Sunday sermon

So.  The Labour Party has finally done the right think and suspended Michael Foster, who somehow imagined that he could buy immunity from the internal discipline of the party.  Enough has already been said about his article in The Daily Mail and the accompanying photographs so I will not revisit the scene of the crime, but it does slightly redress the balance with regard to to other suspensions of those in the opposite wing of the party for serious infractions such as saying that they "Fucking love the Foo Fighters' on Twitter, or posting a positive comment about Caroline Lucas.  Mr Foster is reportedly incandescent with rage, but I understand from the little research I have done that this is pretty much his default setting when he fails to get his own way.  

I do think that there are several prominent members of the party who would do well to re-acquaint themselves with aims of the Labour Party, as laid down in the Party Rules and which all members agree to abide by when joining.  Clause IV starts with these words:

1. The Labour Party is a democratic socialist Party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few; where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe and where we live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect. 

I will leave it there and let you draw your own conclusions.

To return once more to our favourite ice-cream salesman, we learned recently that Owen Smith is a leader, because in his school there were “1,200 boys, three girls and I pulled Liz. So I must have something going on. That must be leadership.” Now forgive me but it may be many things but I don't think leadership comes into it.  Maybe a judicious splash of Brut after a shower; maybe dogged persistence, and we've certainly seen plenty of that recently;  maybe a meeting of minds. Who knows? But I am pretty certain whatever it was it no more qualifies him to lead the Labour Party or be Prime Minister than the fact that he has slightly receding dark hair and wears glasses. Perhaps we should ask Mrs Smith what attracted her to him.  I mean out of 1,200 boys or at least those who were the right sort of age she chose him.  Does she think it was because he was a leader?  Has anybody bothered to ask?  Does anybody really care?  With each pronouncement Smith sounds increasingly desperate. I skipped through his interview on the Andrew Marr show this morning (life's too short to watch it all) but he appeared to say nothing new.  His main route of attack seems to be on Brexit, when he obviously sees himself as a sort of Joan of Arc figure leading the British public back into Europe, conveniently ignoring that in order to do so he will need to 

1. Win the leadership election.
2. Win a General Election, which, if he alienates those working class voters who predominantly voted leave, is highly unlikely.
3. Persuade the EU to have us back. An EU which will have just wasted four years negotiating our exit with all the time and money that entails.

Owen Smith is not fighting a Leadership election, he is fighting the next General Election.  Is this a case of running before walking?  I rather think it is.  Having been part of the reason that the Labour Party is so divided by refusing to work with the elected leader on the grounds, not that he disagrees with his policies but that said leader can't lead, he now claims he will unite the party.  

Let me tell you Mr Smith.  No you won't.  

Firstly you won't win the leadership election.  You know it, I know it, everybody in the media knows it.  

And secondly if you were to win then you would not have the support of a huge number of grass-roots members.  These are people who are active at CLP level.  They are the people who do the donkey work at elections.  They would not get behind you, any more than you will, by your own admission, get behind Mr Corbyn when he is re-elected leader.  Your stock answer to the question will you serve under Jeremy Corbyn is to say that you are Labour, always have been Labour and always will be Labour which does not, I think answer the question. How very politician-like of you.

I've just remembered what happened to Joan of Arc.

I'm not religious in the slightest and have little time for those whose religion colours their view of the world to the extent that it subverts their humanity.  Dogma of any sort, religious or political is dangerous.  When Marx said 'religion is the opium of the people' I think to some extent he was right.  I am not a marxist, but take my ideas from all sorts of unlikely places.  My philosophy, if I were called upon to declare one would be something along the lines of 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'

The reason I mentioned religion at all was that I saw that the death had been announced recently of the ex-bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, a frequent thorn in the flesh of the establishment.  I didn't know him, but it seems that his heart was definitely in the right place and that he tried to use his position for good.  For that I salute him and his memory.