David Osler, libertarian Marxist

… and I’m Dave Osler from London, in my mid 40s and so probably old enough to be Benjamin’s dad. I first got involved in politics thanks to movements like Rock Against Racism and Youth CND that arose from the punk rock scene in Britain in the late 1970s.

By the early 1980s, I joined the Labour Party Young Socialists and then Labour itself. At that time Labour was a mass working class-based party with substantial socialist and revolutionary currents, and nothing like the neoliberal Blairite organisation it is today.

My best known book – Labour Party plc – documents the transformation. As a result of writing it, I occasionally appear on television and radio programmes, arguing the case that New Labour is institutionally corrupt.

I have also been a member of several Trotskyist groupings, but these days have departed from Trotskyist orthodoxy on several points, and my politics have evolved in a more libertarian direction.

When it comes to the Aussie far left, I like some of what I read and hear about Democratic Socialist Perspective, but I’m not entirely convinced by some of their theory.

I’m a newcoming to blogging, only starting two months ago, but my main blog Dave’s Part has generally been well received, even though it has criticised almost everybody on the UK left … and right, for that matter.