Curb your moderation

My previous post, the first in a series, pointed to what I see to be a serious lack on the British Left, an absence of sustained thought. One promising counterbalance to this is the excellent journal Salvage, which I commend to readers as deserving your support.

I say this because what follows was an article written for Salvage. It would need updating in the light of the NEC election results, and the limited time I have available for political writing makes prevents this. In any case, they have far better and deeper reflections than mine to offer. Still I post it here just in case anyone finds it interesting.

Curb your moderation

It is often claimed that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but this is nonsense. The infernal highway is, rather, tarmacked with moderation. If ever a term was ideological in its innocent everydayness it is 'moderation'. There is nothing wrong with asking for a moderate helping of pudding, although even moderate exposure to the oeuvre of Coldplay might prove too much. Support for a football team can be moderate, just as one's drinking at the office Christmas party inevitably turns out to be immoderate. The tempo of a musical performance might be moderate, as might the incline of a hill or the difficulty of an exam question. Then, of course, politics might be moderate. It is, we are left in no doubt, good for politics for be moderate. The moderate shall inherit the earth, although when they do so their plans will be as consistently moderate as their expectations.

Moderation is something for which we should aim. This is particularly the case now that 'extremism' has been appointed as the folk devil de nos jours. Like many a brick in linguistic hegemony it is helpfully imprecise in its application, caring nothing for conventional political distinctions. Daesh are extremists; so are Britain First and Jeremy Corbyn. To this last extremist I will return in due course. Fortunately for the hard-working families of Middle England, the extremist menace does not terrorise our streets and polling booths unopposed. Enter the moderates. These champions of civilisation and rationality are the opposite to extremists, as celestial in their virtue as the latter are diabolical in their vice: contemporary ideology is nothing if not manichean.

To be moderate is to be reasonable, a concept which political philosopher Lorna Finlayson has keenly subjected to critical biopsy in her The Political is Political. The moderates are realistic, prepared to compromise, accepting of the parameters of the possible, and sensitive – within limits – to public opinion. Most schools of thought are blessed with their moderates. Since 2001 moderate Muslims have been much courted by politicians. Meanwhile David Cameron successfully, if somewhat improbably, branded his version of conservatism as moderate. One can also be a moderate Corbynite, supporting the elected leader of the Labour Party, but not in a way that ruffles too many feathers. That, at least is the plan; it turns out that some feathers in the Parliamentary Labour Party are as easily ruffled as Boris Johnson's hair. Those content to rain bombs on the Middle East are, it seems, uncommonly fragile beasts.

For moderate Corbynites the leadership is to be supported and popular policies developed on a broadly social democratic basis. Alliances are to be formed with the centre and old-right in order to secure Jeremy's position, especially given the current composition of the PLP. More generally, however, the gains of the Corbyn surge can only be secured by a gentle approach, reaching out across the breadth of the Labour Party, reassuring centrists at constituency level. Jeremy's tent is to be a big one indeed.

The soft-left

The soft-left, to give the moderate Corbynites another more familiar name, are a force to be reckoned with. Key positions within the Momentum organisation are filled by moderates, including crucially founder Jon Lansman. The general thrust of Momentum, whilst bringing welcome demographic breadth and cultural and aesthetic imagination to the left, has been a cautious one, reinforced at the level of many local groups, and supported by influential organisations like Socialist Action. The case for moderation, however, can also get a serious hearing within parts of Labour customarily thought of as hard-left – the present author's home territory. Here the refrain weaves together the celebratory and the weary in a curious harmony: we have done well, things are immeasurably better, but let's not do too much – we don't want to alienate the centre. Father Dougal McGuire once summed up this outlook in a memorable slogan, 'Careful Now'. As I'll have cause to remark again in a moment, upon analysis the view turns out to be suggesting that we carry on doing what we have been doing for the past two decades. Thus a significant proportion of Britain's organised anti-capitalists at one of the most crucial political junctures for years.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the case of Ann Black. A veteran of Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC), and frequently topping the poll of constituency members, she has consistently enjoyed the support of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA), which has been backed by the Party's left. This might seem surprising given Black's less than impressive voting record. At important points, the suspension of Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets and subsequent expulsions of his supporters being a key example, Black did not act as might be expected from a left-winger.

