This morning I’ve been attempting to uncover the rules governing the selection of Labour Party’s Shadow Cabinet – you know, that thing that David Miliband doesn’t want to be a part of.

Labour has different rules governing its behaviour during periods of opposition and periods of government. When they’re not in Government suddenly things start looking a lot more democratic with elections and the like, while in government they empower the leader to take politically useful shortcuts. Their rules say that in opposition the Shadow Cabinet must be nominated and elected by the MPs, not merely appointed by the Leader.

However, for a vote to be valid, an MP must vote for 6 men and 6 women. Ugh. Here we go again. Labour has no qualms with positive discrimination – consider how successful the tokenisation of Diane Abbott was, how Labour created the illusion that women are TOTALLY allowed to run for the leadership, thus inspiring the next generation of women and girls who look forward to being humiliated themselves one day.

By successful, you should read “abject failure”, obviously.

But then, what did we expect? Not enough MPs actually wanted to nominate Diane to stand – it was only because Labour panicked and decided that getting her on the ballot would be a cheap and easy way of demonstrating their equal rights credentials. Yet it didn’t change the underlying reality: No-one really wanted Diane Abbott because she’s a pompous, passive-agressive arsehole.

Want proof? She whinged to Polly Toynbee during the campaign that the contest was unfairly stacked against her.  David Miliband’s campaign had hundreds of thousands of pounds and a team of over 90 people, whilst hers had 2 and a half people and £1,700. This, she says, is a failure of the rules to level the playing field. Wouldn’t it have been fairer for the party to fund their campaigns, perhaps, and provide the volunteers, perhaps, so that she wouldn’t disadvantaged by the fact that people didn’t actually want her to be leader?

What a role model! What a superstar!

Far from providing a shining beacon of ‘what’s possible’, Diane was turned into a freak show and a warning. She was given a leg up through tokenism and that’s all her candidacy was ever seen as. It made things worse.

Still, no-one ever accused Labour of learning from their mistakes. Another contest, another chance to prove how “equal” they really (really) think women are.

So you think George Lucas couldn’t get any worse? Oh, oh truly he could. How George Lucas Found A Way To Cheapen The Latest Hollywood Gimmick. It’s written by me and it’s over on the Speccie Arts Blog.

It may help with the nerd rage one feels on occasions such as this.

The curious thing about religions, at least from my point of view, is that anyone can start one. The trick is to have your religion ‘make it’, becoming a perpetually self-sustaining entity that exists long, long, long after you’re dead. That’s how you “win” the religion game. The prize? Immortality.Well, sort of. Your name will live on long after you’re dead, and if you’re really good people will be changing their behaviours based on things you’ve said.

Come on… who wouldn’t be into that? It sounds brilliant!

It is, perhaps, ironic then, that so many religions have at their core beliefs in the ability to live on after death. Whether or not people can isn’t something I’m going to answer here (oh, sod it, the answer is “no, they can’t”) but in many ways being a prophet or leader of a religion will often have people assuming you’re off being immortal somewhere, doing all immortally type things like.. um… counting grains of sand in the Sahara Desert for the 1,004,232nd time or making out with each other. Or is that just Vampires? Bloody vampires have all the fun.

But I’ve digressed. If the BBC’s documentary about Scientology last night is right then Official Scientology is losing followers, not gaining them. I doubt, somehow, that they’re going to have a cash-flow problem, and their survival isn’t really in doubt – but it seems incredible that recruitment wouldn’t be getting harder as details about their practices leak into the wild.

The religion game is survival of the fittest. It’s a microcosm of evolutionary theory whereby religions that operate in a way that promotes their growth survive, while those that don’t do not. As far as models of faith go, the Abrahamic faiths (for example) are phenomenally successful, which is unsurprising. Many are expansion packs for Judaism which, itself, has proved to be very very resilient.

