There are now some 2,000 salaried Labour politicians, ranging from Ministers of the Crown to local authority Cabinet members, through the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. Perhaps another 5,000 are trying to dig themselves in, as future successors to the present salaried incumbents. And there are some 350,000 actual or recent Party members, the political rank-and-file sufficiently interested to register for Party membership. Current Party membership is reported to have fallen to perhaps 250,000 - the precise figures are not important.  But the trends, and relations within the Party, certainly are important. 

For the salariat and the foot-soldiers are now singing from different hymn-sheets. 

• The foot-soldiers want to see the creation of a new universal old age pension, payable as of right, delivering to every citizen the assurance of a rudimentary  income in old age, a state assurance against impoverishment - this was Labour's commitment in 1976, cruelly unpicked by Margaret Thatcher in 1981.

Cannot be done, says the salariat - too rigid a Treasury commitment, reducing economic and fiscal flexibility to an unacceptable degree, threatening Government’s room for manoeuvre – the Thatcher settlement must stand - look at the horrors of France and Germany, they are crippled by their pension system – we must maintain a system of low entitlement, supplemented by means-testing for those in greatest need.

• The foot-soldiers want to reassert the primacy of non-selective, comprehensive education, and the ideal of a first-class school in every neighbourhood.

Cannot be done, says the salariat – parents must have choice, and that means encouraging the emergence of schools with different specialisms, permitting pupil selection – these options must all be provided within the state system, or else there will be an even greater flight of the middle-class from state schools into the private sector – what matters is what works…

•  The foot-soldiers hate means-testing, and demand that the society of their choice should be based throughout upon doctrines of entitlement – in health, in education, in housing, and in pensions.

How naive, says the salariat – do these foot-soldiers understand nothing of the subtleties of retaining power in a modern democracy - how do they think we can keep our jobs?  Is not our job-security of our importance as well?  All declared political ends must be achievable by covert manipulation, by unobserved sleight-of-hand, and the Means-Tested State (including the clever device of the means-tested tax-credit, which conceals many subsidies...) is designed to deliver precisely that degree of flexibility, without changing the perceived headline rates of tax and Government expenditure.  Do they understand nothing, these foot-soldiers?

• The foot-soldiers are outraged by abuses within the corporate sector, fat cat salaries, pensions scams, City scandals, arbitrary global manipulation, blatant tax evasion, anti-Union practices, and they demand radical reform, the assertion of socialist priorities throughout company law.

Cannot be done, says the salariat.- the UK cannot act unilaterally, and there is no hope of securing international agreement on company law reform - we must stick with the pack - we will do what we can, of course, but no radical reform is possible, such as that advocated at Tame the Corporations - we cannot risk offending the captains of industry, there would be a flight of corporate settlement and investment from the UK - and the foot-soldiers would not like that, would they?

• The foot-soldiers long for a Party which allows them to participate, which respects their democratic rights, in which local CLPs can choose their own candidates, re-selecting at will, and making a contribution to the day-to-day cut-and-thrust of politics.

Cannot be done, says the salariat – if we are to attract “good people” into politics, they must be given a reasonable degree of career certainty, and re-selection procedures should be biased firmly in favour of retaining sitting members, to the extent that de-selection becomes virtually impossible.  And as for “policy”, foot-soldiers should leave that to the expert salariat, foot-soldiers concentrate on what the issues may or may not arise two years ahead, within a framework fixed by the salariat – that’s why we have so helpfully arranged Policy Forums, precisely to keep the foot-soldiers quiet, and stop them interfering with current politics.  Falling Party membership?  Oh, not very important really, just iconic - the salariat wins or loses Elections, by central action or inaction, for better or for worse..

• The foot-soldiers are adamant that there should be for better protection as of right for individual workers against the vagaries of unemployment and of an arbitrary global economy, with improved unemployment benefit and job-search support - for foot-soldiers, insecurity of earned-income remains a key anxiety.

Too rigid and too expensive, says the salariat – look at the Continent, and see their problems – better to rely on the harsh disciplines of the market, in the American manner, knowing that even if individuals are penalised for inaction, the overall systemic gains will outweigh the hardship of a minority - no, that's not trickle-down, but a bit like percolate-through..

• The foot-soldiers are exasperated by the authoritarianism of the salariat, its reliance on repressive policing and excessive incarceration, and the retention of a policy of drugs prohibition - which is very expensive, socially disruptive and wholly unsuccessful.

Foot-soldiers are bleeding-heart liberals, who should leave the really tough Government decisions to the salariat – some foot-soldiers even oppose war on Iraq, we understand, so we know where they are coming from – the truth is that any Government that does not act with consistent and well-publicised harshness on any of these issues – drugs, immigration, Saddam – will be severely punished at the polls – we know our voters, and they are a nasty lot, we know what needs to be done to get re-elected – and that is what the foot-soldiers want too, is it not?

• The foot-soldiers dislike the massive constitutional centralisation of recent years, and yearn for some means of pursuing socialist solutions within their own regions and communities, of reconnecting with the exciting process of governing themselves.

We do agree with that, say the salariat – provided that we retain overall control, and that there is no substantive dilution of our power. Devolution to London?  No, London is too important for any real power to be allowed to leave our hands.  Scotland and Wales?  Effectively, we control the purse-strings, and anyway we regret relinquishing so much power in 1999 – as for the English regions, you can rest assured that they will not be allowed to exercise any power of any significance, although they have already been offered the option of talking-shops, to keep the children quiet while we get on with the real work of Government – anyhow, local government has declined in calibre beyond the point of no-return, in terms of both Councillors and Officers - we are therefore forced to muscle in on a wide range of local initiatives (which is admittedly good for our political standing, therefore re-election prospects).  We are completely in favour of local devolution, so long as the compliant local authorities prove to us in advance that they will keep their noses clean – we have cunningly called that “earned autonomy” – clever, huh?

• The foot-soldiers dislike the massive extension of the private sector into state services via the Private Finance Initiative – they would prefer to re-assert the socialist presumption that public services should be delivered by public employees, answerable to a public authority.

That’s very old-fashioned, says the salariat - that went out with the Ark, and we must modernize – the private sector can handle wide swathes of public service functions, and should be encouraged to do so - the practice reduces the exposure of Ministers and local councillors to criticism for non-performance, because "the contractors" can be blamed  – PFI allows a major public works programme to go ahead off-balance-sheet, without frightening the middle-class horses with obvious taxation increases – what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over – and Gordon’s powers of prestidigitation are legendary...

• No wonder there are growing distances within the Party.