeking to drag Respect to the right, and the SWP had been aware of this danger since the initiation of the project. And no, he still has no doubts about the decision to liquidate the Socialist Alliance.

(5) As the old joke goes, Hackney is the third-biggest bastion of the world Trotskyist movement after the copper mines of Bolivia and the tea plantations of Sri Lanka.

Earlier today, I bumped into CPGB number two Mark Fischer at the local minicab office. Seems he was on his way down to Brighton to sort out the Hands Off the People of Iran fringe meeting at the TUC conference. Discussion also turned to the Galloway developments.

According to Mark, there was a meeting of the International Socialist Group-sponsored Respect Party Platform at the University of London Union yesterday. My former comrades reportedly seemed quite upbeat.

Londoners into Trot sectarianism live - and there's probably enough of them to make the launch of a dedicated cable TV channel - might like to know about a Socialist Resistance public meeting on the Respect crisis this Wednesday. Details here. Main speaker is Alan Thornett, regarded by many of the cognoscenti as the real author of GG's missive.

(6) There may be a considered post on the contemporary situation in the UK welfare state on this blog later tonight. Or I might just uncork a bottle of vino and start reading a biography of Lenin, written by rightwing Sovietologist Robert Conquest, which I bought for a quid in Dalston Oxfam yesterday. We shall see.

(1) I'm just back from Islington's Little Angel puppet theatre, to which Daddy's Little Princesses and a bunch of other well-bred middle-class Stokie love children were taken as a birthday treat for DLP Senior.

It was only after sitting through the show that I found out it was written by Michael Rosen, a longstanding member (or is he just a particularly close fellow traveller?) of the Socialist Workers' Party and Respect. Bloody Trots get everywhere.

However, I am shocked - shocked! - to have to report that the state of Israel was not denounced once - not once! - throughout the entire performance. There was, however, the obligatory puerile fart joke that the assembled six and seven years old found hugely entertaining.

(2) The organisers of the Feminist Fightback 2007 conference have emailed to ask for a plug, and I'm happy to oblige. The event takes place on October 20 at the University of East London and you can read all about it here. The event is free, and blokes are allowed in.

(3) As part of my continuing efforts to come up to speed with more recent philosophy, most of my reading time this weekend has been taken up with leafing through a beginner's guide to critical theory, the brand of post-modernist thinking that currently dominates radical academia.

I am not dogmatic enough to argue to adherence to dialectical materialism should be an absolute precondition for membership of a revolutionary socialist organisation

But as I understand it, a number of middle-ranking SWP cadre - especially those with teaching jobs in universities - openly advocate stances derived from CT over traditional Marxist ideas. And surely, for Marxists, belief in Marxism kinda goes with the territory?

My bluffer's guide has alerted me to the critique advanced by Frederic Jameson, who argues that postmodernism is actually an obfuscatory set of ideas that suits the bourgeoisie just fine.

If both capitalism and socialism can be dismissed equally as irrelevant 'grand narratives', the status quo prevails. The outcome? An inability to challenge the bourgeois belief system at the level of theory.

That sounds about on the money. After all, if you can keep a straight face while maintaining that the 1991 Gulf War 'did not take place', it undermines your arguments for opposing the conflict in the first place.

As the more observant of you will have noticed, I haven't posted for a few days, as I'm enjoying a week's break in Paris. But expect a full report when I get back, including a brief account of my run-in with the Lambertistes for all you sectariana buffs out there.

I'm currently sitting in an internet café not far from the site of the Bastille, with my imagination fired by a book on the French revolution that has formed part of my holiday reading. Both a walking tour of revolutionary sites and a day trip to Versailles are also in prospect.

And what can I say about that leftie hot one hundred list in the Telegraph? I'm naturally chuffed to come in at 93, ahead of such unknowns as Ali and Pilger. But back in the real world, the comments box is open for the nomination of notable ommissions.

Incidentally, the turn out from the left was minimal. What's the matter? Buddhism the wrong religion or something, comrades?

I listened to all of the speeches in Trafalgar Square. By far the most eloquent and crowd-pleasing of the lot was delivered by Tory MP John Bercow, who heads the all-party Burma group.

If you shut your eyes and pretended not to know anything about his Monday Club 'repatriate coloureds now' background, it was reminiscent of the sort of rhetoric routinely delivered by Labour left MPs in the past. That speaks volumes about today's politics, I guess.

