Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and the left



Jeremy Corbyn and hundreds of supporters in Newcastle. Picture: the Mirror.

 

New Labour orthodoxies, dominant in the Labour Party for at least two decades, are crumbling.

Political figures from the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - those former prime ministers themselves and Jack Straw, Alan Johnson and Alastair Campbell - have shrieked their disapproval of Jeremy Corbyn. Alongside numerous centre-left commentators and columnists, these political grandees have warned that his victory in the Labour leadership contest would be a disaster, a lurch to the unelectable left and a throwback to the 1980s.

But all the evidence is that their pleas are going unanswered, as Labour Party members and registered supporters look set to elect an uncompromisingly left wing candidate as leader. The panic and fear of the New Labour establishment have been matched by remarkable popular enthusiasm for Corbyn.

There have been huge rallies nationwide.  The surge in numbers of members and supporters for Labour has been primarily driven by enthusiasm for Corbyn. It looks likely that even the exclusion of some members and supporters will not prevent him being declared the victor on 12 September.

The success of Corbyn’s campaign has taken everyone by surprise, including the man himself and those around him. The idea was to put across left wing policies and shift the debate to the left, but as momentum has developed Corbyn has become the clear frontrunner.

The Tories are divided over how to respond, but the shrewder Tories recognise that Corbyn can pull the whole of British politics to the left. Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement, by her own reckoning, was Tony Blair and New Labour. Getting the main opposition party to adopt the same neoliberal doctrines was the mark of ideological victory. That centre left is now in apparent meltdown, being increasingly challenged by a growing and assertive left wing.

The decay of the old orthodoxy is most obvious in the popularity of Corbyn’s rejection of cuts and privatisation. Policies like restoring free university education, renationalising rail and energy industries, a public investment bank, increasing taxes on the rich, a major programme of house building and rent controls are outside the accepted terms of official political debate.  

Many of the most virulent responses, though, have focused on foreign policy issues like withdrawing from the US-led NATO alliance, scrapping Trident replacement , solidarity with Palestine, and refusing participation in further military assaults on the Middle East. The adoption of a foreign policy firmly tied to the US has for a long time been a core part of the Westminster consensus. That is now under threat.

 

Predictions and reality

Most people agreed on a number of predictions prior to May’s general election, should there be a Tory government. One prediction was that there would be widespread demoralisation and passivity among opponents of austerity. This has turned out to be broadly wrong.

The shock and upset at the election outcome swiftly gave way to anger and a determination to stop the Tories. The greatest expression of this was the People’s Assembly national demonstration on 20 June, and there have been scores of local protests expressing the same mood.

Another prediction was that Labour would shift to the right, with a Blairite takeover on the back of the dominant interpretation being that Labour had – under Ed Miliband – steered too far to the left. This was indeed the initial response, with Blairite politicians and commentators responsible for a deluge of calls for Labour to become ‘more credible’, to promote ‘economic competence’, and to obsess over the supposed ‘centre ground’. Yet that initial dominant response has swiftly been overtaken by more left-wing interpretations and proposals.

Finally, it was assumed that – with another five years until another general election – the focus would naturally shift, for the left, from electoral politics to the movements and trade unions. This has proved partially true. The People’s Assembly demonstration and numerous local protests testify to a shift towards extra-parliamentary action. Nobody is simply hanging on for 2020, aware that it is a distant horizon and conscious of how much damage the Tories can do well before then.

Unexpectedly, though, the anti-austerity and anti-Westminster mood has found an expression in UK-wide electoral politics. This goes much further than the ‘Green Surge’ which saw a mushrooming Green Party membership in the months prior to the general election.

It accompanies the social movements, rather than supplanting them. Indeed the fact that a general election is so distant means there is thankfully little pressure to simply channel everything into parliamentary politics. Here is what Corbyn himself has written:

'We need a Labour government in 2020, but we cannot wait until then. Labour has to be a strong and constructive opposition in the next five years. If we can win the argument in the country, then perhaps we can force this government to change course.

Our opposition cannot be limited to the parliamentary chambers and TV studios of Westminster. Labour is best when it is a movement, and that movement has swelled to an enthusiastic 600,000 who will decide this leadership election. Once that is over, we face a bigger task: to force this government to abandon its free-market dogma'.

The left is back

The left has long been written out of official politics. The march to the right began after the infamous election defeat of 1983, widely and largely inaccurately interpreted as a result of Labour being too left wing. Blair’s ascendancy to the leadership in 1994 marked an acceleration of the process. The Labour Right loves to accuse the left of being stuck in the 1980s, yet it appears trapped in an everlasting mid-1990s moment.

The rightwards shift was given impetus by the 1983 defeat and by the rise of the SDP, the breakaway from Labour that subsequently merged with the Liberals to form the centrist Liberal Democrats in 1988. But it was also shaped by two other historic developments of great consequence.

One was the series of defeats for the organised working class, with the Tory government and employers defeating the unions in a series of battles. This was symbolised by the defeat of the Miners’ Strike in 1985 and the outcome has been a prolonged period, since the early 1990s, of strike levels being at historically low levels.

The second historic change was the end of the Cold War, with the eastern European revolutions of 1989 followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. This was typically interpreted as at the very least an ideological blow for anyone advocating socialism; more grandly, it was dubbed ‘The End of History’, the end of any significant ideological conflicts and the triumph of neoliberalism internationally.

The current renewal of the left was completely unexpected from the perspective of those in Westminster bubble and the legion of Guardian, Observer and New Statesman commentators so dismayed by Corbynmania. For many of us on the left, the particular manifestation – i.e. the mushrooming support for a left wing Labour leadership candidate – is not something we predicted, but in a deeper sense it’s not such a great shock.

 

The crisis of New Labour

Labour’s right wing no longer has any answers. Disillusionment with New Labour grew during its time in government. Those who trumpet Blair’s supposed electoral magnificence forget that between 1997 and 2001 – even before the invasion of Iraq – millions of voters deserted the party. Labour Party membership fell from 400,000 in 1997 to 190,000 in 2004.

It was during the years of Blair’s premiership that support for the party was eroded. For example, it was this period that laid the basis for the later collapse of Scottish Labour. Much media commentary has focused on its role in the independence referendum, but the roots go deeper. Iraq was the biggest single source of alienation for the party’s traditional supporters throughout Britain, but a wide range of domestic issues played their part too. 

Labour’s right wing is now divided, with 3 candidates for leader. Pure Blairism – in the form of Liz Kendall – is proving unpopular in this leadership election. The Blairite wing remains strong in the Parliamentary Labour Party, but ideological Blairites are a tiny proportion of ordinary members. Blairism never embedded itself the party membership – during New Labour’s years in office the hardline Blairites always relied on a broader right wing in the party falling in line behind them.

