My vote is up for grabs! Tough thoughts as I try to decide.

Among the deluge of complaints and criticisms the three establishment candidates are demeaning themselves by showering on the People's Jeremy, the daftest apart from the accusation that he met Hamas and the IRA almost as many times as Blair, is that his policies are a return to the past and totally out of date. They never stop to consider a) that some of these policies like renationalising the railways are popular with the public or b) that if the policies which replaced the older Labour policies haven't worked it might be a good idea to go back to the originals not as a matter of ideology but simple sense.

I'm not sure that we should allow the Tory press to choose Labour's leader, but if we choose to do that in our desire to be loved by them we should notice two things. One is that the criticisms of Corbyn are all (apart from attacks on his beard) criticisms which the Tory party brings against Labour -spending too much, borrowing, frightening British business which seems to spend more time trembling in fear than it does competing in the world.Out of the mouths of the Blairites these Tory truths have poured giving credence to the Tory programme and killing hope among our supporters.

Second the establishment never offers an alternative. Its prescriptions are all generalities such as facing a changed world, future proofing, adjusting to a new society etc.How we do all this and what Labour's specific policies should be are never spelled out.. This is because they don't want to face up to the fact that Blairism, (diluting the policies with soft soap) is also a thing of their past which probably won't work in harder times.

Blair came to power in an election we'd have won anyway at a time of growth and economic buoyancy with tax revenues rising and unemployment falling. He'd exhausted his repertoire of good moderate policies like the minimum wage, Sure Start and expanding investment in the NHS by the end of his second term,  and became messianic thereafter and by 2008 his new mates the financial interests which he and Brown thought had created a new paradigm of perpetual growth through asset inflation and debt, killed the whole improvement by their unrestrained greed.

Now we live with the consequences and the main lesson to be learned is that austerity can't go on because it makes the situation worse, and that expansion requires more borrowing and spending. Neither comes with balancing the budget and promising to reduce the borrowing year by year. They only tighten the screw. Business will have to be pushed into growth and investment by changes in corporate governance to end short termism and the obsession  with shareholder value and finance effectively regulated . Since the housing crisis can't be solved without more public housing for rent councils should be allowed to raise housing bonds to invest, build and create a new asset. Since money will be short we will have to scrap expensive PFIs and finance big infrastructure projects by quantitive easing. To check inflation we will need an accord with the unions of the type which has been so successful (for the economy rather than the workers) in Germany and to proclaim that the central aim of policy is full employment

None of this is easy stuff and it will have to be sold as a nationalist programme to rebuild national strength and pride but clearly it has to be thought about  rather than just making idiotic assertions that we must adjust to the future but not how.The future will be too hard for the easy measures of the Blair era.

A few secrets and important questions about the Labour Leadership Vote

It really was very naughty of Ed to vanish to Oz to train for his new role as Shadow High Commissioner to Canberra and leave ever hopeful Harriet behind to grapple with the horrors of Labour's leadership election.

There must  be something wrong somewhere. Every time she attempts to explain how brilliant it is the processes become more "rigorous", and "careful" and the result more "final and fair" If the proliferation of adjectival praise  makes it lawyer proof  the result will be published with a supreme court commendation and a PR pamphlet with models (supplied by the DWP) saying he happy they are to have been excluded from the vote and how character-building it's been.

I'm glad to hear that Matthew Parris's Llamas were excluded from the ballot. I've nothing against Llamas but Matthew might have pulled the wool over their eyes but despite this triumph it's still  possible  to doubt whether the checks inadequate as they are would have been even that good had the party not suddenly woken up to the fact that the wider franchise (with an MP who knows the candidates having the same voting weight as Joe Bloggs) people's Jeremy might win. The only trouble is that Labour's organisation is so shambolic and understaffed that it's safer to expect a mess and live with it as the only result we're capable of making until we build a competent efficient machine. Until then  we should be suspicious about the major points of weakness.