In the interests of fairness it should be frankly admitted at this stage that Black has never claimed to be a left-winger. Her politics are those of a social democratic centre that would have been thought right-wing in the Labour Party of the 1980s: Roy Hattersley is an exemplar of the genre. The left formed an alliance with this current in the early 2000s context of Blairism, from a position of weakness, the cause of defending the basics of party democracy, the welfare state, and trade unionism. It was, however, an alliance born of circumstance rather than deep shared conviction. And so, when Labour's NEC voted in late July to disenfranchise new members of the Labour Party in the coming leadership election, Black supported the move, and subsequently oversaw the suspension of Brighton and Hove District Labour Party. This was too much for the hard-left Labour Representation Committee (LRC), which put out a statement saying that it would never again support Black for the NEC.

Less surprising than the LRC's response was the reaction of some on the Labour left to that response. This has ranged from discomfort to anger; I have witnessed some of it myself. The LRC is putting the election of the CLGA slate at risk, perhaps it is even undermining the Corbyn leadership. Certainly, in order to improve its position on the NEC, the left needs to win the hearts and minds of people who think like Ann Black, and of those who are attached to her as a representative . On the face of it this is odd, given that the majority of those voting in the 2016 NEC election are new to Labour and have probably never heard of Ann Black. However much the flame of social democracy might still burn in terms of widespread affection for the NHS, this passion for Bevanism doesn't generally extend to memorising the names of the doctrine's current proponents. One explanation of the soft-left discomfort would be that people have not come to terms with the new reality and that, when they think of the Labour Party, they still think of the people who went to their CLP bingo evening five years ago.

To grasp why the appeal for moderation over matters like the Black case found receptive ears on the left, we need to understand the Labour left's recent history. To grasp why the appeal was misplaced, we need to understand its present reality.

Politics in an age of waiting

From the mid-80s onwards Labour's left was in decline from the high point of Tony Benn's 1981 challenge for the deputy leadership. Demoralised by the defeat of the Miners' Strike and of left-wing local authorities by Thatcher, it was weakened by the expulsions around Militant and undermined by policy shifts in a right-wing direction. Matters were not helped by the fact that the retreat from Bennism was led by a man who had once been in the left's own ambit. Neil Kinnock was the soft-left candidate to replace Michael Foot. On his shift right, he took a number of left-wing MPs, and rather more party members with him. All of this happened, moreover, in a context of rampant privatisation and marketisation and of the global dominance of neo-liberalism. The left's defeat was finalised and given governmental expression by Tony Blair.

What was the Labour left to do in these circumstances? It was weak, defensive, and without the capacity to act as a significant force in Labour's internal politics. Such circumstances are ripe for alliance-building, and so the CLGA was born. During this period, from the mid-90s onwards, much of the Labour left (outside organised Trotskyist groups, at least) occupied tactically the ground vacated by the former soft-left, hoping to defend the gains of the post-war period, retain Labour's status as a trade-union forces, and rally the remnant forces of labourism. Where Labour Briefing once carried a column called 'Class Traitor of the Month' it now ran defences of the NHS and council housing that would not have been out of place in a Fabian Society publication a decade previously.

This shift in position was perfectly reasonable and, as far as I can judge, correct. Now, Keynes probably didn't ever ask “When the facts change, I change my mind; what do you do?”, but it is a good question, and the problem with the stance of much of the Labour left is that the facts have changed. From the post-Blairite ashes of the Labour Party a phoenix of sorts has risen. New members in their tens of thousands have joined to support Corbyn. Salvage is hardly the place for displays of unqualified optimism, and its certainly true that the new support is politically uneven and fragile. What it is not, however, is full of Ann Black clones. It is culturally disjoint from much of the Labour Party, younger and more ethnically diverse than the standing Labour left. The tactics that kept the flame burning throughout the 90s and 00s should now be cosigned to history. Worrying about how the Corbyn movement relates to the old Labour centre in the context of present Labour politics is rather like obsessing about alliances with Andorra when planning a geopolitical strategy.

