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Well, I guess I'm just some anti-democratic, Red Tory Blairite bastard, as I applauded last week's decision by the Courts to uphold the restrictions placed by Labour's NEC on who could vote in the forthcoming leadership election.  I don't think it at all unreasonable that anyone who joined the party since January should not be allowed to vote in the election: the odds are that many of these new members joined solely for the purpose of voting for Corbyn, or for anyone who stood against him.  Indeed, one of the new members who brought the original court action to overturn the NEC decision admitted in a TV interview that his only purpose in joining the party was to vote for Corbyn. Which really reinforces the NEC's case.  Surely, nobody should join a political party to pursue a single issue or support a single candidate.  Unless they are some kind of entryist who isn't actually interested in the broader aims and ethos of the party, that is.  Moreover, it wasn't as if these new members weren't given an alternative route to voting privileges: they could have paid their twenty five quid and become a registered supporter.  It's what I've done, (and I freely admit that I'm doing it solely to get the chance vote against Corbyn - I thought I'd use those self-righteous Corbynite bastards' own tactics against them).

But apparently twenty five quid is a fortune and only fabulously wealthy people like me can afford to pay that sort of money.  Yet more evidence, apparently of how us so called 'Blairites' (I really wish those Momentum tossers would come up with more original and/or accurate playground insults), hate the idea of democracy within the Labour party.  The problem with such nonsense being that political parties, even those operating in democracies, don't actually have to be democratic in their own structures.  They are also, by their very nature, highly selective about their membership and who they allow to vote in their internal elections.  (Or they should be).  Clearly, they have to try and ensure that any new members are committed to the same principles and ideology as the party, otherwise you'll have hordes of people who don't share those values joining in order to subvert them.  (Which is effectively what has happened).  Political parties aren't mass movements, (as Corbyn and his cronies seem to think they are) - they don't have to attract huge numbers of paid up members, (although all those subscriptions might help with the funding).  After all, their function is to elect representatives to bodies such as local councils, Assemblies and the like, and, most importantly, Parliament, by persuading non-party members to vote for their candidates.  Otherwise they are nothing more than pressure groups.  But unfortunately, the Corbynites just don't seem to grasp this simple concept.  Indeed, they don't even seem to grasp the fundamental fact that we don't actually have direct democracy in the UK - it is a representative democracy.  Mass campaigns, rallys and the like are all very well, but they can't actually directly influence government policy - that can only be achieved through gaining power by electing representatives to parliament.