THE NEARLY MAN - AND WHY I'M GLAD HE LOST

Today I am back at work after a few days at Labour Party Conference and few days battling a seriously vile sore throat and chest infection. There was a lot of it around in Manchester......with various speakers and politicians losing their voices.
I bailed out early Tuesday morning but hotfooted it home to catch the Leader's Speech live at 2,30pm. What to make of it all. ..
In the two days since there has been ad nauseam footage of the Miliband drama. While in Europe workers take to the streets and set fire to vehicles in protest at the cuts., here journalists comment on David Miliband's Paul Smith shirt and obsess on the brotherly psycho-drama
On my return to the office this morning, otherwise sane people were nodding sagely and warning that Labour was on its way back to the 1980's.
As Ed Miliband himself might say, come off it !
Labour's new Leader is mildly left of centre yet even this is too much for a media so used to neo-liberal New Labour that they are hurling bile and venom in a way not seen since the Kinnock years. A timely reminder that even pale pink social democracy is too much for the establishment.
But Labour simply cannot allow the howls of anguish to send the Party back on a right trajectory.
The Blairites are causing mischief enough and doing all they can to undermine Ed Miliband without us on the left piling in and heaping coals before we know who is in the Cabinet and what policies are likely to emerge in the coming months.
We know it won't be an agenda of mass mobilisation against the cuts, we know the "Red Ed" tag is a nonsense.
But we should also recognise that we have a job to do and we are in a beter place to do it than for a long time.
Nearly 40,000 people have joined the Labour Party since May and that for many a left agenda is awhat they are seeking and what they perceive the Labour Party to now be returning to. The fact they are actually wronmg does not mean we can't put the pressure on from below to make it so
The famously sentimental Neil Kinnock apparently roared with glee that "We've got out Party back" at the first Tribune rally for aeons . It was, to say the least of it, over-egging the pudding.
But the rejection of Blair's heir must be a positive for the grassroots - and a cause for cautious optimism.

A FOOTNOTE ON JON CRUDDAS......

A few years ago I got a fair amount of gyp for daring to suggest Jon Cruddas was not the aspiring born-again leftie he was cracked up to be.
But JC's complete misunderstanding of the zeitgeist and recent backing for David Miliband showed just how right many of us were to be sceptical about his so-called credentials.
Well, what goes around comes around and I learn from an impeccable source that Cruddas did not come clean about his backing for the pro-Iraq Miliband until VERY late in the day.
I also learn that several close former allies on the left were tearing their hair out at his support for New Labour's chosen heir. They regard it as abetrayal and want no more truck......
I am no cheerlleader for Ed Miliband - but let us at least give him some credit for avowing a different stance on civil liberties and speaking out against Iraq. And let's remember that "leading left winger" Cruddas voted to lock people up on the 42 days issuye , was in favour of ID cards and of course voted for the war. Hope he shuts the door on his way out........

CURATE'S EGG

Just sat through the 90-odd minutes of Ed Miliband's speech which, like the curate's egg, was good in parts..

Let's start with the best bits. Apology for Iraq and condemnation of what's happening in Palestine. For that, much thanks, Great to see Ministers who backed calls for war squirming in their seats.

Civil liberties too. A refreshing change from Alan "Attila" Johnson's recent pronouncements.

On immigration, unclear. Great to condemn the BNP but not so great not to clarify whether in favour of caps or not......Obviously riled by the "Red Ed" media bashing, the speechwriters went out of their way to quell alarms so abolition of Clause 4 mentioned (quite unnecessary) , paeans to New Labour and grandstanding to Mail on trade unions also clear ploy. On the cuts, disappointing but expected. No-one at the top is disputing the need for any cuts - which is what many of us would like them to be doing. But at least there are calls for investment and regulation of the banks and bonuses.

Overall, then, middle-of-the-road social democracy. Which is what anyone with an ounce of nouse would have expected from the mildly-more-left Miliband

Bizarrely, the BBC was still desperate to left it up. And no doubt the papers wlll continue to caricature someone who 20 years ago would have been on the right of the Labour Party as a crypto-Marxist.

