By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
Recently, I posted an article addressed directly to disillusioned former Labour supporters, in which I said that “while a Labour government will always need to compromise, we can’t compromise on the need for a Labour government”.
It wasn’t intended as a direct call to arms to activists. Rather, it was a rough analysis of why a vote for anyone other than Labour at the next election was effectively a vote for a Tory government.
A few days later, Sunny Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy rebutted my argument, saying there is a "strategic reason for not supporting this New Labour administration". Sunny wrote that Labour in the current era has become “so vacuous and pragmatic…as to keep churning out lame policies and half-assed racist dog whistles” and that it is more sensible for the liberal- and left-minded to “let it die and then figure out how to influence the next one”.
Let me be honest: I used to feel exactly the same way. Last summer, when I still lived in New York and was wondering what to do next, I remember telling two friends on the subway that I felt the Labour government was dead and that there was nothing anyone could do to help it survive. I said then that there would inevitably be a Tory government after the next election, and that the Labour party required a period in opposition to find itself again.
My mates were angry with me, and told me quite bluntly that that was not a compelling argument. Of course, as usual they were right and I was wrong. In spite of the anger and the differences of left and right that Sunny wrote about, here’s why I changed my mind:
It is not – and it cannot – be in our fabric to let the movement that has been the most radical vehicle for progressive change this country has ever known to wither on the vine of opposition. To do so is to foster new ambivalence, introspective self-pity and ultimate indifference.
Labour has always been about confronting its inner daemons – from the internal struggle with Militant to the crucial debate over Clause IV and modernisation in the 1990s. Yes, those battles were in opposition, but with the recession taking effect and working people hurting more than ever before in recent memory, this time we have to make sure it's different.
The reason I feel this way is that there are millions of people in this country who continue to rely on a Labour government. We may not remember the ghost towns that resulted from the last Conservative government’s response to recession, but we can surely agree that there are people in the modern economy who cannot afford to be left alone by the next one’s exclusive, isolationist position on Europe and fiscal investment; on inheritance tax cuts for the unsuffering; on the levied promotion of marriage over agile respect for the reality of the modern family; or on the need to expand provisions such as Sure Start that are equipping children with modern minds for a modern era.
Giving up on Labour now is an invitation to those agents of exclusion and isolation.
Sometimes it’s also easy to forget quite the difference this Labour government has made to our lives through a proactive state.
My personal experiences are fairly simply told: I waited 7 hours with a broken arm and jaw in hospital queues in the 1980s, and returned recently to a new ward, instant treatment and fantastic care; I left a neglected school in 1998 and now go back to an energetic and inspiring place; my friends in Northern Ireland aren’t afraid of bombs like they were in the 80s and 90s; I earned £1.50 an hour for my first job and now that’s illegal; my favourite cities in the UK – Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham – don’t feel so riddled with want as they once were; the xenophobia and homophobia I grew up around are becoming the exception rather than the rule; and in my day-to-day life, the buses, tubes and trains I clamber onto offer a vastly improved service.
This is my story, singular and personal, but it is the direct result of an organisation working for the common good with policy that has direct results and I am not willing to turn my back on it for exactly those reasons. Unlike for Sunny, to me it is not about right- and left-wing factions or Brownite and Blairite personalities jostling for favour, or even the overly, if real, ideological battle between left and right. It’s about the sum of what we can all do when we work for and with people - when we put our minds together. And the reality is that we need to be in office to do that. Driving a wedge is just not helpful at a time when we need to be building a bridge.
That conversation I had with my mates reminded me that we can’t just give up on the progress that’s been made over the last 12 years. And that’s why – lonely as it gets sometimes – I spend most of my waking hours and many of my slumbered ones trying to build a more coherent, open and honest platform for those same tales to be retold.
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A lot of the comments speak of either returning to "old Labour" or staying the course because old Labour would never be elected. Tony Blair spoke of a "third way". New Labour wasn't/isn't the third way because its just a new Tory party.
There must be a happy medium. Retaining the minimum wage and equality laws and focus but doing away with authoritarian domestic policy and wrong headed foreign policy should be the aim. I don't know if this is possible given the lack of talent in the Government after 12 years.
What needs to happen first is a long study of where this Government has gone wrong. The focus on spin has been at the core of NuLab since its creation and has changed our politics for the worse. Now the Tories have jumped on the "presentation" bandwagon and real debate has become impossible. Both parties are so desperate to control the 24 hour news cycle that the issues at hand get lost. Because of this now longstanding focus it may well be impossible to go back.
