UPDATE: Newsnight’s Paul Mason has some excellent observations on all this:

‘Here is the lay of the land as I understand it:

‘They believe they have the best part of 12 months to go on the stump within what is left of the labour party at Constituency Labour Party level and make a serious effort to win the leadership.’

If Paul is right, that implies a prospect of a protracted campaign that will raise leftwing ideas inside the structures of the Labour Party in a way not seen for two decades.

There is a dilemma here for those in Respect who are not totally wedded to the SWP conception of the project, as well as those (like me) that have signed the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party declaration. If something serious kicks off inside the Labour Party, there is at least an argument that it deserves full support. That implies carding up.

The thing is, have the Labour left in its current weakened state got either the numbers – or the balls, for that matter – to make such a strategy effective?

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Tony Blair will announce his resignation as Leader of the Labour Party over the next 12 -18 months.

Some have argued that instead of an open democratic election for the leader of the party, there should be a smooth transition or virtual coronation of his successor.

This would deny party members the opportunity of openly debating the issues facing our party and the future direction of the country.

An election for the Leader of the party will allow for a democratic debate on the future of Labour.

Therefore following increasing demands from various sections of the movement, I have decided to declare myself as a candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party as soon as the present incumbent retires. To be clear this is not a so-called “stalking horse” candidature but a serious challenge for the leadership of the party when a vacancy occurs.

I am standing to ensure that thousands of Labour Party members and supporters have the chance to participate in deciding not only who should be the next leader of our party but more importantly what policies the party should be pursuing.   

There are many that feel the party has lost its way. Many of the policies being pursued in Government have broken up the broad coalition of support Labour has relied upon throughout its history to bring it to power.

New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our supporters – teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace. Spin and allegations of sleaze are causing decent people to lose trust in our party. 

This is reflected in lost votes, lost elections, lost members and a Labour Prime Minister having to rely upon Conservative votes in Parliament to force through legislation.

There are growing calls from across the party for change. We need to rebuild a progressive consensus, inspiring and giving people hope that another world is possible.  We need those who have turned away from Labour to come back home.

For the first time in decades people no longer feel they have a political voice.  This campaign is a challenge to the present political consensus.

I will now seek support from all sections of the movement. At next Saturday’s conference of the Labour Representation Committee we will debate the policies needed by a real Labour government and the way in which we can reinvigorate democratic participation in the party.

From September this campaign will be travelling the country, convening meetings face to face with party members, supporters and the general public to discuss the issues facing us. We will be urging those thousands of Labour Party members who have left the party to rejoin and those who are no longer active supporters to re-engage.

We are launching a campaign web-site today and we will use every possible means of communication and new technology to stimulate this debate and get our message across.

The campaign will be waged in an open, comradely and friendly manner based upon a debate on the policies not personalities.

Let the debate begin.

‘This is just one poll but it adds further evidence to confim the trend of the 2005 general election, the 2006 local elections and other polls that more and more people are losing trust in Tony Blair and New Labour.

‘Labour Party members and the organisations affiliated to the party need to wake up fast to the fact that large numbers of people who have supported us and who have turned out to vote for us in past elections have lost trust in both Blair and New Labour.

‘This breakdown of trust is so fundamental and deep rooted that without sigificant change the party is drifting to loss of office and allowing the return of the Tories.

‘Support for New Labour is falling apart because its policies, particularly its international policies, are not just unpopular but also have meant that members of the public are increasingly feeling that they just can't believe a word the Prime Minister or any government minister or spokesperson tells them any more.

‘Only a radical break with New Labour will restore some basic trust in Labour. Simple changes of personnel in leadership positions won't be enough, especially as all of them - Brown, Reid, Johnson, Hain - have all been architects, advocates and loyal supporters of the existing policies.’

All of this is stating the bleedin’ obvious as far as this blog and presumably a hefty majority of its readers are concerned. I’d be interested in any feedback from Labour lefties on this one. It’s early days yet, but how is the campaign going? What are the plans for the conference season?

‘Many Labour MPs who have supported Blair for over a decade and voted for virtually every policy he has put in front of them have suddenly woken up to the need for Blair to go.

