In 1994 I led the Democratic Left campaign to see if radical socialist policies where acceptable as an alternative to the liberal Manx Labour Party policies at local government level.

Although the expected result was to be 15 to 20% the result was an astonishing 43% of the vote and came very close to victory .

The intention was not to structure a new political Party but to encourage the MLP to take a more historical Tearist line and not collude with the Adam Smith Laissez-faire style economy which was all too prevalent at that time and still is today.

For some time, I have been studying the restructuring of Iberian and Balkan socialist politics but recently has taken an interest in a resurgent MLP and have noted that the approach to a fairer society is of a more progressive ideology than the Starmeristic , lackluster Labour Party on the adjacent island.

The MLP comes across as a small but well-organised Party with constitutional discipline.

The Faragher/Maltby duo come across clear and well-organised and in Douglas Town Council the same can be said .

The issue now is the future, behind every working class structured political party there is a youth section .

The youth of today with progressive optimism are the candidates for public office of the future.

The students on the Isle of Man are in abundance, can the MLP tap into this fledgling ideological asset has yet to be seen.

I believe they can.

Don’t blink too often, there is an air of discontent and the realisation that a leashless free market economy is not the only way.

Keith Fox

York

This letter was first published in the Isle of Man Examiner of June 27.

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