This last week has seen the culmination of an internal Labour party conflict that goes back nearly decades. Many internal party conflicts are about policy, unfortunately this one is not - this is all about power. This is about Brownites and Blairites battling it out over who is to lead the Labour party, this is not two party factions at war over any particular policy position or ideology.

That is what makes ordinary members of the Labour party so angry, the fact that this instability is being caused not by differences in view between those in power but by power itself - or, more correctly, the senseless lust for power that is not supposed to be a feature of our democratic party.  It is a dismal situation indeed.

I didn't vote for Brown when he ran for leader, nobody voted for Brown because nobody was ever given the opportunity. Given the choice, perhaps I would have voted for Brown, but I was never given that choice. Nevertheless, activists have stuck by the leader and the party - and so too should the cabinet. We all know that changing leader now would trigger a general election, and we all know that Labour would lose that election. If the recent election results are anything to go by, the defeat would be crushing and many good Labour MPs would lose their seats. Clearly, Labour cannot afford to have a general election now - especially given the anti-incumbent mood of the voting public, which is entirely understandable in light of recent events.

However the main reason why Brown must stay is because the proposed alternative, i.e. someone from the Blairite camp, would pursue exactly the same policies as the current leadership. Ideologically there is not, and never was, a single credible difference between the policies of the Blairites and those of the Brownites. A change of leader would therefore be nothing more than changing the team captain and bringing on a few subs at half time - essentially, the players are all still playing for the same team, still pursuing the same policies that have put us so disasterously out of favour with the British public.

Labour's best chance of a victory at the next election is to hope that Brown has finally understood the magnitude of the problem at hand. If we can take the lead on electoral reform, on constitutional reform, on the cleaning-up of MP's expenses and create clear dividing lines between us and the Tories, clear ideological choices for the voting public to make, then perhaps we have a chance of winning a historic fourth term in a year's time. 

Si on croit que la justice est simplement un moyen par lequel une forme de société particuliéré est imposée - alors la justice est une forme de pouvoir. Mais dans ce cas, la justice n'est pas vraiment justice - suelement dans le nom.

C'est vrai que le systéme que nous appelons 'la justice' peut-être abus, notamment par ceux qui ont des de pouvoir ou qui ont la richesse, mais est-ce que leur action peut-être considéré comme juste?

C'est probable que la justice des hommes soit simplement un systéme pour la résolution de différends entre hommes - mais un systéme qui normalement favourise les détenteurs du pouvoir.

On peut discuter quant à savoir si l'injustice est délibéré ou le signe d'un dysfonctionement du systéme. C'est plus probable que ce soit une réflexion sur la nature humain et, sans un systéme altenatif, c'est cet abus du concept de la justice qui prévaudra sous la nom de la justice des hommes.

This post can also be found on Labour List.

Before you read the rest of this post, consider this: Are there any circumstances whatsoever in which you would be prepared to have the deaths of hundreds of thousands people on your conscience?

No one can deny that right now the public finances are in a bad way: in order to pay back the debt incurred by the state over recent months taxes will have to be raised and public spending cut. So what better way to alleviate some of the pressure on the public purse than by ditching the plans to update the totally unnecessary Trident nuclear missile system?

The true cost of replacing the system, including maintenance costs of the new system spread over its 30 year life-span, is estimated at an eye-watering £76 billion. The fact that the cost is spread over 30 years is irrelevant as it’s likely we will still be paying for the recent government spending for at least half of that time.

The arguments in favour of updating Trident are largely based upon an outdated, Cold War view of geopolitics. It’s said that nuclear weapons are the reason the Cold War never escalated to an all out conflict - and maybe so. But the fact is we no longer live in the cold war era and the dizzying pace of globalisation has resulted in an economic interdependence between countries that make the chances of a full scale world war seem very remote indeed.

Another argument in favour of Trident is that without it, Britain would lose its standing in the world. Well, if our ‘standing in the world’ is based solely upon our ability to indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of people in one fell swoop then perhaps we don’t deserve such a standing. Such blind patriotism is frankly sickening. Britain’s standing in the world is not a result of its possession of nuclear weapons, it is a result of our long history of democracy, our commitment to human rights and a language and culture that has spread right around the globe.

The threats and problems we face today cannot be solved by nuclear weapons. We cannot fight terrorist cells or Somali pirates with weapons designed to take out entire cities. What’s more, polls have consistently shown that the British public do not support the replacement of Trident. What better time could there be to scrap such an unpopular and expensive public spending program and lead the way in the noble cause of global nuclear disarmament?

To return to the question posed at the beginning of this post, try to foresee a situation in which we would actually use our nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons used today are many times more powerful than those dropped on Japan in 1945. Millions of innocent people would die, and for the sake of what? Retaliation? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - a city for a city?

In the 21st century, one hopes that even the most eccentric world leaders have grown out of that mentality. I never want to see a situation in which the death of millions would be forever on the collective conscience of the British people - the only way we can ensure that such a situation never arises is by getting rid of Trident, now.

...I've just created a free one in seconds using Weebly. This really is the future of the internet - you no longer need to anything about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, DNSs and so on to create a website. OK, this kind of thing has been around for years in the form of Homestead, Geocities (now closed) and the like; but the functionality has been somewhat limited and the user interfaces still too techy for your average web user.

Weebly allows you to seamlessly integrate videos, picture galleries, Google AdSense and a whole lot more - without having to know anything about how that integration is actually done. Before long I think we will see a situation where our home PCs are dumb machines with very little software installed, all the software you need will be accessible online. Your PC's only requirement will be a hefty broadband connection and good Wifi roaming capabilities.

I'll be adding a lot more to the site soon - looking forward to finding out what else Weebly has to offer! I also intend to fix that header image... it just doesn't quite fit.

Update: Fixed the banner image :)