Though Cowards Flinch

If the Europeans are telling the truth in their claim that they have killed six million Jews in the Holocaust during the World War II – which seems they are right in their claim because they insist on it and arrest and imprison those who oppose it, why should the Palestinian nation pay for the crime. Why have they come to the very heart of the Islamic world and are committing crimes against the dear Palestine using their bombs, rockets, missiles and sanctions.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, December, 2005

Ahmadinejad doesn’t like that Israel’s foreign policy has been predicated on events that happened during World War II.

Mr [Vladimir] Putin declared that Russia had won the “moral right” to assert its foreign policy views because its people had suffered the most in the fight against Hitler.

In a clear warning to the West that he will oppose any attempt at military intervention against regimes such as Syria or Iran, Mr Putin declared: “The strict observance of international norms and respect for each nation’s state sovereignty and choice are an indisputable guarantee that the tragedy of the past war will never repeat itself.”

Vladimir Putin, May 9 2012 (£)

But I bet the Iranian President won’t mind this.

In June 2014, the people of Europe will go the polls to elect its MEPs for a five-year term.  This will be the 8th time it’s happened, but – courtesy of the crisis and ensuing austerity - for many voters it will be the first European election about Europe, as opposed to a mid-term vote on the domestic government.

There is a big opportunity for the Left here. 

The mainly ignorant media focus is on whether Hollande can persuade Merkel to give way on the as yet unratified Fiscal Pact (aka. the Fiscal Compact) concocted in late 2011 by Merkel and Sarkozy (no, he can’t, is the simple answer).

But the actual opportunity to set the European Union on a different course lies in potential for radical amendment of the regulatory ‘six-pack’ (to be followed by a monitoring ‘two-pack’ this summer), designed to ensure the proper implementation of the original Stability and Growth Pact, and passed into law in November 2011.

If you’re confused by two apparently parallel (com)pacts, don’t worry.  You’re supposed to be. 

There are relatively few people (other than me) who do understand it. Charlemagne at the Economist appears to be one, as does Peter Spiegel at the FT, who says about the less-known six-pack:

Almost unnoticed by the public, the European Union has already begun transforming itself into an organisation with far more central power over national economic decision-making. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has been given authority to demand spending cuts under threat of large fines….

Indeed, it is all so confusing that the European Commission has had to provide its own guide Six-pack? Two-pack? Fiscal compact? A short guide to the new EU fiscal governance, which states helpfully:

The Fiscal Compact, which is the fiscal part of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) – once it enters into force – and the six-pack will run in parallel.

It’s difficult to work out exactly why we have two parallel systems (other than the obvious explanation that the Compact was a late play by Sarkozy to stave off defeat by looking tough). 

My suspicion is that it’s part of a quiet power struggle between the European Parliament and its Executive, who have passed the six-pack into law (in November 2011), and the European Council (basically the heads of the 27 states), which only became a formal part of the EU structure in 2009 under the Lisbon Treaty. 

Witness, as evidence, how Olli Rehn, Commssioner for Finance (and working through the Parliament,  referred only to the Growth & stability Pact provisions in his speech at the weekend, while Merkel’s Finance Minister prefers to reference the intergovernmental aspects of the Fiscal Compact in the wake of Hollande’s victory.

It is also difficult to know which precise version of  austerity legislation will win out in time.  On balance, though, the fact that the six-pack is in place, while the Fiscal Compact still awaits ratification (notably in Ireland, which may vote ‘no’), means that the real political opportunities for the left probably lie within the Parliament, rather than (via Hollande) the European Council.  Hollande’s team probably knows this, which is why it is content to soft-soap Merkel for the moment.

Of course, the drawback is that the European Parliament will remain under the control of the Right until June 2014.  That’s a long time for Hollande to wait before he can deliver, via the European Socialist Party (PES) MEPs, a radical change in direction, if it gains a majority (although even the prospect of post-election change may be enough to slow up its implementation pre-election).

Nevertheless, the opportunity for PES is to put together a legislative manifesto which has as its centre-point precisely such a change in direction, through a ‘Keynesian’ amendment to the six/two pack regulations.  Such amendments might, for example, include a requirement on the EIB (or individual countries) to fund large-scale investment works when the economic cycle requires it.

The result could be a European election campaign like no other: a central manifesto commitment to sensible anti-austerity macro-economic management, circulated across 27 countries in countless leaflets, seeking a socialist, pan-European mandate.  

