More taking pops at the Pope !

I note with interest it seems to be male straight lefties that seem to be tut tutting at the attacks on the Pope. Apparently us poofs and girlies, well, we are all a tad middle class and are attacking the working class . Hmm, don't remember hearing that when the left attack the BNP, who sadly have quite a few working class members and supporters .

What is interesting is that it is women, LGBT people and those who have suffered abuse from Priests that are getting upset and angry . And damn right . We are the ones who are affected when the Catholic Church is able to push its reactionary views and Governments enact it in law.

Now of course the Church and its members have every right to argue their views. I support that wholeheartedly . I though have the right to protest as well. And lets be clear, we are not fighting a poor downtrodden group, but a rich institution .

Back to the working class issue . Lets look at the impact of access to contraception and abortion on women and how class impacts it.

Pre the 1967 Act many women still had abortion, illegal or not. Desperate people find the means . Thing is women who were poor and working class had to resort to back street abortions or trying to induce themselves with very dodgy methods. Many died , others suffered long term harm to their fertility.

I always remember my mother (working class hairdresser married to a working class painter and decorator, see i''m not a soft bleeding heart liberal with uni lecturers for parents!) telling me about women she worked with having abortions. One woman came back after lunch and started bleeding heavily and was ill, but too scared to go to hospital. She was lucky, she lived.

My mother once worked in South Kensington where 'ladies' would pop in. It was known that they sometimes needed to see a nice doctor to sort out a personal problem. No backstreets for them, the finest Harley Street could offer.

Back to today. Many women have to travel here from Ireland for abortions . Now this costs , fares and accommodation . For some women they just don't have that money or it often takes a while to collect, resulting in a later termination. Those women with money , can hop over and get the procedure done quickly and with minimal stress.

Money has always allowed greater access to contraception and abortion, often essential when laws and religion stand in the way . So please, this is a class issue . It would be good to see leftie men supporting women and LGBT people, usually at the harsh end of these policies . The Catholic Church is rich and powerful enough to fight its own battles, but the left need to argue against its influence across the world. The personal is political, just for some men on the left they are not affected and can't grasp the anger and solidarity some of us feel .

Jim Denham on Facebook...hmm

Regular readers will know , this blog started  the Jim4Leader campaign and set up Dolls4Jim on Facebook. In fact some might consider we, OK me, have a sort of weird fascination with Mr Denham !

Yes, it is true that I have whiled away a good few hours drinking JD with JD.

Anyway, it seems the man himself is on Facebook .

However, he seems to have ignored my friend request .

Pah...unless of course its an impostor ??

Has he really succumbed to the joys of status updates on cake and hours playing scrabble ? Will he start twittering next ?

Sheridan on Celebrity Big Brother ?

Sheridan and his ego have finally succumbed to the vanity project that is Celebrity Big Brother . Perhaps he hopes to follow in the paw prints of that other great male leader of the left, Gorgeous George, one can but hope for some similar cringe worthy footage. And surely after that fiasco Sheridan can't make the argument he wants to put forward socialist ideas to a wider audience as the that is not permitted.

Nope its the money and the fame, as it seems to be with all too many supposedly principled lefties .

As I said two years ago when he turned it down :

Now ideally I would love to see Galloway and Sheridan eating bugs and wading through spider pits on I'm a celebrity get me out of here. As that's not on the cards two egos such as Hasselhoff (SB:not sure who he is in with this time, suggestions dear readers for a good line up?) and Sheridan could prove interesting .
I do hope they provide lots of full length mirrors and a tanning bed as well .



Hmmm, yep I'll go with the cheap shot picture .

Oh and no comments pertaining to court cases please, I'll delete them.

David Broder and the US Elections

Well that should get some stat hits.

Woke from my nap, still sleepy, to find people talking about David Broder in the comments box!!
Was relived to find out it was an American David Broder , not our very own boy wonder, and that the left wasn't obsessing on the other big political event of the year yet again instead of whats going on over the pond:-)

Theory as foreplay...part 3 of the sex survey results

Almost there...note to self, do a shorter survey next time with more tick boxes and less free text !

Right ...

If your life depended on it, which TU General Secretary would you shag ?