(2) November 5th marks Stand Up for Journalism day, with a series of events organised by working hacks across Europe. Britain's contribution will see the National Union of Journalists lobby of the Society of Editors conference at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester.

If you fancy going along, assemble outside the offices of the Manchester Evening News on Hardman Street, off Deansgate at 12.30pm.

Speakers at the event will include NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear and president Michelle Stanistreet. Michelle - who works for the Sunday Express - notes:

'The media is owned by a smaller and smaller group of extremely wealthy corporations.

'They are meeting on a site that was developed to commemorate the Peterloo massacre. We hope they will take courage from history and seize the moment.'

(3) There's an interesting debate on the age old question of whether socialists should be in the Labour Party, over at the Red Pepper website. Oh, and a slightly more unusual discussion on the ins and outs of paid-for sex as well, in case you are interested in such a comparatively dull topic.

I am a subscriber to Freedom newspaper. I'd happily link to it, but it does not seem to have an online presence. If I am wrong in thinking this, can somebody could let me have the URL, please?

Meanwhile, the 'interesting blogs and other websites' sidebar on the right will now take you to Practically Insurgent, a site published by a young libertarian communist who goes by the name of Jack Ray. It features some thought-0provoking takes on events, rooted in that part of the political spectrum.

I'm also linking to a recent blog started by Daily Mirror political editor Kevin Maguire, with assistance from other members of his team. Kevin is a sound working class bloke from Gateshead, and not even decades of dwelling in the namby-pamby south seem to have taken all of the gutter out of the boy.

Kevin's Labour Party and trade union connections second to none. Hopefully he will produce some interesting blogging in 2008.

Lenin of Lenin's Tomb fame remarks in the comments box of AVPS:

I just want to point out that in terms of readership, neither Socialist Knitting Network nor Dave's Spare Part is even in the same league as yours truly. They aren't even barking up the same tree, although they bark very loudly. I'm insulted at being placed next to these sad, sad people.

Over at Socialist Unity, Andy Newman is a little bit more subtle in his put-down: 'I almost never actually read the articles on Dave Osler’s blog, but the comments are entertaining.' This within weeks of congratulating me on 'a brilliant piece of on-form Osler writing. Delicious'. Make your mind up, mate.

Newman is a former Trot who is now seemingly reinventing himself as some sort of Stalinist. When not 'discussing sugar production in Cuba' in cheap hotel rooms, he abases himself before his latest political guru by attacking people he would until recently have regarded as comrades for 'selling Trotskyite snakeoil', whatever that may mean.

Let's hope this does not presage his wholesale conversion to Stalinist organisational practices, such as the bullying and blackmail of others on the left; after all, despite ritualistic invocations of feminism, some of his newfound political associates are quick to use their clunking great (male) fists, particularly in debate with women snakeoil merchants when the silly cows can't get the line right. Respect Refuckingnewal? I think that's what they said their party was called.

Personally, I don't see the point in slagging off the efforts of other socialist bloggers. I mean, there is always going to be a readership out there for inert expanses of badly-written politically illiterate boilerplate, churned out by irredeemable sectarian dickheads on an unstable theoretical basis, entirely capable of hanging a Uey overnight in line with the ever-shifting demands of factional necessity. Most leftwing publications prove that, don't they?

I've got the day off work to do an an essay on US foreign policy in the Middle East today - which I should haved started already - before heading off to watch Telecaster king Wilko Johnson in Brighton, and I'm not sure whether I'll have time for a post of political substance.

So treat this as an open thread. Thoughts on the state of the current UK left blogosphere are invited. But feel free to talk about anything of relevance.

(2) Over at Labourhome, they are thinking the unthinkable and wondering whether or not to start taking an overtly negative stance towards the Labour leadership. Gosh. Me, I could never do anything like that. But opinions are being canvassed here.

(3) There has been a number of deletions and new links on the blogroll. Can I single out Plattitude, the blog by former New Statesman editor Steve Platt, as worthy of note? Requests for inclusion always entertained.

Naturally, a schedule this tight is only possible thanks to the generosity of a French multinational in lending a bunch of hacks their corporate jet. Yes, I know. I know. I don't think I can credibly use the words 'carbon footprint' with reference to anybody else for at least two years.

