On Target

TWO PRESCRIPTIONS FOR LABOUR’S ILLS
Ray Davison reviews Jon Cruddas’ and John Harris’ Fit for Purpose – a programme for Labour Party renewal. Compass, 2006 pp. 1-34 and Renewal – a two-way process for the 21st century, an Interim Report 2007 from LabOUR, an independent commission on Accountability, Party and Parliamentary Democracy, LabOUR Commission, 2007, pp. (ii)-59.

Those who metaphorically donate their organs and life-blood in the service of the Party, its historic vision and values, will find significant interest in these two pamphlets seeking the prescriptions of renewal and revival for a Labour Party not in the best of health. The symptoms are there for all to see: dramatic haemorrhaging of its membership, down by over 50% since 1997, widespread inertia and atrophy of its vital limbs - its branches and GMCs - chronic abulia, disaffection and alienation of its once active and engaged body of members and supporters. Both documents examine the ailing organs with acuity, pointing out the areas of degeneration and failure like Rembrandt’s Anatomist. Fit for Purpose ranges freely over the Party’s history as an organisation born to fight for the industrial working class and uses a compelling blend of sociology, philosophy and general cultural perspectives to identify the challenges facing Labour policy makers in a post-industrial social order with a much more fluid class base and where politics is centred on a terrain much wider than the workplace.
LabOUR’s Renewal constructs its not dissimilar arguments in a more down to earth language, making really good use of what it calls ‘an evidenced based approach’ information gleaned from focus groups supervised by Professor Stuart Weir of the Democratic Audit, University of Essex and commissioned LabOUR /You Gov polls of members and lapsed members. Both pamphlets emphasise the negative and morale- breaking effects of New Labour’s top-down authoritarian model of policy–making and control freakery; both dwell on the imperfection and sometimes inanities of Partnership in Power; both, of course, have a lot to say about the Party’s financial management and our government’s relationship with money.
Finding the antidotes to our Party’s multitude of afflictions is the pivotal aim of these contributions but there is not going to be an easy answer and certainly no systemic viagra to revitalise, re-engage, renew and even resuscitate. Both works want to retain the federal structure of the Party and keep Conference as its sovereign body; both want to reform the NPF and have its CLP delegates elected by OMOV regionally; both want to empower members and end the era of imposed, monological policy formulation ( LabOUR even advances the idea of a Charter of Members Right to enhance and give a quasi statutory authority to the voice of members); both, crucially, recognise the determining role of egalitarianism, redistribution and democratic procedure in the motivation and political aspirations of members of the Party.
It is to be noted that both these documents pre-date the Brown Coronation and the launch of the new Leader’s own initiative, the so-called consultation Extending and Renewing Party Democracy. The words of the Brown invitation make one wish for an additional section to each contribution, although LabOUR’s report is only interim, so a supplement will come. Timeo Gordonum ac dona ferentum! Like a cunning Dr Finlay with a casebook, Gordon sends us a welcome chance to get better but like that other equine structure, we must beware the swollen underbelly, potentially full of bowmen with their arrows pointed at Labour’s primary organ, its heart. *

*This review was written for Campaign Briefing70, which is the Newsletter of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. The Newsletter is prepared annually for distribution at the Labour Party’s National Conference, which was in Bournemouth this year (go to CLPD.org.uk for current edition). Brown’s proposals were heavily endorsed at the Conference, thus what was left of the sovereign voice of Conference has now been abolished and the annual event has become a rally and fan-club for the Labour government. Attendance levels and payment of exorbitant attendance fees are likely to shrink. Why pay for no say? Also, if the Latin bothers you, think of Trojan horses and suspicious Greeks bearing gifts.

MING TO THE KNACKER
Cursed are the merciless for they shall receive no mercy. He that profiteth from alcohol abuse shall be soberly dispatched. Like poor, exhausted Boxer in Animal Farm, the tired old cadaver to be of the sweet and dignified Ming was unceremoniously sent to the knacker. What a sorry sight was this. This frail and venerable gentleman, with failing teeth and pipe-cleaner limbs, a pitiful shadow of those doric Olympian legs of yore which scorched the very earth they barely touched, was untimely plucked from his dotage. Where there should have been affection, warmth and respect, a celebration of wisdom and experience, there was only a cold steel arrow pointing to a colder coffin. Will Ming now join Gordon’s big tentism to end his days away from the Kafkaesque jackals and ghouls of Liberal Democracy? It was the socks what dunnit(proposal for a Sun headline).