The issue is that the moderate-tempered part of the Labour left doesn't see things like this. Whether it is constituency left activists who continue concerned, as they have been for much of their political adulthood, with winning over the wobbly moderates, talking them round over real ale and folk music; or whether it is the slicker, more digitally competent and Zeitgeist sensitive Momentum leadership, many of the people most active in doing left-wing politics in the Labour Party have been formed in the habit of guarding against steering left, for fear of upsetting the moderates and losing them to the Blairites. They have grown used to compromises of a certain sort. Their learned impulse is to suppress their inner socialist at key moments. Old habits die hard in this respect, and it certainly must be difficult to start talking about ownership of the means of production when you've spent the past twenty years talking about footpaths. In any case, it might be the case that some Labour leftists have come to like this way of doing politics. Perhaps the constituency activist enjoys his regular pint with the Gatiskellites; it seems probable that the Momentum leadership like their new found position, even if they political compass has changed surprisingly little. In practice, certainly, it directs them to triangulate centrewards, appeasing parliamentary opinion in the hope of winning reforms.

Unfortunately, accommodating the centre looks like a bad tactic, even in terms of the minimal aim of sustaining Corbyn's position. The Labour centre is irrelevant; what matters is keeping the support and enthusiasm of those of have flocked to Labour to support Corbyn. Often politically inexperienced and idealistic, it is difficult to imagine a thing less likely to appeal to this constituency than buckling under pressure and perceived sell-outs. Still worse are non-instrumental appeals to 'the unity of the Labour Party'. The unity of the Labour Party is as real as the Loch Ness Monster, and were this not the case Jeremy Corbyn would not have been elected in the first place. The Corbyn moment was born of crisis, a political crisis both of working class representation and relatedly of labourism, in Ralph Miliband's sense of that term. There is no possibility of going back to before the crisis.

The phenomenon of Corbynism, which is the closest Britain (or, more accurately, England) will get to a Podemos or Syriza any time soon, far from being a sign of the revival of labourism is a manifestation of its death throes. The old coalition that was the Labour Party, grouped together in the hope of securing reforms favouring the working class, and of winning a mass of their votes on that basis is in secular decline now that capitalism can no longer afford social democracy. The value of the Corbyn leadership is precisely not that he makes possible a return to the post-war consensus like some kind of political TARDIS. This is not a bad thing: the rose tinted spectacles of enthusiasts for social democracy tend not to notice the signs on doors reading 'No dogs, no blacks, no Irish', nor the housewife holding back the tears with valium. Corbyn, however partially and inadequately, realises that some kind of change is needed. He represents a break with the neo-liberal consensus and opens up a space in which people can dream again. This is, of course, threatening to those who see in dreams only a threat to a good night's sleep.

Moderate compromise

The point is not that compromise is not possible, still less that it is not needed. Any politics grounded in reality requires prioritisation, alliance building, and negotiation. This is surely particularly true of socialist engagement with electoral politics under capitalism. The demand that left politicians never compromise, that nothing short of their full programme (whatever that might consist in) will suffice, deserves Lenin's sobriquet 'an infantile disorder' if anything does. The question to be asked is not whether we compromise but to which ends we compromise.

Power at any cost is not a price worth paying. This is as true if the power in question is wielded by Jeremy Corbyn as it is when some Blairite nonentity is justifying their betrayals by appeal to 'keeping Labour in power'. Socialists presented with governmental or party-political power use it, at least in theory, only in order to transform it and so to further the transformation of society itself. They use their platform to promote their own ideas and challenge those which cement the present order. Crucially, they consider their own position a lever with which to strengthen those of the working class and oppressed groups. Attempts to cling to power, moves to compromise, and the formation of alliances are judged by these criteria, and only entered into if they succeed by them. The radical left, unlike the moderates – whether by conviction or habit, does not understand these things as goods-in-themselves, the sign of a mature politics, but as tactics towards the end of a human future.

If the moderate ever do inherit the earth, a prospect which even by the pollyannaish criteria of liberals looks unlikely in the age of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, it might not turn out to be worth inheriting. For here is the ultimate irony: whatever else moderation in its soft-left form might be, it is not realistic. Eagleton has more than once remarked that it is not revolutionaries who are dewy eyed utopians, but those who believe that capitalism can be made to work for the majority of the world's population. We live in a world in which the demand that every child have enough food to nourish them is an extreme one, which cannot be realised within the constraints of the present economic system

In such a world there is an imperative to be an extremist. In Britain, that means to be an extreme Corbynite.  

Socialism, ethics, and humanity (I)

Owen Jones, you will remember, claims that Jeremy Corbyn lacks a clear vision. This was utterly confused, and therefore considerably better than the rest of Jones' now infamous article, which wasn't confused but just wrong. In spite of this, like the proverbial stopped clock, Jones was accidentally onto something true. There is something in the region of vision that the Left around Corbyn does lack; and this is a problem.

