`S' word strikes a chord on May Day in Wales

Old Labour: Nostalgia for post-war era flows at rally in Bevan's heartland

"I'm not New Labour, I'm not Old Labour, I'm a Socialist." Labour's embrace of the values that put Tony Blair into Number 10 with an undreamt- of majority may have been at the back of Llew Smith's mind when the traditional May Day rally in the Blaenau Gwent kicked off yesterday.

Mr Smith, the local MP, has no hesitation in using the "S" word. It was repeated frequently at the rally in a cinema at Brynmawr, a South Wales Valleys town that personifies the radicalism of Aneurin Bevan , the MP for 31 years until his death in 1960. After Bevan came Michael Foot who handed the baton on to Mr Smith in 1992.

The beliefs of older radicals were articulated, carefully and with a sense of wonder, at Thursday's victory by Dennis Skinner who joined Mr Smith and Audrey Wise MP for the celebrations.

Standing in front of a huge banner emblazoned "Blaenau Gwent Constituency Labour Party. Forward with Socialism," Mr Skinner reminded the 500 at the gathering that he would no longer sit in the Commons just below Paddy Ashdown.

"The Liberals will be in opposition and I'll be sitting on the Government side, where Ted Heath used to sit" he said.

There was a round of applause when the MP for Bolsover joked: "We won despite the Dimbleby brothers. The election wasn't about millionaires in TV studios talking to media pundits. It was about people like you."

Nostalgia comes easily in places where memories are long and values are handed down from generation to generation, just as the jobs were before the coalmines were closed.

Evoking the experience of the Labour government which swept to power in 1945, Mr Skinner told a tale: "There was a man called Stafford Cripps who had control of the money just like Gordon Brown has, though Gordon doesn't look like Stafford. Nye Bevan said we needed a National Health Service and a Welfare State and the money was found."

Now Labour was back with a majority even more decisive than that of Clement Attlee, a start should be made on redistributing power and wealth.

There would, Mr Skinner conceded, be a honeymoon: "We're on different territory now. The Tories have been vanquished and I don't want to be accused of stirring up protest."

But, he declared, the revenue from North Sea oil should be earmarked for the NHS.

Another source of income was "VAT on private schools, although I don't know if that would go down well with everyone in the leadership, although it could fetch about pounds 1bn."

The speakers returned again and again to the philosophy of the Bevan era. The Campaign Group, to which the three MPs belong, clearly takes its inspiration from the post-War phenomenon.

Mrs Wise, fresh from May Day celebrations at the weekend in her Preston constituency, said: "It is important for a Labour government to make a start on righting the wrongs of the past 18 years. It can't be done overnight and Tony Blair hasn't got seven-league boots, but we must show clearly that we are moving in the right - sorry, I mean correct - direction."

Songsheets were handed out before the meeting began but when the audience stood to sing the Red Flag, few needed them.