I left it up to people to add names or comments :

I'd rather die but I guess at pinch Tony Lennon
Christine Payne
Gemma Tumelty of NUS (Is that allowed - she is a LILF, Labour I'd Like to Fuck)
Norman Willis
Was Brenda Dean a GS? I'd like to shag her for selling out SOGAT in the 80s.
Mark Serwotka(3 votes)
Fred Bramley
OMG - it would have to be Sally Hunt. Are there any other women? (2 votes)
am i allowed Paul Mackney?
Bob Crow (4 votes)
Brendan Barber - but only if John McDonnell was allowed to watch
Urgh. WHoever the Musicians Union Gen Sec is so at least we'd have some good accompaniment
Jeremy Dear is hot!
Francis O'Grady

I'd rather shaft all of them
I'd eat the bullet
IF my life depended on it, any of them.
As a dubious ultraleftist I'm not sure I'd recognise a TU General Secretary
All of them.
i would rather be dead (a number of variations on this , suicide, jump, bullet)
Ugh...


Dirty talk, theory as foreplay...

Marx - The second volume of Capital (9.8%) 5
Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism (7.8%) 4
Weekly Worker (11.8%) 6
A Trade Union rule book ( 7.8%) 4
How many people were on the last anti war demo (7.8%) 4
Was the Soviet Union state cap or degenerated workers state. (35.3%) 18
Swearing al la Will (13.7%) 7
None of the above, that’s too kinky for me. (31.4%) 16

Some of you had your on suggestions for dirty talk :

daniel gluckstein's latest franglais
Marx - 18th Brumaire
Art & Language, Badiou, Stallman.
Pierre Bourdieu
Old issues of Newsline
Bevanism vs. Bennism: The shortest path to the co-operative commonwealth
Sugar production in Cuba

and someone added ...
These questions get weirder and weirder.

So do lefties ever pretend or go along to a political event or join a group for anything other than political motives ? Well...

Have you ever, if you are a straight or bi bloke, ever pretended to be a feminist to get into a woman’s knickers?

Have you ever, if you are a straight or bi bloke, ever pretended to be a feminist to get into a woman’s knickers?

(this was my cynical side coming out about feminist men )

Yes 7.3% 3 (so that's Dave and two others then !)
No 92.7% 38
Other (please specify) 7

Comments ( a few a bit affronted I think ):
Because I am a feminist
I am a feminist, how can I 'pretend'?
I've made a deal about it, but I AM a feminist, so that should be okay.
I *am* a feminist bloke!!!!
I dont get into womens knickers unless im wearing them.
I prefer feminists who are into shagging anyway!

The next one sees aless principled position...

Have you ever bought a paper, trailed along to a meeting, or joined a group, to get into someone’s knickers?

Yes 37.1% 23
No 62.9% 39

one comment :

Yes, but it was the RCP, so I don't think they'll have minded - in fact, I think it was their only recruitment strategy.


Is the personal political?

Yes 86.0% 49
No 14.0% 8

And the final question was "Anything else you would like to tell Stroppy"

Yes, why are lefty men all slightly fucked up, eh!!! Or may be it's just the ones I fancy...

This was quite diverting!

This was quite diverting!

I'm not "left", I'm Green.

Three lefties was too restrictive. There's a lot of nice women on the left! lol

Only in person.

in answering 'there shouldn't be sex-work after the revolution' the answer comes a fortiori from the fact that i don't see there being work after the revolution. and the one member of the tory party with whom i have had sex credits me as part of the reason she is no longer a member of the tory party.

Definitely not.


So there you go, a snapshot of the left and sex. Pretty disturbed but thats why I love em.

oh and thanks again to Jim Jay and Marsha Jane for their suggestions and ideas for questions .

The AWL, dodgy fantasies and lefties you wouldn't kick out of bed..part 2 of the sex survey results

The second part had a number of questions looking at attitudes around sex.

Would a committed relationship for you be:


Marriage, kids and a Labrador (and no, nothing odd with the dog!) (13.6%) 9
Monogamous. (56.1%) 37
Sleep with other people but not tell. ( 9.1% )6
Open relationship, the odd shag with others. ( 24.2% )16
More than one partner. (10.6% )7
Not into commitment . (1.5% )1


Interestingly the majority (56.1) favoured monogamy , though about 34% did see commitment as taking less onventional forms and a few took the well worn path of not telling.

Those who added comments to ‘other’ included :

Different strokes for different folks, but honesty is mandatory.

