Posts Tagged "Comrades"

We can look to Europe for ideas to reform our democracy

I have been working for our French colleagues in the Parti Socialiste for 6 months now, and though I don’t know what a Jedward is, I have been able to experience ‘continental democracy’.

The debate about electoral reform in Britain has always been “PR or not to PR”, with the third way of AV or AV+ and other complicated overhauls creeping in to the lexicon. The conclusion is always a very British paradox; FTPT is unfair, unrepresentative and needs reforming…but that’s the way we like it.

As a reaction, rather than a solution, to the expenses scandal when it broke a few months ago, there was a whole package of changes designed to restore a democracy in crisis. Fixed Term Parliaments were suggested and then forgotten about; meanwhile the Tories are determined to self-harm by reducing the number of MPs in the Commons as part of their ghoulish quest for cuts.

I have been looking at various democratic innovations we could import from other European countries, particularly France.

Both nations are suffering from a declining turnout, but for opposite reasons. The French tend to experience election fatigue, as they are required to vote for their MEP, the Président, their MP, then Regional, General and Municipal councillors, as well as their Mayor (no matter how small the town).

Britain, conversely, experiences election atrophy, creating the attitude “We only see you at election time” every four years, and there are generally only three levels of representation; the MEPs, MPs and Local Councillors, then depending on where you live there may be Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish Assembly members or the Mayor of London and the GLA.

Creating more levels of representation will not have any effect if it is impossible to justify introducing them. Regional Assemblies, for example, were piloted then abandoned, though there is still a vocal lobby for an English Parliament.

Instead, the main argument used against British First Past the Post is the fact we have ‘two horse races’ in a three party system, which leads to either tactical voting or ‘wasted’ votes.

To solve this, we could experiment with a two-round system. It’s quite simple to implement ‘two elections’; the French vote on a Sunday (weekend voting is something else we should consider) and the two candidates with the highest share of the vote go through to a second round the following week. Sometimes three candidates qualify, but it’s all in the detail.

The effect on Britain could be a great many more parties form, as well as more independent candidates standing (coalitions are very popular here) but voting for one of the weaker candidates wouldn’t necessarily exclude you from having a say in the final decision between the more successful candidates. In the local by-election we fought over the summer in Nice there were eleven different candidates, though predictably the PS and UMP (Labour and Conservative equivalents, broadly speaking) qualified. This also means that ‘the underdog’ can stage quite a miraculous recovery thanks to the ‘reserve votes’.

It could transform tactical voting and make safe seats less safe, but the downside is of course that it would make two-party constituencies even clearer. Currently, many constituencies are Labour/Conservative marginals with the Lib Dems trailing in third place, so Lib Dems have to choose whether to vote for their own party and ‘waste’ their vote or to vote for whichever party they see as the lesser of two evils. Under a two-round system, they would be free to show support for their party in the first instance but on the second round they could make a straight choice for whomever they prefer. Labour voters are in a similar situation in the south.

When the ‘left’ vote is split (this mainly depends on how you view the Lib Dems) the Tories get in. But voting twice will allow voters to keep to their principles and be realistic at the same time. This vote-splitting is prohibited and so safe seats become a lot less safe. It may even increase turnout because, in the second round at least, every vote will make a difference.

The time between first and second rounds could also be used effectively to sharpen and clarify dividing lines while having the advantage of making political events more practical. For the Leader’s debates, there is still the question of what to do with Nick Clegg. It seems silly to have him on between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, but unfair not to invite him as he is after all a party leader.

Similarly, during the London Mayoral election campaign in May 2008, Newsnight had to invite Brian Paddick along, despite the fact the campaign was so evidently a Johnson/Livingstone affair. Second preference votes are obviously weaker than First preference, but if even the most dedicated Lib Dem voters were posed a straight choice between Ken and Boris, Ken might have made it (or Boris may have had a bigger majority).

A key argument against PR and AV is that they are more confusing and complex than one vote, one winner elections. So when it comes to Electoral Reform, all I propose is that Britain looks beyond the same debate we have had for decades and starts to think about real changes we can make. To that end, it may be worth looking to Europe for ideas.

Response to the response of the response

Tom,

I’m glad you start your reply (to my reply of your reply to my article) by acknowledging that “this topic arouses passions.” As you will have noticed, it is a topic that not just arouses passions but makes my blood begin to boil, mainly out of sheer frustration that I’m not getting through.