1)There is no way of knowing whether those signed up to vote as registered supporters support the aims and objectives of the Labour Party. We don't know how they voted, canvas returns are partial and notoriously unreliable and constituency secretaries are partisans not impartial judges

2) Taking three pounds off people promising them a vote on the leadership and then rejecting their vote is fraud  though it will only give them a claim in the small claims court rather than one which invalidates the result

3) Checking the electoral rolls is a haphazard process.The rolls are months out of date and  constituency secretaries varied in their assiduity and allegiances. In the selection of my successor the votes of my three kids who'd been Grimsby members for thirty years were rejected but the constituency secretary because they were no longer on the Grimsby roll but others in the same situation weren't. Trade union membership isn't organised on a constituency basis so mistakes are likely.

4 The number of members affiliated through unions looks pathetically small. It was further reduced by eliminating double membership but even so It's difficult to be satisfied that all  those with two votes have been weeded out.

5 We're told that checking is still going on. Yet the ballot papers have all gone out. Does this men that some votes are being rejected when they come back. Does it mean that officials know who voted how?.

It's good that the four candidates have all accepted the system and announced that they won't rush to the courts. Not that they had any alternative at this stage of the game.  But unless the process yields a thumpingly clear result  it isn't going to produce satisfaction  and it's already made us look daft. I don't mind looking naive because idealists often are, but silly is too much.  

Give us less abuse and more policy please

Among the deluge of complaints and criticisms the three establishment candidates are demeaning themselves by showering on the People's Jeremy.  The daftest, apart from the accusation that he met Hamas and the IRA almost as many times as Blair, is that his policies are a return to the past and totally out of date. They never stop to consider a) that some of these policies like re-nationalising the railways are popular with the public or b) that if the policies which replaced the older Labour policies  haven't worked it might be a good idea to go back to the originals not as a matter of ideology but simple sense..

I'm not sure that we should allow the Tory press to choose Labour's leader but if we choose to do that in our desire to be loved by them we should notice two things. One is that the criticisms of Corbyn are all (apart from attacks on his beard) criticisms which the Tory party brings against Labour: spending too much, borrowing,frightening British business which seems to spend more time trembling in fear than it does competing in the world. Out of the mouths of the Blairites these Tory truths have poured giving credence to the Tory programme and killing hope among our supporters.

Second the establishment never offers an alternative. Its prescriptions are all generalities such as facing a changed world, future proofing, adjusting to a new society etc. How we do all this and what Labour's specific policies should be are never spelled out. This is because they don't want to face up to the fact that Blairism, (diluting the policies with soft soap) is also a thing of their past which probably won't work in harder times.

Blair came to power in an election we'd have won anyway at a time of growth and economic buoyancy  with tax revenues rising and unemployment falling. He'd exhausted his repertoire of good moderate policies like the minimum wage, Sure Start and expanding investment in the NHS by the end of his second term and became messianic thereafter and by 2008 his new mates the financial interests which he and Brown thought had created a new paradigm of perpetual growth through asset inflation and debt killed the whole improvement by their unrestrained greed.

Now we live with the consequences and the main lesson to be learned is that austerity can't go on because it makes the situation worse, and that expansion requires more borrowing and spending. Neither comes with balancing the budget and promising to reduce the borrowing year by year. They only tighten the screw. Business will have to be pushed into growth and investment by changes in corporate governance to end short termism and the obsession  with shareholder value and finance effectively regulated . Since  the housing crisis cant be solved without more public housing for rent councils should be allowed to raise housing bonds to invest,build and create a new asset. Since money will be short we will have to scrap expensive PFIs and finance  big infrastructure projects by quantitive easing. To check inflation we will need an accord with the unions of the type which has been so successful (for the economy rather than the workers) in Germany and to proclaim that the central aim of policy is full employment

None of this is easy stuff and it will have to be sold as a nationalist programme to rebuild national strength and pride but clearly it has to be thought about  rather than just making idiotic assertions that we must adjust to the future but not how.The future will be too hard for the easy measures of the Blair era.

Some lessons for the Labour leadership candidates

I'm getting worried that our leaders aren't doing their duty in reading learning and thoroughly digesting my blog. I've just made the point that we should look at using Quantitative easing to pay for a few large infrastructure projects carefully structured so they provide a return as a far better means of boosting the economy than expensive PFI fiddles. Then along comes Yvette Cooper trying to prove her orthodoxy and respectability by denouncing PFI out of hand

Let's just repeat the point. QE is a useful way of stimulating the economy when you cant reduce interest rates any further l.e. now. It's a useful way of getting the exchange rate down when markets are pushing it up too far i.e. Now. It doesn't produce inflation when demand is too low and resources underused i.e.,nowJapan ands the EU bank are now using it with beneficial consequences and the Conservatives got away with 375 billion pounds worth of QE though they made the mistakes of shoving it into their friends the banks rather than using it  to boost growth.