I'll be in the company of specialist Africa correspondents from leading British and French print titles. To avoid embarrassment, I have been genning up; I'm about half way through Martin Meredith's epic The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, which does what it says on the tin, and rather well at that.

It's a horrifying story, detailing one extended political car crash after another. This has prompted some reflections on how far a class-based paradigm applies in countries where politics are defined by ethnicity and religion. Expect some posts on the topic once I've had a look round a cross-section of the continent. However, blogging over the next week or so will be at best sparse, and more likely non-existent.

(2) The first big demonstrations I went on were the big Rock Against Racism marches in the seventies, which mobilised tens of thousands of young people against the National Front, even though that outfit had not a single elected representative anywhere in the country at the time.

The contrast with yesterday's anti-BNP march in London could not have been stronger. The far right now has dozens of councillors and a seat on the Greater London Assembly. Yet - whatever the Socialist Workers' Party, which organised the proceedings, would have you believe - the turnout was only 2,000 or so. I'm with Liam on this one; the far left needs to stop kidding itself and ask itself some searching questions instead.

Among the more enthusiastic participants were Daddy's Little Princesses (pictured), who have declared their implacable opposition to fascism now the know what it is. Indeed, the oldest thinks she might be a communist, because sharing toys is a good idea. DLP senior writes:

We went on a demo and my legs got tired. We bought two whistles and we got some flags to wave. We walked to Trafalgar Square and I dipped my feet in the water.

The BNP are not winning and I hope they won't. It doesn't matter what skin colour people are. The BNP aren't really good.

(3) New links include Aled Dilwyn Fisher, the leftwing Green activist who has just been elected president of London School of Economics Student Union.

Well, there's a meeting at the House of Commons on Wednesday this week to discuss the issue. It takes place in committee room 14 from 7.15pm onwards. Speakers include John McDonnell MP, Yunus Bakhsh, Suzanne Muna, Tony Staunton and Onay Kasab.

At a time when local government workers need to mount a determined campaign against the de facto wage cut represented by the current 2.45% offer, it would be encouraging to see the far left put sectarian divisions behind it and work together in the interests of labour movement democracy.

(2) I did read quite a few books on Marxist economics - mainly those penned by Marx himself and by Ernest Mandel - when I first became active in politics. With the current uncertainties surrounding the world economy, I have been trying to get back up to speed.

In case others are in the same boat, I'll just point out a couple of useful online resources I have found. First, leading Marxist academic David Harvey - author of the superb book A Brief History of Neoliberalism - is in the process of putting up an entire semester's worth of his lectures on Marx's Capital at City University of New York online here.

Such a policy is a clear pointer to how university education could be democratised and should be widely emulated, so that everyone can benefit from the insights of the world's leading thinkers. If you are at all interested in the topic, you have 26 hours of compelling viewing in front of you.

Credit, too, to the International Marxist Tendency for the website www.marxisteconomics.com, which can be found here. It's still a work in progress, but the material posted so far is written in accessible language that should appeal to non-specialists.

Meanwhile, the Socialist Workers' Party - not best known for its culture of open debate - has given space in its theoretical journal to a critique of the analysis of the world economy advanced by Chris Harman.

For decades now, Harman has been arguing that capitalism is essentially stagnant, as a rising organic composition of capital forces down the rate of profit. The empirical evidence suggests this simply isn't the case. Jim Kincaid - a product of the International Socialist tradition, but no longer an SWPer - writes:

Despite repeated phases of temporary downturn—and massive increases in economic inequality—the basic story of the world economy over the past 25 years has been one of rising profits, and growth in output and levels of capital accumulation. Advances in productivity have not undermined profitability as would be expected according to Harman’s analysis.

Harman uses Marx’s declining rate of profit analysis in rather an abstract way, focusing too much on the average rate and giving insufficient weight to the countertendencies that Marx saw as limiting or reversing the tendency for overall profitability to fall.

That sounds pretty much on the money to me, although I can see why it would not appeal tremendously to a guy whose job depends on convincing a few thousand people that the revolution cannot be too far away. Further comment on this question here.

The idea has been for Dave's Part to mix fairly straightforward serious coverage of politics, international relations and economics with forays into such areas as the Bridgend suicides, the Bellfield, Wright and Dixie murders and knife crime.

The justification in the latter instance is that these are matters that the left media traditionally rarely touches, but really should do more often. Such topics are what people discuss in workplaces and pubs every day, and raise important political issues about the social relationships that obtain under capitalism. Not the least consideration is that they attract new people to this website.

