Just out of interest why will the (new) Lords be the house with the ‘local’ representatives – most other bicameral systems have constituency representatives in the lower house. Ie House of Representatives and Senate in the States, the same in Australia,

“If the BNP started winning seats under first-past-the post, would we suspend democracy to stop them getting elected? Of course not. I deplore their racism, ignorance and lies. However, I believe the best way to challenge them is to address the factors which drive individuals to vote for far right parties. If we treat the disease, the symptoms will go away.”

You’ve been kind enough to visit TCF at all hours, so though i should return the compliment at a sensible time of day, ensuring that I fill in my email properly and thereby avoid losing hundreds of words.

As you know, I think the whole PR thing is relatively irrelevant though fairly harmless cobblers, so that need not detain us (though a quick refresh on your view about how far right nasties might or might not exploit PR, and whether you think that’s just part of the price, or whatever, would be handy.

What I am please about though is that you recognise the importance of local representation on e.g. lollipop ladies (or in my case in Lancashire just recently, multi-million quid investment in FE facilities successfullt retained in spite of astonishing bureaucratic incompetence by the LSC, or lobbying hard for the first ever railway station in a new town, that kind of thing).

That’s all I have to say – just to appreciate that you (perhaps unlike others on the PR crusade) recognise th importance to political participation of identifiable (in terms of place) politicians. I’m not against PR per se, but this bit does get left out of the equation, and the relative incomprehensibilty of some of th Welsh system goes unrecognised, for example). What intrigues me most is those commentators who are well into directly elected mayors for ‘visibilty’ and ‘accountablity’ reasons but are also unthinkingly into PR simply because it is in vogue.

Right – are you going to accord me a ‘we’re all comrades together really’ guest post to set out my Power 2010 competition entry focused on intra-party change using legislation to enforce it and MP expenses scandals as the key public driver to push through what I’ll be trying to push in the Labour party anyway? It’s already written.

I use the terms social-democratic alter-ego seriously, as apprehension of a possible disagreement with Dave Semple, who’d spent some time debating me on his comments thread re: Jon Cruddas. The possible disagreement does not emenate from that debate, but it has gone some way into informing it, namely the nature of transition. I don’t believe we have any major disagreements on how we approach the Labour party, I imagine that we are both socialists with entryist tendencies. I’m sure that any differences we have on the end product, or rather the End, is not enough to warrant a particularly huge falling out at this stage. But as to whether he sees social democracy as a benefit to the transition phase may be the point of departure.

I feel that every Marxist should have a social-democratic alter-ego for the purposes of the transition phase, for I take a stand at the quasi-Leninist position of inequality and capitalism being the impetus needed for social revolution. Having said this, Lenin himself should not be held accountable (even if the legend is untrue that he ever posited such a thing. As an aside, I take very seriously this notion that the concept needn’t have a concrete referent in order to exist, for example, God, whether such a thing exists or not, has an affect on the doings of the world, even if this takes the form of an unshaking christian legacy), for the pursuits of late capitalist protest have engendered what I mean. Allow me to explain what I mean.

Take for example Naomi Klein’s book No Logo, Nick Cohen repeats in his book What’s Left that even Hollywood is anti-capitalist in the sense that it promotes Klein, Moore, Pilger and all the other half-arsed stuff. But anyone with a little bit of sense can see the problem here. When Starbucks for example went fair trade, raised wages, took it upon themselves to address workers rights this was a victory for Klein, this was a victory for the no logoers.

But it was not necessarily a victory for socialism, as time spent in socialist groups in universities, who spend much time sticking boycott coca cola stickers to drinks machines, will seem to contradict. We seem to have only succeeded in making capitalism better, we now more Soros’, Turners’ and Gates’. This has not changed the logic of capital itself, and as much as this hurts to say, starbucks do not decide the logic of capital, so to choose to be antagonistic towards them, or Cocoa cola, or macdonalds, only seems to contribute to the logic of capital, which is not damaged by using recyclable cups, going fair trade, paying its workers a quid more.

Where this looks like a criticism of certain brands, it’s not. My point here is this, our social-democratic alter-ego should allow for these shifts in ethics, for better conditions are better than worse conditions. And if you, like me, are convinced that the logic of capital is abhorrent, you will not be phased by the efforts to change democracy from within the parameters we have.

I argued elsewhere that revolution cannot exist in the capitalist framework, the socialistic end of history cannot exist where capitalism is the international economic hegemon, thus proving my anti-Stalinist tendencies, so the framework must be changed. This is a long-term project. So to want democracy now, must entail that alter-ego, a temporary transitional phase. But to view your End as a no logoer, that is detrimental to the project, and capitalism is the only benefactor, because lets not forget the main scope of the capitalist project, to nip in the bud ones pursuit of change, if the logic of capital detects a change that doesn’t assault the existing logic of capital, consider the job done. Consider the green revolution, fair trade, even to some extent unionisation. These don’t end capitalism, they demand that capitalism allow for it. And my social-democratic alter-ego likes green, likes fair trade, likes unions, but my Marxism constantly reminds me that these are transitional phases, not Ends.

If you’ve got this far, apologies, this had no structure and was all written inside the small text box so I couldn’t properly check for paragraphing and so on. Plus its my lunch-hour, so I’m not fussed, but I am hungry.

My conclusion is power2010 might be good for ideas, pariticpation methods, and for this I am happy to agree and follow its development. But until the logic of capital is challenged, power will be concentrated to and determined by capitalism.