I enjoyed hearing Alan Simpson at the Campaign Group Rally in Blackpool. I found his analysis fresh and positive. He is always looking for the positive and suggests clear strategies (to my way of thinking anyway) about how we can actually move our agenda forward and persuade people in practical terms why they should be supporting it. I guess I sound anything other than idealistic with this view, and probably would prefer to be using more forceful arguments in getting our points across. Unfortunately although my principles have remained unaltered my approach has changed, which until hearing the likes of Alan and Cathy Jamieson (who wrote in last month's LLB), I felt maybe I'd lost the plot and become a sheep of the leadership. I guess that's what being Deputy Leader of a council in the South East (Tendring District Council) does to you. Anyway its good to know that we are looking at a strategy for the left and not simply putting up with speaking out against what's been going on during recent times. That's not enough for me, I prefer action to words, which is why I decided to sacrifice myself on the altar of local government in the first place.

Darren Barrenger,
Brightlingsea

The OMOV reforms in the Labour Party are irreversible. The clock can't be turned back to the somewhat imperfect participatory democracy that characterised traditional Labourism. OMOV does make it more difficult, but it does not prevent the left from successfully campaigning for votes.

If we are to influence or transform New Labourism in the future, the socialist left needs to prioritise Party democracy. Democratic campaigns should centre on two key objectives.

First, when Party organs (e.g. the NEC) are elected by OMOV, a proportional voting system should be used. Not only is it intrinsically more democratic, but it is more important that socialists be actually represented and involved in Party organs than to think that there will be some magic day when we will sweep the board and the Party will be ours.

Second, we must challenge the pernicious practice by which the leadership abrogates democracy through politically motivated expulsions, CLP suspensions and candidate non-endorsements (e.g. Liz Davies). We should campaign for the NEC and other such committees with exclusionary powers, to be proportionally representative and to have the power of disciplinary exclusion only if 5/6 of the committee concurs, the minimum proportion of a jury needed to convict in an English criminal trial. We need to take the buzz words of democratisation and modernisation from Blair and give them some reality.

Peter Bowing,
Hungary

Sue Lukes's review of Liz Davies's pamphlet (November LLB) angered me with its lofty style. Who the hell are Wolf and Paglia? Middle-class educated women have a duty to impart their knowledge in a way we can all understand. Terms like post-feminism mean little to most ordinary women. (Me, I'm still trying to cope with post-modernism!)

Linda Clarke,
Wood Green