Certainly (and in addition to the selection horrors) the PLP actions in respect of alternative positions put at conferene (e.g the fourth housing option) suggest that the rule change have made for a sense irreversibility, but I’m not convinced that it can’t be done through appropriate tactics at subnational level.

That is what step 3 of 5 addresses tomorrow.

The other thing to consider is that suspicion of Labour does not derive solely from apprehension about the national image of the party. The bureaucratic machinations of the Right are nigh unchallengeable – as can be seen in the suspension of more than couple of CLPs or candidacies over the last two years. Grabbing the odd constituency will not change that – and if it begins to, you can bet your ass that the well-entrenched PLP and their allies in the trades union bureaucracy will act to forestall it.

As far as socialists outside the party are concerned, that seems like a pretty good reason to invest effort in something we know can’t be so easily stymied.

Of course the party name was not so besmirched a generation ago, and that’s an additional challenge, but I think there are two answers. First, there’s the quite deliberate and successful local branding that ‘Manchester Labour’ has engaged in over the last fifteen years. Second, any de-besmirchment can only be undertaken properly where real changes are taking place in the type and quantity of activity is happening, and of course the de-besmirchment/proper activity is iterative.

As I’ve said many times, i’m not nostalgic about the Labour name/brand, and I’ll address that further in step 5, but it just seems a shame that for all the left shouts ‘organisation, organisation, organisation’ it can’t see a fairly obvious opportunity at local level because it (e.g Salman) is blinded by (understandable) national level hatred).

That’s not totally true of Canterbury – there’s a local Labour Club here, which is an excellent meeting venue unlikely ever to be detached from the Labour Party. But it is true of many other local parties. Which is why I’m looking forward to your Part 4, Step 5.

The other thing is that, over quite a swathe of the country, creating any degree of labour organisation (small ‘l’) involves building a new organisation anyway. Then there’s the local Labour Party groups who know full well that they are stuck in neutral, are not themselves ideological, but will still passively-aggressively oppose any move to the Left.

In the absence of the evidence base you argue for (quite rightly), I think this is a ‘glass half empty, glass half full’ issue; where Tony and others at Soc 2009 see the withiering on the vine of CLP infrastructures as evidence of the pointlessness of joining labour, I prefer to view it as evidence that the existing infrastructure is relatively easy to take over in many places.

Put it this way. all things being equal (and I accept they’re not) would you rather set up your own local organisation from scratch with no cash and no members other than you and four comrades, or be ‘invited’ to run an organisation with quite a few willing but slightly directionless members of slightly unknow talent but a little promise, a bank account, an exisitng office base and a printing machine, and one which has at least formal links to other bodies in which you are interested in engaging?