Secondly, Labour need to drop this apparent love affair with draconian domestic policy. 24, 48 or even 90 days detention is too long in my opinion. The US (I know about Guantanemo, I'm talking about mainland USA) hold people for 1 day before being charged or let out. Hopefully the US will be moving to more liberal policies on this issue as well. ID cards are a large waste of money derided by the security forces they are supposed to help. I fear this will rumble on as watering it down will not work. The database that underpins it must be scrapped too.
Lastly, the party should reconnect with its base. Its base is not the same as it was in 1990 or 1997. Immigration must be tackled head on, and not just non-EU immigration but European migration too. Unfettered migration across the EU is not a given and is resented by many low paid workers.
If the economy recovers and these problems are addressed then Labour stands a chance at the next election.
Your article is so poignant we've all had conversations with people who believe that Labour have to be voted out to allow the party to reinvent itself-----I have strongly argued that we cannot allow a Tory Government to destroy what NL has achieved-----I moved from the North to the South during the last recession to make sure my family got employment-----
I have the depressing memory of three youths who made a pact to kill themselves because they had felt their lives were so hopeless as they had never worked since leaving school during the Thatcher years
This is the realities of what can happen when communities are left without employment and whole families are affected and left to survive on state benefit which was a pittance for anyone to live on.----
Gordon Brown & Alistair Darling with the fiscal stimulus they introduced proved that they understood the damage of the previous Tory Government in letting the "recession take its course".
They are the right people to lead our country.
It's not fashionable to say out loud that you support the PM------I DO SUPPORT GORDON BROWN & I believe he is a good & caring man & the right man to be PM---He has the respect of the rest of the world.
I am especially angry today when I watch Cameron declare that Coulson's job is safe--
He & his party are getting away with murder-----Cameron & the Tories are not fit to Govern this country
I believe Coulson was taken on by them to carry out the kind of snooping that the NOTW was & is guilty of.--
The Torygraph and their access to MPs receipts was carried out by Tory supporters----It has caused no harm to the Tories but has been devastating & destructive for Labour to leak expenses of MPs.
I am suspicious enough to believe Coulson would've been involved in getting these discs available to be sold to any Newspaper who would buy them.
I want to see every Labour MP get to their feet in the commons to verbally destroy Cameron & his fellow Hoodys on their lack of Policy & to ensure he is not given an easy road to victory that would be detrimental to our Country & the ordinary working people.
The point of this post is to say that in spite of differences on policy between the supposed "left" and "right" of the Party, most people are not so dogmatic or factional as to be readily pigeonholed into either category.
I, for instance, am not ideological: I support public service "reform" and am not in favour of keeping all public services in the public sector - public services are not *always* best served by public ownership, so long as we can ensure through regulation that prices are kept fair and services of a good qualtuy that serve all. I also believe that markets, when properly controlled, are a good thing and that they have the power to create wealth like nothing else. I suppose that view would be considered on the right of the Party.
However, how we handle that wealth and what we do with it is where I would be considered on the "left". I believe the profits of our capitalism should be shared because I believe we all contribute to them in different ways. So I believe in a robust and expansive welfare state to support those capitalism leaves behind, I believe in levelling the playing field of educational inequality through an active state and I believe in massive investment in affordable and social housing to support those who need it.
The point this article was trying to make is that although our personal stories are singular and we may all take different views on different issues, we surely can agree that the best way to achieve a fair and just society with equal opportunity for all is through the Labour Party and we surely can agree that many of the real, tangible changes that have occurred over the last 12 years have done so because of - and not in spite of - Labour.
I think that's something worth fighting for, and something worth keeping in office.
Labour as a party have not just run out of steam - they have lost the plot.
The Labour PLP stands for Tory lite, vacuous, money grubbing, self interest. It is no longer a socialist party and at times struggles to be a centre right party in its Nu Labour re-spray.
Much of the mess the NHS is in is because of inane policies such as PFI which means that all the extra spending is actually going straight back out through the revolving door and into the pockets of Gordon's mates in the City and the banks.
The NHS works in spite of Government, it works because of the people in the front line of care, it works because health care professionals continue put patients ahead of their own well being and the well being of their families while juggling a mass of unrelated paper work that let's the Government's statistics fool folk like you into thinking they are doing a good job.
The setting of central targets by Government is in direct contradiction of the 1999 Health Act which is stated to have the aim of freeing up Health Boards and Authorities to better prioritise for their local needs.
