re-organisation of were packaged as a break from neo-con aggression. With bold sounding but vacuous initiatives around the word go, as it planned a snap election.
Being shackled long-term to Blair's poor legacy and ous in the first place was exposed by the revelation that Labour spent no less than £l million on the "election" at a time it was £20m in deficit What the summer's rollercoaster revealed was the turned sour when his opponents beat him to the shop.
Brown's accession power owed far more to the tially disengage from Iraq. But Brown was caught out playing politics. With an economic down-turn looming, that window has slammed shut.
There is more to all this than the gymnastics of the political elite. Behind it lays a seismic shift in the drawn out disintegration of the New Labour "project" with Brown exposed as a weak and false alternative atter Blair's prolonged clinging to power.
This "project" was an Clegg, promise a more decisive attempt to outbid freshfaced "compassionate" Toryism.
Tragically for the left, Respect has been a victim as well. It was caught napping, largely because of its structure as a vehicle for routinist electoralism, controlled topdown by the SWP, rather than as a vibrant party with a thriving internal life that collo seize me moment and Dunlo to labour stel
While parties with a "business as usual" orientation
Brown has already indicated his response - chasing the Tories to the right with tax cuts, wage restraint and job cuts. A fresh round of assaults on civil liberties is underway and climate change targets have been dumped.
But the opportunity for building a socialist alternative to Labour's left has grown. Labour is not only lurching further right, but transparently in decline.
With no relaunched New Labour, "reclaim Labour" a distant dream, and a Labour left so marginalised that its leader John McDonnell talks openly about organising outside the party, the field is open - if we on the lett can get our act together.