I can tell you don’t like her, but from this article I’m not sure what you are actually criticising her for?

I’m sorry Denis, but this is no kind of argument at all. Your piece not only comes across as having only read second hand accounts of her resignation letter (appended below), but appears designed not to address some of the substantive issues she raises.

Dear Martin,

I am resigning as a member of the Labour Party and I wanted the local party to know before I make my decision public.

First, I would like to thank you and my friends in the party for your comradeship and support over the years. This has been a difficult decision to take as I feel I was almost born into the Labour Party.

However, I can no longer be a member of a party that at the leadership level has betrayed many of the values and principles that inspired me as a teenager to join.

You will recall when I stood down I said that after the illegal decision to wage war on Iraq I could not have served another term under Tony Blair’s leadership.

With hindsight I should have resigned then, but I thought this would be very unfair to Linda Riordan and labour members putting themselves forward for election to the council.

I also hoped that we might go back to being a really progressive and caring party should Gordon Brown succeed Tony Blair as leader.

In the event I could not have been more wrong.

Despite all the evidence and in the face of the credit crunch, Gordon Brown’s obsession with privatisation such as the Royal Mail is inexplicable and quite simply wrong.

Labour had its chance after Blair to get its finger on the pulse in the country, more social justice not less.

That chance was squandered with catastrophic results.

He has shown not one jot of contrition as he continues to privatise what is left of our public services.

At the same time he has failed miserably to tackle the corporate greed of the bankers.

As to foreign affairs, it becomes clearer by the day that the Labour Government cooperated with the Bush regime as they rendered whoever they judged to be guilty of terrorism to despotic regimes who tortured them and offered them no access to the legal process whatsoever.

Our ministers shame us in front of the world when they give their support to the Israeli government as they commit war crimes in Palestine and the Lebanon.

Brown has just announced plans to send another 900 troops to Afghanistan, billions to be spent on an unwinnable war and pensioners dare not turn on their heating because this Labour Government will not tackle the energy fat cats.

On the domestic front we said in our 2005 manifesto that we would not privatise Royal Mail, we lied.

That same manifesto promised a referendum on the European Constitution, we re-named it the Lisbon Treaty and reneged on that promise also.

If this Treaty is ratified we can say goodbye to any publicly owned services. Article 111-147 is clear, we will be handing over to private corporations, social services, education, transport and postal services. Even the NHS will be up for grabs.

The misnamed Welfare Reform Bill now going through parliament is something the Poor Law Guardians would have been proud of. This Labour Government should hang its head in shame for inflicting this on the British public just as we face the most severe recession any of us have experienced in a lifetime.

This assault on the poor and disabled is taking place at a time when former Labour Ministers still drawing an MPs salary, line up on an unprecedented scale to take up lucrative consultancies with private companies, that as ministers they previously had dealings with.

I have written to Gordon Brown about this, he simply passed me on to a civil servant. This personal greed and possible conflict of interest did not appear to concern him.

My final reason for leaving the party is because it is no longer democratic. The personally vindictive, dishonest campaign played out on the pages of the tabloids by certain Labour party members to deselect Janet Oosthuysen was despicable, but even more shaming was the behaviour of the NEC who have uttered not one word of criticism about the Home Secretary’s behaviour on expenses, but have ruined the political career of an excellent candidate whose only crime was to scratch her ex partner’s car.

The undemocratic nature of that selection continues as the reselection has been conducted without much transparency and is now subject to complaints from members of the Calder Valley Party.

Quite simply I have had it with New Labour.

Yours in friendship,

Alice.

I can now see where this site seems to be going.
Whether you are Alice or Guido – attack Gordon and we attack you.

‘Where were you when we really needed you?’

Er, serving her constituency for 18 years, maybe?

tim f @1 ‘what you are actually criticising her for?’

It’s called slapping a conscientious but unostentatious constituency MP who gave her life to the Labour Party on her way out. It’s not unknown.. At least he didn’t say ‘Alice who?’.

I’m with Justin on this. This is undignified and unnecessary.

I think this should be taken down. It is badly written. It is itself a smear article, making innuendo instead of argument. I would ‘fisk’ it myself, bit by bit, especially the pointless rhetorical questions scattered throughout, which are often suggestive of wrongdoing on McMahon’s part without having the balls to come out and say what it is she’s being accused of. Liberal Conspiracy can do much, much better if the Editor wishes to see an article critiquing McMahon.

Seriously, take this down.

I concur with the above comments. This is just plain fucking nasty, and after all the high-minded rhetoric of the past few weeks about the depths to which the right-wing blogosphere is prepared to sink, it’s also utter bloody hypocrisy to publish a smear-laden innuendo-shot piece like this on LC.

I also think its a really poor piece. (I am against unpublishing it, on the principle that it has been published). I am sorry she left the party. But anybody can disagree either with Mahon’s decision to stand for and remain in the Labour Party, or her decision to leave it. But it ought to be her arguments that are challenged, not her integrity.

And if you are going to attack her integrity, you have to at least try to make a coherent point when you are doing so. Why should it be difficult to think that she felt that this was the best way to pursue her politics, and that she now felt it was worth using her voice to make a small and somewhat symbolic protest?

I think Mahon is dead wrong on Europe, by the way, and particularly the threat to the NHS of the Lisbon Treaty, as well as the broader eurosceptic social democracy/socialism (in one country?) case. But that would be a substantive argument, so this probably isn’t the place for it.