So the Labour Party must think about how to use it rather than just dismissing it out of hand. Q.E.D.Don't the establishment candidates need to prove their innovativeness rather than their conformist orthodoxy?

A NOTE ON STUDENT LOANS

Student loans were introduced (by us)as a way of reducing government spending b y shoving the cost of university education onto students. They are unfair because tertiary education like primary and secondary education should be free. They are economically damaging because they cripple the young generation with debt. They are unfair because they benefit the rich who can afford to pay for the education of their kids and indeed have already done so in public school fees and penalise the poor.  They are inefficient because much of the capital paid out will never be paid back by people who go abroad, foreigners who get them and those who don't earn enough later on. They should be scrapped and students/ be supported as they were by means tested grants while the universities are properly funded by the state as they should be. Wouldn't cost much more than this messy loans system.

Brian Easton, a top New Zealand economist has reduced the system to its real absurdity by comparing student loans to the raising of cows for milking. The costs of breeding rearing and supporting the cow until it begins to lactate can be written off against tax The students can't. Farmers can borrow on their cows to help the farm where parents can't on the kids because of our awkward anti slavery legislation. . So if the government aligns  the financial arrangements for cows and students then, Bingo. A cow producing many years of profitable milk yield.

Get Corbyn has become the rallying cry instead of Get The Tories!

Though most people haven't received their ballot papers yet and the Labour Party hasn't made a decision on whether potential voters should be disqualified for not supporting the Iraq war it's becoming less and less clear whether tis a leadership election or a "Get Corbyn '" rally

It's hardly edifying to see the three establishment candidates ganging up against the people's Jeremy  and attacking him with more vigour than this gradgrinding Tory government .We've heard more about stop Corbyn and the disaster that awaits if we elect him than we have about what a Labour government should do about growth, poverty, the Health service, Europe or indeed anything so that I'm beginning to wonder what we stand for rather than against.

There's no understanding of the fact that if Jeremy is elected as leader it will be a statement by the party's members that they need a stronger policy a firmer line and a more left wing stance . Indeed the scale of Jeremy's support makes that clear already  So should that be ignored and its supporters  abused or should it be accommodated ? Win or lose the establishment three need to recognise that and bright as they may be in attracting the south, the aspiring ,the perspiring the terrified business community  and the deficit hawks they also have to hold the party faithful if we're to win. We failed to please the people in Scotland and look where that got us.

Indeed the way they've gone on about Corbyn makes it look as though they'd rather split him and his supporters away from Labour into a separate party. That's the logic of what they're saying and it could happen if we move, as we should to proportional representation. But let's recognise that if it did happen to form a government Labour would have to work in some kind of coalition with  the Left Party which would mean giving them more power and a greater say in policy than they are allowed now working as the disunited party we've become. 

I always thought our gospel was fraternity. Please can we show a bit 

CORBYNISM WITHOUT JEREMY. THE SOLUTION TO LABOUR'S PROBLEM

The problem with electing Jeremy as Labour leader is that we would be giving him as a hostage to the press plutocrats, Lord Rothermere, the Barclay bros and Rupert the magic millionaire. The result would be that however sincere and honest he is (which is more than enough for a leader) his every word and thought would be held against him, he'd be lampooned for his dress and there'd be constant efforts to associate him with every available nasty foreigner from Bin Laden (with whom he'd be communicating via medium) to Putin .

Any Labour leader is going to be done over by the press but Jeremy is more exposed to such a battering than most and the problem with mass democracy is that honesty and integrity don't shine through . So what the party needs is a leader who's less exposed  to all this, can stand on the middle ground  and be tough and intellectually strong enough to see the need for the kind of programme Jeremy is advocating.

Jeremyism without Jeremy would be a recognition that so much of what he's advocating is the kind of thing Labour needs to do which would be popular with Labour's rank and file and yet well supported by the wider public.