‘For some it is a fairly desperate attempt to save their seats which successive polls now clearly demonstrate are threatened at the next election. For others it is just Brown's acolytes stirring in the background for their man to succeed Blair sooner rather than later.

‘All this is pretty cynical and more importantly pretty futile. Of course Blair's position is increasingly unsustainable but changing the leader is futile without changing the policies. To coin a phrase "it's the policies stupid.

‘The challenge to those MPs who are calling for Blair to go is what changes in Labour's policies and political direction do they want to see after Blair? What is their post-Blair agenda? If their resignation calls are simply to change Blair for Brown, the architect of most of New Labour's policies, many may well ask what's the point? There would be no change in policies and as a result no effect on the electoral unpopularity of New Labour.

‘Yes Blair should go – but if Labour is to survive in Government there must also be a radical break with the neo-con politics of New Labour.

‘Bring on the leadership election and let's have that debate on the policies not personalities.’

He’s right. A switch from Blair to Brown would have no more political substance than Thatcher’s handover to Major.

If we are to break out of the stranglehold that small c Conservatism currently exercises on British politics, Labour supporters need more than a choice between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi.

It’s high time a Labour politician came out and said that. PFI doesn’t stack up, even from the standpoint of bourgeois economics. After all, would you take out a mortgage, pay it back over 35 years, and then hand your house back to the building society because you still don’t own a single brick of it? Thought not. But that’s what the NHS is being asked to do when a town needs a new hospital.

Here’s a press release from the McDonnell campaign, issued today:

‘As Labour leader I would scrap the Private Finance Initiative and replace this money-making racket for the speculators with a public sector investment programme based on government borrowing. Our building programme would be run directly through public sector organisations accountable to the taxpayer rather than a shady bunch of City financiers.

‘I challenge both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to justify the PFI rip-off to trade union members. I also challenge them to justify the NHS cuts and closures programme which has seen 20,000 jobs axed since the start of the year.’

PS: The Boy Miliband - despite what I take to be an endorsement from David Aaronovitch - has now confirmed that he won’t be running for either of the two Labour top jobs.

So on the righthand column below the links, you have the chance to voice an opinion on what percentage of the electoral college John McDonnell - pictured left - is going to secure when the votes are finally counted. The comments box is also open.

I reckon he will surprise many, provided only that he gets on the ballot paper. My money is on 10-20%. What do you think?

‘The Campaign Group has split into two factions. One is led by Alan Simpson (pictured left), the MP for Nottingham South, and backs Michael Meacher, the former environment secretary, as its leftwing challenger.

'The other group of "ultra leftwingers" is backing John McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington and the campaign chairman. Mr McDonnell ... believes that Mr Meacher lacks leftwing credibility because he failed to resign his government post over Iraq.’

Now Reclaim Labour – a newcomer but already one of the best British leftwing blogs on the block, for my money – has done what I signally failed to do at the time, and actually researched the story properly.

Blog owner ‘Harry Perkins’ maintains that Simpson is pushing Meacher forward, basically because he is piqued at McDonnell’s standing as the de facto standard bearer of the Labour left. Simpson is accused of repeatedly telling one soft left MP that a vote for McDonnell is a wasted vote, and that only Meacher can get on the ballot paper.

But any remaining socialist street cred Meacher may once have enjoyed thanks to his former association with Tony Benn has long disappeared, given both his support for the invasion of Iraq and his property tycoon status.

Meanwhile, Harry believes that Meacher has been putting out feelers to what could still loosely be called the soft left. Odd, given that this section of the parliamentary Labour Party is now under the gravitional pull of Brownism:

‘Meacher has been desperately courting the head of the Compass parliamentary group Jon Trickett. But Trickett and his close mate Colin Burgon have told a couple of MPs that they're not going to vote for him under any circumstances,’ Perkins goes on.

Reclaim Labour then did the proper journalistic thing and contacted Simpson for comment, getting a full explanation in a letter from the Nottingham MP. Here is how Simpson explained himself:

‘The Left is in real trouble in our leadership election, because we are not likely to have a candidate with sufficient nominations even to get in the ring.’

‘The worst case scenario would be the emergence of a number of broad left candidates who are able to get a few nominations each, but with none of them able to reach the 44 MPs needed to get to the starting line.