Perhaps we might even, by then, be seeing British campaigners on porte-a-porte campaigns in Cergy-Pontoise, while our French comrades hit the streets of Skelmersdale (the towns are twinned).

I’m a geek, but even I thought it was a bit geeky for the PES to launch a two year manifesto development programme, in which socialist activists across Europe are invited to put forward policy proposals (the next stage is a forum in June to collate and assess ideas).  

Now though, I understand absolutely where they were coming from, and will be forwarding a version of this post under both the ‘Fair Economy’ and the ‘Active Democracy’ themes.  There is a real chance, I contend, to put what happens in Strasbourg at the heart of our campaigning in the UK, (probably) one year before a general election, in a way which both creates a route for anti-austerity that not even Merkel can scupper AND shows up just how murky and undemocratic the European Union has been to date.

Carl on this blog has just today touted his idea that the BNP are finished, backing it up with a Martin Goodman article from the Guardian site about the BNP getting pretty much annihilated at the May 2012 local elections. It’s entirely possible that they are right, and that the BNP is finished as an electoral force, and that some role was played by Hope Not Hate and other campaigns which used their manpower to get out an anti-BNP vote.

There are some cautionary notes to be sounded. First, the degree to which it matters how well the BNP do is limited. Their efforts to turn mainstream are not about to be abandoned, and there are other groups out there which have learned some of the lessons – and which have in turn had a right-wards drag upon Labour’s leadership courtesy of “Blue Labour”. I mean, of course, the English Defence League and their new political aspirations.

Second, BNP councillors by and large voted just like Tories, so in terms of the actual presence of these 57 (and now a damn sight fewer) people in council chambers, the practical effect is like eliminating that number of Tories. Though it bears mentioning that in one of the six wards the BNP just lost, it was lost to a Tory, who will almost certainly continue a record of voting for privatisation, cuts to services and piss-poor planning decisions.

This is quite an important point, as it gives the answer to those people who condone working with Tories if it means getting rid of the BNP. Tories, being the immediate political face of capitalism, cause fascism. They attack every means of working class subsistence and culture that can’t turn their mates a profit and then when the workers complain, they blame it on human rights, political correctness, immigrants, homosexuals and Jews, or Muslims these days.

Third, and linked to point number two, electoral armageddon or no, the physical force mob of the BNP will almost certainly go nowhere, except to other parties or groups who can offer them the same sort of opportunity for getting their bald heads and beer bellies on national television. This is a serious issue, as these people are the shock troops who can break up opposition to fascism at a community level.

Fourth, this defeat might not have the morale impact we expect, thanks to the parallels with the electoral eclipse of the NF post-1979, and the cautionary tale that will give to any thinking fascists out there, contradiction in terms though that may be. Griffin and his crew are bound to be aware of this, most of them having lived through it. Even if these aren’t the lessons they draw, the survival of Griffin as leader indicates that he’s found some means of innoculating himself.

The historical parallels I mention have even more importance for us socialists however, and our political understanding. The election of a Conservative government starkly poses the issue of class. Then as now, a Tory government cut social spending and attempted to extort ever greater productivity out of workers, through the threat of unemployment.

The most politically aware layers of the working class, perceiving the attacks, moved to galvanise resistance through the unions, through anti-cuts groups and through socialist organisations.This socialist and working class resurgence can, by bringing in new layers of workers to political activism, demoralise and push out the fascists.

Labour, offering an immediate electoral alternative will be the key beneficiaries in the early stage of this process, by virtue of being not-Conservative, and will claim back all those who voted Lib-Dem in 2008, since the Lib-Dems no longer have the political space to pretend to an alternative. This is hardly any different to the elections of 1981 in which the Ken Livingtone-led GLC was elected; the NF share of the vote dropped there too.

That Labour’s alternative cuts, “not so far, not so deep”, are not a viable long-term option beyond the first euphoric wave of having dispensed with the arch-enemy is neither here nor there. Hence in Burnley, where another BNP councillor has bitten the dust, Labour have also reclaimed at least four seats from the Liberal Democrats, who won them in 2008.

In the Amber Valley wards of Heanor East and Heanor West, the voting figures stack up as follows; the Tories in 2008 scored 482-412, then 391-381 in 2012. Labour scored 454-560 in 2008, then 744-838 in 2012. Meanwhile the BNP went from 537-727 in 2008 to 284-272 in 2012. The left-wing party, such as it is, gained from both the right-wing parties, and this gain was replicated across the country, by and large, and is a cause for a small celebration.

