paign has all but disappeared from the media, and quite understandably. Neither Smith nor Gould, nor any of the other official candidates have two ideas to rub together. But what little the different candidates have been saying exposes the idea that any of them have left credentials.
To create a voting constituency Gould and Prescott have been trying to dust-off left wing credentials. Even Margaret Beckett has been alluding to her semi-Bennite past.
On the crucial question of Labour's links with the unions Gould has no more principled a position than Smith. He was in favour of the NEC decision to end the union vote in selecting candidates; and the attack on the block vote is a central part of his platform.
John Prescott has been stressing that he is the andidate who represents the link with the unions. But nowhere has he stated exactiy what that means; he has not come out cleariy on the block vote.
The search by some on the left to try to find something left wing in any of the official canSOCIALIST OUTLOOK has supported the Socialist Movement's paper Socialist since it was launched last year.
Many of our supporters however, have been dismayed by recent editions of the paper and fear that its present political trajectory could destroy the potential that it represents.
many or us, donk with orner Socialist Movement activists, argued, right from the early editions, that Socialist has been too biana and nas needed a rar sharper campaigning edge we sate st hence roo the Socialist Movement and its campaigns and priorities in a much stronger and more direct way.
Failure These problems, however, have paled in comparison with those which have arisen around the general election and since. First Socialist failed give up-front support to Labour during the election failed to support, and in fact the left Labour leadership challenge launched by Ken Livingstone and Bernie Grant, This came at a time when the Livingstone/Grant support and when there was a danger of a sterile right against right 'contest'.
No reflection Despite some change in the latest edition, in which an article by Hilary Wainwright supports Livingstone/Grant campaign, this is not reflected in the paper as a whole.
The crucial lack of a campaigning edge remains. The SMTUC conference, a major initiative of the Socialist Moveroutine advertisement. direction and editorial judge ment comes out clearly in the current edition in an article on the 'labour in focus' page headlined why is the leadership so ugly.
The article amounts to a series of gratuitous personalinsuits against the Labour front bend as to why they are so "ugly' - short, fat, hunched or bald. the article is in parts racist and sexist. If it is supBennite? Beckett didates, or some basis to vote for them, is ridiculous. The fact is that the only left candidates, Livingstone and Grant, were excluded by the undemocratic nominations procedures.
Ken Livingstone himself has been spreading such illusions. At all his meetings now he explains he will vote for Gould and Prescott. Yet in a Socialist Outlook interview a month ago he insisted that Gould could only be supported if he comes out clearly in favour of the union link and against the witch hunt.
posed to be funny, it is not. This kind of coverage, place of solid support for the current left project against the right, is particularly damaging in the post-election situation. There is a clear need for the left to regroup into a more effective force in an adverse political climate. ocialist Outlook supporter he original Chesterfield Con terences because they repre sented the most militant forces - from the Labour Party and the trade unions - coming out of the Bennite revolt of the early 1980s and the miners' strike of 1984-85. The Socialist Movement repthis further and break from a par iamentar framework to embrace the broader movement. This be left and centre. sharply rightwards. Socialists must draw strength from Bennite revolt and Chesterfield movement came known as the 'twin track' approach.
With others, we argued that the Movement needed. newspaper if it was to weather the storms or a almicult poun cal period and develop its potental.
Our concern today is not whether we agree with every articie or political line Socialist produces. We don't expect to. Our concern is that it ap. proximates to this political role and strengthens the left at this time.
Potential We think Socialist has the potential to do this. The paper's own survey, published in the current edition, shows that the Socialist are members of either the noour Party and for their No. 23 ment. Livingstone's position however fits in exactly with what is the core of his project -an attempted realignment of the left in the PLP towards a bloc with the soft If this indeed becomes the position of the Socialist Forum which Livingstone wants to build, then that body will turn out to be useless. The best that can be hoped is that a Livingstone-style realignment would produce something akin to the clapped out Tribunism of the 1960s. In any case, from the point of view of socialist politics it is a utopian project, drenched in wishful thinking. The oniy way you can realign with the Kinnockite and semi-Kinnockite centre is by moving The fact is that the left in the PLP today is extremely small. For those who operate in the parliamentary arena this creates enormous pressures, mainly right wing pressures.
Smith, Gould, Beckett and Prescott are all deeply implicated in new realism and the Kinnockite legacy. There is no basis to support any of them. Ken Livingstone is spreading 1llusions - and thus doing damage to his own 'shadow campaign - by suggesting there is.
trade union. Socialist should be developing that support in a fight axamst new reausm on oenalt of theleft. New realism, created to make Labour erectole, 15 in crisis and the left needs a clear voice to express tive. Unless Socialist changes course, it is doomed. Its future lies in regrouping those on the left that wish to fight new realism, promoting their struggles If it made such a change, could become a vital asset tor all those that are committed to workers' struggles. Without such a change. it will become a moribund journal, irrelevant to the real chailenges facing socialists in June 13, 1992
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