Emotional commitment, think monogamy is negotiable but irrelevant

I have all the commitment I need for the revolution.

but i find it hard to do (in relation to marriage, kids , Labrador).

I suppose I tend to think its about real choice, not following what society, religion or families expect. Its shouldn’t be about conforming , but I do think the key is honesty and treating people, whether a one nighter or a partner, with respect.

The next two I think highlight that for many lefties sharing at least some politics is important for a partner but not when its just sex.


Would you knowingly sleep with a Tory ?

Yes (33.8%) 23
No (30.9%) 21
Depends how drunk I was (35.3%) 24


Is it important to share similar political views with a partner?
Yes 73.4% 47
No 26.6% 17

Comments :

Helpful, not essential. Share some views, not others

Depends how emotionally committed relationship is! If so yes, if just sex, no

Depends how divergent their view are

It is important that they are not shared.

I don’t think its possible to agree on everything (and that would be dull!), so I suspect for many there will be issues that are more important to share than others.

The next few focus on the leftie variation of work/life balance, yep shagging or selling papers .

How many sexual partners have you had ? And no, let’s not nitpick on the definition like Clinton!
(Though knowing the left, I gave a nit pick option )

1 7.6% 5
2-5 27.3% 18
5-10 4.5 % 3
10-15 19.7% 13
15-25 10.6% 7
25-30 6.1% 4
30-40 1.5% 1
40-50 1.5% 1
50-60 1.5% 1
60-80 1.5% 1
80-100 4.5% 3
100+ 6.1% 4
Can’t remember ! 3.0% 2
Well you see it does all depend what you mean by sex 9.1% 6

Of course this isn’t cross referenced with age, gender or sexuality, so is is just a snapshot. A few ticked more than one, including the “well you see it does all depend” answer as well.

One person added ‘none’.

So far we have lefties busy shagging every day and only a few too busy overthrowing capitalism, so what do they do on Saturday morning ?

Saturday morning , what’s your priority ?

Sex 38.1% 16
Getting down to reading some serious theory 16.7% 7
Writing a blog post 21.4% 9
Leafleting/paper sale/canvas 23.8% 10



Although the highest number said sex, there were quite a few (25) who added their own priorities :

Rowing
First three in order.
Sleeping (8)
I do not get up before noon
Housework
Dealing with the kids/ kids/childcare/Children waking me up when I'd rather stay in bed. (4)
cup of tea
coffee
Walk the dog, buy the Guardian, make breakfast for my lover
Breakfast!
Leafleting outside the local Conservative Club, where their posh yet not that old women's section is having a coffee morning, so I can get invited in
Getting up for work
Writing or producing a magazine/newspaper, or helping out at a food co-op


Now regular readers will remember this blog has been described as all about ‘Fisting, fucking and fishnets .'
I think those less well acquainted with the blog were a tad confused by the question and skipped it. To be honest no idea what the question meant; word association , words beginning with F, stream of leftie consciousness…


This is Stroppyblog, soooo

Fisting 16.0% 8
Fucking 68.0% 34
Fishnets 40.0% 20


Those that people added were :
Sucking the stilletto
Cunnilingus. Giving.
Nah
Eh?
Light S&M
What?
SouthpawPunch
Felines
Fellatio
all 3
Fantasy


Now how sectarian are we in the bedroom (or wherever)?
This wasn’t tick box, people added what they wanted.

Here are some highlights !
1)What groups/parties/sects have you shagged members of?

You name it, I've shagged it
"Apolitical, mostly... "
"SWP, AWL, CPGB "
"Tory, Labour, Lib.Dem. Trotskyite, Marxist, CND, Maoist, Quaker, Catholic, CofE, many others"
"labour, green, tory, lib dem, swp, awl, sparts, various more or less organised anarchist groups
ISG, Workers Power, IS, SWP, Workers Fight, Militant, WRP, the other WRP, Labour Party NEC "
"SWP, Socialist Labour (crap), SA, Green Party (REALLY don't go there!), Labour (but only as an act of class warfare), CBGP "
"Fond memories of RCP chicks in the early 1980s; hit on 'em and their knickers were as good as off. "
"SWP, Respect, Left List "

2)Which was the best ?