I’m not going to go over  my arguments once again by combing through your article point-by-point, as we are now moving far away from the central issue, which is that the Labour party must renounce its No Platform Policy. I will make a few general comments though based on my reaction to reading your post.

As for some preliminary remarks, I find it nothing more than a little cheeky that you begin by talking about yourself, then proceed to bemoan the fact that I am the one “playing the man rather than the ball” while continuously crying foul and on top of that getting in some digs of your own! I don’t know who you are apart from what I’ve heard on the Internet (about Draper and all that), and you have probably never heard of me because there’s nothing to hear (as far as I am aware) so I think ad hominem attack claims (certainly sounds like you went to Debating Society!) are quite a stretch of the imagination.

I found it especially amusing when you went so far as to call me naive (though I did slate your patronising tendencies, so mud is mud) but I think my favourite “man-not-ball” line goes to “I find this argument quite incoherent I’m afraid.”  Which I may have misinterpreted, it might actually have been a faulty argument, until you finish the paragraph with “That hardly sounds like Einstein.” Thanks for insulting my intelligence there! Bath may not be Manchester, and Modern Languages may not be Law with Politics, but please don’t treat me the way you treat the average voter! “Call me patronising as much as you want.” I will, particularly when I feel like I’m being patronised like when you tell me “You can do better than that.”

One final thing, “No, it’s your ‘realisation’, i.e. your appreciation. Your subjective opinion. It’s an opinion which has been catching on, especially with what seems to be a LabourList campaign to ditch the policy.” One, thanks for reminding me what my opinion is, having only spent about 3000 words on it the past 2 days or so. Two, the “LabourList campaign” is paranoia, because I suspect you are more intelligent than you are leading us to believe, and have actually figured out that we’ve already won (more on that later). If it is an opinion which is catching on, that might suggest that people who used to be in favour of No Platform have realised it is wrong and have changed their mind. It also means that if Anti-No Platformers (Not Pro Platform, note) are writing in, that just reflects the majority opinion and should not be stifled, I’ve already talked about how I perceive your views on democracy, so no need to go into that again. There is no campaign, though I’d gladly set one up, but calling cheat is one of the last resorts for people who are in the wrong and find themselves more and more isolated.

Moving on to arguments now. (You don’t need to worry yourself the above rant, it’s just my impatience).

I said I’m not going to pick apart your points again, mainly because the comments on your articles do it for me, incontrast to the comments on my pieces, which are almost exclusively supportive. There seems to be a democratic majority/minority divide reoccurring.

From “Madasafish”:

Tom said “I’m saying this because I’ve traipsed all over university campuses delivering leaflets in support of this policy”

What have university students to do with Labour voters voting BNP.

Students live a different life from working people and are totally unrepresentative. No wonder your policy is so out of touch with reality in my view.

The Aneurin adds:

A very good question indeed. I’d have thought that spending one’s time traipsing around council estates would be more productive in the fight against the BNP.

Says it all really. In fact, it allows me to bring in a another personal anecdote. In may 2007 the leader of the Youth BNP was a student at Bath, who invited Nick Griffin to speak. Instead of the SU taking a stand either way, for or against No Platform, Griffin was not allowed to speak because “it would disrupt exam time”. The result was that Griffin sat in a pub in town chatting to anybody who cared to listen, instead of just smart-arsed students hurling loaded questions at him.

In a very reactionary way, the following year the SU tried to introduce a No Platform Policy. In a referendum, Bath Students voted AGAINST No Platform in a ratio of 3:1. Voila democracy. Anyway, No Platform at Uni is totally removed from Labour Party No Platform. So let’s have that argument another day.

From Monkeybot 5000:

We are adults. We are your intellectual equals and in many cases your superiors. We do not need you to protect us from the likes of the BNP just in case we’re too stupid to make the right choice when it comes to cast our ballot.

Alun Lloyd:

No platform is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “I’m not listening, lalala!!”. You give them a mystique and aura they don’t deserve. They develop a persecuted persona to wheedle their way in. We need to stand them up in front of everyone and make them say out loud what they believe. Not let them whisper invidiously in corners.

Political Scrapbook:

“The BNP have a right to free speech, but nobody is under any obligation to provide them the means to use it effectively”. Erm, apart from the BBC, who are legally bound obligated to provide political balance. In the 1999 Euro elections UKIP gained three seats – one less than the BNP have now. If the BBC had decided to ‘no platform’ UKIP then they could have had John Birt up in court.

