12 Months of Tweeting

I find it hard to believe I've been knocking about/wasting time on Twitter for a year. To mark the occasion here are a collection of posts written over the last year to try and make sense of it:

1) Twitter as a symptom of "Broken Britain"
2) Twitter and Politics
3) Daniel Hannan, the NHS and Twitter
4) Social Media and Business
5) Twitter Vs Trafigura
6) Stephen Gately, Twitter and the media bubble
7) Rage Against the Machine and Internet Radicalism
8) Top 100 Tweeting Bloggers

There are a couple of other things I'd like to touch on.

Firstly, it has changed the way how I experience the internet. My Twitter feed acts as a one stop shop for news, latest blog posts from others, short commentary on current affairs, gossip, critiques, and banter. It might be hyperbole to describe it as consciousness-changing stuff but via Twitter you can feel plugged into a collective thought process. Nothing else offers a better snap shot of what a particular population (in my case, socialists, activists and bloggers) are thinking.

Second, it's difficult to say how Twitter has impacted on the fortunes of this blog. At the moment my account, @averyps has 1,264 followers. In Twitter terms that is a lot. According to a (dated) report from social media firm Sysomos, almost 94% of users have 100 or fewer followers. But as you can see from the top 100 list of blogging tweeters above this number is chicken feed compared to some.

I tweet every new blog post, but generally they bring in less of an audience than incoming links from Socialist Unity and Dave Osler. But I did say generally. If you post something and tweet quickly on breaking news, that can drive traffic your way. For instance, my recent post on Michael Foot appeared a couple of hours after his death was reported. It attracted a higher than average number of visits from Twitter but had it appeared earlier I'm convinced more would have dropped by. Another example was my my defence of No2EU. This appeared and was promoted on Twitter at the time there was a real frenzy over the election of Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, and some were pointing the finger at No2EU for letting the fascists in.

So using Twitter for blog promotion is not unproblematic. It's never a case of tweet it and they will visit. If you want to maximise visitors, you have to take the time to get a feel for your followers.

Third, while Twitter followers do not automatically translate into viewing figures for your blog it can raise your profile and promote name recognition. I imagine most Twitter users take an interest in who's following them. Every time my followers increase I look to see who's given me a punt. If they're obviously a spammer or a self-proclaimed social media guru I don't bother investigating further. But if they're a political person with a link to their site I always click through. I might not end up following them but at least I have an idea of what they're up to. And I imagine the reverse happens every time I follow a new person.

So there are a few reflections on my one year on Twitter. I'd be interested to hear what readers think about their experiences - has it helped your blogging? Has it made networking between activists easier? Has it helped change your political views in some way? Or do you find it all bewildering and/or pointless?

On the PCS Picket Line

How would you like it if your boss unilaterally tore up your employment contract and tried implementing a new one without your consent? Would you roll over or take action? Facing a similar choice, the sections of the civil service represented by the Public Commercial Services union have opted to fight. The dispute's background can be found here.

Brothers S, AH, SF and I did a tour of the picket lines in Hanley this morning to bring solidarity greetings from our UCU branch and the body of proletarian struggle that is North Staffs Trades Council. At the first picket line, PCS activist Brother A told us he was very pleased with the turnout for the strike. Of his workplace of approximately 250 those that had gone in numbered in single figures. Despite many low paid staff working there they were absolutely solid - it was workers on higher grades who did the crossing. This was interesting considering his workplace had been bombarded with anti-strike propaganda from the powers that be.

Matters were slightly different at the next workplace we visited. Though more were out picketing, more workers had gone in. Sister C told me that part of the problem is her department employs more casual workers than the other - it's hard to motivate these workers to strike over changes to terms and conditions when their contracts run out in a couple of months time. Still, there was no excusing some. One non-union worker obviously felt a touch guilty as he crossed the picket line - he tossed a bag of mints to one of the pickets as a means of assuaging his guilt.

I also asked the comrade if younger workers were more likely to go in. After all, trade union traditions have had some difficulty transferring to the generation that grew up under Thatcher and Blair. But thankfully, C thought there was no noticeable difference at all. While the young workers were less likely to be on the picket line, they were no more prone to scabbing than anyone else.