‘I am trying to play this in a way that gets people to avoid falling out. We need an informal agreement that left MP’s can be free to offer the support to whoever they like on the basis that we look at their nominations a week before nominations close.

‘At this point the person with the lowest number of promises has to withdraw and accept they can’t get the numbers. MP’s should then be free to formally endorse what may be their second choice candidate. At least then there would be a contest.

‘I am sure you will know that my own obsessions are about our complete failure to engage with the climate change challenge. We only have about 10 years left in which to make profound changes to the way society works.

‘After that we will just be chasing after a series of catastrophes. The only person that really understands this on our side is Michael Meacher. I know he got it disastrously wrong over the war, but at least he has had the courage to say that was the biggest wrong decision he has ever made and is openly campaigning for troop withdrawal.’

I think at bottom there is a genuine tactical dispute here. Clearly some Campaign Group MPs think that McDonnell is too closely associated with the early eighties Trotskyist-influenced local government hard left, and thus has too narrow an appeal.

Accordingly they reckon it would be better to find someone capable of bringing in forces from the centre of the party. At least that’s a coherent set of propositions, although I happen to think the basic premise is wrong. Given that the left has no chance of winning, the key issue is to use the campaign to regalvanise some sort of activist base. Meacher is hardly the man to do that.

One way or another, John McDonnell's bid to become leader of the Labour Party is going to be a defining moment for the future of the British far left.

Clearly, different tendencies in the movement are going to draw sharply different tactical conclusions from developments in the coming period.

DP helpfully offers this cut-out-and-keep guide to the five main likely scenarios, and what various Marxists will be saying 12 months from now:

(1) McDonnell becomes Britain's next prime minister
Workers Power denounces him for his abject failure to adopt a revolutionary programme. The Socialist Party insists this outcome underlines the need for a new workers' party. The SWP points to the potential future growth of Respect. Graham Bash maintains that the necessity for patient socialist work inside Labour has never been more clearly vindicated.

(2) McDonnell beaten after running credible campaign
Workers Power denounces him for his abject failure to adopt a revolutionary programme. The Socialist Party insists this outcome underlines the need for a new workers' party. The SWP points to the potential future growth of Respect. Graham Bash maintains that the necessity for patient socialist work inside Labour has never been more clearly vindicated.

(3) McDonnell polls humiliating low vote
Workers Power denounces him for his abject failure to adopt a revolutionary programme. The Socialist Party insists this outcome underlines the need for a new workers' party. The SWP points to the potential future growth of Respect. Graham Bash maintains that the necessity for patient socialist work inside Labour has never been more clearly vindicated.

(4) McDonnell doesn't make it onto ballot paper
Workers Power denounces him for his abject failure to adopt a revolutionary programme. The Socialist Party insists this outcome underlines the need for a new workers' party. The SWP points to the potential future growth of Respect. Graham Bash maintains that the necessity for patient socialist work inside Labour has never been more clearly vindicated.

(5) Climate change all but destroys human life
Workers Power denounces him for his abject failure to adopt a revolutionary programme. The Socialist Party insists this outcome underlines the need for a new workers' party. The SWP points to the potential future growth of Respect. Graham Bash maintains that the necessity for patient socialist work inside Labour has never been more clearly vindicated.

Press release just issued by the McDonnell Labour leadership campaign. (That's the candidate, pictured left):

‘Today the London Region of the FBU declared its full support for the McDonnell leadership bid and donated £1,000 towards the campaign.

‘Members will be urging both the FBU and RMT at their National Executive Committee meetings in December to endorse McDonnell.’

It’s almost certain that both unions will back the man at the national level. Great. But it won't do him much good. Neither are affiliated to the Labour Party.

The statement continues:

‘He has also been invited to address the political committees of the GMB and the Bakers Union over the next two weeks, and already has strong backing from the broad lefts within Amicus, CWU, the T & G, and Unison.

‘Within the Labour Party at grassroots level McDonnell now has the endorsement of the Campaign for Socialism in Scotland, Welsh Labour Grassroots, and the Labour Representation Committee …’

Golly, there’s a few hundred votes in the bag, then. But the three groups put together do not have the same weight in the Labour Party’s electoral college a couple of Blairite MPs.

Forward to socialism under a Brown prime ministership it is, then.