Sunder @8: a small and somewhat symbolic protest

A nice downplaying there. And they say spin is dead. She was a Labour Party member for 50 years and an MP for 18. I doubt very much it felt ‘small and somewhat symbolic’ to her. Let’s see if you make it that far.

Alice Mahon hasn’t been an MP for four years.

Morality for the Labour Party is rapidly best defined as any action or thought which best helps it to cling to power. Charles Clark appeared to be the only senior Labour figure who questioned Brown’s judgement . It would appear he was correct.

Sorry. That wasn’t my intention.

I thought the charge was ‘why didn’t you quit when you were an MP’, tied into the slur about pensions and whatever.

Well, if as an ex-MP she wanted to use that to get into the media, and to explain the terms on which she was leaving the party, still voting for a particular candidate, but not really advocating support for it, then I think this probably was intended as a somewhat symbolic act – the resignation of her membership as the way to get her critique of the government heard. I didn’t mean more by it than that. So it wasn’t an intention to belittle her. It is the most effective way in which she could have made the argument she wanted to make.

“I think this should be taken down. It is badly written.”

Lots of posts on LC are badly written, it’s not necessarily a reason to take them down.

I stopped reading when I got to: “Alice and those of her ilk”. Not just a twat but an illiterate twat as well. FAIL

I think I have to agree with most of the comments so far. This is bilious nonsense against a hard working public servant. thanks to a very public sociologist, Alice Mahon’s calm an reasoned arguments in her resignation letter sit very nicely against this ill though out tirade.

“I am left wing, environmentally concerned , republican, atheist, animal rights supporter and very active in the Human Rights Movement. I am a member of PEN and have written for those causes in whatever publication chose to print my view”

Translation:

I tick all the correct boxes therefore I am inherently right.

It’s small and symbolic in terms of its effect. It’s enormous and highly significant to her, given her attachment to the Party & commitment to it.

Of course I too disagree with her decision, and also with the decision to release the letter of resignation to the press & at a time when it was likely to get maximum coverage (to a loyal Party member it feels like kicking the Party on her way out). However, I have no doubt that someone like Alice would definitely not be doing that out of bitterness or to have a destructive effect, but because she thought (wrongly in my opinion) that it could have a small effect on the Party. I also bet that she will continue to campaign on an individual basis for those members of the Labour Party she believes are socialists – and would’ve done for Susan Press if she’d been selected for Calder Valley. And unlike many people leaving she has clearly done so for honourable reasons as she has not joined another political party.

It is badly written and has a rather shitty tone in places but I agree with the sentiment asking why now? Why wait all these years to leave a party she no longer felt had a place for her? I’m not sure why she’s been raised to Princess Diane-esq levels of sainthood here to be honest either…

I think that’s the point. No one is treating her like she’s a saint. To the extent that they are, it’s important to correct perceptions. That is not what this article is about. This article is a terribly written hit-job, penned by someone who seemingly doesn’t have analytical or argumentational skills…at each point where the article almost grounds a criticism in fact, it quickly veers off into insinuation and insult.

I still think it should be taken down and the author told to rewrite it; I wouldn’t accept work like this from a Year 9, never mind GCSE or A-level.

“I can tell you don’t like her, but from this article I’m not sure what you are actually criticising her for?”

ditto

How very new Labour.

An act of principle becomes the object of attack and smear as they are either simply unable to explain why she is wrong or acknowledge she is correct and apologise.

OK, something else to think abou. I agree with comments that is piece is nasty and very badly written; the standard of writing on LC is, normally, extremely high, so I’m surprised that this has been posted, actually.

The issue nobody seems to have addressed is: why go after Mahon when the *real* story is about possible electoral fraud within the Labour party in an attempt to get a safe seat handed to the daughter of a high-ranking Blairite, who herself is just 22 years old and fresh out of university.

Because although she may be bloody talented and could turn out to be an excellent MP one day, this is all very very fishy, not least because of who her father is.

And for the record, I’m 22 and fresh out of university. I consider myself to be bloody talented. I’m certainly not ready to be an MP in any way shape or form.

Why is the author detracting from this issue, which is surely the real one?

Will Denis Watkins return to the comments thread to make excuses for himself?

I struggle to see how it could be done.

Terrible article – I am with the ‘take it down’ comments above.

I resigned my membership of the Labour party last year – after over 25 years. It was not an easy decision and most of my family remain members. Maybe I should have resigned over the Iraq war. Maybe I should have stayed a member for the post-election shake-up that is to come. Maybe I should never have joined nor spent several years of my life campaigning to get rid of the Tories (if memory serves it was a Labour victory that did this and not a mass strike of the proletariat).

In truth the decision was easier for me since I have not lived in Britain for years and so ‘resignation’ simply meant cancelling a standing order. But I can understand why so many people find this a genuine moral dilemma and perhaps the most difficult political decision that they have to make in their lives. This type of nasty, cynical, smug, ill-informed, self-righteous, apolitical sneering does not belong on a serious political website. Send it to the DSTFW.

I think you should have just run Alice’s letter, kindly posted here in full by A Very Public Sociologist.