By this time Brother J had brought along the TUC banner which we unfurled and attracted bewildered looks from passersby. After milling around for a little while longer, we nipped up to the next workplace ... only to find the picket line winding down - the last picket was about to leave. She told us out of 150 workers only a handful plus management (who are also PCS and affected by the same contractual changes) had gone in. The place was open as normal but there would have been very little in the way of a service available.

We were warmly received everywhere we went and we'll be doing it all again tomorrow, but this time we're visiting the last first so we can actually catch some workers. If readers (who aren't striking PCS workers) are able to it's well worth making the effort to support the PCS in this dispute. After all, if management here can unilaterally discard employment contracts without fear, what's stopping other bosses in other industries from following suit? That is what is at stake.

New Blog Round Up

I'm slightly changing the format of the monthly round up of the new left blogs that have come my way. Instead of long and boring descriptions attending each blog I've decided to do an Iain Dale and nick the way he does his daily plugs. If you want to know what a blog is about, go and have a look yourself!

Without further ado;

1) Air Strike (Socialist Party)
2) Roger Banister (Socialist Party)
3) Volume 3 (Unaligned) (Twitter)
4) Red Postie (Workers' Power)
5) Going Postal (Unaligned)
6) Tom Scholes-Fogg (Labour) (Twitter)
7) The Audacity of Pope (Labour) (Twitter)
8) Working for the Clampdown (Labour) (Twitter)
9) Tom Reynold's Longton North Labour Blog (Labour) (Twitter)
10) Plurality. (Unaligned) (Twitter)
11) Oxford Radical Forum (Unaligned)
12) Watching with George (Unaligned)
13) Stoke Socialist Party (Socialist Party)

If you know of any new(ish) left, Labour, feminist, Green, socialist etc. blogs let me know about them via the old email or comments box and they'll get a plug in the next round up in a month's time.

A Tale of Two Expulsions

Party like it's 1937! Two interesting expulsions from the fringes of political life almost flew under the radar this week. The first, and probably the more newsworthy is the expulsion of UKIP MEP, Nikki Sinclaire (pictured) from the party. This came after her resignation from the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament a couple of months back. For those who aren't acquainted with the EFD, this ragtag and bobtail grouping of hard right populists hold positions somewhat out of step with the positive political gains of the last 30 years. You know, stuff such as the important victories over racism and sexism.

It is their "maverick" opposition to "political correctness" that Ms Sinclaire fell foul of. She might like to dress it up as being offended by the "anti-Semitism, violence and the espousal of a single European policy on immigration" of UKIP's European friends, but the rumour doing the rounds is the open homophobia of the execrable Lega Nord of Italy was (obviously) deeply problematic for the openly gay Sinclaire. This didn't seem to be much of a problem for the rest of her UKIP colleagues and so she upped sticks. And who can blame her? By their friends shall ye know them.

No one will be surprised if Sinclaire isn't the last MEP to bail out from our europhobic friends. In the previous European Parliament UKIP lost three of its MEPs through fraud and petty bickering, and Sinclaire herself hasn't exactly had an easy time of it during her UKIP membership. The reason for this volatility as compared with the mainstream parties and the other minor parties is the strange niche it occupies in Britain's political ecology. UKIP are virtual no-hopers when it comes to local and general elections (one reason why Nigel Farrage's challenge to House Speaker John Bercow' will come to nought). The 2004 and 2009 European election results show them up as a vehicle for funneling the widespread antipathy toward the EU. Of the 2.5 million who voted UKIP last June, more than a few would have done so thinking they were giving the "Brussels Bureaucrats" the finger. But the problem for UKIP is this vote is completely amorphous, and therefore the constituency it represents is ... well, can it be said they have a constituency outside a European election?

Without the kind of stability of the core constituencies of Labour, the Tories, the far left, the BNP and even to some extent the LibDems and Greens, UKIP as a party will always be all over the place. They have shown an ability to reach beyond the traditional Conservative vote (for instance, they won the popular vote in Stoke) but have proven unable to do anything with it. Without an anchor, UKIP will continue to be riddled with fighting and fallings out.