Take the re-nationalisation of the railways as contracts fall in. Or take a big programme of public housing for those who can't afford to buy, tough rent controls on the private sector or a boost to spending on the NHS to clear the deficits.All necessary. All popular. Add in the breaking up and tougher of the banks to stop speculation, a National Investment Bank and a programme  to control the big bullies in the privatised utilities,incentives to hold shares for longer  rather than speculative bursts and penalties for the lavish share option deals and the  payout of excessive  dividends at the expense of investment.

All that will mobilise national pride and protect the small against the monopolies. Being friendly to business does not mean condoning its every fraud,cheat,fiddle  and weakness or not mobilising the people against the plutocrats.This should be the position of the Labour Party not the kind of servile deference to our failing business leadership we've shown so far.

We got hold of the wrong end of the stick when we started blaming ourselves for being anti-business. We should be anti-nasty deceitful overcharging tax fiddling and bullying business. Help the struggling small businesses by any means but be aware that the people are as hostile to the bullying blunders of the big batalions.They want something done about it not to watch is leaders being overpaid,its taxes underpaid and its customers fiddled and bullied..The big state is the only protector they've got and they get fed up when it doesn't help them. 

The essence of Jeremy's programme is to return power to the people rather than pandering to plutocrats who they know are both greedy and well equipped to look after themselves .The sooner the other leadership candidates and our leading party figures get to recognising this rather than abusing Jeremy Corbyn the better..He's getting strong support and represents a discontent which Labour must serve and incorporate in its programme Who's going to speak for the people if Jeremy is ridiculed and rejected in this way?.  

RU4EU?

Labour's leadership election campaign has turned from a debate on the future of the party and its policies into a three to one  debate about Jeremy Corbyn and whether he's the reincarnation of Attlee, Keir Hardie, Trotsky or Coco the clown. All great fun of course particularly for the press and the Tories but something which leaves out of account what will be the big issue of the future. What do we do about the EU? On that silence reigns.

Having been changed by T Blair Esq from a Euro-sceptic party into one of vacuous enthusiasm for the EU which a traditionally naive and internationalist party believed to be a good thing though we couldn't precisely say why our leaders have nothing to say on what will be the big issue of 2017 do we leave or stay?

We do  know that Cameron is embarked on as big con to maintain the unity of the Tory Party, so he'll get only s few piddling concessions from the EU in his negociations and then announce that he's castrated the beast and turned it from a ravening monster into Britain's lap dog so it's safe to vote for it. We can also see that Labour's first instinct is to back him in this and announce that we too think that though it may have a few minor faults its basically a wonderful thing in which Britain can and must play a leading role  even if none of the others want this.

Taking this position gives us the worst of all worlds. It weakens Cameron's hand in the negociations by giving the impression that the country isn't behind what he's trying to do. It fails to do anything to stop the EU's decline because of the unworkable Euro into a high unemployment low growth blackspot dragging us down rather than pulling us up as we were told it would in the seventies. It doesn't recognise that the Euro states are bound to draw closer together not now because of their ccoling desire for ever closer cuddles but because they're forced to surrender powers in a desperate attempt to make the Euro work and that we'll be excluded from this unless we adopt the Euro which we can't so that while claiming to lead Europe we're relegated to a plaintive periphery.  People can see all this. Is Labour to keep quiet about it? Les silences de la merde?

The British people may on balance be frightened into voting to stay in the EU but they have  strong  lingering resentments which Labour should feel too. The Common Fisheries policy robs us of jobs, fish and seafood production , the Common Agricultural policy provides protection to French farmers but means food prices are still too high. Our contributions  are far too heavy (and scheduled to grow steadily) for a nation with a gasping trade deficit and EU rules inhibit any attempt to rebuild an manufacturing base which has shrunk too far for survival.. We need to control our own borders but have to lay them open to any Rumanian sheepnappers who want to take any sheep they've stolen to Macdonalds rather than skilled Kiwis

In that situation supine bleats about how wonderful the EU is, or how naughty Cameron in appeasing UKIP might make us feel virtuous but do no good at all politically, We should formulate our own demands give Britain some backbone and be prepared to campaign to come out unless we get the real concessions Britain needs but that soft soap salesman the Prime Minister daren't ask.It's time for Labour to speak up for England  (and Scotland's best interests too) not those of the Liberal Democrats.