It is only a small celebration because Labour’s resurgence can be halted in its tracks by the short, sharp demoralisation of the organised working class, in the form of defeats of the industrial action sweeping the country. Despite the electoral jubilation, this is a defeat which the Labour Party is doing nothing to avoid and is in fact actively encouraging, with constant disparaging remarks in the press not to mention obstructionist tactics by Labour bureaucrats in the unions.

It’s also a small celebration because Labour’s political strategy is akin to blowing their own heads off, should they actually win the next election. They will immediately and massively undermine their own working class support by instituting cuts across the board; if these are not so deep as the Conservatives, I’m sure that will be of some consolation to the people having their wages cut by £900 instead of £1000, or who are one of nine hundred and not one of a thousand made redundant as public services are cut to the bone.

Such a strategy is all Labour has, and this will not change, period. It will definitely result in a much bigger Tory government being returned to office shortly thereafter, unless something changes drastically – or, as in Greece, some new force emerges from the chaos to challenge Labour from the left.

Ironically, it’s this very threat of a Tory government which would be used against PLP backbenchers to shore up the leadership. And the reason Labour goes around and around in these circles is because it has no class-based analysis and cannot see any further than the wafer thin difference between Labour and the Tories, or any further than the next election for that matter.

Class is the fundamental, unavoidable division in capitalism, created by the very structure of how we produce everything of which the modern world consists. At times of crisis in capitalism, all other questions become subordinate to this one fault line. This is one fault line which Labour cannot understand, even as it is pushed to defend the working class by virtue of its historical traditions. It is intrinsic to capitalism, outside of which Labour refuses to step. It can and will only be solved by a revolutionary party that unites the working class to abolish capitalism.

How not to dodge an egg

Just over 8 years ago I walked from my parents’ house In Pitsea, in Essex, to Wickford which is about 5 miles. Despite being so close there is no train route, as both places cover different grounds up to London, one via Stratford, the other Upminister, Barking and West Ham.

With buses there would have been two changes, and I didn’t have much change, so I just walked it.

The reason I did so was to go on my first political protest. The British National Party were having a “family” day and my various friends from Unite Against Fascism had organised for us to show our disgust at the BNP, who were meeting at Wickford train station before going on to Crowsheath Farm, near Ramsden Heath.

I was incredibly nervous. Physically shaking. Being inexperienced I thought I would get hurt. I was worried I would get arrested for no reason, or that local nasties would recognise my face and hunt me down.

It was never quite like that, in fact afterwards I felt relieved I went. So much so, in fact, that I joined protests at any point I could against the BNP.

Naysayers said the BNP were so small that it wasn’t even worth their time. It seemed fair play to me, protesting a small party, simply because of how dangerous they were. They took legitimate fears, and they modified them to suit their odious agenda.

Not only that, their efforts to pretend a respectable image were working. It was depressing, as I became voting age, to be given four options in the local council: Conservatives, Labour, Liberals and the British National Party.

Their schtick was that real working people in the area should be voting for them, all the other parties were for the rich. When I was younger I agreed with the latter part, but the former was a lie that I was worried would start to be believed as people became more and more disillusioned with politics.

But to me this was not an opportunity for me to be party political. I was not a member of any party, nor did I want to be. I was happy to work with Tories, socialists, liberals, anarchists, anyone who was willing to oppose the fascists.

This was one coalition that did seem to work, but the BNP were gaining ground and our work became harder.

As I’ve mentioned before, efforts to make the party more mainstream didn’t begin with Nick Griffin. Part of the influence for this was with 1960s BNP leader John Bean, even more so than with the French Front National founder Jean-Marie Le Pen (generally thought to be Griffin’s influence as well as closest European ally). John Tyndall, the man to take Bean’s place in the later years was an unreconstructed neo-Nazi who embedded the fascist image in to the BNP, leaving behind an important dividing line, made particularly more relevant by the decline in support for the National Front.

Griffin pretty much succeeded in his attempts to make the party seem more caring and less neo-nazi, which was extremely disturbing, especially as he had detailed these plans in the company of former KKK figurehead David Duke. The BNP could rely on getting councillors, pushing new recruits straight through as fast as possible, and trying to stand in as many places as possible. Richard Barnbrook became a member of the London Assembly giving them a boost, the prospect of getting a member of parliament was on the cards, and then the party managed to get two members into the European parliament.