Presentationwise, it wasn't slick, he faltered at times , and the endless repetition of phrases like "new generation" and "let's be honest" was deeply irritating and unecessary.

BUT it was sincere, in places brave, and PR-wise the decision to work the hall with hundreds of handshakes afterwards was an inspired move. No T Benn, but no T Blair, either. Which has to be a plus.

POLL BOOST FOR LABOUR......

Good news, despite the hysterical media bashing of Labour.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/28/ed-miliband-poll-labour-conservatives

RED ED BAITING

I'm back in Hebden due to recurrence of nasty virus and also as cheese-paring on conference pass meant I would not have got into auditorium for the Leader's Speech which I can watch here live anyway.
Judging from the bile emerging from the media in the past few days, one would imagine Ralph, not Ed, Miliband had been elected by the Party.
I am tired of reading that Party members didn't vote for him, and that union leaders are delirious with joy at somehow pulling a fast one and dispatching Miliband D to the dustbin.
Yes the margin was tiny. But the Blairite lost. And it's time his supporters either got over it or walked away if they can't stomach a moderate social democrat in charge.
Having correctly predicted the winner, I now predict David Miliband will choose not to stand in the Shadow Cabinet. I think that would be the right choice as the last thing any of us want is fraternal soap opera again for the next 10 years.
It is extraordinary that the unions are being lambasted for "wrecking" the campaign of someone who had so many rich friends he had around 10 times more cash than any of the other candidates to throw around. The media were behind him, the Party establishment. Yet he lost.
He lost because a large proportion of the Party simply could not stomach a Blair continuum and Mandelson's ill-judged jibes ( which probably cost him the leadership)
Yesterday morning I bumped into a former Yorkshire MP and over a cuppa we agreed that although Ed is not left in the sense we would favour, his election gives us hope.
Later, at a lunchrime fringe meeting, I heard Ed Balls present the case for not slashing and burning everything in sight. It was a modest reappraisal - not anywhere near as far as the Labour left would like to go. But it's a start, a window, and a means of levering Labour away from the neo-liberlaism which has all but destroyed us. Which is why the media are briefing against a Balls Shadow Chancellorship
At last night's Campaign Group meeting, MP after MP pledged to do their best to restore Labour values and help the Party walk away from the betrayals of the Blair years.Let us hope that Ed Mliband means it when he says the era of New Labour is past. And let's hope he will ignore the pleas from the likes of Alan Johnson to tack to the right. And start listening to the left

ED MILIBAND BY A WHISKER.....

I should be at work today but I am dosing myself up with antibiotics and paracetamol in a bid to ward off a disgusting lurgy which came from nowhere to knock me for six.

Bugs or no bugs, I will be in Manchester tomorrow for Labour Party Conference and I plan to be in the conference hall when the announcement is made re next Leader.

Not because I am a gung-ho supporter of either Miliband, but because it is an Occasion and one which should be very interesting. A journalist is never off duty.....

Reading between the lines in today's papers, it is clear that the David Miliband camp is already briefing for defeat. Mandelson's poisonous interventions at the weekend probably put the last nail in the coffin.

But even had he stayed quiet there is no mood in the Labour Party for Blairism Mark Two.

The media are already sharpening their claws and risibly suggesting Ed Miliband's politics are closer to Ralph's than his brothers. If he does get elected no doubt the Mail will be tagging him as a Marxist. Not so. To put it mildly

Ed Miliband represents a strand of social democracy which is firnly in the centre. Under Blair, we moved so sharply to the right it can be painted as far more radical than it is.

However, I have long said it was a key task to stop David Miliband and see off the Mandelson Campbell cabal . I cannot for the life of me fathom what the likes of Dennis Skinner were doing when they endorsed him.Cruddas, showing his increasing disengagement from the grassroots, also chose the wrong horse.

Could be of course I am utterly wrong and the elder Miliband will storm to victory. But somehow I doubt it.....

THE BLACK STUFF...

When Alan Bleasdale's seminal Play For Today was screened in 1978 I was exactly the sort of prim and rather priggish student portrayed in the 1978 drama. It was quite common then for lefty students adorned with badges to hitch across the UK to save rail fares. Whether I would have got into a van packed with navvies is debatable but I certainly recognised myself - and the grim late 1970s - in a play which has stood the test of time supremely and which was shown on BBC 4 last night.

