Thank you for your email sent earlier today and promising “a different kind of election – one where we the politicians throw open the doors to grassroots activists and the wider public”. Well, forgive me, I’ve heard that so many times before and it never happened – anyway they are not your ‘doors’ to throw open, they belong to the party members.

I joined the Labour Party in 1964 to seek a democratic way of overthrowing a (Tory) Government which had been in power for 13 years and had relentlessly attacked the interests of the working class. I now leave the Labour Party for exactly the same reasons – except that this time the Government concerned (yours – and coincidentally also of 13 years) claim to have improved the lot of the working class. Really ? After reading Wilkinson and Picket’s “The Spirit Level” (which describes how inequality has got considerably worse) and by personal observations of my local area, I think not.

Last Thursday I attended my CLP’s selection meeting to choose a new PPC, following Mark Fisher’s announcement of his standing down. This meeting was presented with a shortlist of three which was so obviously rigged that I was moved to vote against ‘proceeding to ballot’. There had been much local (and some national) publicity regarding the successful candidate and speculation that he had been manipulated into the vacancy by Mandelson. My distrust and hostility to Mandelson dates back to the infamous ‘Sheffield Rally’, where his cocksureness destroyed any chance of a Kinnock victory, and I did have concern for your sanity when I learned that you had brought him back into government.

After the PPC selection came the counting of votes in a postal ballot to choose a council candidate for my ward (Hartshill and Penkhull). This had been actioned by the Regional Office “on the instructions of the Chair of the Organisation Committee, Cath Speight, to re-open the selection”. This followed the decision of my Branch (despite the quorum being augmented by people from other parts of the region)  not to proceed to ballot. What should have happened was that there should have been another shortlisting/selection date(s) agreed and the process re-run – but excluding the candidates on the original shortlist. This did not happen, and BLP members were amazed to get a ballot paper with the original two names – after both had been clearly found unacceptable. Whether this was pure bullying or a recognition that they could not continue to impose candidates by a ‘flying selection squad’ I know not. I formally complained to the Regional Office, and they said “duly noted; passed to the compliance unit”. I’ll not hold my breath.

The date 20th September 2008 may not mean much to you, but it was the day that you and Ray Collins signed a certificate on behalf of the NEC “to honour a lifetime’s commitment to the Labour Party”. This was the National Merit Award given to me after I had been nominated by my peers in the local Party. I will be returning it by post since I cannot now believe it was signed with any degree of sincerity.

Perhaps you will understand why I now feel it necessary to assert local democracy by standing myself in the local election – for the first time in my life not as a Labour candidate. I shall put in my nomination papers tomorrow and have until noon next Tuesday to wihdraw. Who will blink first ?

This of course means that I shall have to resign from the Labour Party so I would be grateful if you would regard this email as my formal resignation.

I copy this email to the General Secretary (“we are where we are”) and the Chairs and Secretaries (where appropriate) of BLP, CLP and NEC, together with the Secretary of my Co-op Party Branch. I will make verbal announcements at trade union and other relevant places. I will not be bullied, bought or gagged.

In democratic socialism.

Mick Williams

In what was, as expected, less a Budget and more an election manifesto, coupled with a robust defence of the party’s record in government, Mr Darling put clear water between Labour and Conservative proposals for the economy.

He said “our economy is at a crossroads” and there are “tough choices ahead which will shape our economy and society for decades to come”, adding: “the record shows the right calls were made.” The Chancellor said the role of government was not to stand aside – as David Cameron and George Osborne have said a Conservative government would do – but to help people. He told the chamber: “This is a Budget to secure the recovery and invest in our industrial future.” Mr Darling concluded by saying: “We have worked too hard to support this country to throw it all away now” – by voting for Mr Cameron in May – and Tory plans would only “deepen the recession and delay the recovery”.

Borrowing, he said, was £11 billion lower than forecast and, despite the global recession, Britain has the fastest deficit reduction plan of any G7 country. “The result of our choices,” he said, “is that revenues are better than forecasted” and the deficit will be halved over a four year period. The economy would grow by between 1 and 1.5 per cent this year and by between 3 and 3.5 per cent in 2011.

