My loyalty will always, ALWAYS remain with my socialist sister parties, no matter how much I dislike the candidate. In America I will of course support the Democrats.

As an internationalist, (and as sad as this is) I support all my affiliate parties in elections, whether in Australia or Sweden, or New Zealand or Denmark, and currently I'm supporting the NDP in Canada.

But many Labour members have supported centre-right candidates abroad. I will give two examples where I didn't like the candidates, but still supported them:

Labour MP, Bob Marshall-Andrews, is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, but despite this, I like his maverick style. He has some honour and sense of fairness: traits not normally associated with many of his colleagues of late.

On his official website at epolitix.com, we are reminded of the unceremonious ejection of Walter Wolfgang from the 2005 Labour Conference with an article entitled, "Our PM Is Nothing But A Bully - Just Ask Old Walter."

The frail 82-year old Mr Wolfgang, who has devoted his life to the Labour Party, had the audacity to propose that Jack Straw was being less than honest about Iraq.

Mr Marshall-Andrews writes: 'For this offence Mr Wolfgang is seized by a massive, apparently anonymous "steward", physically manhandled from his own conference and detained by police as a suspected terrorist. A nearby delegate, attempting to intervene, is himself assaulted by another massive example of New Labour's finest. Hours later, Blair delivers an apology wholly typical of the man. "I'm sorry," he says, "but I wasn't there."'

I just don't beleive it.