Don’t fool yourself that Iraq doesn’t matter because British troops are out; it matters for a few reasons:

1) The British public feel that they were duped into supporting the war and I believe this sense of grievance is largely justified. Although I believe that Tony Blair was sincere in his belief he was acting in the interests of the greater good I also don’t doubt that, armed with that conviction, Blair would and actually did result to conscious duplicity. People have long memories for this kind of thing for understandable reasons and they haven’t forgotten especially as they still are fed pictures of another British military engagement daily.

2) We are still in Afghanistan and people don’t like that and, frankly, Iraq is a totem of everything they deem to be wrong with these kind of ill-judged interventions. Again I have nothing but sympathy for them here and if Labour is seen to be ignorant of the lessons of this major event how can it apply the lessons we should have learned to our future role in Afghanistan?

This is the problem with David Milibands injunction we ‘should just move on’; to be blunt is its ignorant of peoples legitimate grievances and this is exactly why Iraq as an issue is at the crux of ‘reasons why Labour lost’.

We didn’t listen to the objections over Iraq and certainly in the leaderships case we still largely don’t in the case of Afghanistan because as a Party and a government we were too sure of our own sense of moral self-righteousness to open our ears. People haven’t moved on (I have had it raised to me in telephone canvassing for *local* elections) and there is a reason why they havent.

If this ignorance is going to be true of David Miliband’s general approach (and I rather fear it is) then I feel totally justified in saying he is unfit to lead.

In the case of the ‘Ed’s’ [Balls and Miliband] maybe their candour is a little hollow because they previously voted for the war but then again their admission of an error now is still welcome and shows they are actually viable as candidates to change this party.

David Miliband wants to ignore the tricky things and in doing so makes himself a force of inertia.

It would be nice to see them now go onto question the entirely flawed concept of ‘liberal interventionism’ which has underpinned both the illegal invasion of Iraq and also the costly and counterproductive quagmire in Afghanistan.

———
cross-posted from Moments of Clarity

However, I think it is simplistic to see a hung Parliament as automatically leading to a Lib-Lab pact as some do; in fact, I think the likely outcome is that the Liberal Democrats will, in fact, support the Conservatives, not formally but in a ‘supply and confidence’ manner.

Let’s be quite clear that this is not just based upon personal experience or the fact that the Liberal Democrats are in coalition with the Conservatives in many areas.

It is based upon a reading of Nick Clegg’s character and policies especially and although it is totally fair to say that the leader is not the party let’s also be quite clear that were the Lib Dems to gain a vast amount of seats Clegg’s personal capital would carry him and his prospectives a long way.

Indeed, given recent events who honestly feels that the LD’s would really defy their leader?

So, what does Clegg think? Let’s look at The Liberal Moment published just last year. Clegg says of Labour:

“I believe Labour’s basic approach to governance – to social, political, economic and environmental progress is fundamentally flawed”.

He complains that ‘top-down, state-centred’ approachs to social problems are the wrong response; ironic, considering he wants to use the state to break-up the banks amoung other things.

Talking about the ‘suggestion’ that Liberal Democrats ‘fall in line to hold back the rise of the Conservatives’ Clegg says he would ‘never’ contemplate such a move. He talks about the problems with Labour in power like the Iraq War and the curtailment of civil liberties but crucially he says:

“even if none of these things had happened the Liberal Democrats would remain a very different party with a very different ideological core”

Clegg hardly sounds here like somebody spoiling for a ‘progressive Lab-Lib alliance’ does he? Instead, he argues that Labour is undergoing the same fate that befell the old Liberal Party and this is what gives the Liberal Democrats their opportunity.

Selectively he talks about Labour turning on the Lib Dems by entering coalition with the Conservatives to keep them from power. Anybody can tell this is a one-sided and biased account of a situation where Lib Dem’s ‘turning’ on Labour is just as likely.

Clegg feels that the chances of the Liberal Democrats replacing Labour as Britain’s leading progressive party are ‘high and growing’. Given that are people really naive enough to think he would prop Labour up?