If you want to know what John McDonnell stands for, here’s the most detailed exposition of his political ideas I’ve yet read anywhere. It comes in the form of a long - and I do mean loooong - interview with a group of Alliance for Workers’ Liberty members, led it seems by David Broder.

Here’s some edited highlights. First up, McDonnell’s reasons for ‘work within’ the Labour Party - and that’s a revealing choice of words in itself - rather than join Respect, the SSP, and the smaller left groups that also undertake electoral campaigns.

In his own words, he is a Labour Party member out of ‘sheer pragmatism’, given the continuing use of FPTP for Westminster elections. So what would McDonnell do in the event of a switch to proportional representation and the subsequent emergence of a far left party picking up a handful of list seats? This obvious question sadly wasn’t asked.

‘I'm coming at it in terms of the sheer pragmatism of politics in this country, with a first-past-the-post electoral system. On a sheer pragmatic basis, I can't see how you can assess that outside the party you'd be more effective. The reason I'm in the Labour Party is, as I say, it's a terrain of struggle, within which we can win battles and eventually win power with the ideas that we convince people of.

‘Outside the Labour Party, the problem is that there's no form under the first-past-the-post system that you'd be able to win sufficient support to win positions where you could form a government or have any real pressure on government.’

But I loved the way McDonnell paraphrases Trotsky’s 1904 critique of the Leninist model of organisation, applying it Blairite New Labour. Cheeky!

‘The issue is, how has the PLP become cut off in the same way that any degenerate party does? It's the same as Trotsky's analysis of the bureaucracy. The leadership replaces the central committee, the central committee replaces the membership. And that's what's happened here.’

As the above quote underlines, this man knows his way around the Marxist classics. Quiz him about his political influences, and Keir Hardie doesn’t get a mention. But I would never have guessed that the sixties New Left played a role in McDonnell’s political formation:

‘If we go through it ... the fundamental Marxist writers of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, basically. In terms of the ability to mobilise spontaneously, Rosa Luxemburg. Interestingly enough, for a long time I was quite interested by the writers of the New Left who appeared in the 60s. Williams, Miliband, Griffiths, E.P. Thompson and others …’

Lastly, there’s a real whiff of the early eighties and ‘A Very British Coup’ about this argument:

‘If we do have a [socialist] prime minister … we will come under immediate attack from the City of London, international finance capital, and other countries in terms of political isolation. What we will then need to do as a movement is mobilise popular support behind that government.’

I can remember when Peter Hain and the Labour Co-ordinating Committee used to come out with much the same. Long time ago, though.

With the London Labour Party Conference due to take place this weekend. Labour leadership contender John McDonnell – former deputy leader of the Greater London Council before Thatcher abolished it, of course – has launched a ten-point manifesto for London.

The centrepiece of the programme is a revival of the GLC’s famous 'Fares Fair' policy of making public transport affordable, launched in 1981, which the courts ultimately ruled illegal. And I thought McDonnell insisted he wasn’t an eighties revivalist.

But anyway, here’s the full list. Nothing that democratic socialists will have any difficulty with. The April Theses it ain’t. If anything, I reckon the call for a £7 an hour minimum wage is a little on the low side. Somebody remind me, what’s the figure for the Council of Europe Decency Threshold these days?

1. A new ‘Fares Fair’ policy for the 21st Century, slashing fares for Londoners

3. Windfall tax on City bonuses to pay London’s contribution to the Olympics and ensure free access to Londoners

4. Restore control of business rates to local councils and abolish the Corporation of London, transferring its functions and resource base to the GLA

8. Halt hospital cuts and NHS privatisations

9. Emergency house-building programme, and allow 4th option, to tackle London’s housing crisis

10. Support free and comprehensive education and an end to Trusts, City Academies and tuition fees

McDonnell comments: 'This alternative programme for London will dramatically improve the quality of life for Londoners by striking at the roots of the Capital's environmental, social, and economic problems.

'Fares Fair was an extremely popular policy. It is time we restored to Londoners access to cheap, quality public transport with the consequent reduction in traffic congestion and pollution that we achieved under the GLC.'

'The government is due to publish its White Paper on Trident on Monday. It is expected to advocate Trident’s replacement, which will cost £2530bn and over its 30 year lifespan will cost £76bn.