ON THE LIZARD
Yarder sat on the Lizard enjoying the October sunshine and musing on the benefit of climate change. He looked at the rocks and the cliffs: they were indeed lizard-like, dark and reptilian, muscular. The sky was clear and he had that sense of suspended time and immobility that the sea can bring. A large seal suddenly emerged from the water and appeared to frolic in the sun. Yarder wondered if a seal could feel happy and enjoy rousseauistic moments.
'What are you day-dreaming about?'asked his companion Spike who sat beside him. She had finished her cigarette, her sugared coffee and her daily perusal of The Racing Post.
'I was thinking about perception, rocks and metaphors, seals and happiness.'
'Well, I wonder if you ever actually see anything at all since you are so bloody self-absorbed. For example, Yarder, have you noticed anything odd about the last twenty minutes?'
'If you are referring to the 110 people who wandered past us in the last half-hour, I did notice them'.
'Yes but what did you notice about them?'
'I noticed that a majority of them were very large females with enormous bums, so much so that if you sprayed this attribute with grey paint, they could easily be the back-end of a pantomime elephant without further props or pass for a seal.'
'That is funny, I was thinking about that too. I mean, not the seal or the elephants, but their fat arses. Why did we both think of that?'
'Because of all the recent publicity about the obesity of the Brits. Our perception was coloured by that. All perception is coloured, even that of a happy seal'.
Spike went back to the horses. Yarder surveyed the coastal path: the elephant trail crawled over the Lizard from cove to cove, thundering like dinosaurs of old to the next feeding station. And the rocks of ages seemed to sigh but not sag under the weight and pressure.
PITY THE PALL BEARERS OF BRITAIN
A side-effect of the alarming increase in the obesity of the British is the health and safety threat posed to the poor pall-bearers of our nation whose heavy job it is to carry these giant corpses to their final resting place. At a recent meeting of the Pall-Bearers Co-0perative, it was resolved that enough was enough and a limit of 20 stone per cadaver per 4 bearers was agreed. Over that weight a corpse will have to be cut length ways or centrally agirth and an additional coffin ordered. The Giant Casket Company of America looks poised to break into what is always a vibrant market with a tempting upper limit of 40 stone per six. Over this a crane and pulley service is available for hire.
OF GIANT CASKETS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
America has cabbages and contraceptive sheaths larger than other countries of the world, so much is natural and acceptable for a superpower. It also has a growing population of obese people, making the British look positively sylph-like. The American market is responding to the expansion in the form of companies offering outsize coffins for the corpses. This may help the mammothian dead but there are other problems. There is a growing need for bigger beds and sofas not to mention toilet seats and baths. Culturally the phenomenon is generating demands for larger cinema and theatre seats and the tourist industry is also feeling the pinch as traditional train and aircraft seating cannot cope with the pressures. It come as no surprise that ascetics in the States take a negative view of thick girths and are demanding punitive action against the excessively fat. In England, most people would understand this, for gluttony is a traditional sin and obesity is lived largely in guilt and shame. However the fat of America are anything but supine and are making this a human rights and constitutional issue. They claim discrimination and the right and freedom to be as fat and large as they like. In other words it is not their problem. I find the debate of some interest as it poses the problem of individual freedom in relation to others in a pressing sort of way. Very few things that we do, do not impact on others; in fact I can only think of one and in folklore it causes ocular difficulties. Now where did I put my glasses?
OFF TARGET
Water boils at 100 degrees and at lower temperatures the phenomenon does not occur. The same is true of humour and satire and, of course, metaphor, as Proust once said. You either hit the target and get a laugh or you slide into the faeces of failure. What garbage then is this from the punctured cerebellums of Labour MPs Simon and Watson? To produce such rubbish is already an achievement in the sense that it would be difficult to do worse but to publish it for human consumption is an offence. Exposure to this is akin to sex with cold noodles or coition with a dead cod. Spare us that fate at least and say no more. We need more retirement homes for failed comedians.
TONY ROBINSON SEES RADICAL LIGHT
We give credit to former NEC member, Tony Robinson, who did not need to set off for Damascus to experience revelation: he just watched New Labour in action. Writing in the November 2005 issue of Red Pepper, Robinson encapsulates the depth of the revelation in a stunning iteranceower tends to corrupt; and follows up thus:In the Labour Party, of course, politicians are so governed by the experience of the Militant Tendency in the 1980s that they are in terror of their own members. They manipulate the membership. They parachute in their own favourites to constituencies as parliamentary candidates. To all intents and purposes they have got rid of the party conference as a policy-making body and replaced it with the national policy forum. This might be potentially a very good idea, except that it is a complete fix and filled with people who are very close to the leadership. Editorial comment: complete the conversion, Tony, and join CLPD.
MEACHER’S WINDOW VISION
Ray Davison reviews Michael Meacher’s The Politics of Conviction, a Catalyst Working Paper, The Catalyst Forum, 2006, pp.(iv)-46. £5. Reprinted from Campaign Briefing 69, Summer Edition, the Newsletter of CLPD.