So to meet Government efficiency targets you have the daft situation of A&E's being closed so that the Authority can meet the Government target of having the right number of A&E Consultants in each department. Net effect is that a previous ten minute ambulance ride is now 20 or 30 minutes and in spite of the hard working and dedicated paramedics - morbidity and mortality rates are increasing in specific areas such as cardiac and respiratory collapse.
Then we could always look at the current Government's great success in wrecking what was left (after the Tories mismanagement) of NHS GP Dentistry across the UK! Then again there are no votes for Labour in ensuring every child has access to proper dental care while one of their middle class swing voters can get a highly subsidised NHS crown for a third of the real market cost.
Labour have nothing to offer because their natural supporters don't really want anything more - what do you give someone who is already satisfied?
You attack the labour party unfairly - their customers are sated.
The only issue now is how this largess is paid for - not an issued for labours clients who get out more than they put in, and have nothing to lose. But an issue for those who are (and whose children will be) actually footing the bill.
But even those who are footing the bill are not really arguing much over what services are actually offered they are just arguing for them to be offered more efficiently.
1 Are they? In many of your other posts you claim people in general are furious about a range of issues
2 Why do you put "poor" and "working class" in inverted commas?
I think that sums up a Tory view nicely: it assumes that "activists" and "university-educated" are neither "poor" nor "working-class".
It is, of course, perfectly possible to be all four of these things - and some of my friends are.
1) Find work to relieve your poverty.
or
2) Campaign to be be given someone elses money.
I think it is clear which camp you choose.
What a singularly ill-informed comment!
Until five years ago, I worked a typical 70+ hour week. I've worked in both private and public sectors, and it was pretty much the same hours in both of them. I had a reasonable income.
Then I became disabled. I was unable to work at all for two years, and was then able to manage to work about half time. Employers are - to put it mildly - often somewhat wary of the disabled. Part-time work is - to put it mildly - usually less well-paid than full-time work. I'm one of the lucky ones: I have a fulfilling job, for the 20 to 25 hours a week that I'm physically capable of working, and it's paid above the national minimum wage. Nevertheless, my salary is only marginally above benefits level, and I apparently do not quite qualify for DLA or similar.
I get really pissed off with unthinking comments that assume that we are all the same - able-bodied, straight, male, white, whatever!
Far be it from me to say "hang on a minute I'm not happy with you taking so much of my money". No, I have to sit meekly and quietly and feel honored that you would deign to take my money from me as I am "privileged"
What pisses me off is people who think they are *entitled* to deprive me of the fruits of my own labour.
If your mates went to uni and are still poor, maybe they should have spent their time doing something more beneficial to their earning potential.
If they are poor but still have time/energy to be activists maybe they should be using that time/energy to earn an income.
Instead (like gordon brown) maybe they believe there is 'free money' and that they can sponge off the state (i.e. taxpayer) for ever - I'll admit that gordon has done (and continues to do) a fantastic job of demonstrating the principle and should be every unproductive spongers pin up. However having too many parasites will kill the host.
I have more respect for beggars, at least they respect the fact that people have a choice over whether to help them or not.
I actually positively feel that it's appropriate that when I was earning a lot I paid a lot of tax (in fact, I felt towards the end of the last Tory administration that taxes were too low): the "premiums" if you like on the potential benefits were too low. I do now slightly feel that the benefits are too low, but that's how it goes.
I'm certainly happy to pay taxes (as I do) to help support those even worse off than myself.
I am, however, absolutely bloody furious that the abolition of the 10p tax rate has left me worse off, while putting money into the pockets of people like yourself. I grudge every last farthing of it with a bitterness that you probably find difficult to comprehend.
That, I guess, makes me some kind of socialist.
When you felt taxes were too low, how much extra did you volunteer to the treasury?
As I had nothing to do with the 10p band changes, I take it you have nothing against me regarding it.
But how are you going to punish Gordon Brown who had everything to do with it? Surely not by trying to give him another term in office?
I feel the same about people who refuse to pay taxes as I feel about any other grossly-antisocial behaviour.
I don't actually care what anyone thinks of me - everyone has an absolute right to think whatever they want. I behave as I do because I choose to for my own reasons (drive on the left because there is less chance of crashing, wear clothes to keep warm, respect others freedom in return for them respecting mine (hence no respect for socialists)) - none of it is because of what others may think of me.
I think we could agree to campaign on that - I don't pay taxes, and you get to think me grossly-antisocial - end of.
How do we get it into the all the parties manifestos?
I also bought myself a Dominican Passport for K meaning I don't need to use my RFID, iris scanned, fingerprinted UK one to buy a mobile phone, and a seated title as Lord Old Holborn (£29 on the internet , great for upgrades to first class on long haul flights).