We fail in not having a clearly articulated long-term goal, nor any kind of strategy for getting there. By any criteria this is a pretty big absence for a political party. It is, in this particular case, a problem not just for our day to day political activities and ability to communicate our politics, but also for our culture, individual lives, and thought. In is in this last area that it might be thought that a remedy could be found, but here the historically anti-intellectual Labour Left, steeped in a pragmatic empiricism suspicious of anyone who knows too much about Adorno without a concomitant experience of housing committees, is at a disadvantage. Why theorise when there are leaflets to be delivered?

But what do I mean by saying that we, as a movement, I mean the pro-Corbyn Left particularly as grouped around Momentum, lack a goal? Surely we have one that can be summed up with pleasing economy in one word: "socialism". Well, yes, perhaps. But if that word is to serve as anything other than a synonym for "social democat" or a placeholder for vague thoughts of niceness and community, the problems have only begun when we claim an allegiance to socialism.

Scour the blue skies thinking documents of contemporary political parties and you will find affirmations of fidelity to the free-market economy, working families, home ownership, economic growth and various other unremarkable desiderata designed to please the perennially sensible occupants of Middle England. This wish list, which reads too much like the contents of a Telegraph columnist's wet dream to be entirely comfortable reading, is unified by the fact that meaningful steps can be taken towards realising each strategic goal by government policies implemented during the course of a five year parliament. Or, to put the point more carefully (with "economic growth" in particular in mind), it doesn't seem implausible from the perspective of dominant schools of thought to suppose that such steps can be pursued. Crucially, policies directed towards these ends will in no way threaten prevailing structures of economic power nor the organisation of the state. They could be implemented at the level of the nation-state, possibly in concert with other nation-states acting through bodies like the IMF or the EU, or through trade agreements or treaties.

Contrast this will the goal of socialism. This has none of these unifying features. Socialism is a much bigger deal than increasing the number of households with mortgages. As I understand the word it involves the human race moving beyond capitalism and replacing it with collective ownership and control of the earth's resources and our creative activity with them. This is a more ambitious project than improving recycling facilities. It can, in my view, be established only internationally and through the collective action of the mass of working people. As such it does not sit comfortably with the view that political change best happens by parliamentary vote or ministerial announcement. Marx described the institution of socialism as the beginning of human history. The Diggers foreshadowed the modern doctrine with their talk of the earth as a common treasury. None of this would fit well in an election manifesto.

Socialism simply doesn't accommodate itself to the norms for political strategies. This is one excellent reason that those committed to those strategies think that socialism is unrealistic, as indeed it is within the confines of politics-as-usual. Those of us who are socialists think, conversely, that socialism is the only reality-based response adequate to a world which combines starvation with plenty, industrialisation with slums. We also take the cautious view that it will probably be centuries before the issue is decided to everyone's satisfaction. For these reasons socialism is automatically disadvantaged by any approach to politics which demands results within five years, directed towards goals within the remit of government policy. The entire set-up of the political game functions to preserve the status quo.

How to break the impasse? It is undeniable that in order to win the enthusiasm and allegiance of millions for socialism we need a goal that inspires. Yet this can't be provided in the terms that we have grown to expect in Western democracies. And even if it could, oughtn't we to be wary? The history of blueprints for socialism is hardly auspicious. As I see it, the problem is urgent, and only not seen as such because there is not nearly enough clarity around as to what we ourselves mean by "socialism" (and, after all, if the issue does dawn, there will always be an opportunity to put off thinking about it with a clear conscience: let's sort out this immediate crisis first...). In the next post in this series I'll suggest - no doubt to howls from some of my comrades - that the way forward requires us to have a more substantive ethical basis for our socialism.

Lies of the Labour leadership contest 6: New Labour was a mass social movement

Lie 6:

No really.

Bollocks because:

Really? I mean, you need to ask? Wow.

A group of swing voters waiting to listen to Alan Milburn 1997

Alas piffle Jones

The mere fact that something is a truism does not imply that it is true. One example is "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", a thesis it would be interesting to test out on Polio victims. Another is "the pen is mightier than the sword". I'm not actually aware of any historical instance of a writer taking on a fencing master armed only with a Parker fountain pen, but if this did happen, I suspect it did not end well.

