The final Straw?

Now we have final proof that freedom of speech really doesn't exist. The manhandling of 82 year-old Walter Wolfgang, and his subsequent arrest under anti-terrorism laws at the Labour Party conference yesterday was utterly disgraceful and indicative of the control-freakery that has now taken over that once-proud organisation. To arrest a man, simply for accusing of Jack Straw a liar, is outrageous and, despite the fact that the PM has apologised, the behaviour of the stewards should never have been allowed to occur. I know they're 'only volunteers' but that's no excuse for bad behaviour.

I attended the Labour Party's Centenary Conference in Bournemouth in 1999 and was dismayed at the way in which the party officials controlled who could speak and what they were allowed to say. OK, I can understand that they don't want 10 people all asking the same question, but to refuse to allow people to speak simply because they don't like the question is just cowardly. It's almost as bad as those people supplying lists of questions they wanted to ask, to give the Minister a feed line for the things they really wanted say.

In the years I've been a party member, they've stopped allowing the plebs on the ground (i.e. the branches and constituency parties) to put forward resolutions to conference, thus removing that method of allowing people to express their opinions. Instead, they've introduced policy fora which, ostensibly, allow groups of members (and non-members too) to discuss particular issues and put forward their views. However, in practice, most of these views are ignored. The debate is stifled and members aren't allowed to put forward any new ideas not in 'the list' - it's more of a ratification of the things that have already been decided. The worst part came when the subject of Identity Cards was to be discussed, yet the Party brought forward (and made public) the proposals before the consultation had closed. A lot of members were very angry about that.

I, for one, will no longer have anything to do with the Party until this ridiculous top-down manipulation is halted.

Comrades, the Peoples' Flag has indeed turned pink.

The peoples flag is palest pink.
It's not as red as you may think.
White collar workers wave and cheer.
A labour government is here.
We'll change the country bit by bit.
So nobody will notice it.
And just to prove we're still sincere.
We'll sing the red flag once a year.