I have frequently pledged to myself to give up completely on far left sectariana. But I keep going back there, because I secretly love it really, and so - I suspect - do the core readership. Look at the number of comments such posts attract.

Usually I do know what I am talking about. Believe it or not, there is sometimes some erudition behind the words I type. Now and then, I make it up as I go along, as all journalists do to some extent. But because posts tend to be knocked out in my lunch break, detailed research is usually precluded.

I presume I am doing something right, because the number of hits continues to rise steadily. But all media outlets benefit from feedback. You lot are Joe Public in this instance.

So, let's have your comments please. What do you like about Dave's Part? What do you dislike? Where do I come a cropper and make myself look a prat? Are the humourous posts actually pretty unfunny? What do you want to see more of, and what should be scrapped?

Oh, and don't hold back. I can take it. I think.

(1) Here’s a bit of political rock from the last time Britain stood on the cusp of a Tory government. The clip is dedicated to Janine, because I know she’s a TRB fan. The world we knew busted open wide/in the winter of ‘79. You said it, Mr Robinson.

Incidentally, I saw Danny Kustow - the featured guitarist - do a couple of numbers at an Eddie and the Hot Rods gig at the 100 Club earlier this year. It has to be said that the years haven’t been particularly kind to him; he’s got more grey hair and a bigger beer gut than I have. But he still knows what to do with a Les Paul and a Marshall stack, though.

(2) Twice now I’ve read online claims that in most towns outside the capital, the Socialist Party is now clearly the largest organisation on the far left, eclipsing its long-term rival, the SWP.

This - if true - strikes me as an encouraging development; of the two, the Socialist Party is incomparably more serious, and more working class by both social composition and political orientation.

But unfortunately I never get very far outside of North London, except for the odd visit to Stroppy in Brighton. So I’d be interested in reports from around the country. What’s the situation on the ground?

(3) Time to update the links. First off, a plug for PoliticsHome, which is now the first site I look at when I log on each morning. Whatever your outlook, it’s indispensable. Joining the blogroll are Bickerstaffe Record, The Social Republic, Coventry Green Party, Some Roses Are Red and It's All Culture..

(1) American blues harp legend Charlie Musselwhite - for my money, the best damn harmonica player on the planet - has four UK dates next month. I'm intending to show up at two of the gigs. He's an unbelievably good live act, I promise you; if you at all like 12-bar R&B, Chicago style, you owe it to yourself to be there too. In the meantime, here's a clip of Charlie with his current band, doing their signature track 'The blues overtook me'.

(2) The other forthcoming 'must attend' event is the debate over Israel's right to nuke Iran, featuring the clash of the Marxist titans Sean Matgamna and Moshe Machover. Yes, it's comforting to know that - at a time when capitalism really is in crisis and the British National Party is winning hundreds of thousands of votes - the far left is making the best use of its resources. Then again, it's been ages since we've had a good old public Trot bunfight.

The grudge match takes place on Sunday 12 October at the traditional North London Trot boozer of choice, The Lucas Arms, 245a Grays Inn Road, Kings Cross, starting 5.15pm. Does the League Against Cruel Sports know about this?

Most likely it'll be standing room early. Me, I'm turning up outside the pub with a sleeping bag the night before, just to be assured of a place.

(3) On a related note, here's four things that are frankly unlikely to be said at the said meeting:

* 'OK, we'll just have to agree to differ on that one.'
* 'Well, I have to admit that our paper got the line on [insert issue] totally wrong in [insert date].'
* 'I'm speaking as a member of the International Bolshevik Tendency. But if want to know what I really think on this one, well, personally ...'
* 'Why can't we all, y'know, just share the love?'

Similar contributions in the comments box below, please.

(4) Meanwhile, the far left blogsphere continues to expand at a rate faster than new recruits are coming through the door. Ladies and gentlemen, will you welcome Britain's greatest living Pabloite, Andrew Coates, who is sharing his vision of centuries of degenerated workers' states with the public at his fabulous new blog Tendance Coatesy.

Big up, too, everybody's favourite Stoke Newington teetotal groove merchant Paddy Garcia, sometimes seen in the comments box below. The site is called Latte Leninist.

