"In recent days, many of us have shed tears of anger, disappointment and frustration. Long after these New Labour charlatans have been consigned to a nasty little footnote in history, the achievements of the British Labour Party will be an example and beacon for all humankind. I am proud to be a member of the Labour Party."
At the moment I live is a parallel universe. On the one hand the personal where my brother,
denied life prolonging treatment that would cost the taxpayer £36,000, is gradually wasting away with primary liver cancer. The other universe is that of "members" of my beloved Labour Party being exposed as a bunch of cheating, lying hucksters seeking to exploit the public purse.
Now I have expectations of how the Conservative Party should behave. They have their beliefs and they clearly live by them. The likes of Douglas Hogg expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab to clean out their moat. I'm not interested that they operated "within the rules". Rules always benefit rich and powerful. That is one of the reasons I am a Socialist.
I feel my eyes welling with tears as I recount in my mind the reason I joined the Labour Party. My childhood in East London was not easy.
I was in a primary school class of over 50. I was well cared for and had socks under my shoes, many of my classmates had no socks.
I was born into a one bedroomed flat and soon after we moved to a "prefab" built on the site of a V-Bomb attack. We were the fortunate ones, many of my schoolfriends lived in overcrowded and smelly slums. For many the only holiday they got was to disappear from school for a fortnight in September to pick hops in Kent.
My Mother was fiercely proud of her reputation. Each Saturday I would be dispatched to the Town Hall where I would pay the rent. She was immensely proud of her "clean" rent book, a pride typical of working class people. Despite our difficulties she was never in debt, not a penny, to anyone.
In the recent past the 1950s and early 1960s have been ridiculed. My experience of a traditional 1950s working class community, with a heavy Jewish presence, was that there was a basic morality, decency and solidarity, that has been lost to our impoverishment.
As I got older I met members of local political parties. In all of them I found that same decency. There was no need to work "within the rules", there was behaviour that was clearly off limits.
Eventually, just after my eighteenth birthday I joined the Labour Party. It was dominated by people who gave their time free of expenses to run the local council. I remember a talk to the Young Socialists by Jack Dunning, Chair of the Housing Committee. He enthused about the council's house building programme. This was a man on a mission to ensure his fellow citizens were decently housed.
My dear friend Bob Masters, the Chair of Libraries, had a vision for libraries and culture that meant that I, as a young working class lad, was able to access the vast riches of literature and culture.
I remember Vi Spurrin, telling me at a Dalston Ward party meeting, with tears in her eyes of how, before Labour's Welfare State, children used to go to school without shoes. These same stories I heard from others.
These people had seen their parents betrayed by First World War promises of "homes fit for heroes", taken part in the General Strike, fought Fascism at Cable Street, signed up to fight Hitler, and then worked to build a welfare state.
These were my people, this is where I started from. Health care was to be free. Working class people were to get access to education. There was to be a fair day's pay for a fair day's work irrespective of sex and social class. Clause IV of our constitution - for which I led the battle to preserve - promised that the worker "by hand or by brain" would enjoy the full fruits of our labour.
In 2009, after twelve years of "New Labour" I sit bewildered by the wreckage. Who would have thought that New Labour ministers, yes New Labour ministers, would be televised signing cheques for £13,000 to avoid allegations of tax avoidance? Why on earth is Hazel Blears still a Minister, or even still have the Labour whip?
Another minister is paying back £41,000 following an allegation of excessive use of the second homes allowance to buy furniture for a one bedroomed flat. I don't know many people who can sign a cheque for £41,000. For many people in my church that represents three or four years pension.
And how on earth does a non-entity like Peter Truscott, who I worked with in the European Parliament, become a "Lord", tries to make £72,000 from an unknown businessman and now faces the prospect of being the first peer since 1642 to face suspension?
How is it that a New Labour government, supposedly owing more to Methodism than Marx, has presided over the most rapid expansion of gambling since the 18th century? (Sadly aided and abetted by out of control individuals in the Methodist Church)
In what world do New Labour MPs expect the taxpayer to fund the cost of non-existent mortgages? Or for ipods? Or £7000 home movie systems?
One New Labour tosser explains himself by saying
"I have not broken any rules. It is correct that I put a claim in for a home cinema system costing £2,600.
"I rang the fees office and asked if there was a limit to what I could spend before I bought a TV, and they said no."
Did it not occur to him that such a telephone call should not have been made in the first place? His own morality and good sense should have dictated his actions, not the say so of a lowly official in the Commons fees office.
It hasn't been lost on me that all that cash could have been used to pay for my brother's treatment. The same sort of calculation is being made in every home in the land.
A few years ago myself and others were marginalised by "New Labour". Our old fashioned morality with our distaste for gambling and our opposition to a Labour government trying to ape Thatcher was "out of touch". I was told this on more that one occasion.
Something has gone very wrong. When things go wrong, we should put them right.
Firstly, no New Labour MP tainted in anyway by this scandal, should stand as a Labour candidate at the next election, not that we are going to win many seats if things continue as they are.
Secondly, no tainted New Labour MP should be nominated to the House of Lords. Any tainted New Labour members of the Lords should have the whip removed.
Thirdly, Labour Party members should remember what we are here for.
We have always been ordinary people who want to achieve extraordinary things. Our constituency are the poorest and least powerful people in the world. We are both national and international. We work for what is right. We can look people in the eye knowing that our personal behaviour reflects our politics.
In recent days, many of us have shed tears of anger, disappointment and frustration. Long after these New Labour charlatans have been consigned to a nasty little footnote in history, the achievements of the British Labour Party will be an example and beacon for all humankind. I am proud to be a member of the Labour Party.