More on McDonnell's bid
- 14 Jul 06, 08:00 AM
The Idle Scrawl's moby has been burning his ear off since the news that John McDonnell MP is to launch a leadership bid today. Let's be clear, it is not exactly yet a "bid" in the sense that it is not designed to spark an election now. I am told McDonnell would get about 20 nominations if he stood today - he needs 72 on Labour Party rules. In addition it is still intended that the question of whether to stand a candidate will be put formally to the LRC on 22 July. There is still some residual support for standing Michael Meacher but the sentiment I have heard expressed from McDonnell backers is as follows: since there is no middle ground between the left and the Brown loyalists, standing a less left wing candidate does not gain you anything but loses you clarity of critique of Blair-Brown. And since the big unions are not going to support anyone but Brown...Ahh, but there is a sting in the tail of this...
The CWU conference (it is the 5th biggest Labour affiliate) voted not to support any candidate who a) supports Royal Mail privatisation and b) does not support the Trade Union Freedom Bill (pioneered by McDonnell). If this position spreads through 'tmovement it will make it hard for Brown to garner endorsements from the big four if there is a contest.
It's been a while since the Labour movement actually mattered in mainstream politics, so worth spelling out what to expect. McDonnell and supporters will go on the stump inside the CLPs aiming to get endorsements; likewise throughout union branches. McDonnell will stray freely across that no-man's land where Labour and non-Labour left campaigns mix: I understand he will speak at a big trade union conference organised by Respect in November. Likewise PCS leader Mark Serwotka will speak on McDonnell's platforms. Though the PCS is not affiliated to Labour, McDonnell is chair of its parliamentary representation group and addressed its executive committee last week.
It puts Brown's supporters on the back foot because while, inside the Party, they are having to spell out a slightly more left wing future, to the public Gordon is having to come on like Friedrich Hayek on steroids - as part of the deal with Blair to get him to let go.
Meanwhile the big four unions are to host a major fringe meeting at the conference in September entitled "New Leadership, New Policies". Not so snappy but the intent is clear. And the existence of the McDonnell background noise a) strengthens their hand in negotiations during the changeover; b) begins to set the agenda for the debate on policy they are having with Brown.
(By the way they are not totally wedded to Brown: as one senior big four personage put it to me: "Remember Margaret Thatcher came out of nowhere: our main aim is to set out the policies we want and see what comes out of the mire". That is coded language for: if anybody "big" who has been vaguely left wing before fancies doing a Tony Benn-style Lazarene conversion to broad leftism, and does not sound like a speak-your-weight machine, you know our numbers. I ran the words Peter Hain past the person who told me this, and it provoked a discouraging sigh.)
So I am now getting ready to go and witness McDonnell's appointment with destiny on College Green. Kamikaze job though it is, it may change the political atmosphere.
Meanwhile, one of his long-standing supporters openly fantasised about a future glorious day when all the besuited people who turned up at the 1996 conference go away and the party's dress sense reverts once again to the tweed jacket and the kipper tie.
For the record the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs are:
Diane Abbott MP
Dave Anderson MP
John Austin MP
Michael Clapham MP *
Katy Clark MP *
Harry Cohen MP
Frank Cook MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP *
Ann Cryer MP
William Etherington MP
Neil Gerrard MP
Ian Gibson MP
David Hamilton MP *
Kelvin Hopkins MP *
Lynne Jones MP *
Bob Marshall-Andrews MP
John McDonnell MP *
Austin Mitchell MP
Linda Riordan MP
Alan Simpson MP
Dennis Skinner MP
David Taylor MP
Bob Wareing MP *
Mike Wood MP
* denotes also member of the Labour Representation Committee. David Drew MP (Stroud) is in the LRC but not the SCG.
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Interesting, but for those of us outside the Labour Movement and media, could you skip a few of the TLAs?
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Interesting article.
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I also want to add that here in Miami, one of my relatives made more comments about Zidane's Head Butting. Even MSNBC [A US Station] revealed about Video Games based on the head butting.
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I had to laugh at the sight of Diane Abbott on the list of MP's the Socialist Campaign Group. Especially when one considers she sends her son to a private school, a little rich perhaps when she was rather keen to criticse where Tony Blair sent his children to school thou I car'nt rememember him sending them to a school that charged Β£10,000 a year. Thou perhaps all those late nights with right-winger Andrew Neil on Thursday's have turned Abbott into more of a Blairite than she care's to admit?
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Blair's kids went to the London Oratory school, a Roman Catholic school which cost are I expect around the Β£17,000 depending on age and education requirements.
Not exactly something a Labour government which has ruined the education of million, by messing around with it.
Still better to have the kids in that school then clogging up normal education.
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@Robert
Thou it does not really matter, I'm pretty sure that fee's are not charged at the London Oratory school, where the Prime Minister sent both his son's.
Where as Diane Abbott the so-called left-winger and anti-Blairite! Sent her son to City of London Boys School which charges Β£10,000-a-year. It just amuses me a great deal the way that Andrew Neil likes to spin Abbott as a left wing firebrand on This Week, when she is nothing more than a hypocrite.
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Abbott-bashing for hypocrisy here fails to reference the fact that she admits to this instance of hypcrisy, accepts its condemnation, and even condemns it herself.
"You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical." (Abbott, October 2003)
This sideshow isn't relevant, and I can forgive any woman putting her son's choice ahead of her political beliefs. I imagine her critics can too, but prefer cynically to use it as ammunition to undermine her.
I care more about what a politician does in politics than in the lives of his or her children. If I was interested in such detritus, I'd go and watch Eastenders. I hear Ruby Allen's started seeing a wrong-un.
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So anyway, comments about John McDonnell's bid?
I consider myself a real Labour voter who has seen a party of good principles sell itself for power. That may have been necessary at the time as now is time for change again and this guy and his backers have those real labour movement principles that I have. Since Labour were elected I've voted Lib-Dem, Green and Respect as I've found their policies on one issue or another closer to my ideals. While I am realistic enough to realise that many of my views are far too left for today's media orientated/choreographed political debate I believe that all those of a vaguely left persuasion should UNITE to get us at least moving in the the right direction. I was an activisit for Respect at the last local elections but I am going to join the Labour party merely to vote for John (should he get the required number of mp's on his side). I urge anyone with left politics to do the same even if we all then return to a more radical activism. At least we'll be starting with a better view. Good Luck John. Get on the telly more, if the national news won't listen get on the regional programs.
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