If people want an end to tribal politics then casting their vote, even tactically, for Nick Clegg is not the way to achieve it…..before you cast your Compass vote take the time to read what Clegg really thinks.

Cynically, they will look at the timing and feel it benefits the Party; however, such a view is short-sighted and naive. It is the view of people whose obsession with the past is blinding them to present day realities. In the long this road leads to ruin because it obscures what makes this Party a *Labour* Party.

Bob Crow may not be the most affable character and it may be true that since the RMT is not affiliated it does not have the best interests of the Party at heart. Regardless of that no union can be subservient to the electoral interests of the Labour Party (just as the Party cannot be the same to the unions) because if they are they fail in their basic duty which is to their membership not the Labour Party.

Similarly, the Labour Party must stand-up for the wider interests it represents. But what happened in the courts yesterday is a blow against us all because it’s a blow against democracy.

It should appall any democrat who believes in the basics of democracy ie, that majorities have the right to decide their destiny and that a worker has the right to withdraw their labour.

Above all it strikes a blow against another fundamental covenant at the heart of a democracy; namely, the neutral status of the law. As Brendan Barber puts it:

“It’s becoming increasingly easy for employers, unhappy at the prospect of a dispute, to rely on the courts to intervene and nullify a democratic ballot for industrial action on a mere technicality.”

If the law ceases to be neutral then the effects on democracy are corrosive. This is not about this or that industrial dispute but is increasingly about the basic tenants of democracy and the fact that courts of law are being used as a weapon against democracy in defence of vested interests.

It should be seen in the context of the totally unjustified extension of state powers under anti-terror legislation etc, etc. It should be seen as part of the malaise that currently afflicts Parliament and representative democracy.

Looked at this way what Labour’s response should be clear. In this case it must stand with the unions because their cause is the democratic one.

The cause of a full review of the anti-trade union laws is no different to that which calls for the repeal of anti-terror laws. It’s time we marched with the unions under the same democratic banner.

While this might seem like good politicking it actually leaves the party vulnerable to ‘love-bombing’ from both sides.

But polling shows that the Libdem leadership are dangerously out of sync with the sentiment of Liberal Democrat voters.

The latest YouGov poll illustrated how the attitudes of Labour / Libdem voters tend to have more in common than Conservative / Libdems voters.

Liberal Democrat voters tend to prefer leading Labour politicians compared to Conservative ones.

For example, 52% of Liberal Democrat voters agree that Gordon Brown has a ‘strong sense of right and wrong’ compared to just 37% who think the same of Cameron.

Negative feeling towards David Cameron persists in other results; only 11% think Cameron wants to do the ‘best for all groups in Britain’ compared to 44% who think the same of Brown and 32% think Brown ‘generally tells the truth’ compared to just 14% who think Cameron does.

Another illustration of Cameron’s failure at love-bombing comes in the findings that only 26% of Liberal Democrat voters feel they know where the Conservatives stand on important issues compared to 43% who feel the same way about Labour.

In other words, the Conservative message simply isn’t getting across to those who would vote Liberal Democrat and when they do hear it they don’t like it.

When it comes to policy questions a similar pattern repeats itself; for example, asked to choose when the government should make cuts in spending 49% of Liberal Democrat voters sided with 60% of Labour voters in arguing that cuts should be postponed until Britain’s economy was ‘strongly growing’.

So much for Nick Clegg’s ‘savage cuts’; Liberal Democrat voters prefer the approach of their shadow chancellor, Vince Cable who has made it quite clear that he will not support an emergency Conservative budget to cut the deficit immediately.

Despite some blips this is now the established Labour Party position also and no doubt this figures heavily in the 6% gap in support from Lib Dems (19 – 13%) for the economic team of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling compared to that of Cameron and Osborne.

When Hain talks about a ‘anti-Tory’ majority in Britain he is thus not talking to himself.

What he is doing is talking to a body of voters who want to vote for Nick Clegg’s party but will be reluctant to do so at the cost of a Conservative government whose dangers they rightly recognise.

Political reality in both peoples perceptions and policy terms shows how much closer the Liberal Democrats are to Labour.

