John McDonnell = R5D4

"Well come on red, let's go!!"




[splat...]


Before they were hunted into hiding and near-extinction in the dark days of the New Labour empire, the fearless Jedi warriors of the Campaign Group controlled Labour politics. John McDonnell wanted to be their Obi-Wan Kenobi, returning from obscurity to mount a brave challenge to Gordon Brown's Darth Vader.

But instead, he secured only 29 nominations from his fellow Labour MPs - 16 short of the number required to get on the ballot - and he became the R5D4 of the Labour leadership campaign, shorting out with a bad motivator at the first hurdle.

I was going to carry this Star Wars - British politics analogy a lot further, but after noting the curious resemblance between Hazel Blears and Salacious Crumb, I was too distressed to continue...













Incidentally, in the course of research for this post, I discovered that R5D4 has his own fan site. There are some wonderful, kind souls on the internet, doing sterling work like this every day, catering for the hard luck cases of the golden age of film sci-fi. Respect goin' out to ya.

This Is a Formica Table... Brown Is Its Colour

(with apologies to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me fans. But we're going to have a lot of Gordon Brown post titles over the next six weeks and I thought I'd get the rubbish ones out of the way first.)

It's true... Gordon Brown did look a bit like a formica table when he delivered his opening shot in the Labour leadership 'campaign' on Friday. He was hiding behind the autocue and it was the classic slightly stilted Brown performance.

And thank hell it was stilted... something real for a change. We've had 10 years of a 'charismatic' and 'inspirational' Prime Minister, and look where it got us. Cynical, manipulated, betrayed and maybe damaged beyond repair. Brown was stressing substance over style, which is the same thing poor old Ming Campbell tries to do every week, but Brown somehow seems to do it with a lot more gravitas. And he is the low side of 85, which helps.

Ironically, of course, there was next to no concrete policy in that Friday speech. There have been a few ideas since then: 'eco-towns' (anybody got a definition of one of those?) and giving Parliament the right to decide whether to go to war or not (although of course they did vote in favour of Iraq, so it wouldn't have made any difference in that case.) It's still very thin pickings at the moment. But then we are only 5 days into the 'campaign' so best to wait and see.

I use the inverted commas round 'campaign' deliberately as it looks likely that John McDonnell, the Hugo Chavez of Hayes & Harlington (and coming from me that's a compliment), is not gonna get the 45 nominations from Labour MPs he needs to stand. Which is a shame, but it was always going to be a tough call to convert the present Parliamentary Labour Party to the socialist cause. You almost feel McDonnell would have a better chance mounting a leadership bid against Dave Cameron; certainly Ming Campbell's post is there for the taking. I think he should resign the Labour whip and convert to the Green Party (along with the 40 or so backers he will probably be able to get), which would deprive Labour of a majority. Then it would be time for a 'rainbow coalition' of Tories, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens (plus whatever Northern Irish support they could muster), which would make life very interesting. And probably annoy Brown intensely!

Fortunately, it looks like Jon Cruddas is over the hump for the deputy leadership contest. Cruddas isn't quite as "out there" as McDonnell; talking 70s prog bands for a moment, if McDonnell is Magma - so prog he has his own language - then Cruddas is more like Supertramp; he can take it "outside" once in a while but he knows when to reel it back in, and crucially, he knows how to write a political hookline. Basically, JC's shtick is: the Labour party is dying on its feet and we need to haul some serious ass to get it back into a healthy state again. Which is a very powerful message, with resonance for a considerably broader spectrum than just the left. I don't know if Jon Cruddas can win, but he can certainly galvanise the contest and ask all the right questions.

Anyway enough vapid speculation for tonight - except to suggest that Jon Cruddas uses Supertramp's "Give a Little Bit" as his campaign song. and "McDonnell Cruddas", besides being a great name for a folk-rock band, sounds a bit like McDonnell-Douglas, the old American aerospace company. You know it makes sense...