Her only ‘crime’ as far as I can see was to stay loyal to the party longer than some of us would have, and given the length of her association it’s perfectly possible that she had hoped, perhaps over-optimistically, that it would have returned to a party of principle when Blair left.

Leon, the reason ‘why now’ is simple, and it’s in the resignation letter that the Sociologist quotes. As always with such letters, the sting is in the tail:

My final reason for leaving the party is because it is no longer democratic. The personally vindictive, dishonest campaign played out on the pages of the tabloids by certain Labour party members to deselect Janet Oosthuysen was despicable, but even more shaming was the behaviour of the NEC who have uttered not one word of criticism about the Home Secretary’s behaviour on expenses, but have ruined the political career of an excellent candidate whose only crime was to scratch her ex partner’s car.

The undemocratic nature of that selection continues as the reselection has been conducted without much transparency and is now subject to complaints from members of the Calder Valley Party.

As it happens, Jennie is from Calder Valley, hence I now live there. Everything else in the letter was guff, a summary of pre-existing complaints. But this last bit? That’s the wonderful proverbial straw.

Halifax Labour Party has some internal issues. Calder Valley Labour party, same borough, neighbouring seat, is tearing itself to shreds. The sitting MP (who I’d vote for if she were running again) is standing down. They’ve had installed an All Woman Shortlist (not something I’m keen on but Labour chose to do it), and selected their candidate, a well known local town councillor popular within the local party (although controviersial, I’ll get back to that).

The runner up in that selection was Steph Booth. As in, wife of Tony Booth. He of “Mrs Blair’s father” fame.

Oosthuysen was controversial because she’s definitely an old Labour lefty, in the Representation Committee, committed to taking Labour back to the early 1980s in policy positioning. But, like I said, known and liked locally. Then, after selection, but before national approval, it came out she’d had a police caution involving her ex boyfriends car.

So the NEC rejected her. Now they’ve had a reselection process, and Steph Booth beat Ms Oosthuysen’s friend (and Labour blogger, look for “Grimmer Up North”) Susan Press, outgoing mayor of Hebden Royd. But she won on postal votes, and there are allegations of a dodgy campaign and similar.

I don’t know the merits of the allegations. I don’t know who’s in the right. I think, overall, that Booth is the better candidate for Labour in the valley, I do know that I was preparing a nice dossier on Ms Press should she be the candidate, as the local Lib Dem PPC is someone I really want to see elected. So please take all I’ve said with a pinch of realism, as I’m certain that despite attempting an impartial account it’s slightly tainted.

But the line we could now take if we want to fight it that way would be the way they’ve torn themselves to pieces. Mahon resigning is part of the whole thing, she palpably respected Oosthuysen, and now Press has been forced out as well, in favour of a ‘celeb’ candidate and friend to the Blairs.

That’s why now. She put up with a lot, and rebelled a lot, and was very popular locally by all accounts (I didn’t live here while she was MP). But to see her friends and allies forced out by central diktat and dirty campaigning? That tore it, I think.

Like I said, everything else is boilerplate.

This post is complete tosh. Badly written poorly researched drivel that doesn’t come close to analysing what is an interesting event. Given the other controversies ongoing about Labour PPC selection, this is the real story.

Harry Barnes wrote an excellent post on this subject, thoughtful, self-depricating and witty:

http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/2009/04/alice-where-art-thou.html

Don’t you see? The post merely confirms what is apparent to everyone else. vulpus_rex (22) hits the nail on the head.

For those that hold socialist views and have principles, the Labour Party is no longer a suitable home for you. It abandoned its principles in order to gain power; once it did that, there was nothing left to hold on to and its purpose became, purely and simply, to retain power. To the extent that it espoused socialist ideas, it did so merely in order to secure the votes of the faithful and hence to maintain power.

The recent discoveries of the truly abhorrent methods operating within No.10 are merely the natural result of an unprincipled desire for power. For those of us who have been looking, these methods have been apparent for many years.

It is up to you whether to defect en masse to the Lib Dems, who seem to be positioning themselves for this, or set up a new socialist party. But if your actions are guided by principles as to what is right and what is wrong, you should be following Alice Mahon’s example.

Otherwise, you condone what has been happening.

“an old Labour lefty, in the Representation Committee, committed to taking Labour back to the early 1980s in policy positioning”

I don’t know Janet, so I can’t say whether this is true of her. But I don’t like the way this is worded, which suggests everyone in the LRC wants to take Labour “back to the early 1980s” – that’s not true, there are plenty of people in it who think you can be both modern and left-wing.

“Too little too late”

So instead if you’ve had the misfortune to believe the party you have devoted your life to might change…that you would make some compromises for the long term goal of getting the future you believe in…you shouldn’t then quit and make it clear why you’re doing it, you should just like it and lump it?

I don’t have time for people that tow the party line to the degree of fighting for it, but respect the decisions of those who are playing the political game with good faith (even if I disagree with that kind of action). No point wasting your time staying somewhere you clearly don’t see a future with just because it’s “too late” in the day. Fairly pathetic language usage really.

What is this article for?

All it’s saying is that the writer doesn’t like Alice Mahon. I have immense respect for her after having read her letter – it’s principled and has addressed all the issues as to why I’m not (as aren’t so many others) voting Labour at the next election.

I’m all for stronger integration in the EU but I’m also democratic, which is why I want a referendum, even though I know it probably won’t win. To adopt such a major piece of legislation (and on a side issue, go to war with another country) without the support of the population, is a disgrace.