But even traditional right wing Labour has failed to rally behind a single candidate, split instead between Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper. Both of them are damaged by association with the old order – in office before 2010 and in opposition after it – and have been made to look like comfortable Westminster insiders, and thus part of the problem, by the rise of a left wing backbencher like Corbyn. Their decision to abstain in the Commons vote on the welfare bill scuppered any chances of appealing to those on the soft left of the party.

Labour’s right wing has nothing distinctive to offer. Why opt for ‘austerity lite’ when you can have the real thing with the Tories? Labour leaders’ acceptance of the Tories’ narrative on austerity, of their framing of the whole debate, has guaranteed it is in a weak position. It has appeared incoherent and vacillating.

This was true in the general election campaign. It could be seen in acting leader Harriet Harman instructing MPs to abstain on billions of pounds of cuts. It is there in the constant flip-flopping of Burnham and Cooper, who (let’s not forget) began their campaigns with an insistent message that Labour must tack to the right.

Discontent in search of an outlet

Political discontent is a long term phenomenon, but it has struggled to find an outlet. It is an international trend. In various European countries, parties to the left of the traditional social democratic parties have had varying degrees of success: Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Left Bloc in Portugal, Die Linke in Germany and so on. In the US, Bernie Sanders is standing on a broadly left-wing ticket for the Democratic presidential nomination and picking up enthusiastic popular support comparable to what we are seeing with Corbyn here.

In the UK this desire for an alternative to social democracy’s capitulation to neoliberalism has not found any outlet in a new left party. In Scotland the SNP has come to largely occupy the political space the Labour Party might have been expected to fill. The independence referendum saw an explosion of political engagement, then the defeat of the Yes camp transformed into a surge in membership for the SNP – to over 100,000 members in a country of under 6 million people. Adopting an anti-austerity, anti-Trident stance helped propel the SNP to a sweeping landslide in May’s general election, taking 56 of Scotland's 59 seats. 

The Green Party witnessed a remarkable growth in membership, with many of its new recruits firmly on the left (though we will probably soon see how Green membership and support is damaged by Labour electing a left wing leader). However, the conservatism of our First Past the Post electoral system has prevented either substantial Green breakthroughs or the emergence of an unambiguously left-wing party. We may have a much more fragmented political landscape than that which had become familiar, but there still hasn’t been anything approaching a coherent left force in electoral politics.

Two other factors have limited the scope for new left challenges on the electoral field. It is when Labour is in office – and disappointing its natural supporters – that people are most likely to seek an alternative. But in conditions of Tory or Tory-led government there remains the powerful pull of sticking with Labour, whatever its weaknesses.

The other key factor is the continuing allegiance of major trade unions to Labour. This is a major part of why British politics has never had an electoral alternative to Labour on a serious scale, unlike in many other European countries.

It has been surprising to see Unite, CWU and especially Unison get behind an authentically left-wing candidate like Jeremy Corbyn, but it partly reflects how alienated the unions (and their members) have become from Labour’s dominant ideas and its direction over the last two decades. Trade unions were ripe for rebellion, having become fed up with not only many Labour policies but the obsession with disavowing any relationship with trade unions to appease the Tories and their newspapers. The unions looking to a Corbyn leadership also, it must be said, reflects weaknesses when it comes to the unions taking collective action: there is an element of looking to a political solution to the problems they face. 

It is almost as if both Pasok and Syriza co-exist in the same party. Labour’s degeneration has not been nearly so acute as that of Pasok – after all, it hasn’t implemented profoundly deep cuts on the working class like its Greek equivalent has. But there has been a long-term process of it becoming a party that fails to offer any real alternative to Tory policies.

The lack of favourable conditions for the creation of a credible alternative means that the thirst for a different kind of politics has – in a way that is unique in European politics – found almost all its electoral expression through the established party of the centre left.  

 

An unexpected phenomenon

It is worth briefly tracing the chain of events that got us here. The fact that Corbyn got on the ballot paper was unexpected because only a tiny minority of the Parliamentary Labour Party support him – a graphic illustration of how utterly the left has been marginalised in the PLP. A further batch of MP nominations was required to get on the ballot.

The nominations came (following grassroots pressure) from right-wing or centrist MPs who agreed to ‘widen the debate’ in the leadership contest. They were undoubtedly conscious of how bad it would look if the leadership contest was unremittingly right wing, with nobody offering a different viewpoint. What they didn’t expect was for Corbyn’s arguments to find any great resonance – a revealing sign of the disconnect between Labour MPs and the wider Party, never mind many people beyond its ranks. 

The Collins Review has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The changes to Labour's procedures for internal elections were meant - from the point of view of the right-wing Labour machine - to do 3 things: weaken the role of trade unions, marginalise the left, and present an image of being fresh, modern and forward-looking with the participation of wider layers of people. These new supporters would presumably be 'centre ground' types (because isn't everyone?) and therefore vote the right (and indeed right-wing) way.

All in all, it would make Labour more like the US Democrats. Yet it has - for them - been a disaster.

They didn't realise just how much the PLP has operated as a conservative bulwark, so getting rid of its one-third vote share was reckless. They underestimated the mood among many people - inside and outside Labour - for something better than the austerity-lite politics of recent years. And they failed to realise their own political exhaustion and shrivelling social base.

Now they are desperately trying everything to undermine what they themselves facilitated: even if it makes their party a laughing stock, prompts widespread references to a 'purge', and undermines their own party's growth. This is all in order to stop a victory for the left – or, considering Corbyn will almost certainly win, to stall the growth of the left which will strengthen Corbyn’s position beyond 12 September.

So, the fact that Corbyn succeeded in getting on the ballot was a turning point and, subsequently, the changes heralded by Collins have proved beneficial to the left. This has enabled the prospect of victory for a left-wing candidate – something which nobody predicted back in May, especially in light of the chronic weaknesses of a marginal, fragmented and disorganised Labour left.

 

How will Labour’s right wing respond to a Corbyn win?

An article by Luke Akehurst, a leading light in the broadly right-wing Labour First faction, is probably the best exposition I've yet seen of how Labour's right wing will seek to undermine Corbyn and the Labour left after 12 September. It is polite and respectful in tone, elegantly masking the determined ruthlessness of the content.

The key motif is 'party unity'. This will be presented as commendable duty, generosity and sacrifice on the part of Labour's right-wingers, emphasising how they are sticking with Labour and being loyal despite hating the leader's policies.

But its real purpose will be to discipline the left, urging insistently that if the left really wants to hold the party together it will recognise that most MPs (and many members)profoundly disagree with Corbyn, so he and his supporters must inevitably compromise.

