There are those on the left (well, they say they’re on the left) who have been trying to tell me that the current Labour leadership contest is irrelevant. Most say that the result is a foregone conclusion and that all the candidates are rubbish apart from one, who cannot win. Others are of a slightly more optimistic bent. Of the four rubbish candidates, they feel one is slightly less rubbish and so must be embraced with open arms… but there’s no point supporting the only non-rubbish candidate, for she cannot win.
How many of these contests have we got to go through before people see sense? Yes, it’s true we need a mass membership Labour Party with fully accountable and democratic decision making, but we haven’t got one and if we wait until we have before we start engaging in internal matters, we’ll have died waiting. In fact it’s partly this “hands off, wait until we get the perfect Party of our dreams, anything less is a travesty” attitude that has got us into this mess. This is the reason why some CLPs don’t send delegates to Annual Conference (“What’s the point? It’s just a rally now.”) – and then they wonder why such right wing policies get passed.
A similar urge to give up before the opening shots have even been fired seems to be behind the otherwise inexplicable mass falling in love with Ed Miliband. Why would anyone who considers themselves to be on the left support the leadership candidate who wrote the Manifesto which lost us the General Election? That’s the Manifesto which says keep Trident out of the Strategic Defence Review, let’s not bother with a progressive taxation policy, let’s keep Academies and Foundation Hospitals and let’s make sure we halve the deficit in four years. It is because of that Manifesto that Alastair Darling was able to talk about a re-elected Labour Government making tougher cuts than Margaret Thatcher, thereby ensuring that the Labour Government wouldn’t get re-elected. It is because of that Manifesto that the Con-Dem Coalition is now able to brand its cuts as “Labour cuts”. I am told that young Master Edward has said good things about the environment. He’d have to say a hell of a lot of them before I could overlook the rest of his record.
Over several decades of party membership, I have campaigned for public ownership, peace, and social justice only to be roundly slagged off by all and sundry for being a left wing extremist. I find it rather galling that now we have a leadership contest, most of the contenders are falling over themselves to distance themselves from the right wing actions of previous Labour Governments and are trying to make out that they secretly supported what I and many other comrades were fighting for all the time. How can anyone believe a word they say? The last time a pleasant looking young chap in a suit tried to allay the suspicions of the left, it was by promising he wouldn’t touch Clause IV. As soon as he was elected Leader it transpired that the abolition of Clause IV was his top priority. You have been warned.
The colossal failure of nerve on the centre-left over the leadership contest is occasioned by fear that the obvious candidate, the one that anyone in their right mind should be supporting, can’t win. It’s a mystery to me why anyone would think that, but apparently some members are concerned that Diane Abbott is too left wing for the bulk of the Party. This is rather odd, given that the other four candidates are desperately trying to cover over their New Labour pasts. “No but, yes but, no but” goes the argument: if Diane was elected Leader, she couldn’t win the General Election because she’s too left wing for the electorate. Really? We’ve lost five million votes since 1997. Did we lose them because Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were too left wing?
Diane doubled her majority at the last Election, when the likes of Ed Balls struggled to hold on to his seat. If you go with her anywhere, as I did in mid-August, you never get a minute’s peace. People are constantly coming up to her, asking to shake her hand, wishing her luck, smiling and waving. They can’t all be party members (we haven’t got that many!). Most of them must be members of the public: so no one needs to worry about Diane’s supposed lack of appeal to them.
Twenty five years ago, we had the chance to effect real political change in this country. With the honourable exceptions of the miners and councillors in Liverpool and Lambeth and some other more localised struggles, the labour movement as a whole bottled it. We need to make sure we don’t miss the opportunity again.

Christine Shawcroft, elected as a constituency representative on the Labour Party NEC with over 50% of the vote, is standing again.