Fight fire with fire, I say.
I've already said I intend to brong down my tax bill by fair means or foul as I don't feel morally obliged to pay for a state of affairs where Brown's govenment has overseen areas of the country with more people working in the public sector than Soviet Russia.
If you keep going to the wealth creators i.e. the private sector over and over saying just a little more for this cause and then just a little more for that cause, eventually those you are begging/stealing from will tell you what to do with yourself. We are getting to that stage now.
Having said that I know that the Tories would be worse, simply because they are Tories. The ravings of Guy (please get rid) demonstrate that well enough, although I am sure Cameron would find him an embarrassment
Moreover, if the objective is to make Labour more left wing and sensible, its never going to happen if all the sensible left wingers disengage from the party, is it?
Activism, pushing the party to where we want it to be - through example, through argument, through sheer determination, is the only way forward.
Tom I make no bones about it: there are certain "Labour" (sic) MPs I want out, even if it means a Tory would replace them: James Purnell, Hazel Blears, Tony McNulty and Caroline Flint for example. All behaved disgracefully abt expenses and Purnell, of the four refused to pay anything back. If you lost this shower, what would it matter? You will just be replacing one gaggle of right-wingers, with another lot of right-wingers.
Yoiu will not get the support of the Left voters, who have left the party BECAUSE of Blair Brown and New Labour UNTIL NL is finally dead and buried at it's greatest sycophants with it.
Simples!
100% agree.
After a considerable internal struggle, I remained in the Party purely in order to have a voice in selecting the new Leader when Blair was kicked out ... of course, we were denied that, but I now look forward to voting on a successor to Brown.
This will gaurantee Labour lose election after election for some time to come until you learn the lesson you did in the early 90s.
This would be "centre" in the sense of being a long way to the right of such notorious lefties as Ted Heath and John Major, yes?
Major was in the centre of the Tory party, Balir moved Labour to the centre left of British politics and to the right wing side of left wing politics.
At no point was Blair to the right of Major.
I guess though the misinformation the Labour left will try is that Balir was a Tory and we didn't need to move ao far to win 3 elections. Therefore we can go back to being an avertly high tax, high spend, nationalisation type of party and we still can get elected.
Good luck with trying that for a few years
Don't get me wrong from August onwards I shall be committing time, my own money and effort on the Labour Party. But I shall be carrying with me copies of emails from Ministers to me regarding difficult issues like expenses (the biggest problem we have) so that I can show the people on the doorstep that there are trustworthy people in the party who care and also to permit me to seperate myself from any association with the corrupt members of the party. So if people mention expenses and state "we are all in it for ourselves" I can categorically show the work I did in trying to help MP's save themselves from themselves.
Also, I have a right to protect my good name in association of the party. But it is an utter tragedy that it has come to this. That I have to carry evidence of my own integrity so that I can just begin to debate with the public.
Yes, the PLP did some fantastic things, minimum wage etc etc, but they did some terrible things also. They brought the party into disrepute and the police into Parliament. People don't forget sleaze at all it marks us all and lingers for years, the Tory sleaze still marks thier party from 1997 and I believe that is why they have not seen the progress they should have made in the Euro (1% increase) and I actually sympathise with thier activists and councillors because now we share one terrible thing in common, filth.
It is nothing short of betrayel, we have wtnessed betrayel of the Party (weakening of membership), betrayel of the PM (Blears and clumsy rabble that resigned), betrayel of Parliament over contract/jobs conflict of interests and worse of all betrayel of the people in the aweful dragged out and tawdry denial over expenses. What else is there left to betray?
This is more about conduct than political positioning. We really do need to sort out our party and I am even thinking we should have a seperation of power between the NEC and the Government (though with measure to ensure the NEC cannot compromise the Goverment).
Our MP's must be of the highest standard to win back trust and they must be proactive in thier communities.
No more launching badly equiped losers into safe seats and healthy open competition based upon merit and no canvassing of members. The Enrith situation showed quite clearly how impractical it is for countless candidates invading members homes in the hopes of a vote of support.
We must have (as mentioned on another article by others) the ability to recall MP's if their conduct is unacceptable, whereby they should face discipline and possibly be replaced (criteria needs to be defined clearly).
As we had to get rid of the militants we have to get rid of the insane corrupt self-serving morons who have no place in our party. Goodbye Blears, Purnell, Milburn and the rest of the toilet trash who couldn't make it into the Tory Party through thier own lack of ability. We are here for the real middle England (who just want practical applicable policy, not Daily Mail garbage) and the lower waged and unfortunate who we are meant to defend. We also need to sort our our crap website, what a joke.