If Nick Clegg continues to ignore that reality then he will steer the Liberal Democrats onto a collision course with his own supporters.

——–
All graphs and figures taken from this Times/YouGov poll

They are right to be concerned; Kraft financed its takeover by incurring £7bn of debt and that will have to be repaid somehow and already, Cadburys Chairman has said job losses are ‘inevitable’. Plus there is the highly likely chance of asset-stripping.

Both Gordon Brown and Lord Mandleson expressed concern about Kraft’s intentions. Back in December Mandleson said;

If you think that you can come here and make a fast buck, you will find huge opposition from the local population and from the British Government

However, despite this both have been powerless to do anything and Mandleson now has washed his hands of the whole affair saying what happens is a “matter for the shareholders”.

But what happens to Cadbury’s is of concern to both British citizens, especially as we have to deal with the consequences of redundancies and we lose a successful British brand.

So, what can the left do to shape the debate in situations like this?

One obvious area would be to call for governments to have more power to intervene in deals that it judges would be detrimental to the interests of the people it actually represents. In a case like Kraft’s acquisition the danger of asset-stripping is obvious; therefore the state can rightly intervene to prevent harm.

However, other things need to happen to prevent ‘another Cadburys’ arising. Unite has called instead for reforms to restrict the ability to vote on such deals to long-term shareholders. Exercising leverage through shareholder power and increased City-regulation seems to be a viable demand. 

On a wider-scale, the agenda would be to promote a stakeholder model and use the state to give companies run on the basis advantage in the market-place and effectively emasculate the ability of the likes of hedge-funds to play Russian Roulette with companies fortunes on the stock exchange through strict regulation.

Promotion of the co-operative and mutual model over the corporate one in the long-run would necessitate a strong government prepared to use state power in such a way.

Of course, the right would resist and complain incessantly about ‘meddling’ government but in this I think they are likely to find themselves out of sync with popular opinion which tends not to like British companies being hostilely ‘taken-over’.

It would also require the support of the trade unions who in such an agenda could find a way to protect, empower and even expand their membership.

The crisis of capitalism enables us to make this argument with conviction.

Larry Elliot rightly insists ownership does matter and British capitalism’s subservience to its financial wing hasn’t helped:

The French, along with the Germans, the Japanese and the Americans, do not subscribe to the view that ownership does not matter. Nor do they buy into the view that the discipline of the stock market can improve management and revive failing companies. If that were true, the last 25 years would have seen a renaissance of British manufacturing, a flowering of new world-beating industrial companies. So where is it?

It is through a democratic discourse; empowering those directly affected by changes of ownership the left can help prevent another Cadbury’s and challenge the likes of Brown and Mandleson to be as good as their word.

In an article for The Nation Richard Kim details how Haiti has been crippled by its indebtedness to Western powers.

Following Haiti’s liberation from the French in 1804 it was forced by 1825, under threat of embargo from France and other Western powers, to pay 150 million francs in reparations to French slave owners. It turned primarily to Germany and the US for help.

However, it has never escaped from this spiral of debt and also has been subjected to the imposition of ’structural adjustment policies’ by the World Bank and IMF.

All of which have contributed to Haiti being not just the poorest but also one of the most unequal societies in the Western hemisphere.
According to a report;

It is second only to Namibia in income inequality (Jadotte 2006) , and has the most millionaires per capita in the region. Margarethe Thenusla, a 34-year old factory worker and mother of two said, “When they ask for aid for the needy, you hear that they release thousands of dollars for aid in Haiti. But when it comes you can’t see anything that they did with the food aid. You see it in the market, they’re selling it. Us poor people don’t see it”.

It is in this context that reports of ‘looting’ should be judged. Not only is aid most likely bottle-necked but it has to be questioned if it is getting through to the people that need it most. While the international aid effort is welcome it has to be treated cautiously.

The International Monetary Fund, under the guise of ‘assisting’ Haiti, looks set to add to its burdens. According to Kim its recent addition of $100 million to Haiti’s debt has strings attached.

