Conference feedback and Derek Wall's booklaunch in London

I have not been at party conference this weekend, the first I have missed in about six years. I have just announced that I am standing down from GPRC, the Regional Council, after one year because of the many other things I am involved in. Friends at conference are sending regular feedback on what is happening and I am spotting the occasionl newspaper article such as the one in yesterdays's Independent

I was very pleased to hear that I have been elected to serve on the international committee, having served on it for half of this year. I was also pleased to hear that the shadow cabinet motion, to which I was utterly opposed, was referred back. Some very good emergency motions passed, including the one deploring what is happening to the Roma in France. I was not in favour of  the party supporting AV in the referendum, regarding it as a really flawed electoral system and something which Nick Clegg called "a miserable compromise" before the election. However, the party has voted to support the campaign in the referendum. I will not be playing any role in that campaign and will have to consider how I react to it as an individual.

There are some good people elected on to the executive and the committees and I look forward to working with them. I am not fully aware yet of how other motions fared, although I was against the 'steady state economics' motion which I consider nothing like as radical as what we should be supporting in a period of cuts which may return us conditions not unlike those of the 30s.

Of course I am sorry that Derek Wall was not elected Deputy Leader but it was a good campaign and he was always the underdog with the party Leader and much of the party machine against him. Under the circumstances he did quite well and raised a number of important issues in his campaign. Unlike some I do not see it as a slap in the face for Green Left or the Left in the party generally. I am going to hear Derek speak tomorrow at the launch of his book on 'Green Left and the rise of Ecosocialism' at the Venezuelan Embassy in London where Hugo Blanco, of whom I have heard great things, is also speaking. Bolivar Hall is quite central and close to Warren St station and the launch is at 7.30pm.

Tomorrow I have another meeting of the steering committee of the Coalition of Resistance and am pushing hard for an event to mark the European Day of Action against the Cuts, when there will be general strike in Spain etc. The TUC's reaction to all of this is way too mild and too late in my opinion and I just hope that some of the more radical unions such as the PCS begin to push them towards action. The problem, to some extent, is that they are hampered by Thatcher's anti-trade union laws which New Labour did nothing to change. But the time for a general strike is fast approaching. If the Spanish and French can do it, then why not the British? The apparent contradictions are personified by John Monks's statement on the Spanish strike.