The question for Scientology is why they seem determined to avoid moving to a model that’s proven to work in the long, long, long, long term?  It’s in territory that puts it outside of that sweet spot enjoyed by the really successful religions, and as David Allen Green points out, the Internet is proving to be a fundamental obstacle to the Church’s long term growth plans. The problem is simple: If you keep your secrets secret, you can’t really have a go at people for calling your secrets stupid. If they’re out in the open then when people call them stupid you can go down the tried and tested route of calling them intolerant of religious belief.

As a model that actually works perfectly well. Give away your “secrets” for free and charge people for belonging to the community, for attending your churches. That’s worked for thousands of years. It’ll probably work for thousands of years more.

You might be worried. You’re thinking, “Damn! If they find out our secrets they’ll think our Church is stupid!” but, seriously, you’re wrong. People can believe just about anything if you give them enough of a reason to. Be a cool bunch of awesome people and tell people all they have to do to join you is believe that there’s some sort of alien space god hiding inside teapots and, fuck it, people will. They really will. In fact, it’s better than that. They don’t even have to believe it – they just need to say they do and never, ever, ever admit to anyone else that they don’t. That’s practically the same thing for your purposes.

The religions that have been going for thousands of years have survived because they’ve been flexible enough to adapt to a world changing very quickly and they ‘fit’ with human psychology quite nicely. The religions that survive the Internet will, I’ve no doubt, be even harder to shift than ever (for those that try. Personally I think once you’ve thrown people to lions and that’s not worked, you give up or go mad.)

I’ve no doubt that Scientology, with the right changes, could become a perfectly viable religion like any other. Whether or not they do depends on whether or not they’ve learnt the lessons of the ones who’ve already made it. Religion is a game – learn to play, noobs.

It’s a New Generation for Labour. That’s the message. But… but what does it mean? Is it Labour Jim, but not as we know it? Can you wrap your positronic matrix around the nuances of difference? Is Ed boldly going where no Labour leader has gone before?

This isn’t quite the Labour Party I’d imagined. Can a more soft, squishy, liberal Labour Party regain the working class support that cost it the last election? Can they be won back with economics alone, without the authoritarian thuggery of the past?

Questions questions…. but few answers as yet.

Another blogger, Ed Whitfield, wonders why I’ve accused the Labour Party of being “Socialist”. Isn’t conventional wisdom that since Tony Blair, Labour’s been many things – including “right wing” and “fascist” and lots of other juicy political words – but what they’ve not been, surely, is “Socialist”?

I thought, hey, I’ve not done a generic ideology post in months and this is as good as an excuse as any to do one. A short one.

Socialism is a very ill-defined concept and anyone who tells you otherwise is likely to be confusing, “wot I reckon socialism means” with “wot socialism means”. You show me one book with a clear definition (unlikely, but I’ll let you try) I’ll find another that contradicts it and explains why the other lot are totally wrong.

Individual socialists are very clear about what their version is not “It’s not the USSR” , “It’s not Capitalism”, “It’s not fascism” etc, but as for what it actually is? Well it’s an ever changing, mean-anything-to-anyone concept that has some sort of vague notion of collectivism at the core.

I appreciate that there’s some sort of “Hobbyist Socialism”. Hobbyists up and down the country have little political parties and pressure groups that dabble in a more hardcore, DIY, build-your-own Socialism. Some even write blogs and pamphlets. And books. There’s a whole cottage industry devoted to explaining the inexplicable.

But, for the sake of my own sanity and not getting involved with long protracted arguments about what one particular word means, I have found a useful way of explaining “socialism” (at least the British variety) is to say simply that it’s whatever stupid shit The Labour Party are doing today. I call Labour “Socialists” because, lacking another credible definition that any two people can agree upon, it makes sense to regard Labour as “Mainstream Socialism” and Mainstream Socialism is defined by what Labour do.

It’s not ideal but, seriously, politics is dull and complicated enough without pointless additional complexity created by deliberately vague labels and words like this. It’s not dumbing down – it’s about not wasting energy on stuff that doesn’t matter.