Well Done Alice. If only more Labour backbenchers do the same thing.

Fair comment Tim—Sunny asked me to write a full rebuttal post on this, but I don’t think I’ll have the time, if I do it’ll cover candidate selection generally.

All I know about the LRC is from the little I’ve read on a few websites—take it as read that I read local blogs, so I’m basically going from the impression I get from what Press has said on hers.

As you probably know from my comments elsewhere, I’m very much committed to a modern form of socialism—but I’m of the “the unions sold us down the river” school, rather than the “give power back to the unions” school, which does seem to be what LRC is really for, is that a more fair way of putting it?

Oh dear, seem to have caused universal upset. Too bad. I don’t know Alice. I do know she butted out a bit late in the day. Who cares any more? Robin Cook couldn’t stomach the Blair agenda and he resigned. Neither could Clare Short. Dennis Skinner has always been clear and forceful in his views. Someone says Alice was spending her time looking after her constituents. I thought that was her responsibility.

As for the article being badly written. Sorry if I upset your literary sensibilities. I did my best. I gave an honest opinion and if you don’t like it then too bad.

What is interesting is that so many want “the article taken down” or, in less mealy mouthed terms, “censored.” I thought this was what we should be defending: free speech. There has been enough admiration, isn’t she wonderful, what a brave gesture etc to last Alice for the rest of her life. You lot seem to want a kind of Stalinist censorship imposed on just one contrary opinion.

Anyway, no hard feelings to you on my part. I read your comments with care. I respect the depth of your feelings and if you hate my guts as so many do well I can’t say I find that pleasant.

I thought this was what we should be defending: free speech…. You lot seem to want a kind of Stalinist censorship imposed on just one contrary opinion.

Bwa ha!

Removing an article from a site because the article is below the standards of the site isn’t censorship you buffoon.

Stopping you from publishing on your own site, that would be censorship. Deciding that we’d rather not have drivel like this on ours? That’s freedom of association and property rights.

This is Sunny’s site, but a lot of us write for it regularly. I don’t publish stuff here unless I think it’s of a high enough standard. Sunny’s standards were slipping when he let this through.

I don’t think it should be taken down, what’s here is here. But I would take it off the frontpage as being unworthy of the location.

Well, it’s a first, letting the trolls write the articles, I suppose.

#33

My take would be that the LRC is far from exclusively being about unions having more rights, but of the various Labour Party groupings it is the one best connected to grassroots union activity and certainly there are lots of union branches (and even entire unions including some which are no longer affiliated to the Labour Party) who are affiliated. I don’t know your opinion on trade unions other than what you’ve stated above, but it’s certainly possible to be a trade unionist while being sceptical of the top-down bureaucratic approach of some of the union leaderships, which would be the position of many if not most LRC members.

For what it’s worth, I understand Alice Mahon is remaining a member of the LRC so has some kind of institutional connection to the Labour Party still.

Have you read the CD-sized manifesto document produced for John McD’s campaign? That gives some pointers towards a modern socialism. (I’m not trying to recruit you – I know there’s no chance of that, just looking to find common ground!)

This could have been an interesting discussion about where the line is for left wing Labour party members and what their tipping points are…

#34

Beginner’s guide to resignations:

Robin Cook resigned from the cabinet, stayed on as a Labour MP and member.
Clare Short resigned from the cabinet (eventually) and resigned the whip, although wanted to stay as a Labour member.
Alice Mahon stood down as a Labour MP, and resigned recently as a Labour member.

So actually, of the examples you gave, Mahon resigned most thoroughly, you idiot. (Although for me, the only resignations of those listed that I approved of was the Cook resignation!)

What a nasty piece of bile. When you ask “Where were you when we really needed you?” the answer is she was in Parliament, voting against the Government when they were in the wrong. Looking at her voting record – http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Alice_Mahon&mpc=Halifax – it’s pretty much exemplary. This is someone who had the party she’d been a member of all her adult life change into something unrecognisable, and who fought against that before eventually bowing to the inevitable. We need more people like her, not fewer…

I think, for the first time, I really understand what is meant by the “chattering classes”. Anyone who, in your terms, falls “below the standards” is a “troll.” Look guys, I don’t even read the Guardian. You seem to live in your sweet little world, bat a few dippy ideas around, defend dear Alice to the death, and – big deal – have the time to look up details of precisely how, where and when and for what Robin Cook resigned. Get real.

As for standards: disagreement in your comfortable world leads to abuse such as “troll”, “idiot”, “drivel” and more of the same. OK, here I am going to have to make a request: any more of this and you will start to hurt my feelings.

That apart, the desperate attempt to attack me for being unable to “analyse” or whatever merely demonstrates the poor man who cannot analyse himself but wishes to imply that he is one hell of a deep thinker and, should he choose, then be would all have an intellectual feast.

WTF?

I disagree with plenty of people without calling them idiots. I’m usually refrain from insults – despite being a very partisan person. You, however, are an idiot.

Who in this thread reads the Guardian? Can you tell just by reading the comments? That’s an incredible skill you have. Seriously, pick some and let’s see if you’re right.

I didn’t need to look up what position Robin Cook resigned from because I was already better informed than you. As for “had the time”, you had the time to write an entire article, but didn’t have the time to check your facts. The language of priorities is the religion of socialism, my idiot friend.