VOTE LABOUR GET BETRAYED

It's a sad fact of political life but the Labour Party will always betray the hopes invested in it.So do the Tories  Mass parties always boil down the hopes invested in them  to offer a broad alternative  but  the Tory task  of shifting  balances and money from the many to the few,from the poor to the rich is easier than and their public relations in excusing their failures better than Labour's Building a new world and transferring money and power down to the people is more difficult both to do and to explain.Particularly to a conservative easily frightened nation

More  and more diverse hopes are concentrated on Labour : advance women, boost trade unions,remedy social problems,improve education and health ,eliminate poverty save manufacturing tax the rich support other ethnic groups save the environment and aid the poorest of the poor outside Britain. Not only will fulfilment be slow and patchy but gains one front can conflict with the interests of another and there is certainly no overall majority for all of it.If there were Labour would have been in power forever.

So a Labour government is going to betray some of jt, fail on other aspects and have more difficulty in keeping the public with it than the simple policy of the Tory Party  of helping a powerful few who already have a lot so a marginal; bit more or less doesnt matter and in an y case are better at dressing up their interest as the national interest because they control the media and the organs of communication and are much better at advancing their demands covertly

It follows therefore that Labour must dilute its demands and broaden its appeal to win power and that once in office it will be dealt with more harshly if it makes mistakes or seems to betray any part of its mission. It must give to the many not the few, a more obvious process and will receive less gratitude in return.

All of which means that a Labour government finds it more difficult to survived than the Tories and  more cunning in their offers at election time. This doesn't mean abandoning it altogether and accepting Tory priorities as we did in 2015 it means offering the mass of its supporters a broad promise of better prospects and a better economic deal and above all holding out hope which our collection of little changes failed to do.  

The Tories are free to lie  Several of  their election promises have already been abandoned. We're not. But  a living wage, more public housing for rent  are far better than attacks on the nasty tories or long explanations of why austerity doesn't work or grovelling before "business".Nor is it any use hoping that we can be led from the left;that will only be used  by our enemies to frighten people and  its too late now to revived pst policies at which we've already failed

Just use common sense.Don't frighten our easily scared electorate or select a leader who the media will use to create fear and dismay in inverse ratio to the enthusiasm he creates among the left but do offer them, hope.Most people know that they've been better off under Labour governments; more employment, rising wages, better welfare education and health. They've enough sense to realise that the Tories have made all that worse. But they do want to believe that we've got plans and are competent to do it again They didn't get that in 2015  

Be careful who you pose with! The art of the Sinn Fein selfie

Life's getting tougher for enthusiastic amateur photographers like me. An earlier generation of Picture Post photographers, Cartier Bressons or Richard Maynes could document their life of the people in their generation in black and white and  more recently Martin Parr has provided  great photos of the slummy sea side and Tory suburbia in colour without so far as I know getting bopped.

Yet an amateur like me can find it much more difficult in this censorious age.Last year I photographed the New South Wales Parliament House  and was confronted by an angry teacher whose class had been queing in the distance to get in, who demanded that I destroy my photo. In London in the winter I took a lovely snow scene outside Ashley Gardens and an angry girl  who'd been walking in the distance followed my down the road threatening to report me to the police. Point your camera at kids in any context and there are murmurs of paedophile which Lewis Carol never encountered.

Even if you don't take photos touyrself you've got to be careful who you pose with. Immediately the press want to discredit Jeremy Corbyn  they dredge out pictures of him with Gerry Adams though they must have thousands of Blair keeping the same company. Are there rediculous accusations against Ted Heath and he's pictured with Jimmy Saville which must be as frightening for anyone who appeared on Jim'll Fix is as it is for me who's just destroyed several photos of me with the man monster. Similarly David Cameron must regret  all the photos of him patronising Camila Batmanghelidjh as if worshipping an overdressed Moghul empress. The press have huge libraries and I have so many myself that I'm thinking of offering pictures of all the people, rogues swindlers and politicians who appeared with me on Target for a small fee.Unfortunately they're in some disorder;not sorted or categorised as photos with liars, swindlers or con-men.When I thought of standing for the Labour leadership though I've got hundreds of pictures with Blair I'd do better to strengthen my chances by publishing my picture of me with Margaret Thatcher. I couldn't find it.Can the security service have burgled me? 