The other expulsion of interest is unlikely to pass muster on all but the few blogs that take an interest in the sectarian machinations of the British far left. And seeing as this is one of them ... As we all know (at least those of us sad enough to give a fig about 50-strong micro-groupings), the grandly over-titled International Marxist Tendency is in total meltdown (the Weekly Worker and the CWI have got the goods here and here). One episode in its disintegration has been the expulsion of one of its relatively well-known public faces, Heiko Khoo. While not a household name in sectarian circles, he has built a profile as the face of the IMT at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park (there's a bit more about him in Tony Allen's excellent oral history). In an organisation devoid of 'stars' this is a big deal.

What happened? It appears the comrade has been expelled on the flimsiest of pretexts. There's more over at Left Outside. His crime, according to one IMT neophyte, is putting the organisation in danger ... for espousing an analysis of China different to that of the leadership!

In my book that's an action more characteristic of a cult than a political organisation. But then the IMT have always been very, very strange. I used to run a forum in the late 90s with a comrade who fell in with them. To cut a long story short more and more IMT'ers were co-opted onto the moderating team, with the corresponding result that discussion was incrementally censored before the forum was shut down altogether (it was one of the reasons why I set up the UK Left Network list). But anyway, she ended up moving to Belgium to help the section there do up its HQ ... which the city branch was going to move into in some sort of bizarre group living arrangement. Very strange and unhealthy. If I'd had to wait for Peter Taaffe to come out of the bathroom in the morning, or get on Bill Mullins case for not washing the pots I doubt my SP membership would have lasted as long as it did.

I digress. The expulsion of comrade Khoo from the fast depleting ranks of the IMT is a doomed attempt by the leadership to inoculate its membership against ideas not anointed by the holy trinity of Rob Sewell, Alan Woods and (zombie) Ted Grant. Any group that cannot even acknowledge the existence of other socialist organisations, let alone properly engage with the analytical contributions of groups, individual activists and academics in the wider labour movement doesn't deserve to call itself Marxist.

Debating the Miners' Strike

Last night's Question Time-style event on the Miners' Strike (dubbed by organisers 'The Big A Debate') was always going to be a fiery affair. The panel was composed of Ken Loach, George Galloway, Graun journalist David Hencke, Edwina Currie and UKIP MEP Mike Nattrass - itself an incendiary combination, but throw in an audience composed mainly of ex-miners and lefties you have the recipe for a right old brew up. And you don't have to take my word for it, you can watch it here courtesy of Stoke blogging maestros, Pits n pots.

To set the scene we were shown two short films. The first was a wonderful piece of Pathe-style propaganda from 1952 on mining. In his best RP, the narrator informed us how coal was at the heart of Britain's future as a "great power". We were also shown the (then) state of the art mechanisation of coal mining and measures taken to combat coal dust. This was contrasted with footage from the violent confrontation at Orgreave Colliery.

Oliver Speight, a local businessman then came on to introduce himself as chair and welcomed the panelists. Then came the first question - which was addressed to Currie. She was asked "Has deindustrialisation been a success? Did she and other Tories perceive the heartache and problems pit closures would cause?" Currie replied that of course she was concerned, but pits were already closing and had been for a long time - her Derby South constituency was certainly undergoing that process after having been worked for over 200 years. She also argued that some of her constituents accepted that the pits were exhausted and that it was her job as MP to try and find them something else to do. Galloway replied to say the miners' defeat broke his heart and that everything since can be traced back to that moment. Despite being lambasted by Galloway as a "revisionist" for his recent book that used official documents to shed new light on the strike, Hencke agreed it was the most significant turning point in British political history since 1945. The unbridled capitalism we have now and the disastrous path it led us down is a consequence of what happened 25 years ago. Nattrass offered an extremely superficial analysis of the strike as being a clash between the personalities of Scargill and Thatcher, before arguing for the re-opening of the pits. Lastly, Loach argued the Tory attack on the miners was as much to do with uneconomic pits than the war in Iraq had to do with WMD. British capitalism was failing, and the way to fix it was smashing the unions. Despite this TUC and Labour leaders sat on the sidelines and didn't lift a finger to help - despite the TUC's resolution that it would offer full support.

