All has been said and not done

+So, absolutely (again coining a non-phrase beloved of interviewees on the Today programme) the race for the leadership of the Labour Party has begun. The most immediately painful aspect to this is that for several months the UK’s opposition party is going to be allowing the Tories to get away with all sorts of lies, deception and the like, as happened in 2010. Well, so be it, I guess there’s not a lot we can do about that. As Labour’s leadership hopefuls come forward I shall watch closely to see who is most likely to ditch Labour’s new found environmentalism. If we end up with a leader who retreats from the green policies in our 2019 manifesto, I will have to consider whether he or she is actually to be taken seriously. The days for mouthing platitudinous best wishes for our children and grandchildren are over. This is the time for real effort and given that we now face on this front several years’ worth of wasted time under Johnson, Labour’s task in 2024/5 is going to be much greater than before. This is the only test I have for the leadership contenders. Nothing else matters more. A failure on this front will see the new leader losing at least one long standing member.
 
+Hold the front page!! The Madrid climate change conference has broken up without a result. This time honoured tradition seems as likely to be broken these days as me discovering an original Leonardo da Vinci in the attic. Our new government says it is disappointed with the outcome. We know they’re telling the truth. The interesting climate change development will be how Johnson prepares for next year’s conference, to be held in Glasgow. Will he convince his mate Trump to attend? Coinciding with the US elections, this poses a number of questions. Trump could perform a complete policy U-turn, and say he’s in favour of climate change action after all. This could make sense of the fact that since his election, when he promised to reinvigorate the coal industry, more mines have closed down.
 
+Back on the Labour Party front, I’m a bit dis-chuffed with those ever so clever deep centrist thinkers who pronounce disparagingly of the tendency of leftists to put their principles (bad) before power (good). Principled capitalists get away with power all the time.