It doesn’t have to be this way; the loan could be made under the IMF’s rapid credit facility which does not impose such conditions. However, I have yet to see any politician propose this course of action or indeed show concern for the cancellation of Haiti’s debt.

Indeed, it is hard not to share the concerns expressed by Adam Ramsey on Left Foot Forward that Haiti is about to suffer from its own version of Naomi Klein’s ‘Shock Doctrine’. [See the massive Facebook group]

Meanwhile, the tragic events in Haiti expose the disgracefulness of David Cameron’s proposals to ’salami slice’ the international aid budget; diverting some of it towards the defence budget and a ‘reconstruction fund’.

This is yet another pledge that the Conservatives (who promised to ring-fence spending on international development) are undermining through the backdoor. He is becoming a dab-hand at policy sleights-of-hand which rob Peter to pay Paul.

Debt reduction and aid targeted in ways that will help countries like Haiti grow their own infrastructure is the kind of ’sustained help’ that is really needed.

Delivering this means that the likes of Obama and Brown have to do much more than express their concern and moral support; it demands widespread structural reform of international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.

——–
More pictures on this Flickr page

A General Election which always is a watershed moment in any countries political history.

This one will see a resurgent Conservative Party face an increasingly tired looking Labour Party and a Liberal Democrat Party that has aspirations to greatness.

Meanwhile, the Green Party could well be on the cusp of a breakthrough moment in Brighton Pavilion.

It is my sincere belief that David Cameron is wrong when he says that people throughout politics share a commitment to progress and that all the signs indicate the election of a Conservative government (with or without assistance from AN Other in the form of a coalition) will damage the cause of progress dramatically in this country.

Given that the question becomes for progressives; how do we stop this occurring? Do we look to Labour, the Lib Dems or the Greens?

The problem with looking to Labour is obvious; no matter what you think of its policies and actions up to this point it has all the appearance of a fourth-term government that is dog-tired and is not sure what its purpose is any more other than to govern. People know this and that is why despite its recent rally in the polls it will still struggle to make enough headway to maintain an overall majority.

Looking at the Liberal Democrats the problem is equally as obvious; the dream to completely supplant Labour is just that under the current electoral system. Besides, a tension exists at the core of ‘the narrative’ and the party that would fatally scupper any such designs in any case.

Therefore they will be hoping to be the repository of the largest number of protest votes although even that opportunity could be blunted by the menace of the Conservatives.

Of course, the Greens don’t have such pretensions to greatness as yet although similarly they seemingly rely in Brighton Pavilion on being ‘best placed to stop the Conservatives’ for a significant proportion of their vote.

This reflects how the progressive vote is slowly ‘circling the wagons’ and if Cameron does enter Number 10 that sense of deflation and recrimination will be the dominant mood for some time which will in-turn will produce eventual defiance and then resurgence.

More than anything it reflects the importance of looking beyond the narrow tribal lines we each cling to in our respective parties.

Sunder Katwala shows that some in the Labour Party are starting to recognise this when he talks about the political lessons from 1910 for today. Also, before it seemingly disintegrated; the Social Liberal Forum and Compass extended olive branches to each other.

However, this is nowhere near enough and also it does not recognise the role that the Greens have to play in this process.

Indeed, one of Labour’s last hopes maybe to place itself at the head of this process while humbly recognising that its interests are wider than the simple re-election of a Labour government.

However, such an approach is unlikely under the current leadership or before the election where as a sad necessity each tribe will go to war to the exclusion and damnation of all others.

When the dust settles however the changed political landscape may well necessitate some hard choices between the greater and the common good and the preservation of the sanctity of one’s own tribe.

We are told he wanted to discuss NFR’s ideas on the future of health policy and have them present a range of ideas.

We already know what Daniel Hannan thinks of the ’60 year mistake’ but what does Cameron think? He would have us believe he ‘loves the NHS’ and it is ‘safe in his hands’ and surely consulting nurses proves this? However it’s worth examing the people associated with Nurses for Reform, which is:

growing pan-European network of nurses dedicated to consumer-led reform of British, European and other healthcare systems around the world.