(1) This blog's core demographic - the rapidly-ageing ex-punk rocker market - will doubtless recall the Sham 69 anthem Borstal Breakout, released in early 1978. Youngsters, and anyone who needs to refresh their memory, can check out the YouTube clip above.

I was actually in the audience at the gig where this footage was filmed, although I cannot spot myself in any of the shots. And here's a fascinating Dave fact; I was at one time in a band with sticks merchant Ian Whitewood, who has featured in recent incarnations of Sham. Nice bloke, good drummer.

According to the Guiness Book of British Hit Singles, Borstal Breakout didn't make the charts. Can this really be true? It certainly got enough airplay from Peelie. The thing is, the song has been going through my head of late, which has led to me rewriting the lyrics in the light of more recent developments:

I'm in Canary Wharf, just watchin' markets crash
I lost my shirt on deals that were rash
I need some money, hand over public cash

There's gonna be a banking bailout
There's gonna be a banking bailout
There's gonna be a banking bailout
There's gonna be a banking bailout

(2) Apologies to anyone who emailed me in recent days and has yet to receive a reply. But like 200,000 Virgin Media customers, I was incommunicado for most of last week, thanks to a server crash at my internet service provider. This is the second major email outage at Virgin in recent months, by the way.

As an old punk, I know I should never trust a hippy, and still less a hippy capitalist. When the BBC rumbled that something was amiss, Virgin Media told lies in response. The claim in this report that all services were restored by Friday simply isn't true.

I'm minded to take my subscription elsewhere. Trouble is, I was previously with AOL, and they were piss poor as well. So can any readers actually positively recommend their ISP? I dobn't mind paying a couple of extra quid a month, I just want the level of service which should come as standard in 2008.

(3) For some time now, I have been contributing to the group blog Liberal Conspiracy, which is now one of the most widely-read political websites in Britain. It's aim is to provide an online home for a wide range of UK liberal and socialist opinion, and it's fair to say I'm on the far left in terms of its regular writers. But dialogue between different shades of centre-left and left politics cannot be a bad things. Check it out, if you do not do so already.

(1) US GUITAR legend Robben Ford is playing the Camden Town venue Jazz Cafe on November 7th and 8th. It's not clear from the publicity whether he'll be in jazz rock or straight ahead 12-bar mode, but either way, the man is unmissable. Stroppy has been instructed to procure tickets.

The YouTube clip above shows RF with his blues line up, covering the Paul Butterfield number Lovin' Cup; You don't wash your hair, you don't wash your clothes/What else you don't do baby, nobody knows, Robben sings at the start of verse two. Honey, I wanna drink from that lovin' cup too. Gosh, what can those lyrics possibly mean?

(2) THE real cost of a book is not the price of acquiring it - which these days can be next to nothing, on Amazon or in a secondhand shop - but the 10, 20 or more hours it takes to read the damn thing. Moreover, such temporal expenditure has to be set against the opportunity cost of what else could be read over the same timespan.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I am considering launching into Marxism and Philosophy by Alex Callinicos. My problem is that, although the contents listing looks tempting. a quick google reveals many negative reviews. Several people - including some SWPers - claim the volume is actually turgid to the point of unreadability. Can it really be that bad?

Any readers in a position to judge? Should I wade into Callincos, or get stuck into GA Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History; a Defence instead?

This article has been removed.

I ALWAYS knew I wanted to be a journalist. I remember being about eight or nine years old, turning up at the Wellingborough office of the Evening Telegraph, and announcing that fact to the receptionist. The hacks were sufficiently amused to grant me a tour of the newsroom.

This ambition of mine was somehow sidelined during the years I pursued rock and roll stardom instead. Then, in a week without a paying gig, I offered a feature on the Korean guitar industry to Beat Instrumental, the mag for musicians that went on to form the basis of the Richard Desmond porno empire.

I got a decent enough fifty quid for it, loved seeing my name in print, and never looked back. For the past 20 years, print journalism has one way or another put bread on the table. It may not now be the game it once was, but as the old maxim has it, it sure beats working. I get a middle management wedge without any supervisory responsibility whatsoever, which suits me fine.

A Bernstein or a Woodward I did not become; sadly, in early middle age, it has finally dawned on me that I am unlikely to win a Pulitzer. A government-toppling scoop continues to prove elusive, and may now never come. But what the heck, I once caused a minor diplomatic spat between Sri Lanka and Thailand, and I have been able to create embarrassment of varying intensity to a number of politicians, businessmen and bad guys who richly deserve it.