Libertarian leftie women
SWP
Anarchist Federation and (tragically) the RCP
The best was undoubtedly the Maoist.
Greens
definitely the anarchists, both on average and individually (and collectively :-) )
Militant, as it was soooo forbidden by the church of Grant and Woods
I haven't kept notes... but, there were these two Lib Dems...
AWL
Most quite crap, though I do have fond memories of a Millie

3)Is there a group, that no matter how much you fancied someone, their membership of it would mean you wouldn’t shag them?

None
BNP (any fascist basically) ( a few on this theme, though I was really meaning leftie groups)
Tories and rightwards, pro-Stalinists
Respect Renewal
NO!
SWP And, historically speaking and more so, WRP. And Furedisti
Shag, yes. Have a relationship, no.
Sparts
Nauseating yuppie liberals
I would only have highly abusive anonymous sex with a neoconservative or libertarian.
AWL
Hackney Constituency Labour Party
English bit of Lutte Ouvriere,
SWP CC
SWP/RCP/WRP
WRP - I don't fuck apologists for rape
Respect
Can't imagine shagging anyone in Socialist Action.
CPGB-ML (wouldn't shag under any circumstance)

What came across from the survey was that the AWL are sort of leftie marmite, people either seem to love em or hate em. They figured highly in who someone wouldn’t shag , but as you will see later they figure quite highly in lefties you wouldn’t kick out of bed or as part of role play fantasy…and Jim is their most popular member !

Which three lefties wouldn’t you kick out of bed ?

I have just listed all the names people put in the survey. Quite a mixed bunch. Some are not that 'left' and one person said they don't 'do' lefties!

Most got one vote, those that got more were :

(some just said one person three times, counts as one)

3 votes

Marsha-Jane

2 votes

Jim Denham
Jim Jepps
Catriona Grant
Stroppy (no I did not vote for myself !)

1 vote

Mary Partington
Sofie Buckland
Gregor Gysi
Hind Hassan
Hannah Sell
Salma Yaqoob
Sian Berry
David Miliband
Segolene Royal
Beauvoir
Luxembourg
Daniel Randall
David Broder
Jeremy Browne
Nick Clegg
Jackie Grunsall,
Lucy Adler,

Bob Browne (Australian)

“Margaret Thatcher, Mussolini's granddaughter, Segoline Royal, Sargosy's bird (I don't do "bed with lefties").”

Carolyn Leckie
Houzan Mahmoud
Barak Obama
Katja Kipping
Owen James
Jeremy Dear
Caroline Lucas
Gail Sheridan
Jon Rogers
Will
Mark Fischer
China Mieville
Angela Eagle
Matt Wrack,
Dave Osler
George Binette

comments...

Er...my girlfriend and all the girls I've slept with?,
ALL OF THEM.
Three persons known to me.
Errrr.
Can't name third
None.
Um, I'm shit with names.
Really not sure, those dead Russians had some sexy beards though
Not telling you!!!
there aren't that many lefties i would kick out of bed.
“If there were three lefties in the same bed they'd be so busy arguing they wouldn't have time for the sex!”
my partner
Oh god. NEXT!
I daren't comment about anyone associated with this blog...
Too embarrassing to say - even anonymously
Silent ones

Lefties and fantasy…

Can I just say all these role play.fantasies were new to me. I mean i'm as vanilla as they come and any fantasy would be very right on and equal and probably involve gambolling through meadows being very respectful. These were all Jim Jepp's idea .
Hmmm, not convincing am I ;-)


Anyway, gave me some new ideas …


Have you ever fantasised (or role played )about :

Melanie Phillips, spank me baby! 7.0% 3
Nuns, with or without guns 34.9% 15
Women in burquas 23.3% 10
Margaret Thatcher 7.0% 3
Jim Denham 9.3% 4
Yvonne Ridley 4.7% 2
John Mcdonnell 11.6% 5
John Rees and young enthusiastic cadre 2.3% 1
Policemen or women 34.9% 15
Tory business women in French underwear 32.6% 14
Nazi orgies with hookers 14.0% 6
Ruth Kelly in bondage gear 11.6% 5
Harriet Harman, in full riot, telling you what a very naughty boy/girl you had been … 7.0% 3
Lefties in uniform – firefighters, nurses, rail workers… 60.5% 26
Or anything else you want to share ? 16.3% 7


And quite a few did indeed share ...