Michael Meacher straddles the decades from 1970 when he first won Oldham and, like David, the French painter of the revolutionary years, he is a survivor and keeps his head. On the evidence of this pamphlet, it is a head well worth keeping. After the multitudinous mountains of New Labour policy documents, where the classical art of saying the least to mean the most has been put into reverse and we prospect wearily for significance in a sierra madre of verbiage, it is a pleasure to read a text where concision, analytical acuity and astute political judgement blend impressively. This head perceives a window of opportunity as it surveys, like a modern Descartes doing a second meditation, the present state of the world and international power relations. But it is more than a window of opportunity – it is a vision. The sub-title of this paper is ‘Vision of a Socialist or Social Democratic Society. The telescoping of socialist and social democratic is of interest. There is no conflict between them for Meacher, as some might anticipate, for example those who would prefer democratic socialist to social democratic. Meacher’s window vision defines a political space wide enough to build a consensual and pragmatic politics among left radicals and the now disenchanted Blairites of yore. Meacher argues that the political centre of gravity, now entrenched on the right, with its neo-liberal policies driving privatisation, deregulation and vast inequalities of wage and wealth, is about to shift. The contours of international power will be re-configured as American dominance is challenged by the growing strength of China, Russia, India and Brazil. Environmental factors (which figure prominently in the argument) will create unavoidable and extreme challenges for laissez-faire capitalism and ‘we thus face irrevocably an era of fundamental change.’ Meacher wants us to seize this historical moment and his programme for change will be sweet music to many left ears. Domestically, his policies are re-distributive, anti-privatisation and demand a strengthened public sector. He looks to Sweden for his economic model. There is a strong anti-authoritarian and anti-Leviathan element to his thought and he calls for the abolition of the royal prerogative, increased civil rights and indeed for the restoration of the sovereignty of Labour’s Conference. Internationally, our subordination to America must end and the post-1945 IMF/World Bank/WTO settlement must be redrawn. This short review cannot do full justice to a paper which is a really well thought-out and convincing contribution to present political debate. It places Meacher at the centre of attention.
Blog readers please note that two months after the writing of this review, Michael Meacher announced that he would stand in Labour’s leadership election.

END THIS CRUELTY TO CHAMELEONS!
That ‘great clunking fist’ about to land on a flyweight chameleon has roused the wrath of the politically correct banana brains of our time. I know I have extended the metaphor of the boxing ring to include a reference to a camel lion but I felt at liberty to do this as clunking already seems odd when applied to a fist and is no doubt a back formation from hammer blow. The great leader was in fine form that day and the chameleon flushed and blushed, went white, yellow and sickly green, as if he could actually see the fist about to crush him. How predictable that the leader, who mocked bogus love and punched holes in facile utterances, should come under fire for using images of violence and cruelty by pc wonkers (Baroness Kennedy, for example). I know where that clunking fist should go next to fill a hole of inanity.