Despite the comedy, it showed a world which many would like to think had disappeared. In some ways, it has.

The smoking chimneys of Middlesborough are now demolished yet this is the town predicted most to suffer from the oncoming cuts which are going to sweep us back to the 1970s in a way which some thought unthinkable in the boom years. Capitalism still rules.

Those most likley to bear the brunt of it all are still the people at the bottom.

What has changed starkly is the consumerism and expectations which have seen millions burden themselves with debt in an attempt to emulate the rich.

Yozzer Hughes didn't even have a bank account - not unusual in those days. Yet he gambled all in a foolish bid to become the boss.

The message of Bleasdale's play was that those who have will always defeat those who don't.

It was a world of desperation and mean streets .

Liverpool itself, then a near-derelict skyscape of unemloyment and real poverty, may have changed in some ways beyond recognition. But the roots of Bleasdale's polemic are still there.

What was also striking was the notion such a political and serious drama was once screened at prime time on BBC 1 as a Play For Today.

Earlier in the day, I switched on the telly randomly and caught the Manchhester auditions for the X Factor. Largely a parade of sad, untalented people determined to "live the dream" of overnight success which these days is the Nirvana for a generation fed a relentless diet of celebrity culture and pap television. For most, it was an exercise in humiliation by the Botoxed and seriously wealthy.

Yozzer Hughes and his mates wanted to "be somebody" too. Unlike the X Factor competitors, they just wanted the chance to do some hard graft and earn a decent living. The subsequent Boys From The Blackstuff series showed the waste and the tragedy of the Thatcher years.

It is that world which the policies of Clegg and Cameron are about to deliver us back to.

I doubt any TV station would today have the courage to screen drama os similar weight.

I wonder if any of the Liberal Democrats swanning round the Conference Centre in Liverpool caught it. And had the grace to hang their heads in shame.

MANDELSON AND DAVID MILIBAND

Peter Mandelson's astonishingly nasty outburst about Ed Miliband will deliver the Labour leadership to him.
It is surely a sign of rampant panic that the opposing camp are unleashing attack dogs uttering pronouncements which would shame the Tories on "scroungers and immigration."
One wonders, in hindsight, whether Mandy deliberately kept Gordon Brown in power to ensure a New Labour victory. for whoever took over after defeat
The spoke in the wheel is the leadership process which delivers a third of the votes to members and a third to trade unions.
In the past week I have heard rumours that the vast majority the second preferences are all going to Ed .
At this stage in the game, most of us have already voted. I urge those who haven't to help ensure we start a new phase in Labour's history - unfettered by people like Mandelson who should now be consigned to history. We know ed Miliband is only mildly to the left of his brother.
But the symbolic defeat os the ultra New Labour candidate can help us build support for policies which will signal a break with the Blairite years.

I WARN YOU NOT TO GROW OLD....

Two weeks from today Labour will have a new Leader . Chances are it will be one of the Millibands. Looks like "Red Ed" (irony) might make it by a whisker but whoever wins needs to act fast.
While the endless hustings roadshow has been crossing the country, the Tories have been using the hiatus to build a mindset that they have no choice but to make obscene, draconian cuts .
Using Churchillian rhetoric, they have somehow managed to hoodwink millions into thinking there is no alternative. There is. It's called socialism and an alternative economic strategy which cracks down on the tax dodgers and the City and the business community who continue to profit while we are led into a maelstrom of misery.
The problem is that all the leadership candidates have colluded in this unspeakable policy programme by going along with the cuts consensus. The gist is that Labour recognises cuts have to be made - but we will be nicer about it.
So far, £15billion worth of welfare benefit cuts are coming. This will impact on the most vulnerable in society and, as today's Observer reveals, the plan is to cut harder and deeper.
So far, most of the PLP, fixated by the leadership contest, has stayed quiet.
Most of the media goes along with the myth that the Government is doing its inevitable duty in the national interest.
To the point where my once catatonic commute at 6.30am to work in Leeds is one of wide-awake fury as I listen to the BBC Today programme touting out the line that cuts have to be made.
The tragedy is we are wasting billions on wars and weapons of mass devastation.
We could cut Trident - saving around £76billion at a stroke. We could also save plenty of money by bringing the troops home from Afghanistan. Yet only 14 Labour MPs voted to do so at a shamefully ill-attended debate in the Commons.
If we are to win back support, and credibility , Labour has to change tack. And grassroots members can be part of that change.
Whoever becomes the Leader 13 days from today, they have to be told in no uncertain terms that without real Opposition to the cuts, without a democratic socialist alternative, we are letting our people down and colluding with a Government which thinks it can do what it likes - and get away with it.
At the Labour Party conference, it's time to make our voices heard and put pressure on from below via the trade unions and local campaigns to show our opposition to these cuts and start nailing the lie that it is somehow in the national interest to consign millions to poverty and go beyond what Thatcher would ever have dared do. We can all be part of that process.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/11/george-osborne-slash-Assickness-benefits