are you trying to put me off sex for life?
I don't go for authority figures. I like the unconstrained play of equals.
Sex in riots.
dom/mes, /bondage
SPP here again, I forgot to mention fantasising about armed workers in struggle, e.g. the IRA, RIRA, Provo IRA, Batasuna, the Welsh Firebombing Nationalists, the UCK/KLA, FSLN, SDLP, Gadaffi's women bodyguard troupe, South American guerrila movements, and the French Tories Womens Institute (Armed Section). Hang on, not the SDLP.
that famous picture of uniformed Maoist girls,
East German fashion chic
Waterfalls au natural
S&M
I am the only true revolutionary, I am SouthPawPunch, spell it properly,!
My girlfriend can't get enough of John McDonnell, if that counts
Pirates
soldiers, obviously.


And a few that said No!!
And
Good grief, none of the above.

Next up...theory as foreplay, lefties talk dirty and threesomes with TU general secretaries...

What lefties do in bed...Sex survey results part 1 !

Yep, the results of the sex survey. Almost as eagerly awaited, and slow, as those in Zimbabwe. No rigging though, honest.

It’s my first blog survey, so it was a bit hit and miss, but hopefully learnt from it for the next. I tried transferring tables over to blogger and it went all wonky, so hope its readable.

Many of the questions are humorous (I hope), but there was a serious purpose. The left aren’t great on sexual politics and I am curious as to how we live our lives. Do we challenge gender roles; do we buy into bourgeois monogamous family units? Do we live the theory or do we muddle along with contradictions.Personally I think muddling along with the contradictions and trying to challenge the accepted norm is the best we can do in this society where the Labour Party bangs on about hard working families (the new deserving poor), when the media still has double standards about laddish men but slutty women and married monogamous bliss is still seen as the gold standard (which is fine if that's what you want rather than expected). Oh and then there’s the role religion plays in moralising about how we live our lives and the odd leftie bemoaning our godless society (if only).

Right, back to the survey !It seemed that most were genuine, with only one obvious spoof. That was someone who said they were 70+, Queer, Transgendered, AWL and had sex everyday. An ‘expert ‘ on the AWL informed me no such member existed, though I think it is Jim and he is just quite well preserved for his age (in whisky I suspect ).

Right, what did it show.

Well the responses were
Pt 1 87
Pt2 69
Pt3 64

The dropping numbers I think a consequence of being in three parts. It was over three surveys because there is a limit on questions with the free package. That has meant its more anonymous, but harder to make links between gender/sexuality/party etc and answers.

What political party/group/alliance are you a member of, if any?

Although free text, and so the option to say none was there, 35 people did not answer this. I suspect some of those were independent and others reluctant to say for whatever reason.

Those who did specify (and it was up to them how they defined it, It was not tick box) :

The Labour Party 9
New labour 1
Labour/LRC 2
Labour Party – Mcdonnellite 1
Green 8
SWP 3
Scottish Socialist Party 3
antifaschiste linke, Berlin 1
SPPP (TORP) SouthPawPunchParty (TheOnlyRevolutionaryParty) 1
AWL 2
CPGB 1
“Prefer not to say – Trotskyist” 1
Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire 1
Socialist Party 1
Independent Anarchist 1
Respect 1
Libertarian left 1
Workers action 1
Solidarity (US) 1
Lib Dem 1
Independent /None 10
Tory 1

So a fair mix. One Tory seemed to miss the whole point of the survey, as it was for lefties. And of course we could argue about the Lib Dem as well.Oh and Punchie has said it wasn't him from SPPP, so must have been one of his members (so there are two !).

In terms of sexuality :

Straight 67.4% 58
Bisexual 17.4% 15
Gay 3.5% 3
Lesbian 1.2% 1
Queer 5.8% 5
Other 4.7% 4

From what I could tell it was mainly women who defined as bisexual . No one elaborated on ‘other’.

Gender :

Male 62 (72.1% )
Female 20 (23.3%)
Transgendered 4 (4.7%)

Age

16-21 (16.1%) 14
22-30 ( 29.9%) 26
31-40 (20.7% ) 18
41-50 ( 23.0%) 20
51-60 ( 8.0%) 7
61-70 (0.0%) 0
70+ (2.3%) 2


On average, how often do you have sex?