Continuing the leadership theme, the issue of TUC and Labour betrayal came up in the next question. Galloway argued that had the TUC led the 12 million-strong labour movement into battle behind the miners we - the organised working class - would have won. But as it stands, shutting down the mines destroyed not only a vast support industry but also the world leading expertise it had built up, which in turn set back the capacity to research the clean coal and carbon capture technologies we need today. Currie took a slightly different tack. Yes, there was a problem with leadership - but it was on the miners' side. Scargill was determined to prosecute a political struggle against the government regardless of members' wishes. She noted that on a 90% turn out, some 83% of miners in South Derbys voted to work. Nationally, she conceded that Scargill probably would have won a ballot of the entire union but he decided not to. Responding to this, Loach said that while there was no national ballot, area by area voted to come out (the problem of course with such an argument is local ballots could as much legitimate working through the strike as walking out).

Moving on slightly from mining, the panel was asked if the main political ideologies (i.e. socialism, conservatism, liberalism) were now dead dogs? Hencke argued a point echoed here and elsewhere many times - that there is a consensus among mainstream politics for prioritising public spending cuts. In other words, the cost of bailing out the banks will be some 290,000 jobs. He argued a radical re-think was necessary to avoid the kind of social devastation we saw left in the wake of the miners' strike. For Loach the main problem in politics today is that of political representation, and the current consensus is a direct result of the strike: "If your political system does not reflect real divisions in society then you can't have a democracy", he thought. For Nattrass, unsurprisingly for him the biggest problem in politics was that all the parties were in hock to Europe (yawn). Currie challenged Loach to get his "broad left" together and stand in elections to see how many votes they will get. She said she'd like to see an adoption of a national plan. She said France under Georges Pompidou adopted a farseeing plan that asked what the country would need 30 years hence, and therefore developed its rail infrastructure, Airbus, Ariane and nuclear power. Britain needs to do the same (of course, she failed to reflect that the actions of the government she was a member of were fundamentally at odds with such a perspective).

This marked something of a reflection on Britain's economic future. Nattrass acknowledged that the closures were a disaster and argued that UK coal was now the cheapest in Europe - it makes sense for the pits to be reopened, especially with the new green technologies we have now (as a climate change denialist, he dismissed the problem of carbon emissions out of hand). Galloway said he'd be more comfortable with nuclear being in Britain's energy mix if you didn't have to dress up like a spaceman every time you went to work. Countering some comments Currie made earlier about the undesirability of subsidised industry, he replied that it's not a choice between subsidy and no subsidy, it's one between supporting socially useful industry or paying out billions in unemployment benefits.

Moving on to policy priorities, Galloway said that in the event of a hung Parliament and Respect winning three seats, his conditions for supporting a minority government would be a national house building programme, state-directed investment in manufacturing by the banks currently in de facto public ownership, and the withdrawal of British troops from overseas. For Nattrass he would hang all politicians as traitors and continued his tired theme of 'oh noes, it's teh Europez'. Unsurprisingly Currie channelled "Dave" and argued for attacking the deficit and introducing flat taxes (this apparently would bring more cash into the treasury's coffers). Hencke was for cracking down on tax dodgers, and Loach was for taking back privatised industries but this time under *democratic* public ownership.

Overall the evening was a tremendous success, and highly entertaining too. Aside from Galloway's inappropriate references to Currie's affair with John Major (I wonder if he'd have repeatedly brought up an opponent's sexual history had it been a man defending the Tory case) there were two issues that failed to get an airing. The first is the problematic nature of coal from the standpoint of climate change. Carbon capture and storage technology is very much in its infancy. The way some of the panel was talking you would think this problem has been resolved - it really could have done with some informed input on this issue. Second was the free pass Labour got. As Currie noted, it's all very well talking about the legacy of the Tories but what have Labour done in the last 13 years to reverse it? The answer is of course that in many ways Blair and Brown have deepened the process of deindustrialisation by carrying on with a neoliberal programme and more or less ignoring the aspirations of the trade unions. As far as I'm concerned, they have done much to be ashamed of.