The Great British Press is renowned throughout the world for the acuity, depth and balance of its political coverage and it is surely a monument to our democracy. Thus, when Prescott plays away or wastes the country’s resources on croquet, when Gordon has his teeth polished to outstrip Tony’s chirpier choppers, the Great British Press can always be relied upon to give due prominence to such important news. Be warned Heather, your past is of global interest and no screens will protect you. Thus also, when Chavez visited London, the Great British Press went out of its way, in a quasi-neurotic frenzy of fairness, to denigrate a person who stole his country’s oil from respectable capitalists for the benefit of his people and did not have the decency to pay any compensation. He also had the cheek to lift peasants from poverty, disease and illiteracy, the bastard, and, sin of all sins, he was elected to do so. None of this dastardly regressive action escaped the watchful eyes of Heffer and his like. Nor did the treacherous and dumb film director Ken Loach have any chance with The Wind That Shakes The Barley. The silly judges of Cannes, full of Mediterranean hot air and plonk, needed their unanimous brains tested to throw away a Palme d’or on this anti-British rubbish. Thank God for the intelligence of the Press.What would we know, how could we form judgements without your guidance and management? And where are the Ashford millions?
CHEZ LE COIFFEUR
LC ‘That will be £250, Madam’
CB ‘ A real snip, especially as the Party is paying. I really am a credit to it.’
LC ‘Something for the weekend, Madam?’
CB ‘You must be joking. I’m Catholic.
LC ‘They are free, Madam.’
CB ‘Well, in that case, count me in. I can always sell them on to Twoshags. Give me two large boxes. Have you got them in cocktail sausage fit? And here’s something for you.’
LC ‘Spray on dung soak, madam, just what I’ve always wanted.’

OF LIBERALISM AND THE PORCINISTS (d’après Voltaire)
Worship of the pig has a long history in primitive, tribal culture (see Hogwash and Sow 1852) and trace elements of its existence are evident even in today’s more sophisticated world. For our purposes, it suffices to note that the modern cult of the Porcine and its adherents, derives from the XII C roasting of the primal pig whose crackling and garlic –pickled flesh were credited with divine powers and revelation. Modern pig idolatry dates from 1970 and claims as many as 15000 sty altars, a number likely to double in the next five years. The sect has a sacred text, The Book of Pig whose pages allegedly derive from the leftovers of the primal pig roast. Members of the sect are called porcinists and vehemently proclaim their right to freedom of religious worship and to dress in their sacred garments. They want social inclusion and access to public bodies including schools on the basis of their freedom to wear the traditional hog-head (with or without ears) and the right to display trotter necklaces, preferably fresh ones as closer to the primal pig or caramelised at a pinch. This caused some strife, particularly in schools. Western Liberal opinion quickly supported the porcinists in the name of tolerance and respect for religious beliefs, arguing that members of the sect should be able to dress as they please. Such Liberals are strongly supported by the organo-naturists who want to walk around naked and the all-female cult, known as the vaginistas, who believe that God communicates directly with them through their exposed vaginas and that they should in consequence never have to cover this part of their bodies. Much schism did then occur in the school of humanity and the principal of the school was sorely tested in his management. He was an avid reader of Tony Benn who had himself advocated tolerance and freedom on Question Time. But the principal was much alarmed when the porcinists captured Benn and declared; 'We thank you for our freedom but The Book of Pig declares Pighad on all infidels like you’. Whereupon they cut off his head and squealed all night long in ecstasy. Another sage, a secular socialist humanist much versed in Confucius, called Ynot Rialb, spotted the head, dolefully picked it up and lamented ‘What a sorry, sorry sight is this, that a head with so much wisdom should fall victim to the delusions of the porcinists. You should have seen this coming old man’. Ynot in tears began to spin the head around with greater and greater force and then released it, propelling it into the stratosphere, where it self -incinerated by its own velocity. The burning head caused a visionary glow in the world of humankind and a determination in the mind of Ynot. He took a big stick from the Garden of Confucius and headed towards the nearest sty, rehearsing his lines as he went and flexing his muscles: ‘You are not here to define difference nor to individuate but to discover a common humanity through co-operation. That is the socialist project’. And Ynot vowed to conquer difference while the Twhataadsa slept.

THE WAY OF THE ££ORDS & ££OANS
It is a credit no doubt to the Labour Government that we introduced a greater degree of transparency and regulation in the matter of political donations. How ironic and how predictable that it should expose itself to allegations of sleaze and corruption by clumsily trying to circumnavigate its own rules with clandestine loans, seemingly linked to Honours, without the very Treasurer of the Party knowing anything about it.'Thus the House of the Lords was open to purchase by the few and the many did feel much resentment at their exclusion. For the race shall be to the bung and victory to the loan, as time and chance happeneth to no man with a dark million. But the strumpets of the Lords did sound in protests multiple that they had done no wrong, governor, but all actions followed His true and saintly Law and that they were innocent and most legal. And the Almighty did look upon the deed and forthwith cast his great Blotch upon their Houses and their mortgages and they did disappear into a wilderness.'