This will take a number of forms, such as right wing MPs being willing to vote against the whip on issues like NATO and Trident, should it be necessary, because collective responsibility must be balanced with individual principle (and how could Corbyn disagree when he has rebelled hundreds of times?). It will mean thoroughly contesting every proposed policy change because, after all, Corbyn wants grassroots party democracy and debate doesn't he? And so on.

All of this, of course, goes to the heart of the contradictions and problems involved in seeking to 'reclaim Labour' and use the Labour Party as a vehicle for social change. Changing the leadership won't - however radically different that leader's policies to the status quo may be - bring about a sea change in the Labour Party. There are many obstacles, especially in the PLP.

But the obstacles are ultimately rooted in the nature of the Labour Party as a broad church stretching from socialists to social neoliberals (the latter having only modest differences from the Tories). It is a party that seeks governmental office to make modifications - whether tiny or major - to the running of the capitalist system.

The conservative nature of our electoral system has continually guaranteed that it has no serious challenges either to its left or to its right, meaning that it is a very broad church indeed (as neither socialists or its most right-wing elements can succeed with creating an alternative). A split to the right may well happen in the longer term - in the event of a Corbyn victory - but the omens aren't good when we consider the fate of the centrist Liberal Democrats, reduced to a miserable rump of just 8 MPs after participation in a Tory-led coalition government.  

So, what will the Labour left do? It is likely be torn between accepting 'party unity' (and all its concessions) and taking a more radical route which involves mobilising much of the grassroots against the conservatism of the PLP. The latter approach would also be strengthened by an orientation on wider social movements, recognising that what happens beyond parliament (and to a large degree beyond the Labour Party) can boost the left.

It was a little worrying when Corbyn said that he would welcome those from the Right of the Labour Party, even Blairites, into his shadow cabinet. 'Unity' is meaningless if it with those who have fundamentally different politics. How can socialists 'unite' with those who want cuts to welfare, to waste tens of billions on Trident, to make students pay extortionate fees for education, to bomb Syria, and so on?

It was also interesting to note Corbyn’s agreement to rally behind the ‘Yes’ camp in the prospective referendum on British membership of the European Union, despite his well-known reservations. This is hardly surprising in the circumstances - Corbyn has of course come under serious pressure to prove his pro-EU credentials and rule out campaigning for 'Brexit'. EU support is a vitally important priority for Labour's right wing and an issue where the Labour left is sadly rather weak and inconsistent. Nonetheless, it should serve as a reminder of the constraints on left-wing politics to be expected in the event of a Corbyn victory.

Corbyn and the wider left

There is a tendency in the media commentary to suggest that Corbynmania has come from nowhere, without any sort of precedent or groundwork. What tends to be forgotten is the wave of protests and campaigning since the election of a majority Tory government in May. The longer-term trends of mass protest, especially against austerity, also tend to be downplayed. But in many ways the Corbyn insurgency is the 20 June national demonstration carried over into official politics, amplified by going to the heart of mainstream politics and challenging the old order in Westminster.

The left and the labour movement have achieved a great deal over recent years through protests and campaigns, from the anti-war protests onwards. Since 2010 there have been the student revolts, mass TUC demonstrations, co-ordinated public sector strikes, the mass social movement around Scottish independence, and much more. Yet the field of electoral politics has remained – Scotland aside – largely immune from these trends. That is now changing, in dramatic fashion, and it is long overdue.

Normally there is nothing so divisive on the left as electoral politics. It is a strange experience, therefore, that Corbyn’s candidacy has largely united the left, not just the Labour left. One reason is the widespread recognition that any left-of-Labour alternatives are not currently going anywhere, so a Corbyn victory is widely seen as the best chance for a left-wing breakthrough. The backing of major unions like Unite and Unison has played a part too.

A big part of the explanation, though, lies in Corbyn’s status as a campaigner and movement figurehead: over three decades of serious campaigning has built him a base, of thousands of activists, that stretches well beyond the Labour left. The late Tony Benn was perhaps the only Labour politician who could be considered comparable in this regard. 

The campaign is bringing left-wing policies and arguments to the front pages of newspapers in a way unknown for generations. It has already shifted not only this leadership contest, but the whole of British political debate, somewhat to the left. If he wins – as looks likely – the consequences will be explosive. It will deepen the political crisis and open up space for developing a much bigger and more influential left pole in British politics.  

The Labour Party, however, will retain all the limitations that come with parliamentary politics. You only have to glance over its long history of timid opposition to Tory governments and disappointing failures in office to be reminded that electing the best person to be Labour leader is insufficient. When we look at developments in Greece this year we are made starkly aware that contemporary capitalism and its institutions are hugely resistant even to reducing the scale of austerity, never mind socialism.  

Socialists, mass movements and Labour

The social movements that have played a part in getting Corbyn this far will be vital for supporting him against the Right. It is going to be Corbyn vs the entire political establishment, with huge pressure on him from inside and outside the Labour Party.

Mass movements are a crucial lever of support for Corbyn’s left-wing policies, and just as importantly they provide the basis for how we can defeat austerity and achieve real social change. If we are to stop a new bombing campaign in Syria, for example, we will be stronger because we have an anti-war Labour leader, but we will still need a movement. In opposing austerity, the protests at Tory Conference in Manchester – especially the TUC national demonstration on 4 October – will be crucial.

Building powerful protest movements matters more than ever. In that context, and in a political climate being re-defined by Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign, we can build a bigger, more organised and coherent left. We need socialist organisation that isn’t tied to parliamentary politics, with activists focused on mass movement struggles not internal wranglings inside the Labour Party.

I will conclude with the words of Paul Foot, towards the end of his book ‘The Vote’ which documented the working class struggles that won the vote but also the disappointing record of a Labour Party that has failed to deliver. Foot wrote:

‘The main job of socialists is to relegate Parliament to the sidelines it has chosen for itself and to concentrate on politics where it matters, among and on behalf of the dispossessed. Above all, this requires, more than ever before, the coordination of socialists and revolutionaries in an organisation dedicated and resolved enough to confront the organised capitalist state with the only force capable of defeating it, the organised working class movement, and of forging the huge disparate mass of opposition into a combined revolutionary unity’

That is a tall order indeed - and certainly our existing organised forces are far too weak.  But it remains the only solution to the problems we are confronted with. It remains, too, a guide to how socialists should organise and to where we should direct our energies in the here and now.


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Democracy under attack: 'Rupert Murdoch, 24th member of the cabinet'

This extended book review first appeared at Counterfire.