Members need an interactive website for them exclusively to vote and push policy issues to compensate for the time constraints on them if they cannot make it to meeting etc.
It's not New/Old Labour, it's personal integrity and conduct. You can be clean and honourable or you can be sycophantic bandwagon toilet trash and go down in history as such.....
Labour were never the party of the middle classe sand never will be.
I have witnessed the same in lower and higher income areas too. When you are canvassing you find surprises around every corner. I would avoid clumsy generalisations and over simplifications, it devalues your contribution.
But a simple question if you think otherwise about the middle classes and their natural home being the Tory party. Of the Mps from Scotland and Wales, the Tory party has 5 of them. The majority are from Labour with 42 Scotland and 37 in Wales. Remove those Scottish and Welsh MPs and England is pretty much Conservative. London has a conservative Mayor and nearly every council in England is Tory.
Middle England and the English middle classes are Tory in outlook and Labour ONLY hold power in the UK on the back of Scottish and Welsh MPs.
As a result I'm firmly i favour of Scottish MPs not voting on English business (that removes Labour's majority at a stroke), a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs to match their population size and am even fairly calm about Scottish Nationalism becuase an independent Scotland wuold mean no Labour government again and no sending of English taxes to support Scotland.
England is largely Tory and a few deluded middle class voters who bought into Blair and have now seen what Labour are really about do not mean the middle classes "appreciate Labour".
I'm middle class and there is nothing Labour has ever done that has benefitted me. You've lost the middle class vote for the next election, it's come home and rightly so.
Labour have barely delivered anything worth while to anyone, but have charged top dollar for the (dubious) privilege of having them in power.
They are the very epitome of the useless 'fat cats' who get rich without delivering anything - those people who that we hear so many complaints about.
The middle class have seen their money taken and wasted - they have not got anything for their money - even if it wasn't what they would have chosen to spend their money on, they may have tolerated having *soemthing* for their money - but they have nothing.
To illustrate - If my wife cashed in all our savings and build a massive conservatory, with indoor swimming pool etc, I would be rather disappointed that everything had gone on something I would not have chosen, but I would at least have a fantastic conservatory and could have as swim while I worked out what to do next.
However if my wife cashed in all our savings, gave it away to strangers, invested it with shysters, gambled it no-hope long shots etc I would be absolutely gutted to have lost every thing and have nothing to show for it.
We have had a dozen years of a labour government, the middle classes look at what we have got for their money are absolutely gutted.
Whatever points you make do not detract from my experience knocking on doors canvasing, there have been many occasions when I have been shocked and surprised at the political alignment of people from all walks of society, there will always be floating voters though who move from left to right.
Were you around in the late 70s under the last disaster of a Labour government or did you mysteriously appear in time to go and wipe Obama's backside for a few months whilst forming your revisionist historical arguments?
Can you explain why people "who cannot afford to be left alone......(by a) exclusive, isolationist position on Europe"? What possible difference does the EU play in the day to day lives of the vasst majority of the UK population?
Can you explain why if after tax I pay off the mortgage on my house over 25 years I should then be hit with a large inheritance tax bill that forces my children to sell the family home? What is fair about double taxation? As for the phrase "inheritance tax cuts for the unsuffering", what do you want for the "unsuffering"? I suspect you'd like taxation levels of 60%, 70% 80% etc. How about you go earn the money yourself to give away rather than continually finding new ways to steal it from those who work?
I could go on for some time about the almighty mess Labour has made of this country, but I shall make do with one simple point. Labour has done absolutely nothing for me in 12 years in power apart from screw up the country of my birth. Fortunately there are sufficient people of the same mindset as me to kick this useless, split, ineffective government and party out of office for a long long time.
You don't represent the 40% of the population who see themselves as on the right ideologically and you never will. Our time is coming as we are sick to death of the failure, hand wringing and benefit culture state you have left us all.
You can believe this twaddle you push, but you can believe it in opposition, because we are going to remove you from power big time very soon now.
No i think you were right then. Let's be frank: This is NOT a labour government. It is a bit cruel to say it but it is hardly a government at all. Who is the Prime Minister, Alex? Brown or Mandy?. Mandy seems to think it is him. Last week a BBC interviewer on radio 4 happened to use the throwaway line "While you're busy running the country". Mandleson did not deny or it, or say that wasn't his job - he just assumed an even grander manner of condescention.
Though I agree with Alan Johnson on the ID Card debate, it seems No 10 didn't know he was going to make the speech effectively killing the idea - they thought he was just going to mention about not making them compulsory for airport workers.