Celibate ( 4.7%) 4
Oooh that was sooo long ago I can't remember (10.6%) 9
Once a year (1.2% ) 1
Twice a year (2.4%) 2
3-6 times a year (2.4%) 2
Once a month ( 17.6% ) 15
Once a week (10.6%) 9
two or three times a week ( 25.9%) 22
Every day ( 3.5%) 3
More than once a day ( 4.7% ) 4
Depends what you mean by sex ! ( 11.8% ) 10
I’m sorry, but I'm much too busy working to overthrow capitalism to bother with all that. ( 8.2%) 7

Now it does all depend what you mean by sex and also it varies from time to time, so I suppose this was just a snapshot. A few people ticked more than one box.

Glad to see some people prioritising the overthrow of capitalism, not like those having sex more than once a day…comrades what about the revolution ;-)

The porn and sex work ones were interesting and I think reflect the complexities that this survey could only touch on.

Around 2/3rd s said they used porn. In terms of whether it degraded women the majority were unsure. Quite a few straight men said they thought it degraded women but they still used it. Quite a few women said they used porn and it was mixed in terms of whether they considered it degrading. Gay men used it and the survey did not cover whether they felt it degraded men. Whether it should exist under socialism had a mixed response and again the question could not really cover the complexities. Is erotica alright but porn not? What really is the difference between erotica and porn, is one more middle class and arty? Is erotica any less stereotyped about gender roles? Would control by women make a difference .Where does that leave lesbian porn (and not the supposed lesbians performing for men )?
The question is quite general, its talking about the present. But does porn, or erotic/sexual material have to be degrading under socialism?

The sex work question again showed the differences in views on this and also that much depended on what was meant by the definition. Again it did not separate out sex work in terms of straight, gay or lesbian.

How often do you use porn?e

Never ( 35.3% )30
Daily ( 8.2% ) 7
Weekly (22.4%) 19
Monthly (7.1%) 6
Only occasionally (21.2% ) 18
Between relationships ( 5.9% ) 5
With my partner ( 8.2%) 7

Quite a few ticked more than one box, such as with a partner and weekly.

Do you think porn degrades women ?

Yes ( 33.3%) 28
No (26.2% ) 22
Hmmm, not sure . (40.5% ) 34
answered question 84

Should porn exist under socialism ?

Yes ( 72.5%) 58
No (27.5%) 22
answered question 80

Should sex work exist under socialism?

Yes (32.1% 27
No (22.6% ) 19
Depends what type (47.6% ) 40
answered question 84

Do you support the existing age of consent?
Yes (56.5% ) 48
No (10.6%) 9
It should be higher (3.5% ) 3
It should be lower (17.6%) 15
Shouldn't be one (17.6%) 15
answered question 85


Right, coming up...the sexual fantasies of the left, lefties you wouldnt kick out of bed and more...

Sex Survey results ...soon

Eddie Truman, on facebook, said it was like the Zimbabwe elections when Tami asked where are the results !. Honest, I will post soon on them and no, they aren't rigged. Its just a lot to plough through.

Note to self, next time keep the damn thing simple !!

Lefties and Sex survey

Reminder : This survey is just for lefties to ascertain their views and experiences. Iain Dale has one for a wider political group.Its also in three parts. A bit of a pain as you have to return to the blog to click to the next part. Do please persist, I have been told by one respondent that the questions get "weirder and weirder."I hope that's an incentive:-)Do you really want to miss out on questions on political fantasies/role play (so far Jim D is very popular, but so are nuns with guns and John McDonnell in a threesome ), your views on commitment, which TU Gen Sec you would shag if your life depended on it and how sectarian are we in the bedroom .The first part is actually the least interesting part!
If you have only completed one section you can still do the others at a later stage.






Its snowing in Brighton, I'm supposed to be putting together some flat pack storage. As a distraction I have been compiling a sex survey.

Its completely anonymous ( I don't have a record of IPs ), so do complete it and be honest!

It is , as I stated in the previous post, a poll for lefties .

First off its in three parts. That's because the survey website charge if you do more than ten questions per survey, so I have broken it up.You need to come back to the blog after each part and then click on the next part.

(links down now as survey closed)

Secondly I want to thank my assistants in this, they are Janine, Marsha Jane and Jim.

Marsha as always lowered the tone, not easy on this blog. Jim kindly spent time on face book making suggestions for the fantasy/role play section. I must though add that none of them are his own personal ones !! At least that's what he told me:-)
Janine added some political insight rather than the smut of the other two.