The point is, of course, supposed to be about the power of ideas, and to that extent there is a certain truth in it, which is a comfort to those of us who are far more comfortable inserting semi-colons into sentences than we would be thrusting rapiers into a foe. Amongst this legion of geeks I count myself. Still the kind of ideas with which I am concerned here, political ideas, are powerless in the absence of a political movement, and are only formed reliably in close critical relationship with such a movement. This is, understandably in the wake of the SWP rape crisis, the kind of talk which evokes nervousness on much of the left; yet it is often the most vital maxims that require the most careful handling. Whatever is meant by 'a movement', it has to be more than the whims of some central committee. But that is a matter for another day. When ideas come apart from a movement which they can inspire, and which can test them in the crucible of daily life, then they become lifeless things, phantoms and illusions.

Which brings me to Owen Jones. I am, I should say, angry about his intervention in the Labour leadership contest. The Labour left which gave rise to Jeremy Corbyn, and which is currently being tried in his person, also provided Owen with a hand up to his career as a commentator. I remember well him cutting his teeth in the pages of Labour Briefing and his early political days as a co-chair of the LRC's youth wing. He was born of the movement to which he has delivered a timed slap in the face. It is sometimes said that the Left speaks too easily of betrayal, and there may be something to this. Yet a sensitivity to treachery is the flip-side of valuing comradeship. If you are prepared to show solidarity with me, I should be similarly prepared to take you into account in making my own decisions. This might be uncomfortable talk for those for whom individual freedom, or career, or whatever else is the highest conceivable good. Others of us think that the freedom to shout lonely in the desert is no freedom worth having.

In what does the betrayal consist here? A political writer who views their writing as an intervention, as opposed to, say, a means to a better CV has to consider not only what they want to say but whether this is the right time to say it. There is much that could be said and asked about Corbyn and the movement around him; I have myself been far from uncritical. The time for articulating that is not, however, when the man is seeking re-election as leader of the Labour Party in the wake of a concerted attempt to wrestle the Party back into the hands of the Blairite cabal. There is a question we should ask ourselves before we ask questions of others. That is the question implicit in every picket line, "which side are you on?"; and the answer we give to that provides the context for our subsequent questioning.

Owen has chosen to lay bare his soul on the internet; that is his decision. I have nothing to say about it. Of more interest are the nine questions he asks at the end of his piece - without, one notes, offering much in the way of answers. Marx said that each age asks only the questions which it can answer. He might have added that the way those questions are understood, and for that matter framed, constrains the answers that are considered admissible. Nowhere is Jones' descent into a bland safe parliamentariansim more apparent than here, the sense he gives of what an acceptable answer to each of his questions would look like. I do not consider myself similarly bound by the norms of Westminster nicety, and for what it's worth I think that the primary reason the inhabitants of Westminster's famed bubble (amongst whom Owen must now be numbered) are disturbed by the member for Islington North is that he has refused to play the game of Westminster politics as normal. For all that, Corbyn is still a reformist, and some kind of answer to Owen's questions is probably needed, given that they have now been asked.

Here, off the top of my head, is a first attempt. 

1. How can the disastrous polling be turned around? Well, a few of us have been expressing concern about the polls for a good while. There's a lot that I would want to say about the need for forming a movement that works at community level to form 'public opinion', rather than receive it as a passive given. It is the model of politics as an exercise in customer relations, rather than social transformation that needs to be challenged above all else by any Left movement that takes contesting elections seriously. The point is not that we should not want to win elections, but that we need a new approach to how we win elections.

All of this said, Labour's polling really warrants the term 'disastrous' during the period since the EU referendum and the beginning of the relentless attacks on Corbyn from within the PLP. Outlandish though this idea might seem, perhaps Labour might do somewhat better in the polls if those attacks were to stop.

2. Where is the clear vision? I don't really understand the question. There is a reading of "clear vision" on which the phrase is as oxymoronic as "thoughtful Sun journalist". Vision is the stuff of motivating principles, big ideas, and utopian imagining. Vision is not meant to be clear in the sense that Owen seems to demand. The parable of the Good Samaritan presents a vision of how human beings might live, but it wouldn't necessarily be much use on the doorstep. It would certainly be a brave minister who gave it to a civil servant as indicative of the government's intentions. I think anyone who believes that Jeremy lacks vision in this sense hasn't been listening to him. Much of the British population has a good excuse for this, since much of what Jeremy has said hasn't been reported. If only there was, for example, a left-wing writer with a regular column in a national paper who could help on this front.