But then they started to lose speed.

First there were the tensions within the party between those who were backing Griffin, and those who were backing Andrew Brons, Griffin’s colleague in Europe and enemy within. In a vote among members, Nick Griffin was re-elected as the party leader but only by the skin of his teeth – receiving 1,157 votes compared to Brons who secured 1,148.

I said in a blog post at the time that the “split in the party is deep and public, and I’ll be surprised if it survives this tense public display.” 10 months later and they still exist, but for how long?

Expert on the subject Matthew Goodwin published an article on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site recently called “The BNP is finished as an electoral force” going on to say in the article that after the recent local elections, which is where they seek to sway power, “the party leaves the contest facing the daunting realisation that it is no longer a significant player in British electoral politics.”

It was a wipeout. Goodwin notes “for the first time in 10 years there is not a single BNP councillor on Burnley borough council.”

The BNP lost every seat they contested.

At the very least, how can Nick Griffin remain the leader of that silly party.

And while we may think this was luck, the whole time there was concerted efforts by anti-fascists across the country that made sure the real BNP was highlighted. They aren’t respectable, they’re not good politicians, they’re out for themselves and their racist designs.

There is plenty to do, mind. For example in Basildon, which is equidistant between Pitsea and Wickford, the National Front did better than the BNP. Fascism obviously still haunts our local communities.

But on the bright side the BNP, who were once Britain’s most electorally successful far right party, “has just three councillors left from a high of 57 three years ago“.

Now to rid them of that last three.

Of course I’m delighted that Hollande has won, and that Sarkozy is gone.  But I’m also worried what the next year will bring. 

Marine Le Pen’s refusal to support her natural ally, despite the lengths he was prepared to go to in order to garner Front National votes, really only means one thing.  By consigning Sarkozy to defeat, she has kick-started the UMP infighting, and her very successful one year campaign detoxification campaign now puts her in prime position to pick up a large percentage of UMP votes in June’s parliamentary elections.  That campaign started in earnest a couple of days ago.*

The complacency surrounding her Round 1 vote percentage -  the idea that she’s not that much of a threat – is likely to be washed away within a 50 days, as the parliamentary seats in all areas of France start to flow her way.  She may not be the official opposition by the end of that 50 days, but to many French people she will look and sound like it. 

Unlike her father, Marine Le Pen has – by force of circumstance – a coherent sounding argument on the economy, which touches a chord with many: ‘leave the Euro’ is a simple, effective message.   This, mixed with the message that the UMP betrayed the French people on immigration and security (especially in the wake of the Toulouse killings), will have a powerful effect on a wide group of people. 

After 2002,  Le Pen père faded away for want of this.  In 2012, Le Pen fille will not do so.

So what can British Labour and other European political parties concerned at the rise of neo-Nazism in a major European country do about it other than wring their hands?

Perhaps the only productive thing Labour can do is to support Hollande when he does his best to take on the European austerity machine, based in Brussels, with orders given in Berlin.

We know that Olli Rehn is already moving to fob off Hollande with vague reassurances, when the latter comes calling about his commitment to the French people to renegotiate the Merkozy Fiscal Treaty. 

If the “grands travaux” public investment promised by Hollande does not flow, because it becomes stuck in the bureaucratic nightmare that is the ‘six pack’ Stablility and Growth Pact legislation, Le Pen will be quick to pounce: “Hollande is as bad as all the others” will be her claim. “Only I stand aside from the Eurocrat crowd”.

Labour must step in to help Hollande here, as best it can.  It must argue, long and loud, that the Fiscal Treaty Hollande is seeking to renegotiate must take precedence over the legislation which was quietly – almost secretly – signed off last year. 

The initial signs are good.  Mandelson is no fool when it comes to Europe, and his call for a radical reconstruction on the way Europe runs its finances (this is overshadowed in the UK press by the idea of a referendum), he knows exactly what he’s doing: helping to open the way to a new agreement in Europe which sidesteps the machinations of Olli Rehn and his unelected cabale in Brussels. 

It’s a good start.  I just hope Miliband is watching and learning.