Malcolm Dean began researching his book about the relationship between press and politics several years ago, probing the ways in which the media in general, and newspapers in particular, influence British politics. As he was finishing the book, in July 2011, a crisis developed which vividly illuminated the numerous problems he was documenting. The hacking scandal meant that the book’s hard-hitting title (Democracy under Attack) and provocative cover (a shark, jaws dripping with blood, as a metaphor representing the press) would, by the time of publication, seem entirely uncontroversial. They might even appear to understate the case.

Dean’s thoroughly researched account of the impact the British press has made on evolving social policy - covering seven different areas, including asylum, health and poverty, with a chapter for each one - covers much wider territory than the specific issues brought up by the News International scandal. Towards the book’s end he explains the significance of the scandal and indicates how it might lead to some positive changes. This brings the analysis up to date. More importantly, though, the book puts that unfolding crisis for the Murdoch empire, and the political debates and multiple inquiries it has prompted, into a broader historical context.

The author’s central concern is the extent to which the press influences social policy, and the nature of this influence. His extensive experience in this field (he started working on The Guardian in 1969 and was for many years its social policy editor) means he is especially astute about changes over time. It also means he has intimate knowledge of the two themes of the book, the British press and social policy, and the complexities of how they are related.

The motivation for writing Democracy under Attack came from deep concern that the press, dominated by several national right wing papers, had increasingly (especially from the Blair era onwards) come to influence policy and public opinion. The whole British political class had apparently become preoccupied with PR, spin and appeasing the Daily Mail, rather than representing those who had elected them.

The Hackgate crisis exposed not only the ethically disgusting and commercially driven practices of the News of the World, but the extent to which politicians had subordinated themselves to the court of Murdoch and the whims of the right wing press more generally. It showed that democracy has been hollowed out, partly because politicians have long been craven to the hysterical headlines, scapegoating and conservative agenda of several national newspapers. Dean’s book documents numerous examples of this in practice, seeks common themes in how the press distorts politics, and traces the long term developments that got us here.

The subject matter might seem rather grim – I am thinking of the right wing press, but also of the social problems like drug dependency and child poverty documented - but this is mitigated by a lively writing style and many illuminating examples. As a pleasing bonus, in some chapters, we are treated to the witty cartoons of The Guardian’s Harry Venning and his ‘Clare in the Community’ strips.

There are grounds for hope in knowing that right wing distortion does not necessarily entirely shape public attitudes. Dean correctly states that three of his chapters, on law and order, drugs, and asylum, examine areas where the press has had an unmistakable and highly negative influence on both policy making and public opinion. However, even in these areas, there are examples of dominant ideologies being resisted.

It is widely thought that the beginnings of ‘New Labour’ government in 1997 mark perhaps a permanent shift in the relationship between politics and the press. While pointing out instances of continuity, Dean provides a wealth of substance to support this view. He quotes newly-elected Labour Party leader Tony Blair in 1994: ‘the only thing that matters now in this campaign is the media, the media, the media’ (p.3). When Blair became prime minister in 1997, his powerful director of communications, Alastair Campbell, told his press office staff: ‘If we do not feed them [the media], they eat us’ (p.4).

Lance Price, who became Campbell’s deputy, once referred to Rupert Murdoch as ‘the 24th member of the Cabinet’ (p.6). Blair’s team had demonstrated its desire to appease the press baron while still in opposition, dropping three important media reforms which had been in the 1992 election manifesto: ‘restrictions on foreign ownership of British media; a stricter privacy law to curb tabloid invasions; and moves to outlaw predatory pricing which would have stopped The Times’ price war that almost shut down The Independent and destabilised other broadsheets’ (p.6).

Media relations and opinion polling both became integral to government in the Blair era, rather than being merely secondary considerations. These two areas were connected because they both reflected a desire to tailor policy to prevailing opinion, whether actual public opinion or the often misleading impression of it created by right wing newspapers. They were linked to the pursuit of ‘electability’ and the notion that such a project depended entirely upon ditching anything vaguely left-wing, gravitating always to a mythical ‘centre ground’.

Dean reveals just how central PR and polling were to the Blair administration. Alastair Campbell attended all cabinet meetings; unprecedented for a media director. Blair himself wrote (or at least attached his name to) 150 articles in his first two years in Downing Street. He had weekly meetings with his pollster. In Blair’s first four years (1997-2001), his administration issued a staggering 32,000 press releases.

I do not think, however, that the author quite gets to grips with the contradictions in all this. It is important to note, for example, that the media offensive was not enough to offset growing disillusionment and disappointment with New Labour in office: the Labour vote fell substantially in 2001. It is also not nearly as simple as being a case of Blair and his ministers tailing the press or public opinion. They defied majority public opinion by invading Iraq in March 2003. On a host of other issues, government policy was to the right of majority opinion (though not, it is true, to the right of the bulk of the national press).

The politically important point here is that a number of other factors influenced the right wing positions adopted by successive Labour governments. Dean’s overwhelming focus on the role of the press runs the risk of obscuring these broader influences. It would be useful to examine New Labour’s politics in the context of the long-term rise of neoliberalism, the defeats for the labour movement of the 1980s, and the European-wide rightwards shift by social democracy.

One reason this matters is that we could, mistakenly, draw the conclusion that changes in media policy, from improving regulation to altering the rules governing ownership, will inevitably inoculate social democratic politicians against right wing social policy. Such improvements would, so this logic runs, stop left-of-centre politicians joining in with the baiting of asylum seekers, benefits claimants or other tabloid targets. While changes in the media could help, regrettably it is not this straightforward.

An interesting aspect of the book is the charting of the changing fortunes of the press in recent years, which is primarily a story of declining circulation. Dean describes the mainstream press as a ‘fatally wounded stag’, observing that ‘circulation of national newspapers dropped by almost a third between 1987 and 2007’ (p.46). In 2007-09 there was a further, more dramatic, decline of a quarter overall. Regional newspapers have suffered an equally severe long term decline, with scores of them folding.

The most outrageous and unpleasant examples of reactionary muck have often been connected to editors’ perception that they are good for sales, hoping to counteract this decline in sales. It is clear, for instance, that obsessive attention to asylum seekers by the Daily Express – 22 front pages in 31 days at one stage in 2003 – was influenced by the circulation spike whenever they indulged in such scapegoating.

This is not the main motivating factor behind a right wing agenda, but on certain issues, notably asylum and law and order, the press tends to appeal to widely held popular prejudices and anxieties. However, the chapters on those topics are also very sharp about how newspapers bear a lot of responsibility for the prejudices being widespread to begin with; they are not merely responding to public appetite, but rather shape that appetite. On these issues there is a three-way relationship between press, politicians and public opinion, with right wing papers tending to pull the centre of gravity to the right.