Perhaps, though Owen is concerned with policy rather than vision. Some of these have been forthcoming: think about John McDonnell's announcements on matters macroeconomic, providing a clear alternative to the Conservative programme. But there have been relatively few detailed policies, this is true. Is this a bad thing? It depends whether you are happy with what one might call the Thick of It model of policymaking: policies arising ex nihilo from the heads of special advisors and the cars of front bench politicians en route to press conferences. Once upon a time the Left argued that policy should emerge from the labour movement, through its democratic structures. If this is right then it is a good thing that there hasn't currently been much policymaking in Owen's required sense. Here we see the double bind in which Corbyn is being placed: if he doesn't do politics as usual, he is criticised; if he does do politics as usual, what is the point in Corbyn?

3. How are the policies significantly different from the last general election? See answer to previous question. Jones does accidentally touch on the interesting area of economics. Here McDonnell is quite right not concede to pseudo-Keynesian nonsense about the deficit. Yet in the background lurks a more troubling issue: capitalism can no longer afford social democracy. It's not simply a question of "the money being there", as the familiar leftist refrain has it, but rather of whether capital views the money being used for [insert favoured social spending here] is consistent with the reproduction of capital. This was the case during the long (and exceptional) post-war boom; this is in general no longer so. That doesn't mean nothing can be done - here again, I have not been uncritical. McDonnell is not, that criticism aside, not without good ideas - to with redistribution, investment, and productivity. Far more importantly, Corbyn's Labour is committed to setting working people free to fight for themselves, to do what the state can increasingly no longer do. The repeal of the Thatcher era trade union legislation is far, far, more important than anything a Shadow Chancellor can do.

4. What is the media strategy? Once again, the assumption of politics as usual pervades the question. "Most people", that most useful of demographic categories for a columnist with an axe to grind, don't get their news from social media. They get it from the mainstream print and broadcast media. This is probably right. It does not follow that it is written into the grain of the universe that this is so. What if people had more opportunity to talk about politics through the presence in their communities and workplaces of a real mass movement? 

At this point, I feel slightly as though I'm lapsing into John Lennon territory: you may say that I'm a dreamer. So let's allow that what is said in the mainstream media matters. As indeed it does; hence all those books by 80s Marxist sociologists on the press. It is a difficult question what a socialist electoral movement might do to get the best media coverage. Even putting it this way, though, assumes that the traffic between media and politics is one way. The media follow as well as lead; the Scottish Sun at crucial points cannot get away with carrying the same line as its southern cousin - witness the vastly differing attitudes towards the SNP and independence in recent years. Newspapers need to sell in order to survive, and political consciousness determines what they can say and still sell. Allowing even that, there's still some kind of question: how might we get nice things said about Jeremy in the papers? Again I can only express my wish that there was a reasonably well-known left-wing journalist about who could help in this respect.

5. What's the strategy for winning over the over-44s? Well, as the man himself says, pensioner poverty and social care are important issues. And I simply do not believe that the interview Owen describes is the first he has heard from Corbyn on these questions.

6. What's the strategy to win over Scotland? Labour needs a really big rethink on Scotland and the national question. With this proviso, it would be pretty easy to make the ad hominum point that the people who presided over Scotland's reduction to a solitary Labour MP, namely the Labour right are not likely to be the best people to win it back for the party of Keir Hardie. However, it's not clear that Labour needs to win over Scotland. It held a majority in England in 2005.

7. What's the strategy to win over Conservative voters? Liberals can be useful in spite of themselves because, much like stopped clocks, they sometimes tell the truth accidentally. Thus Bill Clinton, "it's the economy stupid". There is good evidence that a good number of swing voters opted for the Tories because they didn't trust Labour on the economy. An economic strategy of the sort McDonnell has in fact crafted is a good start here. The task now is to communicate it, a task from which this leadership contest is an unhelpful distraction.

