We should be demanding that the congestion charge profits should be invested in better facilities for those who don’t use cars but alternative forms of transport.

Francis makes a very important point about organisation - one that has exercised my mind for a long time. She is, I believe, right to identify Leninism as an important issue. We should remember perhaps that Lenin’s modus operandi for a Marxist party was created at a particular place and time - the Russian Revolution in the period leading up to 1917. Undeniably Leninism is very effective in maximising the impact of small parties (and the Bolshevik party at that time was not big). But it carries a cost, as outlined well in Isaac Deutscher’s trilogy of the life of Trotsky.

She suggests that those forming a new left party “will require those existing groups that wish to take part to dissolve their organisations and their newspapers into the new body.” - well, maybe - though one wouldn’t necessarily wish to ban factions. But I do think that an open and honest debate about the relevance of Leninism for today’s left in 21st Century Britain ,with all that Leninism entails - the “vanguard”, the caucusing, the “democratic centralism” the inviolable party line - would perhaps help us move forward. For me, personally, Marx retains some real relevance but Lenin has had his day and holds back the forging of a new coalition of the left - or a new party.

Personally too, I remain broadly loyal to the Labour Party, with the mass of contradictions that entails (and I know many readers here will think it lunacy) - for the simple reason that, at present, the only practical alternative to a Labour government is a Conservative one - which would be worse. Also, Labour is still the only mass party of working people, and the only party, still, with an organic link to the Trade Unions. However one cannot deny the terrible damage to the movement over the past 10 years (not least the 42 days legislation).

But, the emergence of a new coalition of the left, with or without the Labour left, would be a step forward. And a new movement that could honestly debate and examine the implications of Leninism might be in a position to begin to rejuvenate life on the left in this country.

There are many student groups interested in becoming involved.

I am involved in both Young Greens (Green Party youth-wing) and Education Not for Sale (ENS), a network of radical students.

I’ve linked to you from my blog and will look for ways to encourage youth involvement.

Keep up the good work,

Aled

Compare this recent experience with that of the foundation of the CPGB almost 90 years ago. There, all sorts of diverse left-wing forces – former Hyndmanists, DeLeonists, suffragists, syndicalists and so on – dissolved their organisations into this new party. Within a very short period, the previous factional loyalties and rivalries had been overcome, and the body functioned as a coherent political force, for better or for worse.

For the (relatively) large political space to the left of Labour to be filled by a serious organisation, rather than by a plethora of competing sects, a great deal of political will and courage will be needed. It will require people from all sorts of different traditions – left Labour, orthodox communist, Trotskyist, anarchist, green leftist and so on - to abandon their old factional and organisational baggage and join together, honestly, on a common platform. It will require those existing groups that wish to take part to dissolve their organisations and their newspapers into the new body. And it will require that the diehard factionalists who are not prepared to do this remain outside this new organisation, where they can continue to try to build their own parties. I cannot say that I am optimistic about the prospects for this in the short term. But I am quite certain that another marriage of convenience between Leninist grouplets will end, as ever, in yet another messy and acrimonious divorce.

I will read Nick and John’s articles thoroughly and come back with some points on the articles.

Whilst there is some truth to your positioning of the correspondents I think there may well be differences of ideas and tactics, some of which will complement each other, rather than conflict, and do not necessarily in all respects follow a left-right line.

Anyway I’ll do some reading over the weekend in between cramming for my exam next week and perhaps comment some time mid week.

This is not a difficult task, and the complete inability of late capitalism to solve the problems facing us is becoming more and more obvious. The twin environmental and economic crises are just starting to unfold and will greatly exacerbate this. Our task is do something about it, and present a credible positive alternative to our class rather than mere opposition to attacks which are presented as inevitable.

But more fundamentally we should go back to the most important realisation of the Labour Representation Committee, which was that we need to rebuild, rather than just reclaim. The foundation of our class strength has always been organised labour, based on strong community support. We need to seriously address basic organising of our class.

We should treat the Labour Party as little different to any other electoral political party. When it supports us then we support it. The resulting conclusion form this is that trade unions should stop spending huge amounts of their members’ money propping it up unless we are getting some return. The leaders fear that this will leave them in the political wilderness, but where are they are the moment?

“The (Unite) T&G’s recruiting of 100 new green field organisers on the SEIU model seems to have run into the buffers.”

The TGWU section of Unite currently employ 102 Organisers and are active in a numbers of industrial sectors. Successes can be judged on the TGWU website.

There are more positives than negatives I feel but there is still an awful long way to go. I hope the Convention can give direction for the left in how to work in Trade Unions and more importantly how to organise in the workplace, something I feel has been lacking from all left groups with exceptions being in the minority.

That the Convention will bring all these ideas together is, in itself, a bit of a success. Clarifying our attitudes to each position will certainly be informative and entertaining. If we can come out of the Convention with clarity about where we agree and where we can work together - as well as where we disagree - then it will have been a real success.