Have a Labour governemnt by all measn: Cameron and Osborne will be a disaster. But so is Brown, Miliband, and all the other little has-beens and never weres.
This governmenthas always falling between two stools: too right wing for real labour supporters and not right wing enough for really rabid Tories like Melanie Phillips, Norman Tebbit and "Guy" from this site.
In trying to mollify the Daily Mail's narrow minded readers it has lost it's core support.
It would be good for New Labour to lose the elction, firstly because I suspect after a few months of Cameron's Etonians, people will rapidly become disillusioned with the Conservatives, and it gives the Labour membership and it';s supporters a chance to weed out the last of the Blairite rubbish and to get back to the core values of the party, under a man like, say, Jon Cruddas.
I would not be prepared to vote "Labour" to keep cameron out, only to retain Cameron wanabees like David Miliband, or ed Balls.
Darling has decided againsit a Spending Review, prior to the election.
Yvette Cooper seems to show no desire to look again at the Purnell/Freud right wing Welfare reform bill. Like so many other ministers she just seems to be there not to persue her own policy and ideas but merely to oversee the status quo till inevitable defeat.
Can anyone take Bob Ainsworth seriously? He'd be funny if it were not such a serious position he holds. he even makes Des Browne look half intelligent.
Brown in particular does NOT deserve a second term as Prime Minister.
The man that brought in the minimum wage, tax credits and whose maxim was once "Work must pay!" isn't the man that leads the Labour Party now. New Labour isn't so much about well-paid jobs these days as coercion and sanctioning the long-term unemployed, punishing them if they fail to toe the line and do as they are ordered, and ultimately treating them worse than petty criminals, giving the sentences of community service to force them to atone for the crime of being unable to secure paid work. The whole thing is Pavlovian. Men and women being reduced to the status of dogs and conditioned to behave as the government demands.
With Brown as leader, half-baked and ill-judged policies, £17,000,000 worth of debt, plummeting membership rolls, estrangement from the trade unions looming and a mass exodus of support from among the core voters in particular and the electorate in general the real question that needs to be addressed should be: Is the Labour Party doomed to extinction?
Personally, if the Party were to manage to survive in some form post 2010, I can imagine it splitting into two or more factions over the next ten years or so.
The party faithful are behaving like lemmings tensing their muscles ready to leap from an ice floe into the freezing sea before them and to their certain doom.
Wake up!
Also Richard Thompson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucgZQGPZOpk&feature=related
I can hear the Islington Chaterrati sobbing into their fairtrade quails eggs on a bed on rocket as we speak.
You youngsters are clearly too isolated from the soil if you think that, what is essentially a weed is some kind of rich man's food. I think we should return back to the principles of The Diggers and I would be willing to teach you how to grow food.
Good idea Richard.
You can also find me over at River Cottage as a member. I keep telling you guys I aint no Tory but you just won't believe it.
Your post is a healthy antidote to all these self-indulgences. We need, many of us, to be reminded of the good things Labour has done: largely remedying the criminal neglect of the public services by the Tories; putting the relief of third world poverty back where it belongs, after the years of Tory neglect, among the top priorities of any decent government (as even the Tory opposition, but not its supporters in the country or most of its likely future MPs, now accepts); making strides towards eliminating child poverty at home, despite recent backsliding; fostering respect for and acceptance of gays and other groups once effectively treated as outcasts; encouraging the advancement of women to their rightful places in public, political and commercial life; bearing down hard on all kinds of discrimination against minorities of every kind (sometimes to excess); putting the spotlight on the threats of climate change and international terrorism, however patchy the responses to either may have been so far; trying to head off the disintegration of our country by devolving real power over their own affairs to three of the four nations of the United Kingdom, although sadly not yet to the fourth; not least, doggedly and with eventual success bringing peace to Northern Ireland. How many of these real advances would any Conservative government have achieved? It's not good enough to dismiss all these good and often brave things as no more than we should expect of a Labour government. If you blame New Labour for its follies and failures, you are morally obliged also to give it proper credit for its successes, and to put the successes onto the scales when you decide how to vote next time.