Dean observes that there is a profound contradiction in the modern press. This should, he says, be a golden age for journalism because access to information has never been so great, yet what he terms the ‘seven sins of journalists’ counteract this. On the positive side, the Freedom of Information Act has helped reveal otherwise hidden truths. The proliferation of reports and data about public services, as a result of inspections for example, has opened up new avenues for journalists. Finally, the role of the internet, through techniques like crowd-sourcing, is increasingly relevant.

Investigations, such as The Guardian’s pursuit of News International or the Telegraph’s extensive work on exposing the MPs’ expenses scandal, have indicated the positive use that national newspapers, with their considerable resources and access, can make of the unprecedented wealth of information available. Co-operation between mainstream media outlets and Wikileaks has brought to light important evidence that powerful forces would prefer remained in darkness.

Yet nobody could seriously claim, especially after the implosion of the country’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, that we are living through a golden age for the press. Dean’s ‘seven sins’ are the endemic problems in reporting and press coverage that point in the opposite direction. They are: distortion, ‘dumbing down’, being more interested in politics than policy, hunting in packs (group think), being too adversarial, being too readily duped, and concentrating on the negative (pp.341-388). This list is, I think, an accurate characterisation of what is wrong with great swathes of newspaper content, though it is a little frustrating that the author does not have any general framework for understanding these elements and why they are dominant. This would take us into closer consideration of ideology and the political economy of the media.

It is the excessive focus on the negative that Dean regards as the most corrosive of all. He is referring to the misrepresentation of areas like crime and asylum due to an almost exclusive focus on ‘bad news’, so that most people perceive crime as rising even when it is falling and grossly over-estimate how many asylum seekers enter Britain. Also important is the relentless drip-drip of negative stories about the state of public services. He quotes David Bell, a former chief inspector of schools, in 2005: ‘a lack of coverage of positive stories can create the impression that a system – in my case education – is in a perpetual state of crisis. This is simply not true’ (p.3).

Press distortions can have a profound effect on public perceptions. The Social Attitudes Survey in 2002/03 provided a classic illustration (p.347). The public believed that 44% of total social security spending was on unemployment benefits. The real figure was 6%. Over 50% goes to pensioners, yet most people in the survey thought it was much less.

Analysis of a survey looking at attitudes to NHS services reveals how these misperceptions are possible (p.348). The Ipsos/Mori survey in 2006 found fairly low satisfaction ratings for a range of services among the general public, including in-patient services (47%), walk-in centres (30%) and NHS Direct (36%). There was one striking exception: GP services scored 80%. Why the gap? In Malcolm Dean’s words: ‘This is the one service most of the public will have visited, so they can use their own experiences to evaluate it. For the other services, the public have to rely on press reports and hearsay’ (p.348).

What confirms this interpretation is the feedback from patients who have actually used those other services, with much higher satisfaction ratings: in-patient services (74%), walk-in centres (69%) and NHS Direct (71%). Dean shies away from developing a further conclusion: media distortion of the NHS and other areas of public service and the welfare state makes it easier for politicians to justify ‘reforming’ them. It plays an ideological role in support of cuts and privatisation. The level of opposition to current attempts at ‘reforming’ the NHS, indicate that this ideological project is not entirely successful.

In the matter of public attitudes towards asylum seekers, however, it is hard not to feel that right wing papers have largely (thankfully not entirely) prevailed. The chapter on asylum is the most disturbing, revealing a number of newspapers at their most vicious and dishonest. In 2003 the Sun launched its ‘Stop Asylum Madness’ campaign, which quickly collected a million names in support. Analysis at the time found the Mail and Express were even more obsessive in their focus on asylum seekers than the Sun: an example from the Express, ‘Asylum flood – immigration up fivefold in ten years’ (p.212).

A poll in 2003 identified the effect on popular perceptions. The British public thought Britain was receiving 23% of the world’s asylum seekers. The true figure was just under 2%. What is especially insightful about this chapter, though, is how the author dissects the relationship between press hysteria and government policy. One indication of the extent to which Tony Blair appeased the right wing press is the fact that ‘between 2001 and 2004 there was no subject, with the exception of Iraq, that took as much of Blair’s time – 50 meetings, some lasting three hours, over two years, according to Downing Street sources’ (p.216).

Finally, Dean outlines three specific recommendations for media reform, in the context of wanting a wider, deeper shift in the press and how the political class relates to it. These are reforms which have, in the wake of the Murdoch saga, become much more prominent and mainstream than just a year ago. His proposals are concerned with regulation (centred on the need for a far stronger replacement for the PCC), greater transparency in meetings between ministers and media executives, and stricter controls on media ownership (pp.395-7).

These reforms are of course insufficient, but can be considered a helpful start. The depth of the problems expertly documented in Democracy under Attack is such that a more far-reaching political challenge, to media barons and politicians alike, is required. Malcolm Dean’s book provides a wealth of evidence on what has gone wrong, with many insights into why it has happened, and some pointers to a different way of doing both media and politics.


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Labour advisers: don't mention the politics

Labour leader Ed Miliband

We should always be sceptical when policy wonks, self-styled 'thinkers' and political advisers focus on personnel not policies as the solution to a problem. So it is with Maurice Glasman, the apostle of 'Blue Labour' (remember that?), and his fresh advice for Labour Party renewal.

What's wrong, declares Glasman, is that too many leading Labour figures have Oxbridge backgrounds. The answer, he claims, is in broadening the range of those ascending through the Labour Party: more MPs from working class backgrounds, more leading figures who haven't been to Oxford or Cambridge. This will apparently enable Labour to reconnect with lost working class supporters.

There is no evidence that anyone has switched off from supporting Labour because Ed Miliband went to Oxford. But if you're Maurice Glasman, evidence and plausibility are less important than a provocative, media-friendly soundbite.

The truth is obvious: Labour needs policies which express the interests of working class people, if it is to inspire support among those disenchanted with mainstream politics. Most importantly, Labour needs to consistently confront the savage cuts to welfare, public services, pay and pensions.

The narrowing in educational and social backgrounds of MPs is a real phenomenon. The Labour Diversity Fund 'estimates that 80% of Labour MPs elected in 2010 are from professional backgrounds, with just 9% from manual working-class backgrounds.' As for the Tories, they more than ever reflect the privileged and powerful elite whose interests they represent: an Old Etonian leader, a cabinet packed with millionaries, and wealthy City donors funding their party.

It is certainly true, also, that leading Labour politicians tend to be disconnected from their own electoral base. But these problems are symptoms of long-term political trends: Labour's rightward-moving capitulation to neo-liberalism, and the wider hollowing out of democracy.

Politics has increasingly become an arena for professional 'career politicians', operating in a Westminster bubble with a veritable industry of advisers, researchers, lobbyists and so on. Debate is confined within narrow perameters, with Labour providing only mild opposition to a stridently right-wing government. Politics is primarily the management of the system, with minor tinkering to facilitate what is best for business, banks and the City.