First-up is Stewart Browning; no details on his biography on NFR, however, ‘Free Market Cure’; the linked-to site is more forthcoming:

Stuart Browning is a film director, entrepreneur and health care policy commentator.

Next-up is Dr Eamonn Butler who we are told is a director of the Adam Smith Institute. Again we have an American connection as we are told by his website;

Having graduated from the University of St Andrews in the 1970s, Dr Butler worked on pensions and welfare issues for the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. Returning to the UK, he served as editor of The British Insurance Broker monthly before devoting himself full-time to the Adam Smith Institute, which he helped found.

The American connection is significant because as we all know the right and the Republicans are vociferously opposing President Obama’s healthcare reform proposals.

Dr Tim Evans links to the Libertarian Alliance from his profile, an organisation which he helps run. Among other things he also campaigns against the regulation of the sale of firearms and talks about ‘The Englishmans right to own and carry firearms‘.

There is also Mr John Wilden, a businessman although he does have a background in health. Interestingly, we are told that this connects him to Dr Evans as Dr Evans is Chairman of Global Health Futures which is;

the brain child of John Wilden, a former specialist and consultant neurosurgeon. GHF is developing and promoting software products for “Time to Cure” and “Cost to Cure” Common Diseases based on the advances of molecular biology and other technologies which will underpin the fast looming world of curative global healthcare, thereby ushering in a new age of diminishing healthcare costs across the developed and developing world.

The board also includes Shane Frith of the libertarian Progressive Vision – MEP Dan Hannan’s “favourite” think-tank. Nurses for Reform itself recently held a shared event with Shane Frith to discuss: ‘Alternatives to Government Run Healthcare‘ – sounds like Dan Hannan rhetoric, no?

So, no vested interest in breaking-up the NHS there then?

We can also see how the right is insidious in weaving through various ‘campaign groups’, designed purely to protect the interests of business.

The dominant interests here seek to undermine the NHS as it stands. They would completely undermine its current state. They are not those of public servants but of ideologues opposed to it or business figures who would profit from it.

I think its fair to say that the above illustrates just how unsafe the NHS would be in Cameron & Co’s hands.

So, what state does the third party find itself in?

In the polls the Liberal Democrats are hovering around the 20% mark but that barely tells the story of a year that has seen some problems most notably over our ‘narrative’ and policy wrangles like the one over tuition fees which brought Clegg into direct conflict with the leading policy making body; the Federal Policy Committee.

It was a conflict that Clegg lost eventually although he did win the concession that fees will be ‘phased-out’ over 6 years.

Clegg’s ambition is outlined in his pamphlet The Liberal Moment in which he argues the time is neigh for the Lib Dems to overtake Labour. However, in my experience there is no evidence that this collapse is anything more than cyclical disillusionment with a government that has been in power for a long time.

In The Liberal Moment, Clegg’s critique of Labour is clumsy and rings far from true. For example, he says its failure is due to its ‘statism’. However, Clegg in his own pamphlet outlines several things that the state should do, like financial regulation and breaking up the banks (things he criticises Labour for not doing) and things like the Green New Deal are predicated on precisely the ‘relentless states activism’ that Clegg criticises.

Liberalism thinks the state can make capitalism just a little ‘fairer’ which is pretty much what New Labour thought. However, Clegg observes;

It is clear to any impartial observer that across health, education, housing, taxes, benefits and crime, even after 12 years of Labour government, Britain remains marked by social division.

So, instead of critiquing New Labour’s approach (which was to ignore the question of structural inequalities) Clegg wants to do the same and some of his prescriptions are not bad; the Liberal Democrat emphasis on redistributive taxation including cutting the burden for those lower down the scale is a good one.

However, the implication of this is one Clegg urgently needs to realise; we are in spirit and policy much closer to Labour than we are the Conservatives. Even he is forced to include Labour in the bracket of the ‘progressive’ parties but descends into metaphysics saying variously it has lost ‘its soul’ and is a ‘husk’.

