the New Sleaze APPARENTLY the sum of £1 million has become known as "a Bernie" since the row over the donation to the Labour Party by Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone hit the headlines.
But this may already be out of date: £1m could be a "burger" after Planet Hollywood fat cat Robert Earl became the latest top employer to flick through his small change and find a handout for the "people's party":
Amid fresh claims (from no less a source than the authoritative Daily Star) that Tony Blair is contemplating changing the name of the party to the Democratic Party, it seems almost every day brings a new Clinton-style whiff of scandal.
The US administration which appears to offer the finished model for New Labour is plunging ever deeper into sleaze and ridicule, with continued public debates on the shape and disposition of the Presidential penis.
Of course nobody would dream of implying that the saintly and apparently well-zipped Mr Blair could ever be lured from the scriptures long enough to become embroiled in Paula Jones-type allegations, but those around him may yet be more vulnerable.
Whatever the sexual proclivities of New Labour, and whatever they get up to on the front bench, the Party has lost no time in cultivating its own unsavoury bunch of big business cronies, all of whom bring with them the suspicion that after years of profitable and cosy coexisBlair: taking (grateful handouts) from the rich and giving to the ... rich. rence with the Tories, their sudden wish to support the new regime may not be unconnected with the wish to promote - or obstruct - specific policies.
The Ecclestone case was especially suspicious. This long-time Tory supporter swung late behind Labour - but his million in readies, and Party chiefs' hopes of getting even more trom him - were established on the scene in time to apply extra pressure on the issue of tobacco advertising.
Every aspect of the surrounding scandal was appallingly ill-judged by Blair's seemingly all-conquering "spin doctors".
Labour's belated decision to return the donation gave Ecclestone the ultimate double satisfaction: not only had he got the decision he wanted, but he even got his money back into the bargain!
The repayment of this cash was made much easier in the event by the well-timed arrival on the scene of over-priced burger magnate Robert Earl, whose ability to donate £lm to Labour was no doubt influenced by the fact that his chain of restaurants pays staff as little as lowest projected figure for a national minimum wage.
Sloshing around enormous sums of money may seem to Mr Earl to be a way of attracting free media coverage for his tedious restaurants and piling on pressure to keep wages low: it certainly appears that the government was already leaning towards a minimum wage closer to his target than to the trade unions. Maybe he guessed this and wanted to say a little thankyou.
But all the while the government is desperately keen to prove that money can't buy influence - especially if that money is the tens of millions of pounds funnelled into Labour coffers over the years by the Given the results of Gordon Brown's latest budget preview, promising to hold down wages while giving still further tax cuts for companies which already pay the lowest taxes in Europe, the unions have a strong case for demanding a refund. Any passing millionaire has more say on plicy than they do.
We have had right wing Labour governments before. But Blair has brought a novel development in the incorporation of more millionaires - with former BP chief Lord Simon, and now Jaguar's ex-boss Geoffrey Robinson making controversial efforts to stash their personal loot on one side as they take time out to act as ministers.
Peter Davis, the man from the Pru, one of the prime culprit firms in the mis-selling of pensions under the Tories, has also been wheeled in as a government advisor. Frank hanging round.
And in the background lurks the bearded, grinning figure of the high-flying opportunist Richard Branson, who could yet be the beneficiary of the government's determined moves to impose a directly elected Mayor on an unconvinced London labour movement.
The basic ingredients are there for an ongoing problem of sleaze for as long as the government clings to its attempt to make "partners" out of exploitative bosses.
But with ministers as right wing as Jack "Private Jails" Straw, and the Blunkett/Byers gang (now seeking new collaboration with public schools), there is surely no need for the bosses to fork out good money to get the policies they want: they can get them for nothing.
New Labour, new scandals: but there is a plus side. At least the weakening of the apparent invincibility of the spin doctors and party managers seems to have opened a slight space for left wing critics to speak out within the party.
Last week 120 Labour MPs, not all of them on the left, signed a letter opposing the cuts in lone parent benefits. The size of the vote against fox-hunting was in part a show of rebellion against a government which wanted to keep this election pledge on the back burner.
Two Commons committees have now denounced the retreat over Formula One tobacco advertising.
Perhaps we needed sleaze to raise its head to enable some real politics to re-emerge after six months of sycophantic drivel?
EDUCATIO STEP THE FLES STOP and defence of the welfare state, together with the existing campaigns.
Campaigns to win places for the Left on the NEC and Policy Forums should be seen in this context of building support for a fightback on policies and Party democracy. The individual candidates are less important than a vigorous campaign around key policies.
Informal discussions are already taking place between sections of the Left (or not-so-Left like Labour Reform) to construct slates. There is no harm in this, unless it is used to carve out a section of the Left in order to accommodate Labour Reform.
The danger is that such informal discussions will take place instead of, rather than supplementing, a general forum of the Left to decide on a platform and a slate of candidates.
There are already signs that this is the case, with various forces trying to avoid involving the Network until such time as they have a slate to present as a fait accompli.
The Network conference needs to demand onenness in such discus. sions and that the Network campaign around key issues in the coming year.