We therefore see widespread popular alienation from official politics, with a democratic deficit between Westminster politicians and the people they are supposed to represent. Elections turnouts in the last decade or so have been lower than they had been for most of the previous century. Membership of the big parties is down. Those parties court donations from a thin layer of the wealthy. Labour still relies heavily on union donations, yet feels able to reject pleas to support large-scale public sector strikes.

Such secondary matters as a high proportion of Labour frontbenchers graduating from Oxbridge colleges is symptomatic, but hardly the root problem. Only a sharp break from the Labour leadership's timid centrist politics - replaced by the championing of policies which serve the majority, and challenge the dominant mantra of austerity - could reconnect it with millions of disaffected working class voters (or would-be voters).

Yet that is the opposite of what Glasman wants. Cheap populist gestures are in; a genuine change of political direction is out. The Blarites and others on Labour's right wing think Ed Miliband needs to make even more concessions to Tory ideology, become still more craven to the Daily Mail's right-wing populism and calls for austerity from bankers and corporate bosses.

A good start would be to abandon the shame and embarrassment at links with the trade unions, with their millions of working class members. Ed Miliband - still desparate to placate the right-wing press at jibes about supposedly being in the unions' pocket - is unlikely to take that course. He is even less likely to pursue policies to defend working class living standards, the NHS and the welfare state.


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New poll: bad news for politicians

New ICM poll: voting intentions

'Labour must support the 30th June strike, or become irrelevant in the eyes of an increasing number of its key supporters.'

So tweets Simon Hewitt, of the Latte Labour blog. And he's right. I'll come back to this point, but first let's look at what the new Guardian/ICM poll tells us about the governing parties.

The coalition's approval rating has fallen since March. Compared with last summer it has collapsed. 50% of those polled now say the coalition is doing a bad job, while only 35% say it is doing a good job. An approval rating of -15% is bad news for Tories and Lib Dems alike.

It is grim for the junior partner. The poll puts support for Lib Dems at just 12%. While this may not seem too gruesome - many other polls have put the party even lower - ICM consistently gives the Lib Dems a higher rating than other polls, for reasons unfathomable to me. 12% marks a significant drop since March.

Though the Tories fare better, David Cameron - who tends to come out of opinion polls better than either his party or government - has a negative rating for the first time (-5%). This compares with +23% last June.

Whether you look at the coalition's approval ratings, the parties' poll figures or Cameron's personal rating, things have got worse for those in office.

What, then, of the Opposition? We might expect Labour and its leader, Ed Miliband, to fare well. Yet Miliband's personal ratings are very poor. At -21% his rating is slightly worse than Nick Clegg's, which in a perverse way can be considered quite an achievement.

Miliban's party has gained support in the polls, on the back of disenchantment with the government (especially with the Lib Dems, due to their opportunistic role in a right-wing regime imposing cuts). But there's no evidence of popular enthusiasm for Miliband and Labour.

This is no surprise. Miliband has failed to oppose an increasingly unpopular government. He is still failing. Nobody knows what Labour's policies are. Miliband sends out contradictory messages, appears weak and indecisive, misses opportunities, and equivocates about opposing the cuts.  

It isn't merely a personal failing. Labour remains tied to most of the assumptions and ideas which guided its 13 years in government. Miliband and Ed Balls can't decide what position to adopt towards the pensions issue, but they are definitely unwilling to adopt a stance of uncopromising opposition to the coalition's pensions 'reform'.

So they end up sounding confused and incoherent, gently deriding the government for adopting the wrong tone - more than it criticises it on grounds of substance - while saving stronger words of censure for trade unions standing up to a huge attack on their members' pensions.

Labour is compromised by its own past. How can Labour leaders firmly oppose pensions 'reform' when they started the process in government? How can they gain political capital from hatred of higher tuition fees when it was a Labour government which introduced fees and commissioned the Browne report? How can a party which paved the way for marketisation of the NHS gain from widespread opposition to government health policy?

Yet, despite all that, Labour could still adopt new policies which decisively break from the neo-liberal logic of its past. I suspect any policies at all would benefit Miliband's personal ratings - he remains an invisible man, politically indistinct - but the party as a whole would gain support from clear alternative policies to a government hellbent on destructive cuts.

I imagine close advisors of Miliband will be giving him the opposite advice. Tack to the right, they'll say, because the Tories' economic policies have higher approval than Labour's, and Cameron fares better as party leader.

It won't occur to them that Miliband's endless vacillating and indecision, his failure to clearly articulate opposing views to Cameron and Osborne, might be part of the problem. Or that millions of people disaffected with official politics may be motivated and enthused by a Labour leadership which takes the fight to the Tories, says 'there IS an alternative', and then outlines what that is.

If Miliband and Balls continue along their current track, they are doomed to appear irrelevant to most of the people wanting a fightback against cuts. It will be like a re-run of Neil Kinnock's lukewarm opposition to the poll tax, and refusal to back the many millions of people refusing to pay it, which allowed the Tories to unexpectedly win the 1992 general election.

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Ed Balls and public sector pensions

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls

BBC News informs us: 'Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has urged the unions not to fall into a government "trap" by striking over plans to reform public sector pensions.'

In his Sunday Mirror article today, he apparently claims that Tory and Lib Dem ministers want a fight and are saying "bring it on" to the unions. Balls also makes it clear he broadly supports reform of public sector pensions.

Let's rewind for a moment. When Ed Miliband was elected Labour leader last September it was a setback for the Blairites, indicating at least a small shift away from the notion that the most right-wing position available must always be the correct one.

When Ed Balls later replaced Alan Johnson as shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer it was another sign that the most Blairite elements were losing ground, if only to be replaced by the kind of people who regard Neil Kinnock as a political mentor.

In the last week or so there has been a small but unmistakeable lurch to the right, with the two Eds succumbing easily to pressure from the Labour Party's extreme right. Miliband's lazy rhetoric about welfare claimants - bracketing 'benefit fraudsters' as part of the same malaise as bankers raking in huge bonuses - has been swiftly followed by Balls distancing the Labour front bench from the trade unions.

Balls is adopting a rather strange line on this. He suggests Osborne will blame unions for any failures of economic recovery. Really? Maybe Osborne will do that, but it's hardly an argument likely to have much resonance. The unions today simply aren't powerful enough for union-blaming to connect with people. Why on earth would a few one-day strikes in the public sector have any discernible effect on the prospects for economic recovery?

David Harvey recently commented that a welcome feature of media and public discourse about the financial crash of 2008, and ensuing crisis, has been the absence of blaming it on 'union power'. This is, of course, because the unions have so transparently not been powerful in the last two decades or more. If the shadow chancellor trots out such silly and dishonest arguments as this, however, then any Tory attempts to blame unions for economic woes are likely to gain more currency.