The purpose of this poll is to get an idea of the sexual attitudes and behaviour of lefties.
There are some serious questions and some not so.
Do lefties challenge the status quo in our relationships or are we pretty bourgeois in the bedroom? Take the survey and lets see…

Sex and Stroppyblog !!

Polls are soooo last year, its surveys that are the new must have for any blogger.

Tami drew my attention to one that she thought might interest me , its on sex over at Iain Dale's Diary.

The survey is quite good except the only left it has as a category is Labour.But what about the strange sexual habits, or perhaps just very dull ones, of the LRC lefties and left of Labour lefties ? They need a voice ! So I am going to put together a survey specially for the left.

I plan to do this later today . Any suggestions for questions please add to the comments box. Oh and this is Stroppyblog, so don't worry about taste or decency :-)

Survey invitation: the political situation in the UK

Jim Jay has a survey over at his blog :

I'd like to invite anyone who considers themselves as part of the left or progressive part of the political spectrum to take part in my reasonably short survey about the political situation in the UK.

This survey is the beginning of an investigation into how people feel about the spaces and opportunities (or lack there of) for the left in the coming years. It deals with trade union, and campaigning work - as well as examining respondent's own activities and concerns about those areas they feel the left needs to pay more attention to.

I'm hoping to get at least one hundred responses to give me some numbers to crunch and hopefully get some interesting data, so please do take part if this sounds interesting to you.

Pop over for the link to the survey.

Its anonymous, so people can be honest.

Happy Birthday John !!

John A, mine and Dave's 'adopted son' , has turned 20 !!!!!

Sadly he has chosen this moment to retire his blog, as he feels he is no longer 'a very young boy'. Hopefully after a while the addiction will kick back in and he will be back.

Perhaps the next bloggers piss up could also be his retirement party.

Way forward?

There has been so much debate around Respect/SWP and the political trajectory of the Left overall. What do we do? How can we move forward?

Firstly, I think we need to move on from the in/out LP argument. We need to find ways in bringing comrades together to build a cohesive and strong left as people are active in different ways in fighting for socialism.


Secondly, there has to be less dogmatism, control, bureaucracy and more openess, fluidity and looser structures. Because we need a better way of discussing, engaging and sharing ideas other than the usual way the Left likes to educate the members.

A pluralistic and democratic left that builds and develops comrades confidence and creativity not following the usual line etched in stone (the same inevitable line that is followed forever more).

How do you bring the anti-war activists, tenants fighting against privatisation and the leftie individual who wants to get involved but doesn't know how to? How do we bring together scattered lefties? How do we create a cohesive response to New Labour and the rampant neo-liberal project?


One idea is something along lines of the World Social Forum (WSF) and the European Social Forum (ESF). They could be local, regional and/or national, start off small and try and build it by a possible viral process (spreading ideas that adapt and change...cross pollination).

For a start, it could bring together international struggles and link up with campaigns whether it is trade unions campaigning around migrant rights, housing, anti-war and liberation politics. These groups could forge links with activists and a free flow of ideas could evolve. The functioning would be pluralistic that would try and stop group(s) dominating the forums. If there was enough of a critical mass of activists then the usual trot and or tank domination would probably be minimal (it may even have an influence on their own political functioning and practice).


These are ideas off the top of my head and they're still evolving.... watch this space...

What is to be done about the Labour Left..?

As a supporter of Labour Briefing and on the editorial board, I thought I would plug this article in this week's Weekly Worker by Briefing editor, Graham Bash. It is an interesting piece and I agree with a lot of the sentiments and the conclusion he puts forward. I think it is useful to the ongoing discussion about the Labour Left and what is to be done....

Lowering the tone...

I am suffering from brain exhaustion so can't think of anything of great political substance to write so trying to overcome this disorder I was flicking through today's Guardian Guide and came across this website. I am addicted, as a boring movie geek, to the Internet Movie Data Base (INMb) so this kinda fascinated me. Who's Dated Who in Hollywood is pretty much what it says on the tin.

The sexual shenanigans of Hollywood movie stars (past and present) and have been spending my rainy Saturday afternoon gawping voyeuristically at a kind of sexual 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon (he too is on there). It is tacky, eye fodder, and very Channel 5 but hey it's fun! I am addicted already... I mean, Drew Barrymore and Courtney Love. Zsa Zsa Gabor...where did she get the time...? And no wonder JFK had a bad back. Sheesh!