* Even in their moment of triumph, wise heads on the French left  (@Sarkofrance via (@Barsacq) are calling on the mainstream French Right (the UMP) to keep it together [awkward translation mine]:

Nous l’avons viré, ton faux mentor. Nicolas Sarkozy n’a rien à faire à droite. Il a abîmé la droite républicaine. Il faut la reconstruire, et vite. [We've seen off your false mentor.  Nicolas Sarkozy is not one of you.  He has destroyed the Republican Right. It has to be reconstructed, and quickly.]

Comme plein d’autres à gauche, je ne tire aucun plaisir d’être face à Marine Le Pen. Nicolas Sarkozy et ses sbires ont cru que la France était si à droite qu’il fallait singer Marine pour conserver son siège. Je n’ai aucune rancune. [Like lots on the Left, I take no pleasure in being faced now with Marine Le Pen. Sarkozy and his henchmen thought that France was so far to the right that they must ape Marine in order to keep his seat. I have no rancour towards you.]

Marine n’a rien perdu, Nicolas a tout perdu. Cet échec est d’abord le sien. Il ne méritait pas la République. Ami de droite, je pense à toi. Redresse-toi. [Marine lost nothing. Nicolas lost everything. He didn't deserve the Republic. Friend on the right, I'm thinking of you.  Stand proud.]

They know what’s coming.

If anyone was able to do it, it was Alain “Communism without Marxism” Badiou who could criticise Francois Hollande from the left. He has delivered.

The argument of the day is that Sarkozy has been pitching to the hard right in order to pick up the second preference votes from the surprising surge of Marine Le Pen. Orthodox opinion has it that Hollande is above this type of crass politics, and may go on to beat Sarko without appeal to “populist” politics.

But Badiou has it different – referencing the recent history of the French Socialist Party.

Badiou, in his recent article in Le Monde asks, who do we end up blaming for populism? Who do we end up blaming for the rise of Le Pen? The political establishment go on to blame the gutter vote. We, sadly, don’t get the public we want sometimes, and they vote to fit.

But this is only half the story, says Badiou. Who wrote off 1983 Renault strikers as “immigrant workers (…) agitated by religious and political groups which are based on criteria that have little to do with the French social realities”? Who said Le Pen speaks to real problems? It wasn’t the prols, it was Francois Mitterrand – the longest serving President of France, leader of the Socialist Party.

The intellectuals, Badiou goes on to say, creates the “populism” that sticks to the supposed “working class vote” to which the likes of Le Pen, Sarkozy, and, counterintuitively, the socialist party candidate, can and must appeal to.

The point, however, about the academics is neither here nor there. The push to the right is worth focusing on.

It’s a clear chicken and egg question.

There is a legitimate discussion to be had about migration, one which Badiou doesn’t help actually. For him it’s easy to push it aside as all xenophobic. This says more about the intellectuals than he cares to admit, and it’s an argument that the populist right often level against academicised leftists, that Badiou is leaving himself open to.

I don’t think Hollande has pushed anywhere near as rightwards as Badiou is acusing him of. Therefore I should be interested to see Sarko lose his Presidency after his push to the hard right, because this does a disservice to the theory that this is necessary in French, nay, European politics.

Badiou raises an important point, but he is off the mark. Hollande’s victory would be extremely important for the immigration question.

Yesterday’s speech in Brussels by Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner for Economic Affairs is  a quite astonishing abuse of power, and a major affront to democracy.  No surprise there.

The press commentary to date suggests that Rehn’s speech signals an end to the Merkozy austerity approach, and highlights the following statement as a move towards a new stage in the context of a possible/likely win for Hollande in France:

Contrary to the misleading impression promoted by some politicians and pundits that the EU fiscal framework forces all member states into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ consolidation straightjacket, the Stability and Growth Pact is not stupid. Yes, the EU fiscal framework is rules-based, with clear reference values for public deficit and debt for triggering the excessive deficit procedure and, if needed, sanctions. But, at the same time, the Pact entails considerable scope for judgement, based on economic analysis and its legal provisions, when it comes to its application.

I think the press is interpreting the speech entirely wrongly.

It is NOT an acceptance of change in direction if Hollande comes to power, but an attempt to scupper Hollande before he even becomes President.

I say this for two reasons.

First, it allows the Commission (and Merkel) to pat Monsieur Flanby on the head when/if he comes calling, and fob him off the reassurance that everything is being taken care of, and that he need not worry. 