Michael Foot, 1913-2010

It was sad to hear Michael Foot died earlier today, aged 96. Of all the Labour politicians of the last 30 years, Foot was probably the Labour left's best-known figure (after Tony Benn).

Foot had a long and fruitful career as a political journalist, author and politician. But there are certain defining moments of his life that will be endlessly recycled on today's news bulletins. Undoubtedly that visit to the cenotaph will be one of them (as Anton Vowl of Enemies of Reason tweeted earlier, "Let's play the Michael Foot drinking game. Every time that Cenotaph footage is on TV today, take a drink. We'll be dead by sundown").

Another of course will be the "longest suicide note in history", the 700 page Labour manifesto for the 1983 general election. Even the dogs in the street know this document, which was based on conference resolutions at Foot's insistence, is still ritualistically unearthed by the right to browbeat the left. It is blamed for the poorest showing for Labour in the post-war period and used to demonstrate the unpopularity of left wing ideas. Of course, all this forgets Thatcher coasted back into Number 10 off the back of Britain's victory in the war and the fact the Labour vote was split - its vote declined by approximately three million while the SDP took roughly the same number of voters over to the Alliance camp. Circumstances rather than the alleged centre right policy preferences of the British electorate better explain the increase in the Conservatives' majority.

Blairites and Brownites will hypocritically heap praise on a man whose unashamed social democratic ideas were a deep embarrassment to them. For socialists inside and outside the Labour party however, Foot's political career is a lesson in the limits of establishment radicalism. At best his socialism was firmly committed to the parliamentary road. At worst, he tailed establishment opinion by cheering on the Falklands War and attacked elements of the left in Labour. But for all that he was what is now that rarest of beasts - a conviction politician. If we had a few more Michael Foots today the Labour party would be a better place.

EDL to Return to North Staffs

As if it wasn't enough that the racist knuckleheads of the English Defence League have run amok in Hanley once this year, they are planning on making a comeback to the environs of North Staffordshire. According to our local paper, The Sentinel:

Members of the English Defence League (EDL) are believed to be organising a gathering in Newcastle town centre via social networking website Facebook.

The event will be held on April 24 and 25, the weekend after St George's Day.

It is understood the gathering would not be an official demonstration, like the rally held in Hanley on January 23, but a social event.

Police say they are aware of the plans and have been speaking to landlords about the event.

The full article can be read here.

The EDL might like to pretend this is an unofficial gathering, but everyone knows it will be the same thugs out causing trouble as last time. Clearly their previous outing in The Potteries has given them the confidence to launch another provocation more or less at the site of their last disgrace.

You can bet your bottom dollar it will be as heavily policed as last time, if not more so. But it is imperative we - the labour movement and anti-fascist movement - pull out all the stops to make sure the counter-demonstration is as big as possible.

Miners' Strike Question Time

March 3rd is the 25th anniversary of the ending of the Miners' Strike. The year long struggle was *the* defining moment of the last 30 years. Its defeat at the hands of the government ultimately allowed the Tories to carry through its neoliberal programme with all the devastating effects it has had on the labour movement, the manufacturing industry, rights at work and working class communities. Had the miners won Britain would be a very different place today, and perhaps neoliberalism not be as globally dominant as it has been in the years since the strike.

To commemorate the occasion The Forum Theatre in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent is hosting an evening of Question Time-style debate this Wednesday. The panel will feature Respect MP George Galloway, former Tory MP Edwina Currie, leftist filmmaker Ken Loach, a representative for local Labour MP Mark Fisher, and UKIP MEP Mike Nattrass. I suspect many former miners and the comrades from Women Against Pit Closures will be in attendance, as well as local Tories. The audience mix and the make up of the panel should mean the evening will be lively!

Because of the format the organisers ask questions be submitted in advance. They can be sent to info@theartbay.co.uk

There are some tickets left. They're £5 waged and £3 concessions and can be obtained from the Potteries Museum in Hanley, by phone at 01782 844222 or online here. Proceeds will be split between an adventure playground project in Newcastle-U-Lyme and Marie Curie.