At the heart of an economically neutral Budget was a £2.5 billion growth package for small businesses to be provided, said Mr Darling, by switching existing spending.

He abolished stamp duty for first time buyers on properties under £250,000 – which means, he said, that nine out of 10 first time buyers will pay no stamp duty at all – and to pay for that increased stamp duty to 5 per cent on properties over £1 million.

He extended to March 2012 the scheme which guarantees anyone aged between 18 and 24 a job or training after six months out of work.

He said his tax on bankers’ bonuses has brought in £2 billion – twice as much as forecast – and he announced plans to make it easier for poor people to access banking services – he guaranteed a basic bank account for one million more of us – as well as plans to reform the international regulatory system. It is not right, he said, that banks are rewarded for creating excessive risk but the taxpayer has to pick up the bill when it all goes wrong.

Finally, Mr Darling warned that there was “nothing pre-ordained about continued recovery. We need to support trade and discourage protectionism.”

No current opinion survey comes anywhere near predicting that the Labour Party can hope to win an overall parliamentary majority at the general election expected in May. The best Labour can hope for is to have enough seats in the House of Commons to prevent the Conservatives securing an undisputed mandate. A hung parliament is a real possibility.

Such an outcome would provide the Liberal Democrats with an opportunity to hold the balance of power. In those circumstances, a post-election alliance or broad front of the left is no longer inconceivable.

And yet the infantile behaviour of too many Labour MPs towards the Lib Dems, especially at Prime Minister’s Questions, does not suggest that the party is in any mood to reach out. It is their orchestrated publicly declared contempt for Nick Clegg that suggests Labour’s whips remain at the core of Gordon Brown’s thuggish tendency as they drill backbench lobby fodder into trying to undermine the Lib Dem leader.

But is this sensible? On an increasing number of issues, Clegg is much to the left of anyone on the Government benches and most of the Parliamentary Labour Party. His recent question to the Prime Minister about Kraft Foods’ hostile takeover of Cadbury was the kind you might have expected from the Labour backbenches in better times. Why is the state-owned RBS bank being allowed to lend £7 million to Kraft to finance its hostile ownership bid for one of Britain’s iconic companies?

On the Chilcot inquiry, Clegg was also highly effective in compelling Gordon Brown to attend before the election and explain his role in Britain’s pre-emptive military assault and occupation of Iraq. The Lib Dems have always taken a consistent and principled position in their opposition to the whole Iraq catastrophe. Their MPs – most notably Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell – have provided the kind of probing criticism over the years that were necessary in the exposure of what has been one of the worst foreign policy decisions taken since the Suez Canal crisis in 1956.

The Lib Dems also continue to retain an admirable reputation on the defence and furtherance of civil liberties and individual human rights. They have argued with passion and common sense against the often-draconian illiberalism of Labour’s policies on terrorism, stop and search, an end to jury trials and prison expansion. It is the Lib Dems who have denounced the coercive welfare-to-work programmes of the Government and highlighted the widening gap in inequality between the hyper-rich and the rest of us, the persistence of pensioner poverty, the tenacity of child poverty and the conditions of the most excluded in our society. The Lib Dems have often questioned the intolerant Labour attitude to asylum seekers and immigrants, although such a position is not a popular attitude to take. The party has never sought to appease the British National Party and the radical right. The Lib Dems have stood firm against the evils of racism.

Above all, under the often brilliant direction of Vince Cable, their shadow Treasury spokesman, the Lib Dems have taken a radical and credible view of the credit crunch and what needs to be done to restore confidence in the banking system. The party has supported the Government’s general commitment to the strategy of borrowing instead of cutting for the time being in order to minimise the effects of the worst and longest period of contraction the British economy has experienced since the 1930s.

In their views on defence spending, the Lib Dems are committed to the non-replacement of the Trident nuclear missile system and for a long-overdue scaling down in Britain’s overseas military commitments. On the environment, the party favours policies that will tackle climate change and it remains committed to a credible green agenda. The Lib Dems have always been a pro-European party. In the future, they can be expected to support pan-European measures that will strengthen rather than undermine Britain’s commitment to European Union membership. While such a positive EU position may not win the party many votes, it has been consistent and principled.