Now the selfie craze has produced  an enormous expansion of the problem "It doesn't happen to me because Im now retired and the old aren't photogenic  Yet everywhere the famous,the celebs and would be celebs  instead of being asked for autographs on tatty pieces of paper or on different parts of the anatomy are asked for selfies  taken with a mobile phone all too often at the end of a broomstick. Beware. It not only takes more time than it does to scribble something incomprehensible  (on which they may be able to get a prescription at their chemists) but it exposes you to all kind of undesirable associations when the people you're photographed with are unveiled as paedophiles bank robbers or Directors of Kids Company who can then offer their photo to the Daily Mail or the Police Gazette for a fee.  

There's no escape and the new generation of MPs seem intent on taking selfies anywhere in the Commons, the toilets,the terrace and it'll no doubt spread to the House of Lords next. You could of course wear a beard, a mask like the phantom  of the Parliament Or pose only with the Archbishop of Canterbury. But the best course is the Sinn Fein selfie.Yourself alone. It's the only way I get photographed now. 

A message to the Governor (Mark Carney)

Every month now we have a cliffhanger of the will he wont he type over raising interest. Governor Carney regularly says not, but then accompanies it with dire warnings that they will rise sometime this year next year only the omniscient bankers can say when and they don't have the foggiest idea.

It's great fun for the media who can speculate endlessly before hand and then explain endlessly after the  announcement of a non -increase. This year only one MPC member voted to raise interest rates so  the impression is created that he's battling for economic sense  against a wastrel majority. Then speculation can begin all over again on whether more will vote for it next time .

It's all a pretence. They won't raise interest because they can't raise interest rates because the Osborne recovery is so fragile and weak that any increase in interest rates would kill it . 

The "recovery" isn't due to any Tory long term economic plan (LTEP as its known) but to the fact that if you keep interest rates flat to the floor long enough there's bound to be an improvement in activity.. Raise interest rates in that situation and you stop it in its tracks

First, the march of the makers is a limp of the left behind because manufacturing is suffering from the high pound already. To put up intererst rates rases the pound stiill further and turn fighting retreat into rout.

Second firms families and government are all hung down with debt. Higher rates check demand and cut growth. Those who're struggling to carry the burden  will go under.

Third the Bank's remit is inflation at 2%. It's nowhere near that now so why rush in to raise rates against an anticipated rise in inflation which isn't happening. The answer appears to be because Finance wants it and talks of a return to "normal" rates. But what's normal in a continuing recession? Don't we all know that once the barrier is crossed they'll be edged up further and further

My advice to the MPC is to take a year's holiday and use it to get away from the City of London and all the financial journalists who parrot its lines and go on a prolonged tour of British manufacturing particularly in the North and Midlands. Talk to young people who're hanging on to houses they can barely afford

Can it Chris!

Chris never criticised when the Tories doled out 375 billion quids worth to the banks to strengthen their balance sheets.

My good friend  and fellow Bingley Grammar School student Chris Lesley is so keen to rubbish everything the People's Jeremy says that he's in danger of making Labour look like Osborne's apprentices and pale imitators.

Except on one issue, Quantitive Easing, which he's now criticising because Jeremy took it up even though Chris never criticised it when the Tories doled out 375 billion quids worth of it to sit in the banks to make their balances look better.

Watch it Chris. QE used to finance big projects in housing or infrastructure and backed by tight contracts on repayment for acquiring a public asset would be far better and less expensive than PFI contracts or the even worse PPP contract which Gordon forced on London to cost billions when the companies involved went bust.

The former  Governor of the Bank ofEngland told me it was possible to use QE to pay for big projects  if the government wanted it. Bryan Gould advocates it (cautiously) in his new book and it's clearly an idea we could use .It would stimulate the economy and boost demand. America has used it as has Japan and it would help  labour finance the enormous reconstruction job we will face. 

So why not think about it now  and work out how to do it rather than dismiss it out of hand because Jeremy suggests it.    We don't have to kill cats because Jeremy has one do we? 