The trouble is, it seems that the future of daily newspapers and news-oriented weeklies is under threat. As Andrew Sullivan writes in the Sunday Times this morning, both circulations and ad revenues in the US are seriously on the slide. Although he doesn’t say it, it is much the same story this side of the Atlantic.

Blogging, Sullivan suggests, is partially to blame. Why bother paying for the opinions of some pompous and out-of- touch columnist commenting on yesterday’s developments? Switch on your PC, go to your favourite blog, and get stuck in to the comments box!

But as both a journalist and a blogger, I am in no doubt as to which is the superior craft. For all that younger practitioners derided the ‘MSM’ [mainstream media] as the ‘dead tree press’, blogging is basically parasitic upon it. If nobody is out there at the coalface, standing controversial stories up, what is left for anybody else to argue the toss about?

The trouble is, hard news reporting as a craft is rapidly going the way of valve-based black and white television manufacture. Many newspapers have downgraded foreign and business desks, and happily rehash stories from news agencies - the likes of Reuters, Bloomberg, Agence France Press, Associated Press or Press Association - as a substitutes.

Now, no disrespect to people who work for these fine outfits Some of them number among my closest drinking buddies. So I am well aware of the pressure these guys are under to come up with the goods ahead of the competition. But as someone with the luxury of having a few extra hours to put in the check calls, I have to say that standards of accuracy for wire copy are not always what they should rightly be.

Old school reporting is everywhere unfashionable, because it takes time and money, and the target yoof demographic isn’t interested anyway. Not too many years ago, you could tell your editor you had the basis of a strong exclusive but needed, say, five days to nail it down. If the lead was promising enough, you would get the thumbs-up. These days, nobody would think it was worth bothering the boss.

Look across the UK newspaper spectrum. It is inconceivable that the Daily Mirror would today give somebody in the mantle of Paul Foot a page a week for the investigative journalism at which he so excelled. The Daily Express trundles on by recycling conspiracy theory and health material plundered off the internet, paying its hapless twentysomething employees accordingly. Hello, Mr Desmond; notice which direction the circulation is heading as a result?

The Independent prides itself on being a ‘viewspaper’ rather than a newspaper. Now, I do like sharp commentators, and the Indie has some of the sharpest. But I no longer shell out for the product, which has degenerated into a glorified blog on newsprint; even the best opinion pieces simply don’t give me the fix I crave as a hard news junkie.

The general decline of the left has taken away the space once enjoyed by such muckraking monthlies as The Leveller. Time Out - previously the natural home of the stuff the nationals dared not touch - now fills the space between the listings with glossy ads and wall-to-wall lifestyle pap.

It’s not that bloggers are incapable of coming home with the stories that would once have been the preserve of the likes Duncan Campbell. There must be plenty of good youngsters out there. But they do not have the time and they do not have the resources to do reporting like it properly should be done.

If in a few years time we are bereft of a press with the balls to speak truth to power, everybody will be the loser.

This article has been removed.

(1) NUJ LEFT - the recently-relaunched broad left group in the National Union of Journalists - is holding a meeting on media ownership, an issue little discussed since New Labour made its peace with News International, circa 1994. Speakers will include: Roy Greenslade, the only rehabilitated Maoist ever to edit the Daily Mirror; Nick Jones, former BBC correspondent, speaking on behalf of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom; and hopefully a current BBC employee. Can’t make it myself, but sounds good.

Media ownership: on whose terms, in whose interests?
7pm - 9pm, Tuesday 17 February 2009
London Welsh Centre, Gray’s Inn Rd
More info on the NUJ Left website

(2) I HOPE to get along to a Jewish Socialists’ Group-sponsored discussion of Israel’s brutal incursion into Gaza, which takes place in London this Wednesday. Speakers include: Karma Nabulsi, a former PLO diplomat; very rightwing and very Zionist Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, who to give him his due, has condemned Israel’s recent actions; David Rosenberg of the JSG and Israeli activist Yishay Mor.

After the War on Gaza: What next for the Palestinians?
And how can Jews here and in Israel help to bring about a just peace?
7.30pm, Wednesday 11th February
Tudor Room, Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, London WC1B 5BB
More info on the JSG website

(3) I'VE UPDATED the links to include some new (and/or newish) blogs, including Anglo-Buddhist Combine and Labour leftie Michael Calderbank. Links to some apparently inactive websites have been deleted.

