Neither of these things are true of course; it was Liberal Lord Beveridge who came up with the eponymous report. In the 1945-1950 parliament, the Liberals had a grand total of 12 seats; with such a commanding parliamentary majority, I can absolutely understand how the Liberals claim the NHS was their great achievement.

Moving over to the left of Labour for a moment, well that's just even funnier. Apparently the SWP are standing people even in wards such as Greenwich and Lewisham where the Socialist Party already have Councillors and therefore a shot at election themselves. All the left parties are currently straining to the utmost to influence who people vote for in the upcoming London elections.

Believe it or not, several groups, such as the ISG (self proclaimed "eco-socialists"), have nominated Sían Berry as their chosen candidate, instead of Lindsey German. Don't get me wrong, if I had a vote, I wouldn't vote for German to save my life, but the idea of putting the Green Party forward as the vehicle under which to draw workers to a socialist banner? It doesn't even bear thinking about!

Anyway, it's nice to see left unity prevailing all along the line. If the left aren't even prepared to give up the morally self-righteous tone of their newspaper articles, how are they ever going to get around to giving up electoral opportunities in favour of one another? The same article by "A Very Public Sociologist" (an excellent site) helpfully goes through part of the recent writings by the SP's The Socialist on the elections.

The snippet talks about how the London SP tried to set up a broad slate of anti-cuts, anti-privatisation candidates, and how they had approached the RMT on the subject. I don't have my notes to hand but at the SYN conference, there was a discussion on just this point - and RMT members made perfectly clear that it was a distinct minority who wanted to stand candidates against Labour.

As I made clear in my article on SYN conference itself, there is a fair question to be asked about whither we should direct people if not the Labour Party? The Socialist Party have a few councillors and trade union officials, but often it seems to me that those officials like to play it safe more often than not, rather than stand and fight tooth and claw about issues which confront their union.

For all its dares to the RMT to stand candidates, the Socialist Party still hasn't engineered the great movement of unions it expected when it set up the Campaign for a New Workers' Party. Even with having half the PCSU executive on board, there has been little movement among the trade unions - and what movement there has been is a result of Labour incompetence rather than socialist strategy.

Broad slates are all very well, backed by a combination of unions and independent groups and so forth - but it seems to me that SP demands put the cart before the horse. There is still a socialist group within Labour and it is strongest in London - which is why, perhaps, it is so hard to divest Labour of its support, even from the disaffiliated unions like RMT and the Fire Brigades Union.

The Party bureaucracy makes it difficult to work with those organisations which stand candidates against Labour. For this reason, the work of the LRC and SYN has largely proceeded with the SP and SWP observing only from afar. LRC members, the best option for left groups in the Labour Party, have thus been put in a difficult situation by the strategies of the other two major socialist groups in London.

Additionally, many socialist activists and union members are determined to have nothing to do with the SWP / Respect Renewal. When the SWP is prepared to stand students against councillors with left credentials, simply for an electoral opportunity, rather than forge some form of multi-party, multi-slate agreement, then the time has come to starve the SWP and Respect Renewal of all support.

After years of the SWP playing the most opportunist politics, it's no wonder they have to rely on students as the basic workhorses of the SWP cadres. The high turnover of student membership reflects that so many workers become disillusioned and aren't prepared to stay around - workers who can only be replaced in the SWP ranks by the students who come to London or get involved in politics for the three years of their degree then move on.

These are some of the issues which confront the left in the upcoming London elections - and they are issues which it has now become too late to resolve. If I had a vote, I'd be voting Ken, first preference. Neither Lindsey German nor Sían Berry are poster people for the sort of movement we need to create. Critical support for either involves the assumption that these coalitions are going to draw in new layers of the working class by their campaigns.

I think that assumption is highly questionable.

Originally posted at Though Cowards Flinch.