On Friday I spoke at the Welsh Labour Grassroots fringe meeting at the Wales Laboour Party Conference. Delegates were still recovering from Tony Blair's speech in which he heaped praise on the policies being pursued by the Labour administration in the Welsh assembly. As virtually all of these policies and the basic direction of Labour in Wales run counter to New Labour's neo liberal philosophy and policy programme in England you can appreciate why delegates were astounded at his comments. Most somehow doubted that the Prime Minister had been converted to socialism on the road to Llandudno.
During the day on Friday it was confimed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister had been secretly negotiating with the Bush administration on the siting of part of the US "starwars" ballistic missile network on British soil. On Saturday speaking at the CND/Stop the War demonstration in Trafalgar Square I expressed my anger at the way in which as part of his legacy agenda Blair is seeking not only to bounce Parliament into a commitment to Trident renewal but also to offer up Britain as an aircraft carrier for the Bush starwars project. I will be raising this issue in Parliament tomorrow and I will be calling for support from other Labour MPs to reject this deal on Starwars.
We need a leader who serves as a British Prime Minister not as a virtual vice president of the USA. We need a peace Prime Minister.
Later on Saturday I spoke at the well attended AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. I am grateful for the overwhelming vote CLPD gave to a resolution backing my candidacy. This means that every left rank and file organisation in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement is backing my campaign.
I was also pleased to receive the public support of Tony Benn, Christine Shawcroft and Elaine Smith MSP in the letter they submitted along with others and published in the Guardian on Saturday.
30 Comments:
John, keep up the good work - you're doing brilliantly. For the first time in years it's exciting to be part of the Labour party.
I think we should also all thanks Michael Meacher - he's probably given our campaign the biggest boost since it's launch! Poor old Michael.
I agree completely - it would make British people the targets for America's enemies and we have little control over who the American government go to war with.
It'd also be immensely dangerous if any country got the idea that it was protected against nuclear retaliation so could threaten or attack other countries with nuclear weapons without facing retaliation - especially as there's no way to know if this kind of technology works and whether other countries have technologies which can neutralise it until you're facing the real thing - nuclear war.
Better for American taxpayers and everyone else if the whole project was shelved.
Glad to hear the campaign's going so well. Keep up the good work.
As a member of the Campaign For Labour Party Democracy, I was delighted to be able to vote for John yesterday. Michael Meacher had been invited too to speak to the meeting but did not attend. The vote was overwhelmingly for John's campaign. Let's keep the momentum going.......was also at Stop The War march also wbere I met some VERY enthusiastic supporters from Socialist Youth Network. What a treat to meet young people in the Labour Party with real convictions and concerns, instead of would-be bag-carriers and careerists Hope SYN continues to grow.....
Good to bump into you again in the the lobby of the George in Llandudno - albeit briefly.
I won't be voting for you, but I do sincerely hope the Brown camp will realise it is in both their Chief's interests and the Party's to permit a contest of some sort to be held in order that he has an unquestionable mandate to lead the Party.
Have you talked to Frank Field about his nomination? The mind boggles, but given his comments ...
Hi Susan,
Was lovely to meet you to - SYN seems to be going from strength to strength its astonishing me the numbers of young people contacting me to get involved in SYN to campaign for John and join the Labour Party.
And this with the word spreading mouth to mouth :) can you imagine how much impact were gonna have when John gets on the ballot paper and gets some well desreved media attention!
Should Blair truly have been converted to socialism on the road to Llandudno it would genuinely be the greatest, most significant, conversion since that of Paul on the road to Damascus!!!
"Later on Saturday I spoke at the well attended AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy."
So why not allow Meacher to stand? It's called DEMOCRACY, moron.
How is it democracy if someone splits the left vote, ensuring no left candidate gets on the ballot for millions of trade unionists and party members to vote on, MORON?
Sorry, when I say "moron", I mean "Sham", but they're pretty interchangeable, aren't they?
How is it democracy if only one man is permitted to stand for the leadership of Iraq, pre-invasion, MORON???
How McDonnell can claim to be a democrat is beyond me.
Anonymous
The logic of your position is to say that if only Brown is on the ballot paper we should take Labour by force and impose democracy.
Not a bad idea.
Just seen McDonnell on Newsnight. Not as mad as I imagined! Seemed more normal than Sion Simon, even though I disagreed with what he said.
John was very good on Newsnight and let's hope he will now be able to continue in this vein by being invited onto programmes in proper proportion to his role as a leadership contender at last and people will have a proper chance to know what he is about and what he has to say. I'd like to see him up against Brown even before the local elections...instead of during the election analysis afterwards.
I did a simple email to the Daily Politics asking them to cover his campaign properly and supporters could repeat this to all the relevant political programmes; many of which may be more forthcoming than The Daily Politics anyway as it's owned alongside Question Time (see above) but I believe we shouls request it of all of them as after all they should be covering politics! and I was on the website at the time voting for CLem Atlee for best PM as at the moment Marg Thatcher is still in the lead which is pretty worying. Maybe I should go and graffiti on her new statue at the House of Commons or something....