“Criticising Alice Mahon, the 71 year old MP who recently left the Labour Party, where she’s been for 50 years as a left-wing stalwart, feels like shooting a baby seal. ”

I’m afraid that comes across as somewhat patronising when applied to an experienced former politician.

@41. I sincerely doubt anyone had to look up the details of some of the most high profile political resignations of the last ten years. Some of us here are actually informed about such things.

I completely concur with Mat @35 and Tim @ 43. I was in the process of writing a rebuttal to such smug twaddle as you’ve managed to squeeze into your article and your two comments but evidently further comment from you will simply be more of the same.

“I think, for the first time, I really understand what is meant by the “chattering classes”.”

Blimey! Slow on the uptake then, aren’t you. Sheesh!

Actually, Denis, you should take the accusations of trolling as a compliment. They imply that you *know* how ridiculous your post is and did it deliberately. Usually when I disagree with something here, which I do often and vehemently, the article at least shows some signs of the author having read something about the subject and thought about it a bit. The vast majority also show signs of having been proofread by their authors, so that egregious errors of spelling, grammar and basic logic generally don’t get through.

Thinking you’re a troll is *far* more complimentary than thinking that you actually consider this good enough for public consumption…

Is the argument that if you didn’t resign over Iraq you’re not allowed to at all?
That you should be stuck forever?

Seems a bit harsh.

This poor woman thought Brown would be better (in her terms) than Blair.
In fact he is worse on all fronts.
Now to some of us that was blindingly obvious, but it’s a little harsh to force her to stick around just because she got that wrong.

tim f. You produce, but appear to lack the analytical and intellectual ability to know what you have done, a piece of sanctimonious, hypocritical, nonsense. You refrain from calling someone an “idiot” but choose to apply that to me. Because, of course, you have decided I am an “idiot”. I suppose next time you decide that you are upset you could apply the same offensive term.

Just like your heroine Alice, you want to have your cake and eat it. Too superior, too grand to use a term of abuse but then use it. Tim, I am not to blame for your lack of intellectual ability; your sad effort at deep wit i.e. not calling someone an idiot and then doing so; your readiness to join the herd in the hope that you might also be seen to possess some of the literary ability they display. Sorry Tim, you just don’t cut it. Best back off before you expose your limitations further. At the moment that it is sad; keep at it and you will became a figure of fun. You may be there already.

I offer this advice as an act of kindness. Someone with your sensitive nature might be deeply hurt. Stick to your fantasies; keep withing the herd; you lack what it takes to fight your own corner,

Denis,

Mate, do me a favour and answer me one question:

Did you read Alice’s resignation letter before you wrote this article?

Thanks

Is this thread actually a surrealist installation? If it is, it’s bloody brilliant.

Denis: If you had to write this article all over again, would you do anything differently?

“You seem to live in your sweet little world, bat a few dippy ideas around, defend dear Alice to the death, and – big deal – have the time to look up details of precisely how, where and when and for what Robin Cook resigned. Get real.”

You have written an extremely abusive article about someone resigning from the Labour party without doing even the most basic research about her. She was a back-bench Labour MP because she was too left-wing to be appointed by Blair – therefore, unlike Cook and Short she could not resign from the government over the invasion of Iraq. You then compare her to Dennis Skinner in a comment, but when someone points out that they have roughly the same voting record you start ranting about Guardian readers.

When in hole . . . . . .

Denis,

Have what cake exactly?

She made her opinions heard through her voting record, resigned as MP in 2005 (i.e. the next general election after the invasion of Iraq) and hoped that things would change. They didn’t, so she made her opinions heard again (to Gordon Brown) and when he did nothing she was left with little choice but to leave.

Is this thread actually a surrealist installation? If it is, it’s bloody brilliant.

Surreal is the very word.

Mike: No, I did not.

Denis, do you not think that would have helped when you were writing a post about her resignation? Your responses to criticism are getting increasingly unhinged so I don’t want to press the matter but is it not fair to expect those that write posts here to research their topic before hand? I hope now you can realise why some of the criticism has been quite so vociferous.

The letter is reprinted here in comment 2, I suggest you to take the time to read it and post a correction or update to your post.

Thanks for replying.

In that case, I do not know why you wrote this article. Why are you offended about her leaving?

I can’t make rational assumptions on your standpoint from the article or your subsequent comments. Are you angry about Labour’s awful standing in the polls, and hold supposedly ineffectual MPs like Mrs Mahon accountable because of their passivity?

This would seem ill-informed.

Is this car crash blogging?

I’m getting Max Gogarty flashbacks.

How could you possibly think it would be a good idea to write a post about somebody’s resignation without even reading their resignation letter?!

I am amazed, I mean totally amazed at the comments on this thread.

Blair has buried the Labour party.

His tenure has been marked by a Thatcherite obsession with the market (believing it to be the only mechanism to deliver the kind of society he believes in).

Mandelson, Gould, Campbell, et al effectively masterminded a coup – sustained by a vice like grip on centralised power amongst the inner circle.

It’s like watching a vindictive mother lifting toys out of her baby’s pram.

They (old school Labourites) should have resigned en masse once it was clear Blair was a wolf in sheeps clothing hell bent on suppressing our civil liberties (and killing Iraqis).

