"You see, although I freely acknowledge that our democracy leaves much to be desired (and I'm fully aware that this is something of a monstrous understatement!). I also believe that the right to vote still has enormous symbolic importance and we should not give it up lightly - and certainly not of our own free will - which is what we are doing if we don't vote!!"

Well said Shimrod. It's the best of the worst and so is organising inside the Labour Party. Nothing much that any individual does makes much difference in a decent democracy - that is the nature of democracy.

All those above can take their ball home or appeal to a lost age of socialism, fine but doing nothing is in fact doing nothing. If the Socialists can descibe or give examples of what they mean that would help a bit. I have called my self a socialist for around 40 years and I haven't really come across a coherent collection of proposals or concrete examples of it working in practice.

Billy Bragg said something good the other nihgt:

Neither New Labour nor Old Labour - but Organised Labour.