(4) CONGRATULATIONS to Susan Press, NUJ activist and vice chair of the Labour Representation Committee, who has made it onto the shortlist for Labour-held Keighley. Fingers crossed.

(1) THE MORE observant of you will have noticed that I have not posted since last Wednesday. Sadly, I have been unwell, and indeed, sicknoted off work for the first time in more than a decade. But I now appear to be on the mend, thank you for asking.

Luckily I haven't missed too many opportunities for acerbic comment, I guess. As ever, little happens in official politics over the Easter break. That said, I expect to return to the blogging fray this afternoon with some belated observations on the McBride/Draper email imbroglio, which has probably been the one story of substance in the last week or so.

(2) PERHAPS it's the spillover effect from the sectarianism that typifies the hard left away from the keyboard, but for some reason leftie bloggers rarely draw attention to good stuff published on other leftwing websites. As Andy Newman of Socialist Unity has argued, this is a collective failing on our side; rightists routinely dominate the Wikio rankings, precisely because they link to each other on an almost daily basis.

Accordingly, let me flag up this exceptional post on Blair, Catholicism and homosexuality, written by the Irish Trot who goes by the soubriquet Splintered Sunrise. It makes all the right points in an extremely witty fashion. As a lapsed Protestant myself, I found it irresistable.

LONGSTANDING readers may remember that I am facing libel action from Tower Hamlets Tory activist Johanna Kaschke - as featured in this, um, interesting YouTube clip - following a post about her on this blog in 2007. She is also suing two other Labour Party members, Alex Hilton and John Gray, over related issues.

Alex, of course, is prospective parliamentary candidate for Chelsea & Fulham, surely an easy peasy Labour gain in the current political climate. Bankruptcy, which will result for all three of us if Ms Kaschke prevails, will disqualify him from becoming an MP.

I spent all day yesterday in the High Court, listening to Alex's appeal that an application for summary judgement be upheld, and I'm just about to head off for a second helping. His case is being argued on a point of law, rather than the underlying merits of the matter. The ruling will probably come about lunch time.

Meanwhile, I'm on for a four-day jury trial, which will cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds, and is set to commence on November 23. 'Overtly Tory' blogger Iain Dale has agreed in principle to appear as an expert witness on my behalf, which should underline that this is more than simply a party political spat.

The uncontested facts here are that Ms Kaschke, as a student and member of the centre-left SPD in her native West Germany in the 1970s, helped to organise a benefit concert for Rote Hilfe, an organisation officially designated 'left-extremist' by the state; the gig was designed to raise funds for the legal fees of Baader-Meinhof Gang suspects; that she was herself subsequently arrested on suspicion of terrorism; and that she spent several months on remand, after which she was released and compensated for unfair imprisonment.

It is further uncontested that Ms Kaschke nominated herself as Labour candidate for Bethnal Green & Bow in 2007; that she received just one vote; that shortly thereafter she defected to George Galloway's Respect party; shortly after that, she joined an as-yet-unspecified Communist Party; and that shortly after that, she became a Conservative.

She was, in other words, a member of four political parties in 12 months. Ms Kaschke contends that simply listing her affiliations, entirely accurately, denies her the right to freedom of association under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Interestingly, the jury will also be asked to rule on whether or not it is libellous to call somebody 'one cherry short of a Schwarzwalderkirschtorte'. Not my words, but those of a reader, left in the comments box. If I lose on that point, the consequences for internet freedom of speech are clearly considerable.

Should prove interesting. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: After spending two days hearing a case pencilled in for one morning only, Mr Justice Stadlen has reserved judgement.

Alex's solicitor essentially argued that by acting as the host of LabourHome, EU e-commerce regulations mean that he is not liable for contents posted by others. If this one goes the wrong way, such popular sites as ConservativeHome and LabourList may have no alternative but to adopt premoderation of posts.

Right. After a quick livener with the man himself, I am now back home. I have sent out to the liquor store for a bottle of Glenmorangie 10-year-old - any excuse, right? - and ensured that both Daddy's Little Princesses and Stroppybird have alternative amusements lined up for the weekend. I will now start work on my opening speech and a script for the cross-examination of JK.

Oh, and I really am chuffed at all the good wishes, not only from the comrades but from many horrible rightwing bastards too. Thanks, guys.