I have seen for myself in Leeds what happens when we drift closer to the Conservatives. ‘Fairness’ in the case of striking bin-men became a steadfast refusal to listen to their case; letters to the local paper insulting the strikers character, calling them ‘pathetic’ and finally, the exclusion of myself from an internal discussion list for daring to say that this wasn’t on.

If the party is to orientate itself correctly in Clegg’s third and possibly crucial year then it will need to drop allot of the verbiage and contradictory ideas present in The Liberal Moment and realise that its realisation will not come through trying to supplant Labour but will come in some kind of progressive partnership against a Conservative Party that is resurgent but ultimately has changed very little.

However, pick-up a Sunday paper and you can see that Israeli policy is pretty far from decency. If even the likes of Deane are feeling that supporting Israel is now “less straightforward” then serious questions have to be asked about how long the guilt-induced whitewashing of Israel’s actions can last.

Signs were emerging yesterday of a new consensus with all three parties criticising Israel’s recent air raids on the Gaza Strip. However, the crux of the question is what will emerge out of this new climate of criticism.
In other words, will we see concrete calls for increasing stringent sanction to be applied to Israel while it continues to violate international law with impunity?

Much will depend on the attitude of the incoming US President, Barack Obama. Sadly, there is little hope of a more stringent line emerging from an Obama administration. Visiting Israel last summer he said;

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that.”

All of which sounds very reasonable but does little to address the complexities of the vast power disparities in the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the cause-effect relationship between the actions Israel takes and why Hamas enjoys the support it does amoung the Palestinian population.

Put simply, Israel’s problem is that it has been allowed carte blanche for far too long and that is as damaging to it as it is to the innocents that it rolls over. Thus we see that when Israel launches these actions it gives no heed to the ‘collateral damage’ it incurs. The Guardian reports;

The raids had been expected to begin tomorrow, and the fact that they took place mid-morning rather than at night meant many official buildings and schools were full. Some of the missiles struck densely populated areas as children were leaving school. Parents rushed into the streets to search for them.

Television footage from Gaza showed bodies scattered on a road and the dead and wounded being carried away. Civilians rushed to the targeted areas and tried to move the wounded in their cars to hospital.

We can expect more scenes that David Cameron would describe as ‘horrific’ to result from a ground incursion and we can expect the unrelenting cycle of destruction to continue. The prevailing mood in Israel is that this is a cut-and-dried military conflict which it isn’t and that thus it’s vast technical superiority will ensure it’s ‘victory’ which it won’t. Technical military superiority is worth nothing when it comes to facing an opponent which can count on a substantial social base nourished by an embittered and impoverished population.

Israel will never stop the rocket attacks while it thinks in military terms for that reason; neither will it make the painful concessions necessary because they will be seen too widely as a ‘retreat’ by a population which is swamped in the same siege mentality that Deane gives eloquent testimony too; so, the cycle won’t be broken.

While there are signs that the right, at least in this country, is becoming increasingly alienated from Israel’s actions the left usually loses itself an abstractions about which form of state is best to ‘solve the problem’. Instead of proceeding from what actually is we proceed from how we would wish the world to be; in some cases that means undoing 50 years of history in others it means simply asking two hostile communities to have a touching ‘Kodak moment’ and forget the river of blood and bitterness that divides them.

It could however, be broken, if the international community was determined and resolute in bringing Israel to heel. Suddenly, the Palestinians would see that maybe their best route to salvation may not to be offer succor to the bigots of Hamas and that there is another way. Israeli’s meanwhile would be forced to face the fact that the ‘easy’ solution to living in fear is not the right one; that the only way to end the attacks is to make some painful but necessary concessions to win the hearts and minds of Palestinians.

Concretely, the international community has to consider sanctions of some form against Israel and certainly the suspension of all armament sales. It may also have to consider offering some logistical support in the form of peacekeeping forces. Such an undertaking would no doubt be perilous but unlike the adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq would be worth the ‘end game’; lasting peace and stability in a troubled region and a serious ideological blow against terrorism.

