Has the Labour Party become too broad a church?

A great Scot and Labour Party leader, Keir Hardie, formed the Independent Labour party because he felt that the Liberal Party would not represent the working class although it relied on their votes.

Gordon Brown, also a Labour Party leader, calls for 'a government of all the talents' and invites strange people like Shirley Williams into it. Now we have more sleaze with Peter Hain's deputy leader campaign money. Now Peter calls himself a 'libertarian socialist', whatever that means. I'm sure he thinks he is, but all I remember is, he was the leader of the Young Liberals, not the Young Socialists. Must be something to do with him becoming Welsh.

There must be a base to the Labour Party's socialism. Sure we don't need another clause four, but we do need more than the wishy-washy liberalism the leadership gives us today. They are talking about nationalizing Northern Rock, but only because they know the public is watching and won't accept an old friends deal with likes of Richard Branson. There's just too much tax-payers money already in the kitty.

I do fail to understand how campaigning for the deputy leader's post can cost so much. It's an internal party election so a candidate just needs to get his views out to the party faithful in the branches, parliament and the unions. So you build a website, travel to branch meetings, produce a few thousand pamphlets, and spend £10,000. The money Peter Hain forgot to declare was £103,000 and that was just part of what he spent. What did he spend the money on? Were the candidates buying TV spots? I just don't see it.