Think this photo is great. Click on it again when you get to it to enlarge it, so that you can see the word 'Death' on the left... classic...

Doing some things atm, so will be back soon.

Loving it.

There is a marvellous line early on in the great Peter Carey novel Illywhacker where the aged protagonist - who is more than one hundred years old, and, if memory serves, growing breasts, extra toenails and hair where nobody expects or can trim it, etc - says that one of the reasons he likes staying alive is that he can't wait to see what perversions his hoary old body comes up with next.

I feel a similar depraved sense of anticipation when I approach a Polly Toynbee article these days: what scrambled take on New Labour will she pull the sheet back on today?

Well, today it's this mortifying ode to the restorative powers of David Miliband, which may yet take the prize for old journalism's most cretinous and pointed insult to voter intelligence and concerns.  

And anyone remotely interested decent written journalism, btw. 'Suddenly everything changed,' comes Polly this morning, romantically. 'The burst of optimism was so startling it dazzled those too long trapped deep in a dungeon. In that one moment it was all over for the old leader who had plunged them into these depths. Suddenly here was the chance of escape everyone was waiting for.'

My personal feeling is that the chance of escape everyone is waiting for is the next general election, but let's not linger on that for the moment.

Let's linger instead on the various insults and agonies that this government (regardless who has been leading it) has visited on the people who need a Labour government most - ie, the majority of us. Doubtless, you'll have your own list, but here's mine: the 10p tax rate. Your choice of failed PFIs. City academies. ALMOs. Rabid privatisation of public services. A hatred of unions. A hatred of immigrants. A credit crisis. A housing crisis. An education crisis. Tube bombings. War.

I'll end this short work by inviting Polly and David and all other dazzled optimists to Barnet this Thursday, where the staff who work in Fremantle Trust homes will walk out again in protest at the rotten terms, conditions and salaries that privatisation has delivered in their area of work. They've been in dispute with the Fremantle Trust for nearly two years. Perhaps Poll could spend a few hours wiping butts, rather than kissing them? 

Anything to stop her writing. What a ridiculous journalist she's become.

This is an excellent piece - an excellent piece.

That said, the important point that it - and other articles that predict the death of the left - circumnavigates is the thriving activity that we're seeing at the grassroots of the movement.

The political left (in the form of Labour and far-left organisations) may be in terminal decline, but I'm seeing excellent grassroots turnouts at trade union meetings, and meetings called in support of left activists who are being persecuted at work and by rightwing union administrations, etc... for all this talk of the death of the left, it's hard not feel that socialist activism is on the up and that activists are getting better organised.

More on this soon.

Rang around a few union branches for views on last week's local government strike action, and on the list of demands that unions will apparently put to the Labour national policy forum this week. People reported a bit of a mixed bag:

Barnet Unison branch secretary John Burgess describes rallying the troops at Barnet Council for last week's two-day strike action as 'pretty hard, to be honest.' About 900 people went out on the first day (16 July) at Barnet and about 1100 on the second (Burgess thinks he had about a 55% turnout). The strike action closed about 20 schools, and partly-closed about ten others. 

Burgess says that the logistics of organising strike action on this scale, and in this environment, were almost too challenging. The sentiment is there - public sector workers are as worried about the credit squeeze as anyone, and they are incensed about the privatisation of public services - but unfortunately, the sector is also disparate, disorganised, and easy for management and strike-breakers to circumnavigate. 

Burgess estimates that about a third of the staff providing council services at Barnet are temps and/or agency workers, or are outsourced workers who are as frightened of the consequences of taking strike action as they are difficult to co-ordinate into it.

Another problem this time was that members of other public sector unions weren't out on strike (the GMB, for example, accepted the government's 2.45% pay offer, which meant that GMB members were at work, although some wouldn't cross the picket lines).

Things are made even more challenging by the behaviour of Unison's leadership - specifically, the leadership's ongoing reluctance to acknowledge that its members are demanding that the union break its formal link with the much-loathed Labour party.

'You could see the response that the leaders got at the [strike] rally (in central London on Wednesday). Any time that they mentioned Labour, they got booed. People were shouting 'Disafilliate! Disaffiliate! [Unison deputy general secretary] Keith Sonnet got a real howling when he spoke... People want someone to lead them. It gives them confidence.'

Sadly can't be there myself this time round, but here are a few links to good blogging on the strike:

Barnet Unison - lots of pictures and comments from strikers. Good anecdote from one Unison member who went on strike while his GMB colleagues went into work (the GMB accepted the pay offer, so didn't strike).

Marsha Jane Thompson- views from a younger union and Labour party member.

Jon Rogers (particularly good on the case for the strike).

Somerset Unison blog (photos and reports).

Stoke on Trent Unison blog (photos and reports).

James Anthony (with links to Facebook campaign)

Lou's blog (news from a Blackpool housing officer)

The Great Grimmer Up North

Socialist Unity

John Gray. Bit company-line & up Labour's butt (Labour link guy), but decent detail.

4Glengate. Good reports from Nick.

Workers' liberty. Reports from around the country.

Gill George.

Have got a short photo essay on Unison's witchhunting of anti-New Labour activists here. 

ABORTION...

There's more...

crossposted at liberalconspiracy.org.

I feel the need to rant (in a gracious way) about the liberal Abortion Act amendments that have been tabled for the fast-approaching report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. My male chum Unity has already reported on the time-limit amendment tabled (again) by the one and only Mad Nads Dorries: I wanted to write a bit about the sensible contributions.

Tabled by Evan Harris, Chris McCafferty and Frank Dobson, the two liberal amendments would improve the Abortion Act by - to put it simply - making access to legal abortion easier than it is. The proposals are to get rid of the present requirement for two doctors to approve a request for an abortion, and to make it legal for nurses to perform the procedure.

The case for liberalising abortion law in these ways is as strong as it is encouraging. Abortion Rights has a good paper on the topic which I was reading up until a few minutes ago when their site fell off the face of the earth. Will link to the paper when I find it again.