The Lib Dems do not say so, but much of what they stand for today reflects the values of social democracy and not the free market dogmas of 19th century Gladstonian Liberalism. In this, the party is quite different to its sister parties elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, the Free Democrats are neo-liberal – the most right wing on economic affairs of the mainstream parties in Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition government. In Sweden, the Liberals are locked into an increasingly unpopular centre-right government that looks like it is heading for defeat in that country’s autumn general election.

For tactical reasons, Clegg’s party may not want to associate itself too closely with Labour either – before or after our own general election. But the Lib Dems have little in common with David Cameron’s Conservatives. Only one issue might persuade them to keep a Tory government in office: electoral reform. The case for at least the single transferable vote is now almost unanswerable.

Of course, the Lib Dems believe they would benefit the most from an end to the first-past-the post electoral system. In the past, they failed to win the support of either of the two main parties for the introduction of electoral reform. Now Clegg and his colleagues are likely to make this issue a condition for giving House of Commons backing to either the Conservatives or Labour in a hung parliament. Labour is being far too timid in promising a referendum on electoral change if it wins the next election.

It needs to go much further. This is not an academic exercise, but a belated act of justice and fairness.

And yet, just how left are the Lib Dems? The party, like Labour, remains an amalgam of diverse and often contradictory tendencies. There remains a strong neo-liberal free market element that is hostile to state action in economic affairs. The party is still opposed to the very existence for a government department for industry and business. This always looked an unrealistic and frivolous proposal. Now it makes no sense at all. The future role of the democratic state needs reappraisal by the left. There should be a new emphasis on local autonomy and citizenship rights. And any left narrative must also challenge the power of big transnational corporations and global capitalism. This means support for an active state. We need a fresh approach to turning the concept of the public interest and public space into policy realities.

At the same time, there must be active encouragement of personal initiatives, experimentation in social and economic policies and a commitment to toleration and compromise.

Whatever happens at the election, we need to encourage a more open-minded approach to our politics. If we move to any proportional system of voting, Britain will have to come to terms with the complexities and compromises that are involved in multi-party democracy. In the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales, this is what happens now – as it does in elections to the European Parliament.

What we need to see is a genuine realignment of the left – a hard-headed alliance between a post-Brown Labour Party and the Lib Dems. This might eventually lead to fusion or coalition government. In the beginning, it could mean a short-term programme of proposals on which the two parties could reach common agreement based on shared principles. It would involve electoral pacts against the Conservatives in different constituencies and joint policymaking.

None of this would be easy. The tribal loyalties of our political culture remain strong in all parties and will need to be challenged. Nevertheless, the broad left in Britain constitutes the majority view – and we should not forget this. Cameron’s Conservatives cannot expect to receive more than around 40 per cent of the vote in the next general election. Moreover, the Lib Dems are not their natural allies.

This is why it is so short sighted of Brown and his drilled backbench MPs to persist with their antics of abuse towards Clegg and the Lib Dems. They should treat that party with respect and understanding and recognise they share more in common with them than they are prepared to accept in public. It is true that some Lib Dems in some parts of the country remain hostile to Labour and often act in an irresponsible and populist way. But this is more a consequence of electoral calculation than genuine conviction.

There is an obvious danger that a rushed or shotgun marriage between Labour and the Lib Dems would wreck both parties. After May, however, pragmatism and realism may point to the need for a radical shift towards a new progressivism, similar to that which was achieved before the First World War.

It will never be easy. There will be formidable obstructions ahead. But it is worth trying. Surely no one on the left wants to see the Conservatives once again becoming the dominant political force in our country, as happened in the previous century because petty differences between Labour and the Lib Dems continue to divide the left? The time is fast approaching for the creation of a popular front of the left as the whole vacuous “new” Labour project dissolves.