8. How would we deal with concerns about immigration? It's not because of immigrants that you can't get a hospital bed, a job, a council house... Talk about immigration, but talk about it precisely in terms of its function to deflect attention from the Tories' attacks. To say this is to treat the electorate as agents, who can be engaged politically, rather than as passive consumers to whose "concerns" we need to appeal. I'm terribly sorry, I should say in passing, that Jones' dire liberal baby, the Immigration Dividend, went nowhere, but them's the brakes.

9. How can Labour's mass membership be mobilised? This is the crucial question. I'm not really sure that it's a question for Jeremy Corbyn, though. It's a question for all of us. Over to you, Owen.

1. 
   

Lies of the Labour leadership contest 5: Owen Smith supports radical policies

Lie 5:

Owen Smith is in favour of a democratic 'revolution', awash with radical policies. He said so, after all.

Bollocks because:

Leaving aside the fact that this radical revolution is, even by the recent lights of Comrade Smith, not for immigrants, his conversion to neo-Corbynism is, um, pretty recent.

Lies of the Labour leadership contest 4: Jeremy Corbyn terrorised MPs

Lie 4:

Jeremy Corbyn has intimidated MPs.

Bollocks because:

Saying that you will talk to somebody's father, even if this actually happened, is not intimidating that person, if the person in question is older than seven. Nor is it bullying for your staff to enter the office of a resigned colleague. 

I'm left worried for the PLP's collective ability to cope with life. If they are so easily reduced to quivering wrecks, one wonders how they manage to leave their houses in the morning. So, please, no matter how tough your own life might be, spare a thought for these poor, fragile, specimens.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a socialist?

Now, here's a thing. This email was sent out to CLP membership secretaries, at least in some parts:

Verification of new supporters

 During last summer’s leadership contest, we asked CLPs to assist in the process of verifying new members’ eligibility by raising any concerns about individuals who have applied to become a Labour Party member or supporter. 

The window for supporters to sign up as a registered supporter to take part in the Leadership election was open from 5pm on Monday 18th July at 5pm until Wednesday 20th July at 5pm. Each registered supporter application is subject to a validation process and CLPs' role in that is vital.

Should the Party consider it necessary, the applicant will be referred to a panel of the NEC who will make the final decision on whether their application will be accepted. Successful applicants must subscribe to the aims and values of the Labour Party and information on the criteria in which applications will be referred to the NEC Panel below.

In line with Labour Party rules, please could you promptly check the new supporters appearing in this report and submit any worries or concerns about a member’s eligibility, alongside any evidence you have, by emailing validation@labour.org.uk.

 Any queries, please contact your regional office who will be able to assist you.

 While the window for joining as a registered supporter has closed, we are still processing the applications so this first report includes only those processed so far.  These reports will come daily until all supporters have been processed, to ensure you are able to check all registered supporter applications. Later reports will also include details of new affiliated supporters for validation and we really appreciate your support and cooperation with this at this busy time. 

 Criteria to be considered when checking new registered supporter applications:

 Any applicants rejected in the 2015 leadership election

 If they were a candidate, agent or nominated a candidate in opposition to a Labour Party candidate in 2015 or 2016.

 If there is evidence that they have publically (sic) stated that they voted for a candidate in opposition to a Labour Party candidate in 2015 or 2016.

If there is evidence that they belong to, support or subscribe to an organisation whose aims and values are contrary to those of the Labour Party. This includes other political parties and organisations with contrary political aims and the evidence may include attendance at meetings or posting (more than once) on blogs or social media in support.

If the applicant has been party to membership abuse, such as not paying their own membership fees.

If they publically state or send any abusive comments regarding any candidate, any Labour representative or any other member.

If they have made any public statements including, but not limited to, racism, abusive or foul language, abuse against women, homophobia or anti-Semitism, or of an otherwise abusive and discriminatory nature.

 Applicants who have been auto-excluded or expelled and those who have been rejected as members within the last 2 years will be automatically rejected. In addition, all supporters are required to be on the electoral register and that check has taken place, so there is no need to check individuals against the electoral register. However, if you feel an individual listed below falls into one of those categories, please raise that by emailing validation@labour.org.uk

This speaks for itself, really. The powers that be at regional and national bureaucracy levels don't want supporters who voted for another Party, an approach to new interest slightly less welcoming than that of the Peoples' Front of Judea. And going to meetings of other political organisations? Wow. That said, we should be measured in our response to this. Apparently 'foul language' is enough to get you disenfranchised.

Fuck that.