No Platform is an article of faith for many on the left. It’s sad to see people clutching at straws when it is clear that – as a strategy – it isn’t working. The game has changed!

Tristan Pithers:

I can totally understand your anger at the BNP and I share your belief that we have a ‘moral obligation’ to fight against them and their ideology of hate but No Platform is not the way to go. It is regressive and as much the start of a dangerous slippery slope as the election of Brons and Griffin.

Jules Wright:

No it doesn’t tom. prohibition of any sort always fails. i suspect that you simply lack the bottle to take them to task.

Ricki Lake:

Burying our head in the sand wont make the bnp go away , look at it from a voters view , the bnp come on and make a statement witch is riddled with lies ( i know this could apply to all 3 main parties) and no one challenges them then the voter thinks its true and falls under the spell of bnp .

We must ( all parties) debate with them and show the voters the type of nasty and racist party they are .

Hugh Pettit opens another compelling case:

But they’re going to be on TV whether you refuse to share a platform with them or not since they now hold office, as you admit. The only difference with following your logic is that there will be no one there to actually point out that they are a racist party and their policies are underpinned by bigotry.

It links back to my earlier “more on this later” statement. I think the argument is over because the BNP will get their place on Question Time. We might not like it, but if we can’t win through argument then  it says more about us than it does about them.

We should now stop digging this hole because the debate is now a forgone conclusion. Labour can either swallow its pride and get with the program as the Tories and Lib Dems have done, or we can stay sitting at home (much like our voters probably will) while they have the debates without us.

What will you do come the election if the BNP fields a candidate in Woking? Will you take them on as your electorate watches or will you let them forget you exist?

We are baying at the gates Tom. Will you let us eat cake?

PS I think it’s painfully obvious that neither of us is going to back down so we had better end our feud with the non-progressive ”agree to disagree.” If you want to say something else, it would be better if you posted it as a comment here, or better yet send me a message via my contact form. That way we can stop spamming LabourList and LabourHome with our debate that seems to have gone rapidly off topic.

Knocking Tom Miller off his platform

Recently I wrote a piece denouncing the Labour Party’s No Platform Policy and its attitude towards the BNP. (Link to that)

Shortly afterwards, fellow Labour Colleagues came forward with their own pieces agreeing with me, including Bryony King, Adam Connell, James Alexander and Olly Deed. (Each name links to each post)

Even on the Right, it won support from Working Class Tory.

In the name of debate, I’ll also present to you those who are still in favour No Platform; a piece by Ellie Levenson and then Tom Miller.

Normally I avoid the practice of Fisking (definition) because I find it a rather vulgar and ugly form of rebuttal, but I think it’s right that we have this debate within the Party, and it’s an important one to win. I hope you’ll permit me to take the gloves off this one time.

A lot of the debate was sparked by the suggestion that the BNP is to be invited on to Question Time. Imagine that Tom Miller and I are sitting next to each other on such a panel, he is arguing in favour of No Platform and I am arguing against.

If you don’t want the point-by-point reconstruction, skip to the second image for general comments.

Having framed the debate, Miller begins his piece by quoting the comedian Mark Steele:

“There’s something touchingly innocent about the argument put forward by many people that the BNP should be allowed space in the mainstream media as this will “expose their ignorant ideas”. Because history doesn’t necessarily prove this to be the case. I don’t suppose that, in 1941, many people thought: “You see, this is all working to plan. Now he’s invaded Russia everyone will see just what an idiot this Hitler really is.”

That’s completely inappropriate. First, it totally misrepresents our approach; abandoning No Platform does not mean we roll out the red carpet for the BNP, and we’re not giving them rope in the hopes they will hang themselves by “exposing their ideas”. If we let them loose with their own TV spots (to which they are legally entitled in the form of Party Political Broadcasts) then they are not going to be stupid enough to say “We support fairer taxes, safe streets, oh and also the immediate deportation of anyone with thick lips.” They will hide their racist agenda if left to their own devices. We’re arguing that we should lead the charge against the BNP, not sounding the retreat and leaving the door open for them.

I want to dismiss the historical example out of hand because it’s so ridiculous, but I can’t help myself. I don’t suppose in 1941, many people thought “You see, this is all working to plan, we should carry on ignoring Hitler’s invasion of Europe and it will just fizzle out.” Chamberlain appeased and appeased, not confronting the problem as it grew and grew. By the time we decided to fight them on the beaches Hitler was a lot more powerful than he might have been.