Above all, you (Alex) pose the right and central question: if not Labour, warts and all, then what? There is an alternative to Labour, Old or New: it's called David Cameron, alias George Osborne. Already we know what they will do. They will cut taxes on the rich, thus transferring some of the burden to the poor and the vulnerable. They will slash spending on vital public services far too soon, while we're still in recession, and at a time when increasing numbers of victims of the recession depend more than ever on those very services, and in reckless disregard of the mathematical certainty that by doing so they will deepen and prolong the recession. They will freeze public sector pay (which means reducing it) and attack public sector pensions, just when encouragement of consumer spending is most sorely needed, just when the have-nots need an adequately staffed and functioning public sector most, and just when Cameron's and Osborne's well-heeled friends are once again paying themselves obscene salaries and bonuses at our expense. They will once again make Britain the leper of the European Union, obstructing vitally necessary continuing reform and other advances on the European level, seeking to put the Union's progress into reverse, allying themselves with the most reactionary fringe parties on the continent, and thus putting Britain's continued participation in this hugely hopeful and vital enterprise at risk. They will dance to the tune of big business and the City, as the Conservatives have always done, because that's what Conservatives do. They will wreck many of the great things that Labour has achieved in the past 12 years, even under Blair and Brown and notwithstanding the crimes and follies. Their victims will be the socially excluded, the unemployable and the ineducable, the chronically sick, the old, those who for whatever reason can't compete and who have no access to the resources they need to protect themselves and their families.
It's no answer to call this shroud-waving. You're absolutely right: if you don't vote Labour -- if you vote for some other party, even if it's not for the Tories, or if you don't vote at all, the effect of your vote is to increase the likelihood of a Tory government within less than a year, with all the sick consequences which will almost inevitably flow from that. You have to take responsibility for the likely consequences of your actions. Put one of Polly Toynbee's clothespegs on your nose as you do it, if you like, but do it: vote Labour again, in spite of everything!
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
His "my way or the highway" approach not only comes across as boorish, it is deliberately blind. I have writ before that the Labour Party is a coalition of ideas across the centre-left political spectrum. This means that all of us will have disappointments over policy. Yet, Sunny allows these disappointments to blinker him – to the extent that he cannot see the change that the last dozen years have wrought.
But he has gone beyond this – he wants a Conservative Government. It is almost as if Sunny is happiest when most miserable. Opposition is easy, government difficult. If we cannot be pragmatic then we will never move forward. If we believe in socialism then we cannot believe it good to have a Conservative Government. As democrats we accept that elections are lost, but to lie down and surrender in the hope that voices off stage will gain greater credibility is barmy.
I am fed up with arguing with those who ought to be on my side. This so-called vacuous administration is fighting to preserve jobs and public services. Does Sunny think that unemployment and swinging cuts will make us feel better?
When foxes are once again hunted and millionaires cheering then this socialist will not be smiling - I am no hair-shirt wearer.
Maybe Sunny Hundal has absolute faith in his beliefs, I do not. This is why democracy is so valuable; it allows the combined wisdom of the electorate as a whole to mould political thinking. This is no sell-out to the right; on the contrary, it demonstrates faith in common wisdom that only those of us on the left can truly achieve. The compromises of the early 1990s were not a sell-out; it was the realisation that to get elected we had to reflect the views across a broader consensus than we had hitherto achieved. If we start to think that we are right and the electorate are wrong then we will deserve opposition.
As a football supporter, I remember fellow supporters of my team arguing that a spell out of the top flight would do the team good, and that we'd re-emerge a stronger side. That was in 1972, and we've not re-emerged yet. So I'm hoping Labour don't take time out for tactical rebuilding in the same way.
I too feel that we should resist the temptation to factionalise and blame different individuals or groups within the party for difficulties encountered. It should not be about New or Old Labour, or Brownites, Blairites, or any other -ites - but about the Labour Party. A Labour party which can offer something to all sections of society.
I work in London as well, with people of many cultures and ethnicities, many of whom have seen many other parts of the world. Most of them love it here, and feel a tremendous sense of loyalty and pride in the country and its capital - in particular saying that they find it refreshingly free of racism. I don't find it completely free of racism - but I know that it's far far better than it was say in the early '80s
I use public transport every day - and though sometimes get frustrated - in general it is very reliable. I've been late for work twice in four years, and can travel the 40 miles or so from work to home in less than hour door to door at peak and off peak times. The new trains introduced recently mean that I rarely have to stand.
My wife suffers from a chronic illness, and has access to the worlds leading specialists (who incidentally are happy to talk to me via email) - all on the NHS.
I don't think I'd get this anywhere else in the world. I think that there are lots of things that the Labour government has achieved.
For Labour supporters the real question is what do you think you can do with this bankrupt husk of a party that is increasingly a prisoner of the trades unions - particularly the viscious cabal at Unite. If I were amongst their number I'd either be arguing for a sea change in government direction now (admittedly this is not going to happen - no-one in government has the stomach or the nerve for it), or (more likely) be preparing to defect to the Lib Dems.