This post is NOT about a disillusioned Labour traditionalist – it’s about the deafening silence that has accompanied the NuLab vandals while they have gone about dismantling traditional values.

A&E Charge Nurse – but she *wasn’t* silent. She spoke out against those things both publicly and privately, and used her position as an MP to fight them…

This is a truly horrid hatchet job. Awful.

Sure, Andrew, I am not taking her to task as an individual – for me the failing is more widespread.

It’s been like watching a car crash – I just can’t figure out why the grass roots did not storm the bastille

Unfortunately, a&e, this article does take her to task as an individual.

And Blairism was insidious: less a car crash than a frog in a saucepan.

Denis,

I’ve read this site for a while, though only recently started wading into comment threads.

I’ve honestly never seen such a universally hostile reaction to a piece, which has also been so uniform in its complaint.

You seem to be taking the line of defence which goes: “it aint my work, it’s them ignorants who are unable to see beyond their own prejudices.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The people who have responded to your article come from a wide variety of backgrounds and hold a wide variety of views. I’ve seen a lot of articles here come in for heavy criticism and been subjected to rigorous scrutiny (my own included) – never have I seen such uniform complaints made about a piece from so many people.

The fact that you a) admit to having done no research and b) are resorting to nastiness in replying to your critics is a bad sign, and you should take it as evidence that you have made a mistake.

Instead of fighting on tooth and claw, why don’t you calm down, step back and consider the possibility that you may have been wrong? And then perhaps apologise.

Alternatively, attack me personally and paint yourself a darker shade of black.

Wow and I’ll say it again WOW! I don’t think I have seen anyone get nailed like Denis has, but the manner in which some have gone about it suprises me.
Before I go any further I should point out I’m just a working class prole with no higher education so some of you may wish to move on immediately.
I didn’t know the ins and outs of Alice Mahon and still wasn’t sure after reading the post. The letter put up by A very public sociologist really helped and I still couldn’t see why Denis posted what she did. But the attacks on her for it just confirmed what I kind of thought about this site – an awful lot of elitists round here.
I’m just an average working class dude but even for me the original post didn’t stand up even to the resignation letter – so why the need for attacks based on ‘standards’ on the site? I understand you all want reasoned arguments, but if someone doesn’t write to your standards then its ok to attack as you do?
LC mission statement states, 1) Have an intelligent conversation about liberal-left ideas and values.
We want to do this by involving commentators from newspapers and magazines, thinkers, analysts, academics and think-tanks, but also ordinary citizens (through blogging) who are too often shut out of this debate.
Note it says ordinary citizens – so surely some posts are not going to be to your standards, or would you prefer us ordinary folk to stay away?
For the record I thought the resignation letter reasoned and comment #61 bang on.

It sounds like Alice Mahon was good MP and a decent person – but if you have been in league with the devil it is difficult to divulge yourself from the stink.

In this respect the fine detail (of her political choices) is a secondary issue

For those who thought McBride acted alone, think again. This article, and parts of the reaction to it, show that the element he represented is endemic in your Party.

I repeat my recommendation; those of you with principles, leave the Labour Party. Follow Alice Mahon and establish a principled socialist party for this country. I and those with similar views to mine might still disagree with you, but we will respect you for that.

Stay in New Labour under Gordon and the Liars, and we will not just disagree with you.

67, you’re talking toss. I myself am working-class. I am not aware of any law or societal rule that says working-class people must be thick: in fact, many are very well informed & even if they have not benefited from formal education have educated themselves to the point where they are better educated than most graduates.

You cannot simply berate people without having any idea of why they act as they do. It isn’t hard for anyone to do.

As for “ordinary citizens”, there are countless people who have never been published in the print media & probably wouldn’t be able to get past the old boys’ network, but who write well & deserve a voice. I do not consider Denis Watkins such a person as he clearly fails to understand what he is talking about & mounts a ridiculously unfair assault on a dignified & principled woman who had been misguided but has finally had the scales fall from her eyes.

Such people should be applauded.

Again. There is nothing to prevent anyone who is intelligent & mentally curious from reaching a high standard of analysis. By not deigning to read Alice Mahon’s resignation letter or consider the issues at hand, Denis Watkins proved himself to be nothing of the sort.

I am a furious opponent of “elitism” based on family connections, class status. I disdain blowhards who wave their qualifications in people’s faces as a substitute for argument. But to suggest that ordinary people are somehow incapable of making coherent arguments is an insult to them, a reproach to right-wing populist knobheads, & a slap in the face of anyone who has ever struggled in the face of adversity to better himself.

Really am sick of this.

“there are countless people” many of whom write here.

Blogging has indeed launched many a career among those who would have struggled to get into the closed shop that is the MSM.

@A&E

They (old school Labourites) should have resigned en masse once it was clear Blair was a wolf in sheeps clothing hell bent on suppressing our civil liberties (and killing Iraqis).

This post is NOT about a disillusioned Labour traditionalist – it’s about the deafening silence that has accompanied the NuLab vandals while they have gone about dismantling traditional values.

100% behind that comment!

The only thing I posted on my blog “I applaud you, Alice”

And I do – whether the OP is crap or not, whether an attack on her or not – the fact remains that she left the party, and she did so, in my eyes, for principled reasons.

