Reg Freeson Obituary in Guardian

The Guardian carries an obituary of Reg Freeson, Housing Minister under Wilson and Callaghan.

Freeson was a Labour leftwinger, but, like Frank Dobson, this did not stop him being knifed by Ken Livingstone who had him de-selected to create a parliamentary vacancy in Brent East for Ken to fill.

It's a shame that someone who made a fine contribution to Labour as an MP and Minister is now mainly remembered for the humiliating and gratuitous way they were shoved aside to make way for Livingstone.

Of course, I am sure that Ken's acolytes would argue that the ends justify the means, as now we Londoners live in a socialist paradise which enjoys great fraternal relations with Chavez and Castro, where bourgeois deviations like Routemaster buses have been abolished for proletarian triumphs like the bendy bus and the oyster card, where the Standards Board for England's remit apparently does not run, where Labour Party membership is something that can be traded in from one election to the next, and where not noticeably qualified workers can get six figure salaries as GLA commissars providing they have previously served as members of the central committee of the International Marxist Group/Socialist Action.

A great unanswered question is who will our great leader Ken support for Labour Party Leader? He doesn't get on with John McDonnell having sacked him as GLC Deputy Leader back in the '80s for being too left wing (which was quite an acheivement for McDonnell given Ken's own politics). And he hates Gordon Brown, having called for him to be sacked as Chancellor in the late '90s, and in turn Brown trying to block his readmission to the Labour Party (which is a big plus point in Brown's favour as far as I am concerned).