Not that long ago, a headline like this one couldn't have been written about a campaign in the UK. Thanks to the National Health Service, people in Britain knew that they had guaranteed healthcare, for everyone, for life, paid for by general taxation and free at the point of need. Now, of course, thanks to him, him, her and her, that's not the case any more - the NHS is under attack, and we desperately need to organise a fight just to hold on to what remains.

So Gordon Brown has launched his campaign for leader of the Labour Party - a campaign which he's been running for pretty much the whole of the last ten years. No sooner have we seen the back of one insincere smiling Prime Minister than once-grouchy Gordon suddenly reveals himself to be the owner of his very own sickly smile. Why do politicians feel the need to do this?

Anyone in UNISON, or any other trade union, who thinks that dealing with Gordon Brown would be any different from dealing with Blair should take note of the BBC report of Brown's statements, not least him "refusing to rule out employing ministers from other parties" (although I think the chances for anyone in, say, the Socialist Party, are probably pretty slim) and that "he also denied he would move the government to the left, saying he would continue to "drive forward" New Labour reforms to the public services".

This is bad news, and partly explains this, which is more.

Paul Smith has a video of John McDonnell interviewed.

He talks about democracy and the election, and gives an excellent demonstration as to why he should be the candidate. I hope Michael Meacher reflects on that over the weekend. I just can't imagine Meacher making as good a presentation to the media at this point, especially on Iraq and privatisation.

Writing about UNISON's continued silence on the question of who should succeed Tony Blair as leader of our party, Jon says:

The strategy that has transparently been pursued until now has been to pretend that it would be somehow wrong to express a view “until we know who all the candidates are” and thereby to cede to the Parliamentary Labour Party all power to decide upon whether our members who pay the political levy will be offered a real choice.

Leaving that decision in the hands of the Parliamentary Labour Party seems all the more dangerous now.

I nearly didn't post any comment on this 'news' story as it doesn't deserve the bandwidth, even though I was desperate to shout, "pay some fucking attention to things that matter" to these people:

But not everyone is a Helvetica lover. Type "I hate Helvetica" into Google and there are forums for people who rage at the mindless "corporate chic" of this dominant font. They see it as a vehicle for social conformity through consumerism, shifting product with a great big steam-roller of neutrality.

And these:

There is a "ban Comic Sans" campaign, which has attempted to get legislation enacted in Canada.

With everybody now predicting that Blair will announce his resignation tomorrow, I've sent this letter to some nearby Labour MPs. We don't have a Labour MP in Harborough, despite my previous best efforts, so the power to grant or deny us a say in who should lead the Labour Party rests with the Parliamentary Labour Party. Oh great!

Leicester hasn't had a May Day march for a few years, so it was great to get back into the tradition with a lively, colourful and loud march through Leicester in support of public services, against cuts and closures - there was obviously a big focus on NHS cuts locally, and many chants of "PFI has got to go", but also education, job centres and even the local post office got a mention!

On our way home from UNISON health conference yesterday, we were talking about how we really ought to get our website back online. The previous incarnation of 4glengate.net died just when it could have got interesting - I was really keen to develop a "union rep's blog" where I could document the reality of life as a UNISON activist in an NHS workplace. Sadly, the reality of like as a UNISON activist in an NHS workplace seemed to be that you were far too busy to write blog articles, and the site stagnated and died.

A pity.

Now, Kate has promised to write some material for the site from time to time. And even the kids are talking about adding stuff to it.