Mike Killingsworth opens up an interesting (and quite important) disagreement. I will try to come back with a proper post about that.

Paul Linford’s post made me laugh. To some extent, the positioning (”should be defined against the views of its core supporters”) is usually a more primary motivation than the ideological anti-state argument. I’ve responded to his longer post on the Fabian blog
http://www.nextleft.org/

JIVP - I don’t know about “heroes” but since you are looking for somebody who is “believable, clever, articulate, has integrity and, importantly, says what they think”. He is far from the only one for me, but I think John Denham meets those particular tests which you set. Not so much of a tub-thumper or self-promoter though. So does Vince Cable in the LibDems. From what I know of Caroline Lucas, she does too.

And there are a good number of Tories who are clever, articulate and have integrity: my disagreement with them is that they have different values and beliefs and goals from me. Michael Gove is articulate and has integrity: he just has rather right-wing views on the role of the state and is a (self-confessed) admirer of the neo-cons on international issues.

One of the problems with politics is that if we are not confident about expressing our own distinctive values and positions, then we instead claim to be more competent (or better managers), or try to destroy the character or integrity of our opponents. (This is a little more difficult when the opposition’s strategy is to deny their own convinctions: Osborne would have integrity as a Conservative who believes in smaller government). It also follows that the right response to uber-Blairism is to set out a social democratic argument as to what Labour’s core beliefs in extending opportunities, narrowing inequalities and the role of the state in achieveing that, and to try to take the personalities out of it.

Back on our side, I think Ed Miliband should score reaonably highly - he is a little more coded and discreet in what he says publicly than I would like (a large part of that is a sense of responsibility about coordinating the manifesto). This isn’t an exclusive list or necessarily my favourite politicians: I am responding to the particular adjectives you offered. But so do lots of lesser-known politicians. I am looking forward to Chris Mullin’s book “a view from the foothills”. He is a good example (from the Campaign Group left of the Labour Party) of quiet integrity in politics, which is much more prevalent in politics than most people think.

And a lot of that is about the priority many people would - like JVIP - give to the “says what they think” issue, which is about the balance between collective responsibility and individual views. David Lammy was arguing here a while ago, the constraints need to be looser. That’s definitely right. But there are good reasons why there is such a thing as party, and collective responsibility within Cabinets and Shadow Cabinets.

Sanity breaks out in the Labour Party…

Wealth = Respect. The poor don’t count, so they fell no allegience to “society”. Nor do many of the young. Ironically Thatcher was the first to push this idea, “No such thing as society”.

The labour party was based on an ideal of inclusive citizenship. New Labour is in favour of different levels of “citizenship” according to position in the economic pecking order, in other words Macmillan type toryism. This reflects the shift to the right of the whole political spectrum, pushed there by the dominance of right wing views in the media.

Another problem for Labour, is how they chose a new leader once Brown goes. Most of the members who joined after the death of John Smith have left, along with many party stalwarts. Even some unions are beginning to reconsider whether funding labour is the best use of their political funds. Labour needs to stop worrying about its electoral future, and start attacking the tories on POLICIES not personalities, but for that it needs to define policies that will inspire confidence in the vast majority of people in the UK, whose gross annual income is below £25k

It is also necessary to consider why citizenship (never a very healthy plant in this country) is in such decay - why we have a society which values only consumers and investors (to borrow an idea from Robert Reich). Sure, lots of people, not least Gordon Brown, bang on about the self-actualisation that work can provide. They remind me of feminists praising women’s solidarity - it’s to cover up the fact that the default position is precisely the opposite. In truth, for at least 90% of the population work is a means to an end. If it were not so, employers wouldn’t look to early retirement deals as the first port of call when they need to shed labour. And engagement in citizenship is, for most people, subsumed into the “work” model. What - you want me to put something in? Not me, mate, I’m a consumer - I take out, I do. And the whole of the media tell me I’m OK to think so.

Twenty-odd years ago I was tempted to conduct a social experiment - to go down to the Labour Exchange (this was in south London as it happens) and offer people either £50 cash in hand for a day’s work or £10 for nothing. It never got beyond a “thought experiment” - all my friends agreed with my suspicion that I’d never be able to hire anyone.

It is this attitude that the left needs to turn round. And we won’t do it by producing knocking copy against the State.

1. That the party’s stance on any major issue should be defined against the views of its core supporters.
2. That there should be no ideological constraints on how far to the right the party is allowed to drift in the cause of outflanking the Tories,
3. That Gordon Brown is a useless twat.

As it happens I do think Social Democracy is dead, and so I suspect would the original Fabians were they here to-day. They saw it as an engine for the slow strangulation of capitalism - what’s happened has been the reverse. (The provision of a welfare safety net, not that Labour seems to believe even in that any more, does not require a “social democratic” Party, any more than liberal social legislation does.)

I’ll follow up a copule of links and come back for another bite of this cherry.

To perk-up my jaded political pallette, to quote Bonny Tyler, I need a hero. Not a Fascist, not a rabble rouser and not a tub thumper. I need someone who is believable, clever, articulate, has integrity and, importantly, says what they think.

Some chance huh ?