If the Lib Dems have any sense they will be preparing to launch an assault on Labour after the next election with a view to supplanting them as the main Opposition party. You need to think about whether you want to join them.
I'm one of those who feels that Labour could do with a spell out of Government (to be honest, I'm hoping for a hung Parliament next time round). I do accept the very big strides that Labour made in the first term of office, and some of it has even been seen through with determination. But - honestly - that isn't enough: otherwise I'd be voting Whig for their part in the abolition of the Slave Trade.
What I'd like to vote for is a clear vision of social justice, what it means, how to get there, and how to fund it. I'd like to vote for a party that has has clear views on equality, and the government as the servant of the people (read "workers" if you must ... though I hope we're beyond that). As a reluctant and now-hesitant party member, I do believe that most of the Party shares these views in some form.
The Labour government IMO has been none of those things during the most recent term-and-a-bit. We need time and space to bring the leadership back under control, to work out ways of forcing it to deliver on the values on which it was elected, to feel that politics is actually relevant rather than being for too many of our MPs a passport to post-parliamentary employment with companies that they have been closely associated with during their time in the House.
The country is restive and unstable - it feels in some ways like the build-up to the period of riots in 1981. I suspect that any Conservative government will recognise this, and it will act as a check to their (still-powerful) right wing. Whether it does or not, the only hope that I see for the Labour Party to assert itself over the morally-bankrupt Labour Leadership is the shock of an electoral defeat: that end, and the prospect of forming a future government with a clear vision and sense of values, may make it a price worth paying.
We need a big kick-up-the-arse to get back to what the Labour Party has always been about, the British working class. Phony New Labour has had its chance and by trying to be more Torier-than-thou in its support for capitalist globalisation and the EU it has brought this country to its worst economic performance since the Great Depression.
It is time for real Labour to return.
That's JUST what it is about. many of us voted for a Labour government expecting it to be Left of centre. NOT a smudged third copy carbon of the Tories. I am afraid the Blairites and Brownites really do need defeat and true Labour supporters need to ensure that autocrats like Blair and Brown never seize control of the party again.
We had great help from Aitken, Archer, Mellor etc etc which turned people off voting Conservative, though now we are in the opposite situation.
I agree with that. But I do rather hope that a hung parliament might provide the necessary incentive: otherwise it's likely to be ten years in the wilderness of utter electoral anihilation, and I've too many memories of the hope that Labour once represented to wish for that.
And even if you do believe what you have written about labour being a "radical vehicle for progressive change" - that is not labour under Brown.
Brown is so tied into trying to be seen as a hero, single handedly fixing everything himself and taking all credit that has driven out everyone who could even pretend to be radical or progressive.
Brown is still leader because no one expects labour to win, the fact he is leader proves that no one expects labour to win, the fact he is leader makes it an absolute certainty that labour will not win.
Even the most staunch labour supporter cannot really want five years of labour under brown - Heck, most of them say they didn't want 12 years of labour under Blair!
Labour surrendered the next election when Brown was left unchallenged - they chose to offer a labour government (at the next election) that even labour supporters would find hard to stomach.
No one wants a labour government under Brown (apart from Brown) - the only reason to vote for one is to try to p*ss off people who would rather have a tory government.
You can pretend it will be a 'labour' government all you want, but every one knows it will actually be a 'brown' government, and no one wants that we have seen what that means - nothing coherent, nothing positive, just petty, undignified (for a governing party) sniping at opponents (is he ever going to set out that vision he promised when he cancelled the last general election?).
Too late to change that now though... You had a chance and you let it pass...
Then we can have a proper revolution, like in the DDR, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Moldovia.
I shall not be rushing to place a table outside my house next weekend and talk to neighbours, I am disinterested in getting to know others in the locale.
If you come to the nation's capital city you will find a crumbling, frustratingly poor public transport service that encourages city workers to travel earlier and earlier (in my case 6.22am to London Bridge) in order to bag a seat. How will the service cope with 2012? Badly is my prediction.
I have not witnessed xenophobia in London, I find it to cosmopolitan, enriched and if there were homophobia would there not be protesters against pride and your playing?
If you'd been on Pride, you'd know that there were.
Xenophobia in London? I think that's the point. There used to be lots. Now, there's very little.
All very "cosmopolitan" I'm sure.
I'm a Londoner by the way.
That's just not true - the capital is full of 'foreigners' and many of them hate each other.
We have imported loads of foreign xenophobes - I think the native xenophobes have just moved a bit further out of the capital.