They are only on Question Time because they hold office, and their immediate goal is to hold office. More of it. If we concentrate only on fighting the effects of this, a spilling over and legitimisation of racism in public discourse, and the social discord which goes with that, then we are lost.

I don’t quite understand your sentence because it’s quite convoluted and doesn’t seem very clear to me. Just to pick up your point about the “legitimisation of racism in public discourse” though, it’s only legitimised if it goes unchallenged by other parties, and it’s not likely that the general public are going to continue nonchalantly sipping their tea and think, “Oh, we can use that word again? Jolly good.” Olly Deed made an excellent point when he said “Surely the election of two MEPs and nearly a million votes at a European election suggests that they are a legitimate political party. Legitimacy is not an emotive term; I would argue it is an empirical term that shouldn’t be bounded about willy nilly.”

Bearing in mind that many of those who vote for the BNP, particularly as a protest against the other parties, often know little of their policies full stop, imagine how many people would see the BNP for the first time in their life on such a TV performance? Even if the BNP are roundly defeated in debate, this number will be such a large one that the percentage of people who find themselves agreeing with them will almost definitely outstrip the number who would support them without having seen question time.

I’m trying to be reasonable, but that’s just nonsense. Simultaneously you claim that people vote BNP without knowing their policies yet that knowing about their policies will get more people to vote for them.

If voters are informed then it is their democratic right to be able to vote BNP, that’s not negotiable. If they are uninformed then they could be making a mistake, having only hearsay and gossip to consider, which links to the question of martyrism and protest voting.

More alarming than your assault on Democracy, Tom, is your assault on the Working Class. I believe it to be very patronising, and you write them off as racist and stupid. The mother of a friend of mine was prepared to vote BNP because they seemed like a genuine alternative. He had to explain their racist policies to her to change her mind, but sometimes people won’t believe what they hear because the No Platform line comes across as fear mongering because you don’t want them to vote BNP.

In other words, while it is satisfying for politicians to look forward to ‘winning the argument’ against people who are already seen even by many of those who vote for them (let alone Labour MPs) as profoundly illogical, that means very little if it boosts their vote.

You’re suggesting that people knowingly vote BNP because they are illogical! Again it shows your pathological distrust of voters by suggesting that people will see BNP claims being exposed as false but will still vote for them regardless. Not to put words in your mouth, but it seems like we might as well restrict suffrage to those with a degree in political science.

The argument that the No Platform policy has failed has been fashionable lately. But it has been treated lazily and accepted with little question. The fact is that with regards to the BNP, it is one of the only parts of mainstream politics which still works.

It’s not fashionable, it’s a realisation. As one of the commenters brilliantly puts it, “Well if 2 MEPs for the BNP means the policy is working, I hate to see it fail.” The fact is that with a growing base (that erodes our own, I may add) the equation has changed and we need to up our game, which we can’t do if we tie our hands behind our backs.

That’s my rebuttal Tom, I hope you’ll have found me reasonable, now allow me to make some of my own points:

When it comes to the BNP, I’ve seen the whites of their eyes. It gave me a chill down my spine but I didn’t blink and I didn’t flinch because I knew I was doing what was right. Similarly, I’ve also gone face to face with the much more powerful Front National. For years and years in France, the FN was No Platformed, yet it grew and grew feeding and thriving on its victim status until it was too big to continue ignoring, which was also the point where it became too big to extinguish.

You will perhaps recall that Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen beat the Socialist Lionel Jospin in the presidential race of 2002 and went head-to-head with Jacques Chirac. The shock was similar to the one we felt on June the 4th, but the lesson is that you have to have faith in democracy and in people, because a week later 80% of the French people went out and voted for Chirac, or rather, against Le Pen.

We in Labour have a unique opportunity to learn from this mistake and prevent a similar event happening in our country.

The “utopian stuff about the messianic power of debate” as you describe it suggests you have a much bigger problem with democracy than you do with the BNP.

If the BNP are continuously allowed to spout out their hate-filled rubbish and it goes unanswered, then I put it to you that it is this that actually legitimises their claims more than anything else because it doesn’t hold them to account.

No Platform on the grounds of one of their policies makes us look cowardly, not just on the subject of racism (where I would hope we have the better side of the argument!) but also on all the other policies. If we can’t defend our own policy on immigration and so on then we look desperately shifty.

No Platform ultimately comes down to a question of trust in the electorate. If we don’t trust voters enough to make the choice for themselves and treat them with contempt as if they are stupid, even those Labour voters who disagree with the BNP will not turn out for us at the polling stations if they continue to see “their” party as patronising and willing to act undemocratically.

