Camaraderie

"Socialism involves a process of striving to advance the goals that define it." - Ralph Miliband

So, Epictetus old chap, what do you think about all this Jeremy Corbyn stuff then? Well, as it happens, I have been giving this some thought. Obviously I have no greater qualifications for having an opinion than having first joined the Labour party on the day after Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, but nevertheless I do have them. Opinions.

Firstly, I have long adhered to the view that the parliamentary Labour party should be representing the views of the wider Labour party and its members rather than dictating policy itself. Should MPs wish to belong to a party where decisions are taken at the top and adhered to with iron discipline all the way down to the foot soldiers (a term I use deliberately) then I suggest they join Sinn Fein.

On the other hand, Corbyn really isn't cutting the mustard. He is, or at least it seems to me, treating the job as some sort of inconsequential adjunct to his normal activities of supporting and publicising various worthy progressive causes. Despite the fact that I agree with most of what he says, that isn't what I want him to do. What is required is someone to organise and deploy an effective opposition to the apalling people currently making an appalling mess of running the country.

And then, and by no means least, what about the workers? The one generally accepted point about the situation in Britain today is that at an ever increasing pace the benefits of society are accruing to a small group of people and everyone else is feeling the pain. Our right wing government promises more of the same disguised behind a facade of disingenuous scaremongering, scapegoating, authoritarianism and indifference. What the country needs is a cogent left-of-centre alternative. All the PLP appear to offer the country is to not be the Tories, while at the same time asserting that the only way to get elected is to be very much like the Tories anyway. For all his faults - which are many - Corbyn at least offers such an alternative vision. In response the only thing that the PLP can say is that their not-Tory offering would be more likely to be accepted if put forward by not-Corbyn.

If, somewhere in the PLP, someone exists who can bring together under one banner the MPs (in their current guise of the political wing of the Economist magazine; socially liberal and economically conservative), the Labour party in the country (socially liberal and righteously socialist economically), and the traditional Labour voting white working class (socially conservative and subconsciously dirigiste economically if one is kind; bigotted and ignorant if one is realistic) then let he or she declare themselves. We all stand ready to be inspired and led on to the new Jerusalem. Sadly, I do not believe such a person exists.

So, there you have it; many opinions, but no solutions.