Worthy Of His Hire

I could almost - almost - have re-joined the Labour Party on Friday 3rd May. Until this afternoon.

This afternoon, Labour abstained rather than oppose "Emergency Regulations" exempting the Government from paying back the benefits that it unlawfully withdrew from people who refused to work for free so that what ought properly to have been their wages could instead be diverted as corporate donations to the Con Dem parties. I know that I have said that I shall probably never seek public office again. But...

It would either kill me outright, or else give me a new lease of life such as could very well last 45 years. And that would just be the campaign. I really am beginning to think that that might be a risk worth taking after all. Not because the country or the world needs me, especially. But because it needs hundreds of us. That, though, is for another time.

Even the Coalition's own side is disgusted. But the Labour Party, as such, is not. Here is the Roll of Honour of the 40 Labour MPs who voted against this moral and constitutional outrage. (There were also two SDLP MPs who take the Labour Whip, and one Lib Dem. The rest were from the smaller parties.) It includes two serving National Executive Committee members and two former Cabinet Ministers, one of whom used to be Chief Whip.

There is also a telling amount of crossover with those who either voted against, or abstained on, the redefinition of legal marriage to include same-sex couples. Look out for that last one whenever there are rebellions from the Left. Although, as this list shows and as one would expect, this one extended far beyond the Left as ordinarily defined.