In a post the other day I wrote: 'Labour is bitterly hostile to strike action which falls a long way short of a general strike. There will be massive pressure on the unions from leading Labour politicians to dampen any resistance. Labourism remains a powerful force in the working class. The relationship between Labour and the union bureaucracy is tight.'

Labour leaders are compromised on this particular issue. It was a report by John Hutton, a former Labout minister, that laid the basis for government policy. Whatever differences about the details, there has been a large degree of consenus about pensions between Tories, Lib Dems and Labour.

Three things aren't yet entirely clear. The first is what effect Labour's firmly right-wing political position on pensions will have on the more cautious union leaders. Dave Prentis of Unison is engaging in militant fighting talk, but it is still possible he will be pulled by pressure from Labour to tone it down. Taking the kind of action he envisages will put Unison, a major Labour Party donor, on a collision course with Milband and Balls.

The second thing to watch is the response from Labour's 'soft left'. At present they appear preoccupied with defending Labour's beleagured leader from attacks by Blairite supporters of David Miliband. While the unashamedly pro-cuts, hard-right elements should be resisted, 'rallying around Ed' is an untenable position and a dead-end cause which merely pulls Labour's left further to the right. In the two Eds you will find so very little worth championing.

Finally, it's unclear what course public opinion will take. I suspect there is widespread public sympathy for strikes, but co-existing with right-wing attitudes like thinking public sector workers have 'gold-plated pensions' or cuts to pensions are unavoidable. Labour leaders attacking the unions will obviously not help our cause, but whether it especially damages it remains to be seen.

It makes it abundantly clear there will be no political opposition to pension cuts from Labour's front bench. The political arguments will have to come from the anti-cuts movement, the Left and trade unions. We need to assert exactly the points which Balls should be making.

This means alerting people to the scale of what many teachers, lecturers, civil sevants and others will lose. It involves linking the pensions campaign to the broader defence of public services: any victory for unions on pensions will assist the whole struggle to defend the public sector and stop cuts. It requires us to point out that bank bailouts, tax cheats and the soaring wealth of the super-rich give the lie to the idea that there's simply no money.

It isn't just a battle of ideas either. It's about building a mass movement which embodies those ideas, and the alternatives to cuts, in co-ordinated and united action on the streets, in communities, and throughout the trade union movement.

The Tories are desperate to cause divisions: between Labour and the unions, between different unions, between workers and service users, between public and private sctors. Labour leaders are parroting Tory arguments. Some union leaders resent strike action on 30 June and are vulnerable to pressure from their right.

In response we need to combine a clear rejection of the ideological myths underpinning the attack on pensions with mass practical solidarity for those who, by taking strike action on 30 June, are on the front line of fighting cuts. 30 June is part of something much bigger.

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Does Labour need to steer right to beat the Tories?

These New Labour types never quite get it. Andrew Rawnsley, writing in yesterday's Observer, claimed: 'Remember that Labour will neither look like an alternative government nor become one unless Ed Miliband can persuade people who voted Tory in 2010 to vote Labour next time.'

This isn't true. It's not a matter of opinion or speculation - it is simple maths. There are three reasons why.

Firstly, Labour could win by taking a huge number of votes from people who voted  Lib Dem at the last election. Secondly, Labour could win by motivating those who voted for none of the above last year to vote Labour. Thirdly, Labour could win as a result of many Tory voters from the last election simply not voting at all.

Rawnsley is therefore objectively wrong. But he's peddling the old myth that Labour can only be electable if it moves to the right, as if it hasn't already done so quite sufficiently.

Rawnsley's also missing something vital in considering what could propel Labour to victory at the distant general election, or indeed force the coalition to crack well before then. Three initials: NHS.

If Labour propagandised relentlessly against Tory plans for cuts and privatisation of the health service, and threw its weight behind a campaign to defend the NHS, it would reap the rewards electorally as well as genuinely doing something worthwhile. That, however, requires breaking the rightward-pulling logic, and obsession with centre grounds and Middle Englands, which has dominated in the Labour Party for so long.

Ed Miliband and the NHS could be a repeat of Neil Kinnock and the poll tax. In the 1992 general election, Labour could have swung it their way - instead of the Tories taking a small minority - if Kinnock had constantly reminded voters of the hated poll tax, which had been defeated only a year or two earlier (by demonstrations and mass non-payment, not by Labour). 

It seems, however, that Ed Miliband is destined to follow the familiar course of lukewarm criticism, half-baked opposition, and an ambivalent attitude to any sort of protest movement. We will have to defend the NHS ourselves. As for Labour's electoral chances, the party will only fulfil its potential by associating itself with the growing rejection of Tory attempts to roll the clock back to before 1945.   

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Tower Hamlets voters give New Labour establishment a thrashing

Congratulations to Lutfur Rahman, the new Mayor of Tower Hamlets. The election result - excellent news for anyone broadly on the left - came through in the early hours. The leaflet (pictured) was circulated by Labour in an attempt to discredit Rahman. Jon Lansman at Left Futures tells the tale:

'Lutfur Rahman is Mayor of Tower Hamlets. He won 23,283 votes, 52% of the total — 10% more than Labour did in the general election in the borough — and Labour’s Abbas won just 11,254 or 25%.

The Tories won 12% and the Lib Dems 6%, little more than half and a third of their general election scores respectively. Only the Greens, of the established parties, increased their vote — from 1% to 5%. Respect, who had won 17% of the vote in May, did not stand but their voters clearly rallied behind Lutfur.

It is a victory for the local Labour Party members who selected him as a candidate and a massive defeat, not for Ed Miliband, but for Ray Collins, party general secretary, and the witch-hunters who hounded him into standing as an independent. We can only hope that efforts will now be made to re-unite the party and retain or re-admit to membership Lutfur and any Labour members who supported him.'


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Shadow cabinet election results: a break from New Labour?

Political Scrapbook has these results from the election for the new Labour shadow cabinet (check Scrapbook in case there any errors that need correcting). There are 19 places, 49 candidates stood, and the voting was by members of the Parliamnetary Labour Party.

Those results in full: Yvette Cooper (232), John Healey (192), Ed Balls (179), Angela Eagle (165), Andy Burnham (165), Alan Johnson (163), Douglas Alexander (160), Jim Murphy (160), Tessa Jowell (152), Caroline Flint (139), John Denham (129), Hilary Benn (128), Sadiq Khan (128), Mary Creah (119), Ann McKechin (117), Maria Eagle (107), Meg Hillier (106), Ivan Lewis (104), Liam Byrne (100)

My initial thoughts:

Who on earth is John Healey? (Google search here we come).

