Protest against exclusion of women delegates. left.
Nye Bevan warned that we should never underestimate the desire for unity in the party and that desire has been shown in the vote for the leadership.
With over 90 per cent of the CLPs Kinnock, they are wiping the slate clean and the left could easily isolate itself if we are seen to be wanting only to keep going over the battles of the past.
Neil Kinnock has both strengths and weaknesses. Unlike any recent leader nic is aware unal toere are major areas of policy where he is ignorant, as his recent visit to Bradford and his speech at any time in the 1950s or 1960s the election of Kinnock would have been seen as a major shift to the racism shows, he is willing to learn.
He wishes to see purge of the dead wood in the Shadow Cabinet shake-up organisation in Walmarty Koad to drive the PIP outwards to campaign in the country.
All this we welcome, but there also weaknesses He too concerned with the feelings of the PLP and the right's obses sion with expulsions and witch hunting. we musi make it quite clear that any moves down this road will meet with total resistance.
He is also weak on the issues that women in the party have raised and th demands of blacks and Kinnock be Says. well-placed to win back the skilled working class voters who have supported Thatcher at the Last elections, but if he does not also carry those other groups whom the Labour Partv has ignorea l the past then we cannot win.
We must also avoid the trap of the manifesto policies though they were socialist programme. They were between the left and the PLP fudged whole range of issues.
The left also has to examine its own methods. By concentrating on winning control wards GMCS many socialists have not time left to build a base in the community. The lesson of Bermondsey is clearly that capturing a GMC without having built workers leaves us open to attack by the media. We can learn a lot from the Liberals in terms of time Ken Livingstone spent building support in the community.
One thing to notice in the Heffer vote is that for the first time ever the left did better inside the PLP than in the CLP. I believe we can win the next elec. tion and that would mean an influx of hard and soft left MPs into the PLP Later this week conterenc will the control of the PLP. But we must also begin a campaign to win control of a Labour Cabinet by the PLP.
A Labour Cabinet independent of the PLF and it is therefore of little table to the local parties if USC having MPs accounthey cannot in turn control the Cabinet.
The coming economic collapse gives us a chance to win the next election. But without fundamenta change in our economic policies and control of the leadership we could again see a Labour government fail.
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EVERYONE HERE shares the disappointment that the leader we have elected was not Tony Benn. But