Second, the speech deliberately refers, NOT to the Merkozy Fiscal Treaty that Hollande has committed to renegotiating in his manifesto, but to the legal changes to the Growth & Stability Pact which were quietly signed into law on 16th November 2011 .

As I set out in detail here:

These six regulations (if you’re short of time, 2011/1176 and 2011/1174 are the crucial ones) mean that the [Fiscal] treaty is little more than the political icing on the cake.  The regulations passed in November, with no oversight from national parliaments and no news coverage to speak of,  already enshrine in law the way in which governments must run their economies, the measures by which they will be judged and (in the Eurozone) how and to what level fines will be levied on countries with “macroeconomic imbalances”. 

Gavin Hewitt now reports that the German Finance minister is promising a growth element in the Fiscal Treaty that Hollande has committed to renegotiating, but this will be for show only.

Under the arrangements quietly put in place even before Merkozy mentioned the Fiscal Pact, the real power will remain with the unelected European Commission.

It is to be hoped that Hollande’s team, if it does come to power this evening, has done its homework (frankly, it didn’t when they drafted this bit of the manifesto), and that the challenge to the Olli Rehn Brussels oligarchy comes quickly.

In this context, Mandelson’s call for a fundamental review of how Europe is governed financially (and a UK referendum to boot) couldn’t have come at a better time (and I assume Mandelson knows this).  Miliband, on this one occasion, would do well to listen to Mandelson, and get behind Hollande.

Have you seen the Sunday Times headline for tomorrow yet?

Interventions like this by Cameron, to offer olive branches to the right by losing something from his more “liberal” toolbox, confirms my long held belief that the Conservative party is held back, from being conservative, by a more “toxic” audience; indeed what I have called the party’s “toxic constituency”.

According to an Ipso Mori poll studying 2010/11 matters of political importance, immigration was more focal than the NHS, crime/law and order and unemployment, and leagues away from the 1997 general election run up where immigration was of very minor importance indeed.

In February 2011, from a sample of 1004 adults, 37% felt that immigration was a very big problem, 37% believed it was a problem, 16% felt it was not a very big problem and 5% felt it was not a problem at all.

Further, according to a YouGov poll studying the same period, 35% of those who voted Conservative in 2010 appealed to family values over anything else, 41% voted for them on matters of traditional values (compared to just 19% for Labour) and 28% on patriotism – while only 6% voted for the Tories appealing to tolerance and diversity (which, actually, Cameron sought to highlight).

The Conservative party – very much through fault of its own – is not conservative, but a big tent dominated by tubthumping angry old bastards.

I’m hardly surprised they don’t take too kindly to gay marriage. What I am surprised at is Cameron doesn’t want to challenge them – even from a conservative position.

But hold up! Should Cameron really be listening to the likes of Stewart Jackson MP, who pleaded with Mr Cameron to drop “barmy lib Dem policies” like gay marriage? As it has been noted, Conservatives were not wiped out by independents, the right, the far right, or the even fringier. They were routed by the Labour party.

If rumour is true, the Conservatives held a policy review last night at 11.00pm (though that is probably untrue since the mayoral election result didn’t come through until before 12). Regardless of when they had or have it, the proposals when they do are set to see the right get more than just olive branches, but bunches of fucking great bouquets. Bad move, Dave.

In a paper on personal electronic health records in the British Medical Journal, Prof. Trisha Greenhalgh delivers a commonsense statement:

Patients’ involvement in their care is viewed by some as both inherently desirable (empowering) and potentially cost saving.

Even if it wasn’t necessarily cost-effective, or it was too close to call, it is largely seen as good on its own merit.

But there is a counterargument.

Take something the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek once said:

Today many, even sociologists, have this wonderful idea of how, although we live in a society of knowledge—even scientific knowledge—[it] is becoming more and more contingent, non-binding. I think it was the German theorist Ulrich Beck who drew attention to the simple fact: today we speak about expert opinions. Are we aware how paradoxical this term is? The idea is that we ordinary people have opinions. They tell you the truth. Now experts all of a sudden are telling us different opinions and we have to decide how, who knows, if even they don’t know.

The paternalist might say, the common people have opinions, it is the experts who tell us what the truth is. They don’t have opinions, and when they disagree they are disagreeing on the precise coordinates of that truth, not whether there is truth as such.

I was talking to a GP last week who told me a story that contributes to this debate.