However, if we are being entirely honest, socialists don’t really have much of a clue what to replace capitalism with anymore following the failure of social democracy and communism. This is not the place to discuss why those two things failed but it does lead us to make an important discovery; the doctrinal differences are narrower now than at any time in history. Liberals and socialists share a common interest in the preservation and protection of the lower strata of society.

Traditionally Labour has been seen by socialist’s as their party not always because of policy but also because it is the party of the trade unions; the organised working class. However, not only is that link weakening but it is also a tenuous reason for the obsession with one party; sections of the working class vote Conservative, some Lib Dem and some even drift off into the hinterland of either the far-left or far-right. It is time to take off the rose-tinted spectacles people; Labour isn’t working, at least not for us, continuing to slavishly follow the Labour-line is leading us slap bang into a three-term-minimum Cameron government.

As a party, the Liberal Democrats are increasingly turning their focus towards disaffected Labour voters. We will be targeting 50 Labour seats at the next election with the assumptive hope being that enough of them will be captured to offset losses in seats where the Conservatives are the main challengers. Of course, defending those seats will also be important but it is to be expected that a significant number of Conservative voters will return home. This presents new challenges to us as Liberal Democrats as we have traditionally had a reputation as being somewhat ‘janus-faced’; tacking to the right of the Conservatives and left of Labour. Presenting a coherent narrative whichever opponent we face will be the single most important determinant of our electoral fortunes.

Sectarianism exists on both sides of the divide; I am sure Charlotte Gore will attest to the ferocity of the debate that followed swinging criticisms of Labour on her blog. Socialism has lost its way when it comes to empowering people and has become synonymous with the massive extension of bureaucratic state power. It is thus understandable that people like Charlotte look at policies like the introduction of ID cards and see the evil hand of ‘socialism’ pulling the strings. Understandable but wrong. We need to challenge our own preconceptions of our opponents in order to engage in a critical dialogue with the people we are looking to win support from; if we don’t we will simply be pushing people into the arms of David Cameron.

If the Liberal Democrats got a vote for everytime somebody said ‘welllll I would vote Lib Dem but they really haven’t got much chance of getting in have they??’ then it would be Nick Clegg tearing his hair out in Number 10 now not Gordon Brown. It’s a circular argument; ‘you are in third place so I will never vote for you but people like me withholding our vote keeps you in third place’. While we are on this kind of topic; voting Labour to keep the Conservatives out next time, not going to work I am afraid.

So, at this juncture I think it would be nice to introduce some chunky pieces of policy to further incentivise the already tempted;

• Taxation: Liberal Democrat policy on taxation has always been redistributive in thrust. Although it is now fashionable to favour tax cuts for lower-middle income families over the ‘1p on’ that does not change the broad thrust. Surely this is something that socialists can favour?? Good old-fashioned use of the state to redistribute wealth.

• Constitutional reform: Obviously reform of the electoral system is something the Liberal Democrats have always favoured. Alongside this there are policy commitments to lowering the voting age, a written constitution, continuing Lords reform and fixed-term parliaments. Extending and deepening democracy is something that socialists should always favour.

• Tackling poverty; a whole raft of policy proposals exist here which I am not going to detail here in-depth. The point is that the Liberal Democrat program is hugely more ambitious than Labour’s.

Of course, I expect comments on this piece will throw up 1001 objections and probably 1001 policies that socialists would find unpalatable. However, that would be to radically miss the point; political parties always have been and always will be a coalition of a broad spectrum of interests and varying shades of opinion.

Anybody with even a modicum of knowledge about Labour’s history will know that this has always been true of the Labour Party as much as any other. So, it would be wrong to dismiss a party on the basis of not agreeing with every aspect of your world view.

Picking which party deserves your support is not a ‘tick-list’; you have to pick the party whose program you feel in general best facilitates the change that you want to see happen in politics. Space should then exist for the remainder of the differences between you and the parties programme to be thrashed out in debate and the much vaunted ‘clash of ideas’. Socialists need to ask themselves some serious questions. Where has blind allegiance to the Labour Party got them?? Is it really true that Labour offers the most progressive programme for government?? Is it not really time to look outside of the Labour Party for the road forward??