SERVANTS OF THE PARTY - NOT THE ESTABLISHMENT

Andrew Rawnsley has a piece in today's Observer which, predictably, backs David Miliband for the leadership. Why? Because, according to Rawnsley, he is of the Blairite mould which believes elections are won and lost on the centre ground.
The point not made is that New Labour moved so far to right post-2001 that it was in territory so akin to the Tories that few could tell the difference.
Rawnsley's only concern is winning back the support of Middle England. The fact that millions of core, working-class voters walked away bothers him not one jot. He is at the very epicentre of the media establishment who lectured the Party for years - while it collapsed and died all around us.
None of the five leadership candidates is of the stature or experience of previous generations. Robin Cook would have wiped the floor with all of them Likewise Tony Benn, John Smith, Neil Kinnock and Harold Wilson. But we have to make a choice. Realpolitik ordains that, in the end, it is about one of the Milibands. Some I know are refusing to vote for either.
Rawnsley is an elitist. He describes Jon Cruddas as being of the "intelligent left" which presumably means those who don't back Miliband D are complete numpties. There was nothing intelligent about Cruddas swinging back to his comfort zone. Or disappointing the many supporters who had faith in him as a future Leader.
We should, Rawnsley says, learn lessons from the creed of Tony Blair who won three elections in a row.
It was not Blair personally who won those elections. It was Labour. Labour voted for by people who thought it represented them - a broad coalition who finally walked away disenchanted and disillusioned with Labour's last years in power. And the rapid trajectory to the right which Blair pursued in his final term
To win them back, we do not once again become courtiers of the City, we do not demonise immigrants, we do not allow the poor and jobless to be victimised , and we do not advocate wars and nuclear weapons and we take on the might of the people at the top.
I do not think the sight of the permatanned, Botoxed Blair touting his book around and hoovering up mililions is an inspiring one. It is time for him to retire from the stage, and time for the Labour Party to choose a leader who will at least not embrace the worst aspects of the ideology which it will take us many years to change .
Don't waste your vote in this election - vote for Ed Miliband second preference. However different one might like things to be, we have to start somewhere. Dispatching Blair's chosen heir is at least a start.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/05/blair-miliband-labour-leadership

A JOURNEY.....

I got back yesterday from Heaven On Earth - which is County Mayo. I was staying near Westport and can honestly say this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is also my genetic home. I loved it.

So- back to England and many thanks for the messages I am getting of support for the NEC elections.

The LRC has two candidates. Myself and Christine Shawcroft. In the absence of a Grassroots Alliance, I am voting for the candidates i think will best serve the interests of ordinary members.

These are not high-profile politicos like Ken Livingstone and Oona King who frankly are using the NEC platforms as a platform for their mayoral campaigns. They are: Christine Shawcroft, Peter Kenyon and John Wiseman.

Back the LRC two - and vote for those who really are of the grassroots and will work for us.