Does this mean Yvette Cooper will be strongly favoured (over Ed Balls) to become shadow chancellor, or does it make no diference that she comfortably topped the poll (and should we care?)

Do the strong votes for Burnham, Johnson, the loathsome Blairite Jim Murphy and others suggest that many Labour MPs are not exactly desperate for change? (yes it does).

Isn't it rather lovely that certain names - Straw, Miliband D, Darling, Brown N - aren't on the list, as they've chosen to stand down? (yes it is).

Is this a radical break from the last 13 years? (Clearly not, considering many of those names, but it's not complete continuity either).

Will I weep because Shaun Woodward and Ben Bradshaw failed to make it? (No I won't).

Also see:
New Labour's Top Ten Shits
Ed Miliband, Labour and the battles ahead

Updates (9.20pm): Healey, it turns out, has been shadow housing minister. There are no North East MPs in there at all - oh so different from the Blair years - and no Welsh MPs.

Paul Mason, Newsnight's economics editor, says on Twitter that it breaks down as 6 Ed Mili supporters, 6 "Brownites for Ed" and 7 David Mili supporters. I've also seen a report that 5 were Ed Mili backers and 10 were David Mili supporters. It's clearly a resolutely right-wing shadow cabinet, with Blairites like Tessa Jowell making it through with ease.

According to the Fabians' Next Left blog, only 8 are new - so there's a great deal of continuity in personnel. Next Left reports the newbies are: John Healey, Angela Eagle, Caroline Flint, Mary Creagh, Ann McKechin, Maria Eagle, Meg Hillier, Ivan Lewis. 11 of the 25 shadow cabinet posts are now taken by women (there are several members, like leader and deputy leader, who weren't elected as part of this process, hence the figure of 25).

Oh, and just realised I was (in my hurry) getting Jim Murphy mixed up with Jim Fitzpatrick, but looked him up and he's almost as bad! The list is a reminder that a) more Lab MPs voted for David M than for any other candidate, and b) almost no Lab MPs voted for Diane Abbott, the only remotely left-wing candidate. So no great surprises, though I imagine some people who cheered Mister Ed's election as a victory for the left will be rather deflated.

And anyone who hoped for a new epoch in foreign policy - following the new leader's declaration that war in Iraq was wrong - should note the fact Eric Joyce was unsuccessful. Joyce resigned from a junior post in defence last year because of his concerns about Afghanistan, and he's become a critic of both Trident and the occupation of Afghanistan. But no, he's failed to get in.

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New Labour's Top Ten Shits

Mark Steel, prompted by the demise of the 'Blairite ultras' over the last week, tweets:

'New Labour's top ten shits? Blunkett? Reid? Campbell? Cherie? It's a competitive field.'

Here's my own personal list. There are some controversial omissions: Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, John Prescott, David Miliband. While they are contemptible, I somehow just don't despise them as viscerally as I loathe the roll call of smarmy, deceitful, vicious cretins below.

This is in rank order, with the biggest shit in at number one. It's a tough choice but I think David Blunkett may be the most repulsive of the lot. One reason is the left-to-right journey he made - since his days in the 'Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire' (Sheffield Council in the 80s) - which makes someone even more detestable in my eyes.

Blunkett somehow combines shallow, cynical opportunism with genuine ideological commitment (to the worst elements of Blairism) - a remarkable synthesis, one he achieves with flair. There's a generational element in my choice too: for my generation of students, Blunkett will forever be synonymous with the introduction of tuition fees, still one of the most damaging things New Labour did in office.

It's an all-male list by chance - for me, the most ideologically fervent, personally nauseating and pernicious in influence have happened to be men, though some will (quite reasonably) give a place to Hewitt, Blears or C Blair. I won't argue with them.

I have particular contempt for 3 categories: a) those who really believe all that shit, b) those who used to be left-wing, c) those with a North East connection. Put them all together - yes, Mr Mandelson and Mr Milburn, that's you - and you are guaranteed a place near the top of my list.

So, here's my list. You are welcome to disagree or offer your own selection. It's cathartic, I promise you.

1. David Blunkett
2. Frank Field
3. Peter Mandelson
4. Alan Milburn
5. Tony Blair
6. Charles Clarke
7. Alastair Campbell
8. Jim Fitzpatrick
9. Stephen Byers
10. John Hutton

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Oona King, David Miliband, John Prescott: New Labour's hat trick of losers?

Journalist Paul Waugh reports, via Twitter, claims that John Prescott (pictured), former Deputy Prime Minister, has lost the contest for treasurer of the Labour Party:

'I'm hearing that John Prescott has lost in race for Treasurer. And that Ken Livingstone has come top of NEC ballot.'

Prescott is thought to have lost out to Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of Unite the Union.

This will, if confirmed, complete this week's hat trick of defeats (in internal Labour Party elections) for candidates closely identified with Blairism and New Labour. It follows Ken Livingstone's defeat of Oona King for the London Mayor candidacy and Ed Miliband's triumph over his brother David in the party leadership race.

The victors may be little to get excited about - and Livingstone is hardly a bright new thing - but this certainly marks a shift in the Labour top brass away from the dominant regime of its years in government (1997-2010).



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Diane Abbott, Tony Blair - and a difference of opinion

“Scrapping the 10p tax rate, the introduction of tuition fees, the failure to regulate the banks properly, the attempt to introduce 90 days detention without trial, locking up children in immigration detention centres, the failure to bring the railways back into public ownership, creeping privatisation in the NHS, and, above all, the Iraq War. These are all things that contributed to our defeat at the last election.”

So says Diane Abbott, left-wing Labour leadership contender, in an interview with The Third Estate. It's a refreshing change from the familiar mantra that Labour must always steer to the right if it's to be electable.

David Miliband is, in the current contest, firmly established as the embodiment of that misguided idea. It is a sentiment articulated by Tony Blair in his memoir, claiming the party won when it was firmly New Labour - and its defeat in May was somehow due to a left turn (I must have missed that).

It is surely obvious - to everyone except Blair, Miliband senior and Peter Mandelson - that clearly opposing the government's cuts and privatisation agenda would be electorally popular, as well as the correct stance to take.

Yet it seems many MPs, Labour Party members and affiliated trade unionists might just fall for New Labour's Old Lie - and vote in David Miliband as the 'electable' figurehead reaching out to middle-class voters, centre ground blah blah blah...

The words from Diane Abbott above would - whatever the outcome of the leadership election - serve as a useful starting point for rethinking policy. If Blair popping up all over the place (reminding people of New Labour's warmongering, deceit and arrogance) isn't enough to persuade Labour members of the need to change direction, there's little hope.

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