The Socialist Party yesterday launched its campaign for the Welsh Assembly elections. The organisation is standing under the name ‘Socialist Alternative – Defend our Health Service’. Here are the main points of its manifesto, according to the BBC website:

’It wants the NHS to be "rebuilt" and "free at the point of use, and under democratic control" …

‘It also demands that no English-medium schools are shut to create Welsh-medium ones. Instead, it wants new schools to be built.’

Respect MP George Galloway is weighing up a number of options for his political future, according to Scottish newspaper The Herald. Earlier speculation that he will not stand for Westminster again now appears to be wide of the mark.

Although he is committed not to seek a second term in Bethnal Green and Bow, other possibilities could include taking on Jack Straw in Blackburn, former SWPer Jim Fitzpatrick in Poplar and Canning Town, or even a seat in Scotland.

The primary option, however, appears to be a challenge to Mr Straw, now Justice Secretary and who was Foreign Secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

"The main things for George to consider who he stands against are: his chances of winning and whether his opponent his someone who has broken from Old Labour and deserves their comeuppance, which is what Respect is all about," he added.

Some obvious questions here. Blackburn is a long way away from London, probably the only place in the country where the SWP can mobilise in sufficient numbers to wage a serious traditional election campaign. So is the idea really a runner?

And if Scotland it is, will it be on a Respect ticket, or will Galloway come to some sort of deal with Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity?

LABOUR leftwinger Diane Abbott may face a far left challenger in the impending general election. I’m reliably told that the Socialist Party is considering putting up a candidate in Hackney North as part of its Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition umbrella body, although at this stage, no final decision has been taken.

As someone who has backed similar campaigns in the relatively recent past, I’m the last person who can credibly argue that such a tactic is somehow inadmissible. When the Labour Party was expelling supporters of the entrist Militant Tendency, the SP’s forerunner, in the 1980s and early 1990s, it consistently argued that it should run candidates under its own ticket.

Now that the SP is doing so, Labour has no logical grounds for complaint. As an independent entity, the SP has every right to advance its own interests in this fashion. Moreover, Ms Abbott’s leftist credentials have been somewhat sullied in recent years, most notably by her decision to educate her son privately.

Hackney should be promising territory. Historically there is a strong far left tradition, and to this day, there are probably several thousand communists, anarchists and Trots in the borough. If it puts in the effort, the SP can reasonably expect several hundred votes, and may even reach the sunlit uplands of four-figure support.

Ms Abbott is sitting on a 7,427 vote majority. Even with the expected swing against Labour, she should keep the seat, although any Trot intervention will obviously not be helpful.

Yet I note that Diane is on the list of two dozen or so candidates endorsed by the Labour Representation Committee. For the sake of the wider left, the SP might like to bear that in mind when deciding whether to go ahead on this one.