A MESSAGE FROM VICE-CHAIR OF THE CENTRE LEFT GRASSROOTS ALLIANCE

Before I leave for Ireland today and a well-earned rest, I feel compelled to point out, as a Vice-Chair of the CLGA, that for this year's NEC election purposes it does not exist.
This is a great shame but I felt it needed clearing up as most CLPs will be circulated in the next couple of days with a leaflet from "Grassroots Labour." This is in fact the CLPD/Compass slate and it would have been helpful if they had used that tag .
The confusion needs to be sorted out as myself and Peter Kenyon of Save The Labour Party and the CLGA are not on the list. However, the other constituents of the CLGA are the LRC, STLP, Labour Briefing, Left Women's Network and the Socialist Youth Network.
All of the above have expressed their support for me and Christine Shawcroft.
I would urge all activists who want to be well represented to vote for Peter as he has done sterling work for many years - long before he was elected to the NEC.
Having cleared that up, I have a long jouney to the West of ireland and am packing my case. A good Bank Holiday to all.......

BLOOD BROTHERS

To say I'm angry is putting it mildly. While the ConDems cut fuel allowance, tax credits, welfare benefits and come out with the most reactionary Budget in decades we poor souls in the Labour Party witness the spectacle of a Labour leadership contest which has become a farce.
Remember all that hooey about it being a pluralist contest which would give everyone a chance to vote for candidates of all shades of opinion.
We might as well have cut to the chase three months ago because from beginning to end it has beena two-horse race.
The latest twist in this endless saga is that "leading left winger" Jon Cruddas has come out for David Miliband. The very same Jon Cruddas once touted as a future left-of-centre leader.
Now returned, strangely to the Blairite fold.
It beggars belief that anyone allegedly left-of-centre in the Party would back a candidate who wants more of the same policies which have consigned Labour to opposition. The same policies which will give Cameron a landslide at the next election because there is nothing whatsoever to distinguish David Miliband from CamClegg .
What is even more cynical is that it was Cruddas who enabled Diane Abbott to get on the ballot. Likewise David Miliband . Left cover for both while, obviously, the game was to deliver another Blairite leader.
Now you know and I know there is very little to distinguish any of the candidates who have a hope of winning from each other.
That said, a victory for David Miliband will be, symbolically, a disaster for all of us who want some semblance of change. So, like most people I know my second preference will go to Ed Miliband.
What angers me most of all is that the left were denied a chance to vote for the candidate of their choice - and have a real debate with a credible contender
These Machiavellian right-wingers not only denied John McDonnell the chance to get on the ballot, they are trying to ensure we have Blair Mark Two. UNITE has answered Cruddas's call by urging members and trade unionists to vote for Ed Miliband. They are right to do so.
But Jon Cruddas has blown whaetver left credentials he had ( and I never thought he had any anyway) right out of the water. Hobson's choice - but sadly our only one if we want to rescue Labour .

BROTHERS IN ARMS

I have been away in Whitby for a few days and come back to some important tasks before I head for Ireland on Saturday.
Task One was to get in touch with all the CLPs in the country for the NEC hustings.
Which i have now done and thanks for the messages of support I am getting.
As the final countdown begins for the Labour leadership, it is clear the final choice will be between the Miliband brothers.
David Miliband's latest statements confirm that if he becomes leader there will be no retrenchment from New Labour policy and he will go for the centre-right ground. It is therefore very important Miliband Senior is stopped in his tracks. I am sure we will all vote accordingly.

RAMSAY MAC WOULD BE PROUD....

But most Labour Party members are surely horrified - if not surprised - at the spectacle of Frank Field, John Hutton, Alan Milburn and David Blunkett all getting into bed with the ConDem "National Government" . Milburn and Hutton, arch-Blairite to the core, were inevitably going to jump ship as they quit Parliament the minute Opposition and the absence of fat Ministerial salaries went. Blunkett, centrist though he might have become, is rather more of a disappointment. The word loyalty clearly means nothing to these people in their pursuit of wealth, power and influence. The sad thing is that two of them are still, in name only, Labour MPs.

THE SUMMER'S GONE......