And hey, if I lose, a whole new career flogging the Big Issue beckons. After all those years selling Trot papers to an utterly disinterested proletariat, I'm bound to be a natural.

The Kaschke-Osler 'Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte' blogosphere libel case - originally due to go to a four-day jury trial from November 23 - has been postponed until the first half of 2010, after Mr Justice Eady granted my application to that effect in the High Court this afternoon.

I write this as a public service announcement for the many people who have emailed me to say that they will be turning up to show their support. Otherwise, my legal advice is to maintain strict radio silence ... at least for the time being.

SEVERAL regular readers have pointed to the increasingly acrimonious tone in this blog’s comments box, and have suggested that I start deleting comments, and even banning individuals of which they disapprove. However, I don’t plan to go down that road. Well, not yet, anyway.

There are number of reasons why I want Dave’s Part to stick to a full-on freedom of speech format. Not least of these is that I actually enjoy a good old fashioned no-holds-barred comments box slugfest. That’s not everybody’s style, but it is mine.

That's why this blog is designed for people who are passionate about their politics, and ready to argue the toss in support of their position.

Some widely-read British far leftist bloggers routinely take down comments with which the main writer cannot deal. Others rely on moderation. OK, these things are up to the proprietors, but to my mind, such measures kill the flow of debate.

In almost four years, I have removed removed less than half a dozen comments from this website. Mostly this was unavoidable; some comments were plainly libelous, others identified people who wish to remain anonymous online. Apolitical abuse in obituaries written about personal friends also got the chop. Other than that, I have abided by the title of an old Chuck Berry song as a rule of thumb: let it rock.

Accordingly, I positively welcome comments from rightwingers, including those on the hard right, provided only that they come up with reasoned arguments. Hey, Tories! Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!

People like Bill Corr are obviously a million miles from this blog’s openly socialist stance, and yes, I do think some of his contributions are racist. But my gut instinct is that he says nothing with which you lot cannot deal.

On the other hand, this bloke is upsetting sections of my core (or should that be 'non-Corr'?) readership. Are you guys man/woman enough to take it? Opinions, please.

I also positively welcome comments from the mad as fuck ultralefts. However, I was particularly incensed by this recent jibe from the execrable Southpawpunch:

I agree with Eddie and John above and someone else who made a similar comment yesterday, that this blog is heading way downhill due to the "collection of racists, fascists and idiots that infest the comments"

I think the blog owner needs to decide whether he wants comments here from Lefts, such as myself (maybe he doesn't) or the aforementioned - as, for me, it's going to have to be one or the other.

By way of context here, readers may be aware that I am facing a four-day jury trial at the High Court in April, in front of Mr Justice Eady, in response to an action brought by the subject of one of a 2007 post.

One of the grounds on which I am being sued is a comment left by the above-mentioned Southpawpunch, who has disgracefully proved too pussy to provide a witness statement, lest the British state rumble the identity of this fearsome revolutionary. Thanks a lot, comrade.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t give a shit whether our heroic self-proclaimed 'Left' ever comments here again or not. But even in these circumstances, Southpawpunch most emphatically is not banned.

So let me throw this topic over to the masses. Would tighter control make for more intelligent discussion, or is it better to reject censorship and let people - from all points on the political spectrum - sometimes talk crap?

At this stage I will restrict myself to an appeal to one and all; keep the comments box political and at a halfway decent theoretical level in 2010, please folks.

Happy New Year. Even if it brings a Tory government and a couple of BNP MPs at Westminster, opening up a decade of domination for the British right as the left continues to flounder in its own stupidity.

THIS blog is about to get a facelift, courtesy of Will, late of Drink Soaked Trots fame, who knows all about website design and that stuff.

While I'm about it, I'll also be asking him to set up whatever new widgets are available in the ongoing struggle against spam, and sort out glitches with the RSS feed.

Meanwhile ... any requests for reader-friendly features?

REMEMBER that redesign I was on about last month? Well, Will and Hak have been diligently beavering a way and I have shown them great discourtesy by being too busy even to respond to emails. This is largely down to the three week stint in HK and my impending libel trial. Many apologies.

However, the test site is here. Readers are invited to have a look and make suggestions. Personally I like the design. It’s clean, easy to read, and classier than a bunch of birds from Newham on their first hen night. But see what you think.