We in the Labour party have an obligation to engage with the public. If the public, especially the working classes, are turning to the BNP to be their voice then we need to engage with the BNP and show that they do not hold the answers. You are wrong to blame New Labour, and “triangulation” for the disillusionment of the ‘core’ vote; the Labour Party must make a choice between the authoritarian approach of No Platform or the democratic one of enfranchisement.

I appreciate that the BNP strikes fear into the hearts of many Labour members, but remember, we are at our best when at our boldest.

It is Labour’s duty to defeat the BNP, we must end the ‘No Platform’ policy

The rise of the BNP is an issue that strikes a strange nerve in the Labour movement, one that triggers a huge sense of panic and hysteria. It is time to confront this phobia so we can confront the problem head on. Our first act must be to renounce the No Platform Policy.

Those in favour of the ‘No Platform’ policy see engaging with the BNP as tantamount to “legitimising them.” As if a number of councillors, a London Assembly member and two MEPs were not enough to prove the BNP’s electoral support it also arrogantly supposes that Labour is the only organisation which can decide whether other parties are legitimate or not. If we do not trust voters enough to make their own choices, then we have a far greater problem with democracy than we do with the BNP.

Positive change requires action; the only change without action is decay. ‘No Platform’ can work only when there is no platform on which the BNP can stand. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats do not share our practice of collective deafness and thus render ‘No Platform’ completely ineffective. On the contrary, the struggle against extremism is given yet more credibility with Labour taking a leading role in a united front.

Being the only major party refusing to participate in a debate always comes across as cowardice, always. Regardless of the principles that may lie behind the decision, refusing to enter into a debate projects a lack of confidence in our own abilities. Our values are invincible and so we must use them to full capacity. We cannot take the moral high ground in battles of fascism against democracy if our means are suppressive instead of progressive.

Our strategy must change from ‘crushing the vermin’ to ‘catching flies with honey’. The BNP will exist as long as there is racism and nationalism. Instead of trying to eradicate the party like continuously trying to stamp on a cockroach, our cause is so much more powerful if we use the strangely democratic means of persuading the persuadable. If there are some who cannot be reasoned with then yelling “Nazi Scum” will not change their mind but rather make them ever more determined.

Assuming that all BNP voters are racist is also to presume that core Labour voters are racist, if polling research is to be believed; the main reason people are likely to consider voting BNP is fear. They are fearful for their jobs, families and homes in a time of unprecedented economic instability and this fear is so easily exploited by the far-right against the easy target of immigration. Their success at the EU Parliament Elections (regardless of the electoral system), showed that people have turned to them as a non-mainstream party alternative, then combined with the MPs Expenses scandal it showed that voters feel more disconnected that ever. Surely this is sufficient enough to demonstrate that Labour needs to act quickly and decisively.

In reforming our approach, the policy of demonising the BNP as fascists and Nazis needs to stop. Despite whether the accusations are true or not, it plays into their own hands and illustrates the worst features of the “loony left” that descends to the same level of the BNP. All too often the questions of martyrdom and freedom of speech are classic features of the debate, though make no mistake, Griffin is no champion of Free Speech and to use such an argument is to do a disservice to one of our most precious and fundamental rights. They are not worthy of such a title.

In my personal experiences with the BNP the behaviour and conduct of those who chase the BNP in the name of freedom and democracy has been far worse than that of the BNP themselves. No matter how noble a cause, little has disappointed me more than a gang of young UAF protestors (their faces hidden by scarves) tripping up a poor elderly man with a cane who was trying to take part in the democratic process. It was more horrific than seeing some protestors with anarchist symbols and others running around with flags of the Soviet Union in the name of anti-fascism. To see a (now-former) Labour MEP standing alongside them was all the more painful.

Sitting on ivory towers refusing to get our hands dirty leaves an open goal for those who already feel disconnected. It astounds me that Labour’s predominant method of re-engaging with voters has been explicitly to avoid listening to them.

It is time to stop sounding the retreat and start taking back lost ground. We must not shy away from the challenges ahead; for the worst of enemies require the best of weapons.

A word of thanks to Bryony and Adam who played the role of Editor and provided some very useful feedback.

Hadleigh Roberts, as featured in "Nice-Matin" newspaper

Less than a month in France and I have already been making news! Today I was featured in the local newspaper, Nice-Matin, on page 4.

