THERE ARE still living examples of unreconstructed male chauvinist Labour MPs, given to making grossly offensive remarks about their women colleagues' bodies over a pint or three of Federation in the House of Commons bar.
The Beer-Gutted Sexist Bastard Tendency, in truth more powerful in the Parliamentary Labour Party than Militant ever were, succeeded in throwing a medium-sized spanner in the works in last week's Shadow Cabinet elections.
Changes to the rulebook meant that ail members of the PLP were forced to vote for at least four women, and the BGSB boys did not like that one little bit.
Accordingly, many supported Mildred Gordon, on the twisted Hard up at Treasury: Clwyd logic that backing the woman the leadership least wanted to see elected - because of her age, appearance and hard left politics -would discredit the idea of quotas itself.
As a result. two soft left women lost places they might otherwise have retained. Then again, there is no doubt that both Ann Clwyd and Harriet Harman were widely perceived to have performed poorly in their jobs, at National Heritage and Yet both can make a plausible case that they did not do as badly as Ann Taylor at education, or David Blunkett on health, who avoided the drop.
The poll is undoubtedly the most accurate indication available of what Labour MPs really think of each other.
New faces include George Robertson, a seasoned rightwing hatchetman with a long-time track record in the old Manifesto Group and Solidarity caucuses.
The top three places went to soft lefts Robin Cook, Frank Dobson and John Prescott.
Yet whoever John Smith appoints to whatever job in the reshuffle due as Socialist Outlook went to press will make little difference to a party still in ideological thrall to a small clique intent on converting into an SDP for the nineties. the collapse of Stalinism, could under the bureaucratically deformed workers states and degenerated USSR. whose regimes survived only by repressing their own working We are a marxist current, based not on the brutish totalitarian parodies of state marxism, nor on the tame, toothless version of 'marxism' beloved by armchair academics, but the revolutionary tradition of Marx, Name Address Phone together for common objectives while remaining free to debate their differences. If you agree with what you see in Socialist Outlook, and want to join with us in the struggle for socialism, readers' groups meet in towns across the country. Contact us now, get organised, and get active! Send to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 51, October 30 1993, Page 15