You could use this template to come up with "Who's dated Who on the Left".... Yes, it will be based on gossip and innuendo with a tiny, tiny, smidgen of truth. And from my own experience, the Left is so darn gossipy. If the editors of Weekly Worker are reading this, you know this is a runner. I mean, you are not called "Worker's Hello" for nowt. I can just envision Jack Conrad as in house "agony uncle" or the intrepid Eddie Ford sniffing out gossip for his "after the pub closes" column (or whatever "chucking out" time is now..).

Here's another idea, who needs Soulmates (Guardian's lonely hearts page) when the WW could have Comrades In Need of A Shag section. You can find the One(s) by separating the wheat from the chaff, or should that be separating the degenerated from the state caps? Or vice versa.

Anyway, the potential is there to find a comrade-in-arms who finds talking dirty kinky and sexy (when I say "talking dirty" I mean quoting great chunks from Lenin and Trotsky), or discussing the intricacies of sugar production in Cuba floats your boat or maybe discovering someone else out there in Trot land has also read all of the back copies of Intercontinental Press. The potential is great for hooking up comrades with specific tastes....

C'mon you know it makes sense, comrades!!

Anyway, back to my fix of Hollywood gossip. Hopefully, normal service will resume and I will write something intelligent soon. Oh hum......

Is the Left up the creek without a paddle…?

With all the debate swirling around the left blog world about Respect to the tune of Should I Stay or Should I Go, it has made me wonder just how bad a state the Left is in. Can we resuscitate it in its current fragmented and shattered state? And will it remain on life support for a little longer?


The New Right of the 1970’s developed a coherent offensive led by the bourgeoisie. It is now called neo-liberalism. For the past 30 years there have been a systematic attack on the working class though there have been fight backs (Miners’ Strike, Wapping, Poll Tax). These attacks have been “full spectrum": ideological, economic, political, industrial, military , educational and in the United States religious.


This offensive has been so relentless it has shattered opposition. This Frankenstein monster will doubtlessly continue for a couple of more decades at least. The full spectrum approach takes into account all aspects of life and society and how things inter-relate with each other (rather same method Marxism takes but with a different conclusion).

I think we have to recognise that the enemy is utterly different from 40-50 years ago. The Left needs to organise differently and fundamentally we need to abandon the old templates of democratic centralism and party discipline. We are light years from a coup d’etat and we cannot formulate a Bolshevik Party # 2 however we much we dream of being the next Lenin and learn the texts.

We need to build more fluid and democratic organisations that are open to people and follow a more educative role as opposed to finding a line for people to follow. People these days like to hear the debates and the different ideas on offer. This is how you learn about ideas and how ideas get tested against each other and against the experiences of the class struggle. Indeed a criticism of the British SWP is that they take people who have had educationally privileged backgrounds and turn them into political yobbos. The top down approach may have been feasible in the context of clumsy and slow information technology and low cultural and educational level.

The Left needs a style of politics that aims for the development of intelligent confident comrades. We need something that allows open and free debate and involves people in all of the struggles against the neo-liberal onslaught. This is how to spread political ideas and to engage with people.

How do we get from where we are now to the sort of political forms I have described above?

As I have argued before, it makes more sense to be in the LP and active on the Left. New Labour is steeped in neo-liberalism but at the same time is a bourgeois workers party (I still believe Lenin was right on that). I am sure Brown would like to steer New Labour into a neo-liberal sunset but there are still expectations as it's a social democratic party which, has roots in the trade union movement. Of course Brown would dearly love to forget that.

The labour left still exists and still has an audience both within the LP and the trade unions. The McDonnell campaign, derided by those outside of the LP, is evidence of this. All the informal polls indicated this. The campaign foundered on the parliamentary party, handed-picked by the leadership and under heavy pressure from the whips. There is always the example of Walter Wolfgang: you could almost say that being in the LP is ultra-left!

Sooner or later Brown will need to purge the LP. Maybe this will be done in dribs and drabs and will not allow much for mobilising against, maybe it will stumble and there will be a chance of hitting back.

Whatever the nature of the Left of the future a vital component will be what is left of the LP and the unions. In order that there is a left in the labour movement there needs to be an active left in the LP and unions now. If you are outside the LP and outside the unions you will never have any chance of doing anything in either.