Repeating myself – again – “New Labour is NOT the Labour party”

Perhaps instead of taking the article down, the font could be changed to a light grey, to show how faint this article was with hindsight.

@ ace (67)

Please, please, please keep your working-class nose in this and other sites business – the more voices said the more voices heard.

@70 – I’m not saying to be working class is to be thick. What I’m saying is why base attacks on ‘standards’ for this site and yet talk of ordinary people joining the debate.
“But to suggest that ordinary people are somehow incapable of making coherent arguments is an insult to them…”
I’m not suggesting that, in fact I said I can see the post doesn’t stack up even against the resignation letter. My post was mainly about the manner in which the attacks were made, this idea that it wasn’t ‘up to standard’.
“There is nothing to prevent anyone who is intelligent & mentally curious from reaching a high standard of analysis.” no there isn’t but if they don’t do their opinions not count?

@72 “Repeating myself – again – “New Labour is NOT the Labour party””

Damn straight it aint!

@72 “Repeating myself – again – “New Labour is NOT the Labour party””

So leave New Labour then. Do something, don’t just complain.

Whilst you stay in, you and others who vote Labour simply inflict New Labour on this country.

Duncan (73): I think green ink would be more appropriate.

If pretty much every person on this blog is disillusioned with New Labour,

a) Why aren’t they doing anything about it?
b) Why is Gordon Brown still the leader of the Labour Party?

a) Why aren’t they doing anything about it?

I joined the Lib Dems, don’t know about the rest, but Labour members are in a minority here—not a massive minority, but there’re loads of us from different leftish groups.

As for b)? Because Labour MPs are cowards is my best bet.

Shafiq

a) How do you know they’re not
b) Why are you assuming everyone on this blog is a member of the Labour Party and in a position to participate in the leadership elections?

@ 77

So leave New Labour then. Do something, don’t just complain.

I did, and am doing all I can to write about New Labour and their Conservative masters on my blog – after all, I am a mere nothing in the political swing of things.

Add to that, the only real thing I can do is vote – and I will be voting LibDem come the election.

This has got interesting.

Agree that the LibDems are the only party with progressive principles.

Can’t speak for anyone else. I have never voted for or supported the Labour Party in any regard. I was 24 a few days ago.

stopped voting Labour a long time ago – Tony Flair shafted everyone. Was a Labour party member when it had a red core, basic socialist values and wasn’t full of careerist MPs – you know back when parties had ideologies.

Re: 77

So leave New Labour then. Do something, don’t just complain.

In 2005 I tried, as a member of the Labour Party and a blogger to remove Blair through the Backing Blair campaign, in the hope that a seriously bloody nose would make the surviving Labour MPs reassess the preceding 8 years and consider a better course. That failed. I never expected Brown to realign the Party, but hoped that there would be a genuine leadership election and thus discussion regarding the future direction of the Party. Neither happened.

So last year I cancelled my direct debit, cut up my membership and posted it, along with a letter of resignation to Ray Collins. I received a stock reply thanking me for my continued support and informing me of upcoming events in the Yorkshire and Humberside region!

I’m still trying to work out where I go from here, but, from the pricking of my thumbs at the Don Valley Arena in 1992 to the subsequent misgivings in 1994 and the post-1997 disappointments, it won’t be with New Labour.

Cath

I stand corrected, for some reason I assumed many people on here were Labour supporters of some sort.

Re: 87.

Shafiq, many were. The past tense may well be appropriate.

Fair assumption to make given the Labour apologist tone of too many posts here. But there are leftists & liberals who tirelessly fight against this in the comment threads!

Wot Clive Summerfield said.

89 – which ‘Labour apologist’ posts are these?

I looked back through the last few posts, and the only one I could find which could remotely be described as ‘Labour apologist’ was one about how some research had found that the VAT cut was good. In contrast, there are daily posts criticising some or other aspect of the Labour Party and/or government.

Ugh.

Wtf?

Tsk.

*exits thread*

#91 – quite. The are plenty of posts attacking Labour, plenty of posts attacking the Tories and not very many posts attacking the Lib Dems. So I’m a little confused as to why people describe this site as pro-Labour, other than for political expediency.

What a revolting, patronising hatchet job. Shame on you, Denis Watkins.

Alice’s voting record spoke for itself; she could hardly be lumped in with the drones that fell in line blindly behind New Labour’s worst authoritarian excesses. In addition she was a damned fine constituency MP to boot, hard-working and conscientious. I don’t see too many of the New Labour arrivistes in safe seats busting a gut at constituency level.

The only thing she did that was “wrong” was stay loyal to Labour, in the somewhat tribal manner that many people of her age and ideology continue to do despite their socialist views being considerably at odds with the party of today, and no matter what I think of the Labour Party, loyalty is a quality that I value highly, even – up to a point – the misguided variety. Would that Labour looked to more people with the integrity and principles of Alice Mahon to serve as MPs in winnable seats, rather than parachuting photogenic tame, malleable lobby fodder into them, as has happened in Calder Valley, Leeds West, and may well occur in Erith and Thamesmead.

Hah, another local joins the discussion, hi Tez.

Anyway, discussion with her former colleague Harry Barnes on his site, and he pretty much agrees with me, plus he pointed out there’s a clip of her interview on the BBC news page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8005581.stm

Pretty clear that the selection issue was fairly close to the top of her list of issues.