The Miners' Strike Question Time will start at 7pm and finish by 9:30. So if you're in Stoke and interested in how the strike continues to shape the political landscape 25 years on, come along.

Can a New Workers' Party Emerge?

One of the things that sealed the deal when I was thinking about joining the Socialist Party in autumn/winter 2005 was its decision to launch the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. For a long time the SP had been agitating around the need for a new party to take up the mantle of working class political representation, but up until then (at least as far as I was aware) it had not taken any concrete steps to bring it about. A declaration was circulated and there was a very successful launch conference. There followed a run of public meetings up and down the country and the statement managed a couple of thousand signatures. But gradually, save the ritual of steering group gatherings and an annual conference that diminished year on year, the CNWP failed to develop a life of its own and faded into the background with the development of No2EU, and its progeny, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

Everyone knew the CNWP was not going to be the embryo of a new organisation, but it was hoped it would facilitate the coming together of the left, the trade unions and community campaigns in some way. And here in lies the problem with the strategy for building a new workers' party. None as such exists. I know from having done CNWP work that there is little appetite for a new party. People were certainly happy to come up to Stoke SP stalls and sign the petitions, chuck a quid or two in the pot, take a paper and nod along as you give them the spiel about the need or a new party, but only a tiny number would sign the declaration and the few that did invariably ended up joining the branch.

One shouldn't be too surprised about this. As anyone on the left will tell you 30 years of neoliberalism, a declining labour movement and the restructuring of British capitalism has thrown back working class consciousness, confidence and combativity. This being the case, where is a new workers' party going to come from? Is the emergence of a new alternative to Labour's left a likely prospect or fundamentally out of kilter with where the working class is?

Taking things as they are there are two possible avenues one could come about. The first is through trade unions breaking from Labour. This is more or less the position of the SP. They argue the Blair-Brown leadership has gutted the party of working class content in their quest to become the preferred party of British capital, and so are quite happy to privatise away, treat the unions as embarrassing relatives and happily launch attacks on workers at home and abroad. The SP argues the unions would neither stomach attacks on their members forever or be happy with their lack of influence over Labour, and so will be forced to seek political influence elsewhere - principally in the direction of founding a party that reflects their interests.

In part this perspective has been borne out. The FBU and RMT are no longer affiliated to Labour, the CWU's support hangs by a thread and even Dave Prentis of Unison has been forced to rattle the saber. But that's as far as it has gone. The RMT have retreated from being directly involved in elections after last year's No2EU vote and are backing Labour (though branches have the freedom to decide who they endorse). The PCS will be doing its usual Make Your Vote Count campaign.

As for remaining trade union affiliates, if anything they are increasing their commitment to Labour. Andy has variously blogged about the GMB's influence-building strategy it has adopted in Labour. It's oft-noted that Unite are bankrolling the party. And Paul Holme's Unison general secretary campaign makes clear the union should be using the Labour link to promote its policy agenda in the party, not the other way round. It seems unlikely the main unions will move away from Labour if they think there are still ways and means of securing their objectives through it, especially in the absence of an alternative home to go to.

Which brings me to the second possible avenue for a new party: the existing far left. When I was in the SP leading comrades were firmly of the opinion that cobbling together "the sects" would not bring us a step closer to a new party (and for some, left unity itself was a diversion from this task). Instead we'd have to wait for the trade unions and/or the vaunted "fresh layers" to become involved. But in Britain at least, experience has partially negated this perspective. At its height the Scottish Socialist Party attracted trade union support in the shape of the RMT. This would not have happened had Scottish Militant Labour not pursued a unity project with the rest of the left, and the subsequent fate of the SSP does not render this lesson null and void.

So left unity can work and pull in support from beyond the far left. But what prospects for it today? What are the chances of the positives of the SSP experience being replicated? The SP, SWP plus a few others are formally united under the TUSC banner for the next election, and Respect and the SSP will be ploughing their own furrows. So on the surface things don't look too bad. But look under the surface of TUSC and it has every appearance of being an alliance of convenience. SP members will be promoting SP candidates. SWP members will promote SWP candidates. There will be very little in the way of joint, unified action. And what about after the election? Will TUSC take on flesh or officially talked up at the moment it's being buried? Perhaps the worst won't happen, but the experience of the Socialist Alliance, Respect when the SWP were in it, and the barely-remembered Socialist and Green Unity Coalition are not encouraging.

