Fallen Angel

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I read with great sadness today that Ken Loach has been expelled from the Labour Party. Ken Loach. Of all people. For the offence of failure to disown those already purged from the party as being 'incompatible' with its values. Since when have socialists been incompatible with the values of a socialist party? If it wasn't glaringly obvious that the party is drifting back towards the centre-right of New Labour's ethos, I'd say that the whole thing had a rather Stalinist air to it, albeit with less bloodshed.

But Ken Loach, for God's sake. He's been on the side of the angels all his life and has single-handedly done more to bring issues of social injustice to the general conversation and into the mainstream of political action than generations of politicians. To exclude a figure such as he from our party is crass in the extreme, and can only damage the credibility of what, and I'm beginning to think unfortunately, is the only practical opposition to the current administration.

I'm *that* far from quitting the party, but I don't believe yo-yo membership-hopping is of much use, and in any case I can't see much of an alternative that makes electable sense anywhere else. Biding time and hoping that Bollocks Johnson does the job for us when his supporters finally awake from their slumbers and see the eejit before them at last. Breath, holding, not.

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