If anyone ought to know about being replaced with an MP straight from central casting it is Harry Barnes, whose own voting record was almost as good as Alice’s and who carried on a long and honourable tradition of genuine, honest socialist backbenchers in North East Derbyshire stretching back to the great Tom Swain. He was replaced by Natascha Engel, formerly of the Smith Institute, who had no connections to North East Derbyshire prior to 2005 and who has never voted other than with the whip since entering Parliament. An interesting blog he has there, though he does frank the form of what I stated @ 94 re party loyalty!

93. The reason for that is very few Lib Dems post here about the things Lib Dem’s do. Take the recent budget announcement, Lib Dem’s are so disillusioned here that no-one has made a post about it, thus no-one has the forum in which to reiterate the usual falsehoods about Lib Dem’s and the phrases such as “They can say what they like because they’ll never be in power”.

Every time a Lib Dem post has been up I’ve seen countless Tory types attack them as pointless and Labour types not too far from yourself for not being something or another enough.

The site is pro-labour because the people who OWN it post lots of pro-labour stuff. The fact that then people comment about that negatively shows the readers aren’t pro-labour, but that doesn’t relate to the *site* in any way other than at least this site still encourages the opposition to the editor’s views to contribute.

The impression that this is a pro-New Labour site was given some credence by yesterdays guff-salad about the ethics of progressive blogging but that notion would have been corrected by anyone who read the following comments, which were almost as unforgiving as these have been.

I think this is a disgusting hatchet job – though I must declare an interst as a friend of Alice’s, Vice-Chair of the LRC and PPC candidate for calder valley. If this is the standard of writing and analysis permitted on this site then, it is both disappinting and unacceptable.
Alice is principled, decent and frankly a heroine to people round here. So take your nasty comments elsewhere – likewise the ones on calder valley

Shatterface – there’s a big difference between what gets posted on the main page and the comments…

97 – on the recent Lib Dem budget announcement, Jennie did post two links to it yesterday (that was the only way I found out about it, as it happens). I think it would have made for a good article and discussion.

But really, as for “Every time a Lib Dem post has been up I’ve seen countless Tory types attack them as pointless and Labour types not too far from yourself for not being something or another enough.”

Two points:

1. And when Labour supporters post something (even something incredibly anodyne and critical of the government like the bloggers’ statement) they get much more ferocious abuse.

2. But anyway, any contributor who posts an article has (I think) the power to delete those tedious and off-topic comments. I think other contributors should do this more. Since I’ve started doing it, I’ve been getting just as many comments as I used to on my posts, but there’s been a much better quality of discussion.

Lastly “The site is pro-labour because the people who OWN it post lots of pro-labour stuff.”

No they don’t. I counted 1 out of the last 50 articles which was in favour of a government policy (which was a link to a piece of research about the VAT cut). Unless ‘pro-Labour’ is being defined to include, ‘things which Labour should do differently’.

That said, I have a pro-Labour (but also pro-Lib Dem) scheduled for later today

Yes, perhaps pro-Labour isn’t the right term in the sense of “Yay, go Labour!”, more in… “We are Labour, we want it to be this way so Labour can be strong again”, regardless of how many of us actually care whether Labour are the party in power or not.

There’s a difference between those of us that want good governance whoever that is from, and those that usually end up putting their articles on here that want good governance only if it comes from Labour.

Lee, for me the point is that there are never any posts that go up attacking the Lib Dems, whereas there are plenty of posts that go up attacking Labour. (I suspect this is partly because people think “what’s the point”, because they’re not in government and they’re the third largest party, and because Labour supporters would rather focus on attacking the Tories than attacking the Lib Dems.) This is regardless of comments.

Although as I’ve commented before, Labour supporters are more likely to see the site as pro-Lib Dem and vice-versa, just as Tory supporters are more likely to see the BBC as pro-Labour and vice-versa.

Sorry for taking so long in responding – I’ve been travelling a lot since yesterday morning and wanted to think before responding to the criticism levelled at this article.

Obviously, as editor, the buck for guest contributions stops with me. I accept that a lot of people feel this was a hatchet job and should not have been published. I’m sorry that so many feel this was sub-standard or not the sort of stuff LC should publish. From my perspective it’s a difficult balance to maintain because I feel this site should represent a range of opinion from the left – from liberal to more interventionist, from those taking a standoff-ish approach to one more consensual. I don’t believe in taking articles down just because the majority don’t agree with it. We have a relatively open comments section to challenge articles for precisely that reason. In this case I also think it was wrong for the author to write the piece without reading Alice Mahon’s resignation letter. So I admit my editorial judgement in that regard was a bit sloppy.

Some of the discussion has focused on whether LC is too pro-labour or too nice to the libdems and doesn’t out them under the same level of scrutiny as the government. Part of my defence in that us that I am reliant on people who approach me with ideas or what our regulars want to write about. On top of that – there is a ton of stuff sent to me daily and I have to mix policy discussions with shorter, punchier pieces. Once I expand the number of blogs contained here, it will be easier.

Re Tez Burke’s comment: Anyone who actually knows Calder Valley’s PPC, Steph Booth and what she actually stands for politically will know that she could never be described as “tame, malleable lobby fodder” – and far from being parachuted in, Steph lived in Calder Valley for some years in the 90′s before relocating back again a few years ago.