See below the article and below that, my translation:

Un jeune travailliste au stage au PS

La fédération socialiste des A.-M. accueille, pour un stage de six mois, Hadleigh, un jeune Anglais responsable des étudiants travaillistes dans la ville de Bath. << Il arrive avec des méthodes de communication nouvelles, développées par Tony Blair >>, explique Xavier Garcia, port-parole du PS 06 et auteur d’une thèse sur le parti travailliste. A son retour au pays, Hadleigh pourra peut-être donner un coup de main à Gordon Brown dont la cote de popularité est au plus bas.

A Labour student joins the PS

The Socialist Federation of the Alpes-Maritimes welcomes, for a placement of six months, Hadleigh, an English student responsible from Labour students in the city of Bath. “He arrives with new methods of communication, developped by Tony Blair”, explains Xavier Garcia, spokesman for the Parti Socialiste and author of a thesis on the Labour Party. At his return to the country, Hadleigh will perhaps be able to give Gordon Brown, whose popularity ratings are at their lowest, a push in the right direction.

The Prime Minister is in legacy mode: he is destroying 100 years of history for his own ego

Health Secretary Andy Burnham wore a black tie to the funeral of several careers last night, calling the election of two BNP MEPs “a sad day for British politics”.

The Twitterati and Facebookers were the first to console themselves with the notion that the BNP actually had fewer votes than in 2004, and that the result was mainly due to Labour’s collapse. Personally, my response:

“I hereby take responsibility for the election of 2 BNP MEPs and apologise without reserve on behalf of the Labour Party.”

Don’t blame the electoral system, don’t blame the recession, don’t blame it on being in power for so long, don’t blame the turnout and definitely don’t blame “local reasons”. The responsibility for the result rests squarely with us.

By ‘us’ though, I really mean ‘the Labour leadership’. I know that there are so many Labour activists, myself included, who have been swimming against the current as everything we say falls on deaf ears. Conversations on the doorstep were inevitably about expenses and leadership, never about Europe.

Therein lays the problem. The negative attention directed at Labour and specifically Brown will not go away until he does. If he does not go now, another bad event will spark up more calls for him to go. Every issue and event will be seen through the prism of Brown’s weak position, opening up barely sealed wounds. The only way to stop the debate about the leadership is to push the red button.

If he does not do “the honourable thing” then he will have to be kicked out violently, lest the public do the same to the entire party. A war on all fronts, from the backbenchers to the Blairites to the Cabinet is the only way forward. The arguments against removing Brown no longer have weight; the equation has changed and unless we show the public a serious and powerful gesture, Labour will go down with him. As Frank Field rightly points out:

“Labour supporters claiming that the European results were not a catastrophe for the party can only do so by inventing a new meaning for the word catastrophe.”

There are some who say than in every crisis there is an opportunity. With Brown, in every crisis there is an even bigger crisis, and in every opportunity there is a crisis with the opportunity for another crisis.

When it comes to problems for Labour, obviously Gordon Brown is only the tip of the iceberg. However, by getting rid of the tip, the public will no longer see the rest of the iceberg, and at least the net quantity of iceberg will have gone down a little bit.

Short of stepping down, it seems to be that the Prime Minister knows that the game is up, and has shifted into “Legacy Mode”. By painting himself as “the best man for the job” to deal with the economy, he has also remembered how he wanted to tinker with the Constitution. I had heard that he had also hoped to push through the Lisbon Treaty as well. It looked for a while that he was trying to gives his old friends that last leg-up to give his heirs more credibility. Trying to put Balls as Chancellor was a clear example.

Tragically, his legacy will be little more than the man who did worse than Michael Foot. Of course he has made an enormous contribution to the Labour Party, but he is also the man who has done an equal amount of damage to it. If he really is “the best we have”, the Cabinet Ministers should hang their heads in shame. It is hard to imagine anyone being worse than him without deliberately trying to sabotage the party. To allow Brown to stay now is to destroy 100 years of political history for the sake of one man’s ego.

The other favourite argument of the “loyalists” (to Brown, not the Party) is that there is no consensus behind who should replace him. I think we will have cross that bridge when we come to it, unless Brown has already burned it down. We are in an untenable position now and the only way to improve our fortunes, not just in the next General Election but in the future of British politics, is to change this position. A big leap into popularity may be impossible from where we currently stand, but changing something, anything, will be a step in the right direction.

This is not the end of our trouble, but if we want to live to fight another day this is the only way.