And all the leaves are dying.......which kind of fits the bill as far as this year is concerned.
My strategy for coping with what has been an awful year is to read copiously, sort the house out and indulge myself with nice food, beauty products irresistible to women of a certain age and keep on keeping on as much as I can but there is no denying as autumn fast approaches my mood is not a good one.
This week I was asked to do 1500 words for the Yorkshire Evening Post on Macmillan Cancer Support - very glad to be able to boost their PR fir the World's Biggest Coffee Morning in September but it is not a great way to stop thinking about how much people have to go through - and how the spectre of illness, once it has touched one's family, just does not go away.
Those who have not yet faced losing loved ones (lucky them) live life in a way which is irredeemable to anyone who has seen mortality. And what it means.
I find I am angry. Unreasonably so. A lot of the time. I wonder why humans are forced to go through unreasonable suffering when animals are humanely put out of their misery.
I sometimes also wonder what the point of life is - though I am very far from thinking that at some stage mine will not get better.
It has been hard at times to summon up the will for mundane tasks or mobilising myself politically. But I'm doing what I can because I know just crawling under the duvet will make me feel worse.
Having lost my mother, elder sister and now my dad to awful cancers, there is also the selfish fear of an inevitable fate that I will fall prey to similar.
Not being morbid, but realistic.
But there are good days too, and in time there will be more.
However, to anyone else out there also coping with bereavement, my fullest sympathies.

JIMMY REID AND KENNETH WILLIAMS

I meant to write something earlier in the week about Jimmy Reid.

It was hard to imagine him as an old man of 78 as to those of us who remember him wiping the floor with the ultra reactionary Kenneth Williams on Parkinson he will be forever the young and charismatic firebrand of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.

In those days, chat shows were not just an excuse to plug the latest book, film or TV series. Parkinson on a Saturday night was a highlight for millions who liked the intelligent chat and star guests Parky was able to command.

One night the usual Hollywood contingent couldn't make it and the Carry On star began a tirade against trade unions and three weeks later he was invited back to debate with Reid. His performance was excruciating - Reid's was brilliant.

Jimmy Reid should have been a giant in the labour movement. He was a great orator, would ( after he left the Communist Party) indeed have been a great Labour leader but never got the breaks which would have taken him to high office. Right man. Wrong time. Sadly he shifted over the years, wrote an iffy column for the Daily Mirror, and joined the SNP some years ago.

But his contributions to the cause in the long years before were head and shoulders above most in the current political generation.

STRAW BACKS DAVID MILIBAND

The ludicrous nature of the PLP nominations process is again highlighted today as Jack Straw reveals he is voting for David Miliband.
The MP for Blackburn and former Home Secretary was among the band (including D Miliband himself) who gallantly rode to the rescue of Diane Abbott and got her on the ballot paper.
As the September 1 deadline for the ballot papers going out aproaches, one can only ask why?
Even on the left, the ranks are divided. I note with some surprise that the Irish Post has a double-page spread from Campaign Group member Linda Riordan explaining why she is voting for Ed Miliband
The irony is that the only MPs who are likely to vote for Diane are those who originally supported John McDonnell. And not all of those transferred their vote.
And some of those who did, like Linda, don't seem to be exactly supportive.
I think Diane will get a reasonable vote from the constituencies but she was set up at the outset by MPs who never had any intention of voting for her.
However thrilling it might have been at the outset to have been parachuted onto the ballot, I bet she's not feeling so euphoric now.
The sad fact is she has been used as a token nod to inclusive politics in a contest where the winner was always going to be white, male, and middle-class I don't think it's good enough. Next time, we have to do it better. And really mean what we say about being inclusive

NEC SUPPORTING STATEMENT

The LRC is backing two candidates for the NEC - myself and Christine Shawcroft.I'm going to be doing my best over the next few weeks to maximise my vote and give the left a real say in the elections. If you support my candidacy, please download the leaflet which is now on the LRC website and let's get our message out across the country.More here...

http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/files/LRC_susanpress.pdf

PAST LIFE

Today over to Manchester to collect a box of photos and family memorabilia.
Will i ever play the recorder again? Probably not. but I'm keeping it anyway along with tatttered exercise books and school reports. Were the 1960's another age? Seems that way, looking at the First Communion photos of 30-odd little girls in veils and white dresses. Most of whose names I can still remember. A far-off, innocent time.
Even my graduation photo is now 30 years old but I've hung it in the front room as a memento of times when university education did not put students in hock for the rest of their lives.
The Coalition's latest proposals for a graduate tax are nothing short of scandalous.They will mean fees will rocket through the roof.