Collectivism is dead, executed by new Labour, as we know. But hark! Fresh stirrings in the undergrowth. The Parliamentary Labour Party Trade Union Group, the largest body of its kind at Westminster, has elected new officers and is working on draft labour legislation for inclusion in the election manifesto. Tony Blair, once an employment lawyer, diluted the rights at work law now coming into operation. He will, I trust, be dismayed to learn that the 220-strong group of MPs (including ministers) is determined to reverse some of the impediments that he and Peter Mandelson have put in the way of union recognition.
Gerry "Sooty" Sutcliffe, chair of the group since the election, has departed to the Whips' Office. His place has been taken by Tony Lloyd, former Foreign Office minister, who has no particular reason to love the great helmsman. Other officers include Bob Laxton (RMT) and Bill Olner (AEEU), who both look as if they were built in the erecting shops at Doncaster railway plant. The soccer loony Ian Davidson, who has the Govan yards in his constituency, completes the line-up. I wouldn't care to argue with them.
Sometimes the pressure is from the strangest quarters. Through the post comes a sweet note from Janet Bush, quondam economics editor of the Times and now director of neweurope, the fashionably lower-case anti-euro lobbyists. She urges my paper, the Mirror, to take a more sceptical line on the single currency - a bootless quest if ever I heard one. Ms Bush insists that Euroscepticism is not the preserve of the Tories, adding: "many of us are keen supporters of the government." So far, so good. But she simply cannot restrain herself, concluding: "As you know, your great friend Charlie [Whelan] refers to the euro as bollocks." Really? Only - in my experience - in the way that he refers to everything else under the sun. Otherwise, the former press aide to Gordon Brown loyally applies the Chancellor's five key tests: Can you eat it? Can you drink it? Who wants to know? Who's paying for it? And can I get back to you from the Red Lion?
At least neweurope can afford first-class post. The money in the Frank Dobson camp must be running out, because his latest anti-Ken diatribe in the London mayoralty contest comes second-class. A bit like its arguments. The four-page letter promises "division and rancour" in every forum of the Labour Party in London if Livingstone should win the nomination. "Groups like the SWP and Socialist Organiser are urging Labour members to vote for him so that they can feed off a new wave of strife in the party," he claims.
Not content with bringing out a volume of her speeches, Tory tyro Ann Widdecombe has given her blessing to a biography. It will be written by Nick Kochan, who co-authored a book on Gordon Brown's first year at the Treasury. Kochan is regarded as a bit of a lefty, but the scourge of Jack Straw takes that in her short stride, as much else. The biography will be "with co-operation, but not official". I've been there. It is dangerous ground.
Widders is sure of herself. Not so her leader. William Hague wants to speak at the National Farmers' Union conference later this year. His aim, plainly, is to take advantage of the parlous state of British agriculture and whip up the backlash over fox-hunting. But the NFU president, Ben Gill, a canny North Yorkshireman who doesn't share No 10's low opinion of the Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown, suggested a public debate between Hague and Brown. William was last heard sucking a straw.
Waleswatch, an Internet column, held a competition to nominate the top Wales waster. Heading the poll is Neil Kinnock, who upsets fellow taffies by picking up more money the further he moves from his roots. In second place comes oleaginous Michael Howard, while Neil Hamilton can only make third. I bet Christine didn't know he was Welsh.
The writer is chief political commentator for the "Mirror"
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