After all, Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown hollowed out many of the core values of the labour movement. It would not be a betrayal of socialism or social democracy to campaign for a political realignment. On the contrary, the current record and promise of the Lib Dems suggests such a strategy could herald an exciting new phase in British politics when the broad left could once again restore its influence and support.

In the names of pluralism and democracy, a Labour-Lib Dem alliance or understanding might even provide the transformational dynamic to reconnect millions of disillusioned voters with our political system.

As the public are asked to ballot for a seat to hear Gordon Brown’s evidence to the Chilcot inquiry next month, more evidence is emerging of how Tony Blair was let off the hook during his session because vital documents given to the Iraq inquiry are not being made public.

Tribune has been told by a senior Whitehall source that panellists could have pursued the former Prime Minister much further on his key assurance to back George W Bush before military action was officially contemplated and how much the Cabinet was told about his meetings with President Bush if the relevant documents had been released into the public domain.

Evidently, both the text of letters between Mr Bush and Mr Blair and the Cabinet minutes covering the Iraq war reveal much more detail than has been acknowledged by the inquiry chairman or his star witness.

The exchange over Mr Blair’s original commitment to Mr Bush after September 11 is one example. The inquiry asked: “Did you give an unequivocal assurance to Bush that you would support a military intervention?”

Mr Blair answered: “Of course not. All I did was say we shared his ambition to solve the Iraq WMD issue.”

However, it is said that if the letters had been released, Mr Blair would have faced much tougher questioning, because the text of the letter could be interpreted otherwise.

Mr Blair was also asked: “Do you think your Cabinet understood how much you were committed to Bush… how far military preparations had got?”

He replied: “I regularly briefed Cabinet after my meetings with Bush.”

The obvious follow up from the panel if the minutes had been available would have been: “But the Cabinet minutes on these dates show you only said this…”

Jack Straw would have faced similar tougher questioning over his relations with the US Secretary of State Colin Powell because, again, documents are not being made public.

The chance of Chilcot releasing such documents is beginning to look rather remote. In his closing statement last Monday, he claimed: “We are committed to being open and transparent about how we are approaching our task and the information we are receiving.”

He went on to say that obtaining documents was the “central core” of his work. “The inquiry is still receiving more documents every week and we have no reason to believe that any material is being deliberately withheld. I should emphasise that our access to documents is unrestricted. Publishing a limited number is a separate matter.”

Publishing the Cabinet minutes on the Iraq war would be a brave decision – particularly as Mr Straw, as Justice Secretary, issued a veto under the Freedom of Information Act to block this last year. But Chilcot could still press for these to be released.

John Austin

Colin Burgon

Ronnie Campbell

Colin Challen

Michael Clapham

Katy Clark

Harry Cohen

Michael Connarty

Frank Cook

Jeremy Corbyn

Jim Cousins

Jon Cruddas

Ann Cryer

Ian Davidson

David Drew

Bill Etherington

Mark Fisher

Paul Flynn

Neil Gerrard

Fabian Hamilton

Dai Havard

David Heyes

Kelvin Hopkins

Lindsay Hoyle

Brian Iddon

Lynne Jones

Andrew Mackinlay

John McDonnell

Michael Meacher

Alan Meale

Austin Mitchell

Chris Mullin

Gordon Prentice

Ken Purchase

Linda Riordan

Alan Simpson

Marsha Singh

Graham Stringer

Paul Truswell

Joan Walley

David Winnick

Mike Wood

Why not print it out and use it as a poster?

Click the picture for an enlarged version

THE National Health Services reaches its 60th birthday next year and, despite political interference, financial restraints and endless criticism, it is still going strong.

When it was created, it was the first of its kind in the world, the most sweeping reform ever introduced and it remains the unrivalled model of medical services that others envy.

It is hard for most of us to imagine life before the NHS. Many people just could not afford to go to the doctor. There was a huge cavern of unmet need. There were local authority and voluntary hospitals which provided free or subsidised care, but most were on the verge of bankruptcy. They survived only through fundraising, wealthy benefactors and the goodwill of consultants who gave their services free or for minimal charge while making their living from private patients’ fees.

