Labour pains

As one who made the mistake of leaving the Labour party to join the Socialist Alliance, I followed this weeks Labour conference with interest. Believe it or not, I found a lot of it quite encouraging. The union leaders seem to have finally (and not before time) realised that Mr G. Brown is not a serious alternative to Blairism; the Blairites lost crucial votes on council housing, NHS privatisation and corporate manslaughter; and John McDonnell's leadership bid (essentially, an attempt to return to trad Labour principles) is beginning to look credible...so long as that mad, dishonest piece of shit Meacher doesn't wreck it by standing and splitting the trad Labour vote.

The Tory cuckoo Blair will be largely unlamented, but it would seem that his arrogance and hatred of social democracy may yet lead a "Blairite" candidate to stand agianst Brown. Given that there is not a fart's breath of difference, politically, between the Blair and Brown "camps", it is obvious that socialists (and social democrats) should not take sides between them. The only serious leadership bid is that of McDonnell, despite his unfortunate willingness to consort with the likes of the Stop The War Coalition: something that serious socialists will have to talk to him about.

Re: "Dr" John Reid: What a typically nasty example of an ex-Stalinist gone to the right, he is. His speech on Thusday was quite clearly an undeclared leadership bid, based upon crude, nationalist tub-thumping - typical of Stalinists everywhere. This man would be an horrific disaster, let anywhere near real power. But like many evil nutters, he has the occssional lucid moment, like this:

"You don't have to love everything George W. Bush stands for to hate everything that Osama bin Laden stands for".