COMPARED with today's Labour activists, the legendary Hobson had plenty of choice.
None of the established candidates regarded as front runners offers any kind of socialist perspective. Worse, there is a real threat that the new leader could herald a new lurch to the right.
The only significant strength of John Smith's period as leader was that he brought a welcome respite from the frenetic witch-hunting and abandonment of policies under Kinnock.
And though he sought to stamp his authority on the Labour Party by his high- profile conflict with the unions over aspects of One Member One Vote at last year's conference, Smith himself, with his instinctive alliances with the traditional right wing of the union bureaucracy has been described by UNISON's Mr Fixit Tom Sawyer as 'the best friend the unions have had' among recent leaders.
But all this could change. Barely had Smith's body began to cool before Tory news barons began weighing in with their attempt to promote the candidacy of their chosen young pretender, Tony Blair.
This has been linked to efforts to hurry through the election process, one aspect of which would be to minimise debate and consultation inside the Euphemistically described as a 'moderniser', a bland term which has replaced 'moderate' as a synonym for right wing, Blair represents the young, ambitious wing of the Labour movement that is most remote WIll Labour get the chance to vote for a laft alternative? from the unions and hostile to the party's historic links with them.
It was Blair who led the crusade to break Labour from any commitment to repeal the Tory anti-union laws.
Now, as Shadow Home Secretary, his chief role has been to outflank the Thatcherite Michael Howard, targetting the traditional Tory "law and order" vote by echoing and then amplifying every reactionary Tory measure to strengthen police Dowels.
This has-continued with Blair's constipated silence over the recent announcement of the routine arming of London's police.
But if Blair typifies the social conservatism of a layer of today's Labour bureaucrats, his potential rivals all share an economic conservatism which has left Labour bereft of radical policies on jobs, housing or living standards.
Gordon Brown, Blair's fellow 'moderniser', is one of those most to blame for the wretched economic consensus with the Tories, in which each party vies for the label of lowest taxation, ignoring the urgent need for large-scale public spending to create new jobs and rebuild the shattered infrastructure.
Against these two stand the "traditionalist' John Prescott, and the allegedly 'left' wing Robin Cook (so left wing he stage- managed the election of Smith after Kinnock's resignation).
Common policy
But Brown, Cook and Prescott are all recent co-signatories to a common policy document pressing for greater involvement of private capital in public sector projects. And Prescott, supposedly the diehard defender of the union link, was the one widely credited with pulling John Smith's chestnuts out of the fire in last year's OMOV debate.
Despite the eulogies to Smith as the man who allegedly made Labour electable, even right wing union leaders such as the GMB's John Edmonds had publicly criticised the Party's lack of any clear campaigning stance, going so far as to support left initiatives like the coming Tribune conference.
The main explanation for the party's current high rating in the polls and success in May's council elections is not Labour's strength but the crisis of John Major's scandal-ridden government.
Small wonder, therefore, that the Tory press should seek now to ensure that any future Labour government comes to office with a 'safe' leadership firmly committed to the interests of big business. In doing so, the press barons and their apologists are simply defending their own class interests.
But for millions of workers, low-paid, unemployed, or facing brutal attacks on their jobs and working conditions and trade union rights, the priorities are very different.
Only a radical, anti-capitalist programme can tackle the problems they face: and none of Labour's four front-runners will offer such a programme.
To allow the creation of a new right wing 'consensus', in which the minimal differences between these candidates is regarded as the sum total of debate in the Labour Party, would represent a further historic defeat for the left.
That's why Socialist Outlook supports calls for the Socialist Campaign Group to organise an alternative candidate.
This also involves exposing and challenging the bureaucratic stitch-up under which any leadership candidate must be nominated by minimum of 34 MPs. This rule was clearly intended to gag the hard left and restrict the possibility of any challenge to the right wing status quo.
It is unfortunate that the left faces almost as many problems as the right in agreeing a candidate with the credibility and charisma to stand for the leadership.
But as the right wing uses the moratorium on campaigning to continue its manoeuvres behind the scenes, it is essential that the left prepares to fight back - on a platform of breaking the eco nomic consensus, defending the welfare state, and fighting for full employment.
This adds to the importance of the Manchester conference of the Socialist Campaign Group Network on June 11. We urge activists to attend and to press in their contituencies and trade unions for a political fightback: if Tony Blair is installed according to the Tory plan, it could be a decade or more before he could be removed.