He said he had heard of another GP who, on being given a piece of printed paper by a patient, with details from a website on the internet effectively challenging the GP’s decision about a patient’s medical concern, raised his voice and said: “who went to medical school here?”

The GP I was speaking to said this was the wrong way to go about the new culture of information shared by patients and professionals alike.

He said with his students, what he encourages is for them to consider the bits of paper patients bring in on their merit, not raise their voices, not become indignant, but, in his own words, realise that “we interact with people who know as much as we do”.

Seeing, as Professor Greenhalgh put it in her BMJ paper, “patients as active partners in [their own] healthcare” does not do down expert opinion, but allows them to participate in it, rather than the paternalist notion that professionals can be allowed the knowledge, and patients expected to know their place.

However Zizek is not wrong. If we were all considered experts then this might impact upon the idea of truth. But this isn’t what is happening today, as much as he’d like to think it.

Instead, we are not all experts, and nor do we have expert opinion, but expert opinion is not under lock and key anymore. We are all allowed to enter in to expert opinions. This can be seen in the relationship between patient and GP, for example.

I was last week talking to one well known blogger and contrarian over dinner who told me he thought Alan Sugar would run as Mayor come the next such election – that was until he made his outburst towards Ken during the run-up to the last one.

This said blogger, counterintuitively for those who know him, voted Ken, and said so on his blog to much dismay and confusion from his peers and blogospheric colleagues.

He told me that after the tweets, tantamount to “firing” Livingstone, in Sugar’s inimitable way, the Labour peer could no longer hope to stand against Boris Johnson because this particular episode let him down.

I don’t want to underestimate anybody, but I think we’ll have forgotten a tweet by the time the next one comes along – particularly now that Boris has become the “diginified” mayor with a proper mandate that he could never really be before, seeing as his first win came after a protest vote against Ken.

Again, last night, after the mayoral election had finally come to a close, Alan Sugar came up again. Will he, won’t he? In honesty, I don’t think he’ll have it in him – plus there are others waiting for the chance, some who bottled it last time.

While one chap, a Labour activist, I was talking to last night said Lord Adonis would be a good bet (“he was the best transport minister we had, and the mayor’s job is all about transport”) another, this one also a well known blogger and Labour guy, reminded me that David Lammy would “walk all over Boris”.

As Dave Hill mentioned earlier today, “Tottenham MP David Lammy opted out because he knew he would be crushed. ” Not by Boris, but by Ken. Indeed the person who did eventually step up against Ken, from the Progress-backed Right, was Oona King – and she was crushed.

I recalled the time I saw 2 hustings in London as the Labour mayoral candidate was being decided. One the first night, Oona stuck her neck out to say universal benefits were not helping low-income families, and that subsidising the bus passes of the elderly rich was a privilege we could not afford anymore.

The very next night, she had changed her mind entirely, waxing lyrical on the virtues of universal welfare and the part it plays in a civil society.

A week later, this confusion started to play havoc for Oona’s own activists. In a hustings in Camden, Wes Streeting, the former President of the National Union of Students and current chief executive of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, stepped up to the podium against Ken in place of Oona who was stuck the other side of the country. On the topic of means-testing bus passes Streeting knew exactly where Oona’s principles were. It was just a shame, Ken made no bones about pointing out, that Oona herself didn’t.

Because of the Qaradawi affair, I had considered backing Oona – I found her far more likeable than Ken, who is by design a man keen to make enemies. But I couldn’t; she was too awful. Many on her side agreed.

Ken last night, during his very emotional speech, decided that this would be his last time running for Mayor of London. On this I withhold comment. What there is to think about now is who will take his place.

Of course this will be decided properly closer to the relevant time, but speculation on this has been going since before the election result was called.

Now that Ken has gone, maybe Lammy will put his bid in. He’s a unifier, not a divider political figure, and he has suitably outlandish opinions. He is a Londoner and he is liked, not just by Labour’s lot. Boris, as I was reminded last night, will find it very difficult to be the bumbling buffoon around him, because Lammy will walk all over him.

Ken having gone will mean there is no obvious candidate, which may make the left/right debates when we come to have hustings again, a little more exciting and fractious. But maybe there is someone willing to leave the divisions aside. After all, isn’t the point of a Mayor to incorporate all. Was this not Ken’s downfall?

Perhaps Lammy could be that candidate.