Jeremy Dear of the NUJ was also talking a lot of sense as he reviewed the papers on Sky News later on and it reminided me how seldom we are actually hearing left-wing voices on the news media these days; we need to redress this balance. (Before anyone accuses me of being a Murdoch lover we haven't got a sub to Sky it's NTL which includes BBC Parliament and I just switched over to get the anaylsis of tomorrow's papers!)
John make sure you can be seen when PMQs are on as you are never in camera! (Or is it a cult movie thing....!)
Hopefully it's all stopped now but if not can the bloggers on this blog desist from abusive language as it just detracts from the arguments being put and looks like deranged rantings!
For those who are politics geeks like myself and don't know about it, the website www.politicalbetting.com is quite an interesting one, though admittedly one almost entirely focused on the Westminster bubble.
Anyway, in this morning's top story I found this quote quite interesting and illustrative of the Labour support's disillusionment.
"Overall in the survey CR found many more respondents who answered “Labour” to the question “Generally speaking do you consider yourself….?“. What’s behind the latest move is a sharp reduction in the proportion of declared Labour voters saying they would be certain to vote."
Has everyone seen the letters in the Guardian supporting John on Monday?:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2021229,00.html
Last night's Newsnight appearance re the private equity companies will have upped the ante hugely.
Sion Simon had no case to answer and was, frankly, embarrassing. By way of contrast, John had gravitas and was a match for Paxo. Excellent stuff! If media coverage continues to improve, we have everything to win.
Because once the millions out there realise John is no lefty stereotype, Gordon could be in serious trouble.They know it already which is why they are doing their damndest to wreck this campaign
I'm glad to see John in the mainstream media a wee bit more. Must be because the media can't really ignore opposition to GB if there are 2 of them rather than just JM. Maybe Meacher's decision is advantageous in that respect, even though that is only a silver lining on the cloud. Hopefully JM can persuade Meacher to join with him nearer D-Day once Meacher has a few firm promises of support from MPs, if Meacher realises he doesn't have anywhere near the support of enough I hope his lack of principles will have the benefit of persuading him to do this & let JM pick up his MPs. Doubt it though.
There is now a legacy of disasterous policies from this government, particularly in the field of civil liberties and personal privacy. I dont need to list them here, but if it proceeds with a national register scheme, or 'Blair Pass', this life long, until recently,labour voter will never vote for them again. To their credit, and I never thought I'd hear myself saying that, the Tories say they will abolish the scheme if they get in. As I consider it to be the most severe threat to our right to be free from government intrusions into our private lives, I'm tempted. And god knows what a future, even more authoritarian government would do with the details of our lives it will provide.
Meacher is on Radio 5 Live at 2pm. Call 0500 909693 or text 85058 and tell him politely what you think of his spoiler candidacy!
I have sent the following email to mayo@bbc.co.uk
Simon
I hear you are to interview Michael Meacher about running to be Labour leader.
I hope you will also interview John McDonnell who declared his candidacy months ago and has much more support in the party than Michael Meacher.
Thanks
Miles
Labour Party member
Manchester
I suggest others do the same.
Ok, ok, I get the message. I give in. I've had enough of being humiliated.
John, I'd like to give you my full support.
John4Leader!
What does John think of road charging and airport tax.
This guy thinks it restricts the freedom of movement of the poor.
Click on the name to read his blog on it.
If Tony was the virtual vice-president of the USA, how much better that would be: he would have the President's ear and real power in Washington. But look at him now.
Not certain of John's position on road and airport tax - I can tell you my opinion on them though and since John's a member of the Campaign Group my guess is his views will be similar (he can correct me if i'm wrong about that).
Increased airport tax - if you mean increased tax on aeroplane fuel - is fine with me. They cause massive amounts of pollution and global warming and most of the trips arent necessary - businesses could use internet video-conferencing.
The new charge-per-mile road tax the government's planning i'd be in favour of IF they'd provided decent public transport as an alternative.
Instead they've left the rail companies privatised and handed them big fat subsidies while they increase the price of rail tickets way above the rate of inflation.
So i think this new charge-per-mile for car use should be scrapped except for possibly congestion charges in cities - AND the railways should be renationalised so fare prices can come down and new rail services introduced. The private firms have mismanaged them abysmally even with huge government handouts.
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Meacher's going to be interviewed in the Independent by readers - get your questions in!:
Meacher is going to be interviewed in the Indie by readers - get your questions in!
You Ask The Questions
... for Michael Meacher MP, challenger to Gordon Brown for the leadership of the Labour Party and former environment minister. The questions are for an article as part of our You Ask The Questions series. Send your query to myquestion@independent.co.uk with his name in the subject line.
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