News of my 15 seconds . . .

. . .of blogging fame arrives via my sitemeter (relegated to page 2 of the link of course), and my friends and family would be so proud, except I don't know any friends or family who actually read the Glasgow Herald. I'm a tad bemused that a throwaway line is quoted - though I stand by my opinion that the SSP will implode and explode simultaneously - but, party hack to the bitter end, my fingers are crossed that a few people visiting the blog will check out the links to the Socialist Standard as featured on the sidebar.

It is a shame that this blog post isn't cited in the piece, 'cos I happen to think it is the best blog post I've read on the whole business. And I'm not just saying that 'cos Shuggy was kind enough to link to my post. I also liked this opinion piece on the matter from what, I presume, was the Canadian section of the SIAW which was buried away in the comments box of the Drinked Soaked Trots superblog. I especially like this passage:

"First and foremost, it should not be overlooked that Sheridan and his leading critics alike all come out of the Militant tradition established by the late Ted Grant, which for decades was firmly wedded to the doctrine of the expedient lie: no, we’re not a party, we’re just a tendency; no, we’re not Trotskyist entryists, we’re just ordinary working-class folk; no, we don’t control constituency Labour parties, or Labour groups in local councils, from behind the scenes, we just publish a weekly newspaper. They've moved on from entryism (largely because the Scottish Parliament's PR system has provided a new opening for them rather than from some deepseated change of heart), but why should anyone now believe anything that any of them say without corroboration?"

I don't necessarily go along with the bit about why they moved away from entryism: I think there was a genuine political and intellectual shift away from their previous shoddy practice, but hats off to the SIAW for hitting the nail squarely on the head otherwise.