It is 1pm on a crisp afternoon in North London’s Burnt Oak, and a hundred or so Fremantle Trust carehome workers and supporters have gathered in the St Alphage church hall on Playfield Road, where they’re waiting to be addressed by various lefty speakers and political worthies.

The website of Red Pepper magazine is currently hosting a debate on whether or not the democratic left should fill out Green Party membership application forms. The opening shot is written by gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, a former Labour parliamentary candidate who will contest Oxford East for the Greens at the next general election. Here’s the case I make for being a member of New Labour, despite and not because of its track record in office.

I’ve been giving some thought to positive engagement with political processes - I like the idea of producing a kind of rough and ready primer for the man or woman in the street who wants to get their voice heard.

This is the first in a run of stories in which this liberal lefter asks: Why are so many people taking strike action?

Where is New Labour at with the low-paid people that the Labour party was established to represent? Why does the UK still have some of the most vicious anti-union laws in Europe?

The left, if the word means anything at all, is about equality. But what type of equality? This is, of course, a huge question; for serious thinking on the subject, look at the Equality Exchange. I just want to make a quick point - that the left should give less priority to equality of opportunity.

Ten years ago, Labour took office with a clear and credible policy of putting human rights at the heart of its foreign policy. It would have been difficult to imagine back then how badly this could have crashed and burned or its significance in eventually forcing Tony Blair from office.

I’m a little bit tired. I’m a little bit tired of arguing about why equality is important. Why human rights matter. Why poverty is not ok. I’m a little bit tired of spending so much of my time defending the most basic principles of what I stand for. It serves to distract.

I hate to tempt fate but, fingers crossed, touching wood and stroking a rabbit’s foot, this blog could turn out to be a rarity: a place where liberals and lefties gather to debate that I don’t feel an immediate urge to leave.

The opportunity has long been there for a group of like-minded bloggers to come together to offer an alternative perspective on current political developments, and to set out an alternative vision for where politics might go in the post-Blair era.