The Centre Left is, as they say in all the best rock bands, “on hiatus” (usually, apparently, around the time they start “not feeling it”) for a couple of weeks.
On the minus side, the last major left-wing government in Europe, Spain, will probably fall while I’m away (although a last-minute rush for Rubalcaba is still possible, given that the alternative is fairly awful). Come to think of it, so might the rest of Europe, which might have me returning to a dystopian, Mad Max landscape, peopled by hordes of marauding Greeks. Ok, maybe not.
On the plus side, I will land in one of the only (perhaps the only) major left-wing democracies left in the West (and no, a cohabiting Obama does not count). And the surfing is apparently rather good, too.
Who knows, I may return to regale you of tales of how Labour Party Prime Minister Julia Gillard explained to me how the left could win again in the UK (it worked for Tony Blair with Paul Keating, after all, as noted here). Well, as I’m going to Sydney and I imagine she works in Canberra, coupled with the fact that, er, she has no idea who I am, probably not. However, I should note that my former Party colleague and fellow Labour Uncut writer, John McTernan, has just disappeared off to be her spin doctor. So you never know how or when those learning points might filter back to the UK to win the day for Labour…
See you all in a couple of weeks.
Australia. Proof that anglophone functioning democracy exists. No chinless wonders called Tarquin in Canberra.