Tom: None of these front anti-cuts campaigns seem to be making much of an impact on the broad masses outside the Central Committees that invented them.
Dick: Maybe not but I’m always impressed by the way the political full timers can remember which hat they’re wearing when they are speaking on behalf of this week’s pet project.
Harriet: It can be a bit hard to tell the difference between them, like blind tasting Coke and Pepsi.
Tom: It looks to me like we are going to see lots of locally based campaigns springing up all over the place.
Dick: Our kids’ school is thinking of becoming an academy.
Harriet: My mum went to a meeting last night about a plan to shut the library she uses.
Tom: The tough thing about that is that it’s quite hard to connect all these different experiences.
Dick: It’s not just the experiences. It’s the people.
Harriet: That’s right. There’ll be all these councillors, trade unionists and activists in working class communities fighting on all sorts of things.
Tom: How about launching an organisation to pull them all together?
Dick: Why would they want to be part of something they’ve never heard of?
Harriet: Fair point. How about seeing if anyone is interested in a paper that they could use to share their experiences; find out about what’s being happening in other places and maybe get some of the economic and political arguments they’ll need.
Tom: You’d need someone to produce it.
Dick: And the one thing the British far left does not need is another paper.
Harriet: It depends what type of paper. It could be as broad as you wanted. Labour Party people, some of the Marxist left, individual activists, Green Party members, trade unionists and health campaigners.
Tom: Well you can’t have it too broad. They’d have to agree on some things.
Dick: Yeah, that’s right. They’d all have to be in favour or grass roots action and be anti-monarchist. Otherwise you’re accommodating to the union bureaucracy and feudalism.
Harriet: Maybe looking for points of agreement might be a more useful way to start.
Tom: Agreement?
Dick: Eh? That’s bonkers.
Harriet: Well let’s look at what your absolute bottom line is. It could be opposition to cuts and job losses; no worsening of pensions; opposition to the wars; action on climate change standing up to Islamophobia – that sort of thing.
Tom: Yeah but what about the stuff we disagree on?
Dick: That’s right. The Labour Party is just like the Tories. Lot’s of us want to replace it with something better. You can’t expect us to bite our tongues can you?
Harriet: Heaven forefend! There’d be nothing to stop organisations producing their own pamphlets and websites. You could have regular debates on some of the stuff we disagree on. It just seems to me that the socialist and anti-capitalist left would have more of an impact if people could see it working together instead of constantly launching its own Mickey Mouse stunts that anyone born the day before yesterday can see through.
Tom: But how would you guarantee that no one takes control of this paper?
Dick: There would probably be all sorts of stitch ups and secret deals. That the way the left usually does things.
Harriet: You’ve got no guarantees. Some form of democratically controlled editorial board might work but ultimately you’re relying on people and organisations to unlearn some bad habits.
Tom: Ah. There’s your problem.
Dick: He’s right. It would never work.
Harriet: Oh well, it was just a thought. Is it my round?
Liam redux 
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