'"It must not be left solely to MPs. A recalled Labour Party conference must have the opportunity to debate an issue of such massive importance for UK foreign policy and for future spending commitments."

The press release then quotes Jeremy Corbyn MP in his capacity as chair of the CND Parliamentary Group, thereby outing him as one the first MPs publicly to back McDonnell. Not a great surprise, I suppose:

'"The Government should be producing a Green Paper outlining the options of disarmament, saving money and obeying international law rather than just a plan to continue the immoral holding of nuclear weapons.'"

My only criticism of this statement is that McDonnell is overstating the extent of opposition to nuclear weapons within the Labour Party. Most Labour MPs will tamely traipse through the yes lobby, whether they privately agree with nuclear weapons or not. If Labour did not split over going to war on Iraq, why should it split on Trident?

‘The quotation by the chancellor of a wide range of glowing economic statistics does not reassure the millions of people in our country who are facing intense financial pressures from worrying levels of debt, insecure employment prospects, oppressively long working hours, rising unemployment, mounting housing and fuel costs, low pay, and low pensions.

‘While welcoming the very limited improvements in benefits, more investment in education and the minor start on environmental economic policies, many will be deeply disappointed at the chancellor’s failure to address the pressures they are under in the real world.

‘A glaring omission from this pre-budget report is a programme to address the financial crisis in the NHS.

‘What is needed is a budget to tackle the growing inequality in our society. It cannot be right that after the longest period of office of any Labour government that inequality has actually grown under this government.

"A future budget should be aimed at: increasing public expenditure, tackling income inequality, rebalancing taxation, lowering the debt burden, improving pensions, reducing unemployment and tackling climate change.’

I think his critique is broadly correct. Economists and politicians do concentrate on economic growth, almost always heralding it as good in and of itself.

But that perspective neglects the way in which the benefits are distributed. If democratic socialism means anything at all, it means ensuring that no-one in society is left behind by economic expansion.

And unfettered support for any and all measures that increase GDP is necessarily blind to the needs of the environment, too.

I’ll be writing up Brown’s speech for the newspaper I work for this afternoon, so I’ll offer some further reflections later, once I’ve taken a closer look at it.

‘I went last night to a meeting organised by Bethnal Green and Bow Labour Party where Charles Clarke called for Labour leadership contender John McDonnell to leave the Labour party because he rebelled against the government so much.’

And indeed, as far as the whips’ office is concerned, McDonnell is not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.

One academic who specialises in the such matters calculates that McDonnell is the most rebellious MP in the entire Parliamentary Labour Party. Only Jeremy Corbyn is even in the same league.

You can check out the stats on The Public Whip website. The MP for Hayes and Harlington has voted against his own party in more than one in four of the votes he has attended in New Labour’s third term. From aerodrome charges to water flouridation, McDonnell has relentlessly traipsed through the wrong lobby.

One can only be astonished that he has yet to be disciplined. After all, behaviour like that would be enough to get most people disciplined in most institutions of the left, from a parish council Labour group allotments sub-committee to a democratic centralist revolutionary vanguard.

In the abstract, then, McDonnell’s track record is utterly indefensible for a wannabe party leader. But concretely? I fully approve. Because – in the words of Conservative philosopher Edmund Burke - your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement.

Parliament would do a far better job if there were more intelligent and independently-minded MPs prepared to vote in line with their convictions, in place of the interchangeable lobby fodder that so dominates the backbenches today.

'I have today tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons in opposition to the Hayden Phillips proposals on party funding.

‘I take this issue so seriously that I am placing it at the very centre of the debate for the future of our party in this way. I will not stand by and watch Blair destroy our Party. To quote a past Labour leader, I will fight, fight and fight again to save the Party I love.’

I’d concur with the main political points being made here. After Blair took the Labour leadership, there was plenty of speculation that he wished to break the union link. The speculation reached its apex with the notorious Stephen Byers ‘fish supper’ outburst to the press in 1996. So the plans have been ten years in the making.

And after that, the story went rather dead. Somehow, the Blairites never did follow through. But with Blair finally on his way out, it seems he has finally determined to take down the house with him.