All women and children had to pay to see the GP, as did many working men. It was only the low-paid working men who were provided with the services of a “panel” doctor in return for a compulsory four old pence a week in National Insurance contributions – equivalent to two pence in today’s money. The employer had to pay in three pence and the state two pence. But the deal did not include hospital care.

The NHS changed all this. Aneurin Bevan’s founding principle was to provide healthcare free at the point of delivery and based on need, not ability to pay. But even Bevan realised it would not be easy and, at the launch of the NHS on Monday July 5 1948, he declared: “We shall never have all we need. Expectations will always exceed capacity.”

And he was right. Demand was far higher than anyone imagined. Spending in the first nine months proved to be two-thirds more than had been planned.

Yet the NHS revolutionised healthcare in this country and has continued to do so. Advances in drugs, treatments and surgery have been phenomenal over the past 60 years. New technologies have given access to treatments which were unimaginable in 1948 – heart by-pass surgery, organ transplants, childhood vaccination, gene therapy.

In the early days, the discovery of new and potent drugs, particularly antibiotics, saved millions of lives. Many of these new drugs were both scarce and very expensive. By 1950, just two years after the NHS began, there was already concern about escalating costs.

This resulted in the 1951 charges for dentures (half the cost) and spectacles (£1) being introduced. This decision so angered Bevan that he resigned from the Government. I can’t imagine many modern-day health ministers having the same brave principles. The following year, prescription charges of one shilling (five pence) were put into force and a flat-rate charge for all dental treatment was made, although check-ups were free.

In the 1950s and ’60s, came ultrasound for pregnant women, kidney dialysis and transplants, heart-lung machines used in surgery and hip replacements – all things we take for granted these days. The introduction of special care baby units in the 1960s saved the lives of many babies born too early or too small. There was no heart valve replacement until 1961.

The late ’60s and early ’70s saw incredible developments in cancer chemotherapy. The number of women dying in labour plummeted from 67 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000 between 1952 and 1969, thanks to improved ante-natal care. CT scanners in the ’70s and even more highly sophisticated MRI scanners in the ’80s revolutionised brain surgery. Gene research in the ’90s resulted in amazing discoveries which will eventually lead to previously undreamt of improvements in medical treatments, allowing us to live healthier, longer lives. Britain became a world leader in new and effective forms of care. But with every breakthrough came increased demand. All saved lives. All cost money.

Countless millions of people have benefited from the NHS. These days millions more can be treated and cured. Premature birth, a heart attack and a cancer diagnosis are no longer a death sentence.

People in this country are living much longer. In 1948, the average life expectancy for a man was 66 and for a woman it was 71. Now it is 77 and 81, respectively. But old age brings ill-health. The risk of cancer, heart disease, circulatory problems, all increase with age. As we live longer, so our demands on the health service grow, which inevitably means that so does the cost.

So it is hardly surprising that, as the NHS approaches its 60th birthday, the cracks are showing. The NHS was born into a different era.

The present Labour Government came to power with plenty of good intentions but quickly discovered how hard it was to meet them. It has pumped billions extra into the NHS. However, it has also introduced targets, private finance, bureaucrats and red tape, which eat into those billions without necessarily helping patients. The introduction of foundation hospitals and independent treatment centres has only increased fears that Bevan’s ideal is being eroded.

The Labour Party created the health service and it should be giving it a special present on its 60th birthday. Nothing would be better than to make the NHS independent, in the same way as the Bank of England now is. Gordon Brown did it for the Bank of England, so why not the NHS? Let it be run on a long-term basis with lasting financial planning, not dependent on party politics and the short-term successes that are needed to win elections.

You can’t run a successful NHS with a deficit one financial year and a massive underspend the next. You can’t have a boom-and-bust health system. It doesn’t make economic sense. How can it be good management to jump from an overspend of £547 million in 2005/6 to an underspend of £510 million in 2006/07 and a projected £1.8 billion underspend this financial year?

That may be fine in the private sector, where the whole purpose is to make money. But the NHS exists to care for patients and to spend the money it is given for that purpose, not to have unused surplus cash.