This brings us to the basic problem at the heart of the British left. Its dominant tendencies act as discrete self-contained entities in competition for recruits, paper sales and influence. Each maintain a full-time apparatus with a semi-permanent leadership and collective world views that are more the subject of dispute and polemic than scientific investigation. Furthermore because none have wealthy backers the basic round of stalls, paper sales, and recruitment has to take precedence to keep the show on the road. This means working with other lefts are seldom and fleeting. So the problems with the far left are not entirely rooted in particular interpretations of democratic centralism, as the cpgb and others maintain, but more so the mode of work they undertake out of necessity.

For example, where the SP have bases in working class communities - Coventry and Lewisham - the branches in those areas have grown to the extent that 'community work' can be undertaken in addition to the basic work. Respect is another case in point. Because its model of organisation building is not reliant on the same staples as its Trotskyist competitors they have been able to concentrate on putting down roots, with the result they stand a strong chance of winning in three constituencies.

To return to the main point, because of the competitive models of party building favoured by the far left it is unlikely they will put together a lasting, unified organisation and therefore will not attract support from any union thinking twice about its links to Labour.

Perhaps an upsurge in struggle will change this situation, but I doubt it. Time and again the labour movement has proven it prefers to work pragmatically with the instruments it has to hand. The far left hasn't provided anything the unions can turn to, and they will not take the risks of founding something new themselves. On the other hand power has shifted in the Labour party. The independence the bourgeois pole assumed during the Blair years has receded and the party is dependent on the unions for resources. This constitutes a real opportunity for moving Labour to the left and strengthening the hand of socialist ideas in the labour movement. It's a tough perspective and a difficult one to argue for thanks to this government's record, but there is no way around it. The best place for rebuilding the labour movement and renewing working class politics is inside Labour.

The task in front of socialists today is not founding a new workers' party. It's working with the one we've got.

Homeopathy's Surprising Allies

Just been alerted to this Early Day Motion via Ben Goldacre:

EDM 908 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE REPORT ON HOMEOPATHY

23.02.2010

Tredinnick, David
That this House expresses concern at the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee's Report, Evidence Check on Homeopathy; notes that the Committee took only oral evidence from a limited number of witnesses, including known critics of homeopathy Tracy Brown, the Managing Director of Sense About Science, and journalist Dr Ben Goldacre, who have no expertise in the subject; believes that evidence should have been heard from primary care trusts that commission homeopathy, doctors who use it in a primary care setting, and other relevant organisations, such as the Society of Homeopaths, to provide balance; observes that the Committee did not consider evidence from abroad from countries such as France and Germany, where provision of homeopathy is far more widespread than in the UK, or from India, where it is part of the health service; regrets that the Committee ignored the 74 randomised controlled trials comparing homeopathy with placebo, of which 63 showed homeopathic treatments were effective, and that the Committee recommends no further research; further notes that 206 hon. Members signed Early Day Motion No. 1240 in support of NHS homeopathic hospitals in Session 2006-07; and calls on the Government to maintain its policy of allowing decision-making on individual clinical interventions, including homeopathy, to remain in the hands of local NHS service providers and practitioners who are best placed to know their community's needs.

Source here.

That this is being pushed by David Tredinnick is no surprise. Obscurantism and irrationality are essential life skills for your average Tory, though they usually tend to dress it up in the trappings of state sponsored religion. But Tredinnick is slightly different. In 2006 he claimed over £200 on expenses for astrology software, and a further £300 in tuition fees from the company who supplied it. Incredible.

But what I find much more worrying is that *three* high profile left wing MPs have put their name to it too. John McDonnell, Alan Simpson and Jeremy Corbyn have joined forces with the Conservative member for moonbatshire to get the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee to take another look at the "evidence" for homeopathy. What is wrong with these people? What possible motive could these otherwise well-respected socialists have for backing this quackery?