Calling comrades Cruddas and Hain. Where do you stand on this one? And oi, Woodley. Oi, Simpson. What about you two?

Update: At the recommendation of Chris Baldwin in the comments box, I’ve just taken a butcher’s at Jon Cruddas’s blog, which I haven't seen since breaking the story of its launch.

The man is doing a good impersonation of a mid-eighties soft leftist, and has this to say on Sir Hayden:

'First off, Labour’s link with trade unionists works. It is good for the party, because it helps keep us rooted in the communities we represent. Secondly, I am going to stick with the Labour Party’s policy – unanimously agreed at our conference - whereby the party itself openly and transparently decides the level of a donation cap. At the end of the day it is not up to the state to interfere with the internal constitutions of independent parties.'

Leading psephologist Anthony King takes one look at the results and declares:

'Neither Michael Meacher nor John McDonnell, who have said they would like to stand, has any significant support among the rank and file.'

Asked ‘in any contest for the Labour leadership, who would you vote for if the following candidates were nominated?’, the punters put Brown on 52% and Miliband on 14%. Meacher and McDonnell scored 6% apiece, while 18% were not sure and 5% would not vote. That’s sobering stuff, although at least the combined left candidate score reaches double figures, which is better than it could have been.

Oh well, look on the bright side. At least Clarke and Milburn will be seriously pissed off. And 35% disagreed with the statement that ‘to go one winning elections, Labour needs to govern from the centre, not to adopt more leftwing policies’. That said, 55% agreed.

For the deputy job, first preferences go 25% for Benn, 16% for Johnson, 11% for Harman, 9% for Hain, a disappointing 6% for Cruddas and just 5% for Blears.

Update: Thanks to Tim in the comments box for pointing out that the figures as published by the Torygraph do not break down the results between party members and affiliated trade unionists. But the YouGov website does, revealing:

’Amongst party members 69% would vote for Brown to 20% for Miliband, 8% for John McDonnell and 3% for Michael Meacher. In a straight fight between Brown and Miliband, Brown would win 70% to 30%. Amongst trade unionists the two left-wing candidates have more support, but Brown remains the runaway leader - Brown 63%, Miliband 15%, Meacher 13%, McDonnell 10% - in a straight fight it would be 64% to 36%.’

http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/951

Three to one sounds more like the ratio of support for McDonnell and Meacher that I would have expected among individual members.

But the maths don’t quite stack up. Surely John is averaging 9% between the two sections of the electoral college? Presumably – for whatever reason – the pollsters have stripped out the don’t knows, and the newspaper hasn’t.

Over at politicalbetting.com, the speculation is that last week's rebellion over Trident has bolstered the chances of John McDonnell getting on the Labour leadership ballot paper:

'A comment on today’s thread by Pimpernel, who is usually well-informed about Labour affairs, suggests that the left-winger who was first to declare for the leadership, John McDonnell, looks set to get the required 44 nominations to be on the ballot alongside Brown.

'Pimpernel wrote: “I was told last night that John McDonnell is almost certain now to get enough nominations to stand, but that Meacher is likely to fall short. This was from a Brown supporter who is close to the PLP.”

'Clearly this week’s big rebellion over Trident has made many in the left and centre left to be even more determined that Brown should face a challenge when the contest is launched in a few weeks time'

If the theory pans out, then it's quite clear that the Labour left has got a political job of work on its hands this spring.

{Hat tip: Dan in the comments box]

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-

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.

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.

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.

I write to you today in a strictly personal capacity. I have not discussed this with John or his parliamentary office.

John McDonnell (pictured) is the only candidate with a consistent record, who has opposed all of New Labour's unpopular policies, who has a coherent alternative policy vision, and who has widespread support right across the labour movement.

I am therefore asking you to pledge your support for the letter below. Over the coming weeks, I will be collecting the names of a huge number of party activists, supporters, councillors, NEC members, PPCs, trade unionists and community workers and campaigners. The letter will be published in a national newspaper. Please state which CLP and/or trade union you are a member of and any relevant position you hold. You will be included in a personal capacity unless you state otherwise.

I’m minded to sign up. At least Harriet Harman will no longer be able disingenuously to insist that she hasn’t heard of any potential leadership bid. But is this tactically the right move for the left? Thoughts, please.