OSBORNE TAKES THE NORTH FOR DAFT

And what's worse he may be right. Faced with the declining Tory support in a region which this government hasn't treated fairly he's decided to attempt in the Broad Acres to pull off the same trick the SNP used in Scotland :accuse Labour of neglecting ots heartland and pose as their new saviour.

So he's pulling two tricks by making offers the North cant refuse and embarrassing and dividing Labour in the process.First he offers a High Speed train to reach Leeds and Manchester some time  fifteen or more years ahead and knock half hour off the journey from Leeds to London. Its a confidence trick so enormously expensive that it will never happen  but already Labour councils and  Labour MPs have fallen for it  and in doing so accepting that the links across the North and expansion and improvement of the East Coat Main line both matters of more importance and greater urgency will be postponed  indefinitely in consequence.

Offer two is devolution through the creation of one Northern powerhouse in Manchester region to set other cities a clamouring for theirs. The offer is spurious because it isn't devolution but decentralisation of pain  since the region will have to enforce all the coming cuts but won't get any new money to soften their impact.It will all be too much for the proposed one person band of a mayor and a powerless council particularly since some of the areas to be considered have already rejected the idea of an elected mayor but will not have to have one forced on them as the price for the new city regions.

Once again another con not only because nothing much is really being decentralised rather  he's creating a cushion between central government and the localities so someone else will get the blame for cuts. You can't have a patchwork quilt with come city areas getting more powers but small towns and rural areas getting  nowt. The only viable vehicles for genuine devolution are either the planning regions Labour used or the creation f bigger units like the whole north  as a new unit such as the ones most European countries have created.

Yet once again many in the Labour Party are falling for this manifest meaningless con and gibbering with gratitude at the pathetic crumbs from the Tory governments over-centralised table. Pathetic   It's about time we recognised that a healthy democracy needs devolution, that the North should have it because Labour will have an alternative power based there and all we have to do is work out what form it should take and proclaim a viable alternative before its too late and the Tories plunge local government and the North into yet anther futile mess.Time to show George that we're not as daft as he thinks by rejecting what's not coming to us.

WHAT IS LABOUR ABOUT?

The most surprising thing to emerge from Labour's messy leadership election is that no one actually supported the platform on which Ed Milliband actually fought it. Jeremy Corbyn thought it was too cautious,Ed Balls thought it wasn't friendly enough to business, Hariet Harman thought it was too generous to beneficiaries,the Blairites found it too tough the unions thought it didn't do enough for them.Who loved it?

It illustrates what a nervous insecure frightened party we are,lacking the courage of the convictions we haven't got,anxious for the approbation of  Finance and the banks which caused the recession in the first place, reluctant to stand up for our friends or our principles and too frightened to provide a clear alternative to the Tory gradgrinds and their crazy economics

I can understand reluctance to proclaim inevitable truths like the fact that taxes will have to increase that property will have to pay more,that Britain needs immigration if we're to support our ageing population ( ie me), that the pound is far too high,and that British business is better at leaching on the state and clamouring for subsidies than it is at competing on world markets. All true but all a bit unpalatable to thrust at them in an election campaign  without any educating preparation.  

All true but all for tackling later when we've won power by offering hope ,the prospect of change and  an improvement in the lives of the people not a smaller dose of misery.Once you accept the Tory priorities (which are really those of wealth and finance) that the need is to balance the budget,that reducing debt is more important than  stimulating growth , that cutting benefits is more important than providing jobs and that the EU  and the vested interests which support it are pristine and without fault.Indeed we've conditioned ourselves into believing that we can't do things the Tories as the party of organised hypocrisy can do when ever they want. Like raisibng the minimum wage

Accept all that crap,fail to offer or even think about any Alternative way of running our failing economy and you're fighting on tory terms, a prisoner of their policies .That's a situation which will do no good to Labour or anyone because the media will never give us any credit for it because the job of the Tory press is to preach the arcane laissez faire doctrinaire view of a bunch of extremist billionaires. For this prejudiced and privileged coterie Labour can do nothing right however much it prostrates itself before the alter of Mammon.

And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's pastures green? We no actually because the landowners had gamekeepers to keep people off the local Tory council had posted No Trespass signs and the Labour Party wouldn't support him in case they got to be called trouble makers  and lost votes in consequence..After all winning power is more important than supporting itinerant troublemakers