Some 66 rebellions in 12 months and MPs openly criticising Gordon Brown just four weeks before the local elections. In better times, this would have been unthinkable stuff.And yet I find myself asking what is the point of all these words of woe from some of the people being quoted today in the papers.
Manchester MP Graham Stringer, someone I have known for over 20 years, speaks of his "disappointment" in Gordon Brown . Well, I would suggest that Graham never had much faith in him at all as he was one of the handful of MPs who did NOT line up like lemmings to nominate him as Leader. He nominated, er, nobody.
Several people I know (including me) lobbied him to support John McDonnell . To be fair, I got a personal, polite e-mail back. But he still wouldn't help the Party have a contest. Now it's all woe woe and thrice woe from Graham and people like Ian Gibson. Are we in trouble? You bet we are. But can they bring themselves to explain exactly why? It seems not.
The reasons why Labour is in such trouble are SO straightforward. Cuts to 10pence tax rates, lack of social housing, grandstanding to the right. It's all been said before. Yet the PLP is collectively committing electorial suicide and not saying what has to be said. We need a new direction, we need Labour values and we need a new Leader. New Labour used to scorn the 1983 election manifesto as the "longest suicide note in history" . Gordon Brown's Premiership could end up being something similar.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
LABOUR'S LONGEST SUICIDE NOTE?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
11 comments:
"Several people I know (including me) lobbied him to support John McDonnell . To be fair, I got a personal, polite e-mail back. But he still wouldn't help the Party have a contest."
There was simply no leadership contender with my brand of politics. I was even more disenfranchised than you. At least you had someone you could lobby for!
I like Meacher's politics, but he is too old and has a reputation as a crazy that would be impossible to overcome.
there are scarce occasion where I disagree with him. He has new ideas, and rebels on the right issues; yet he refrains from bile and arbitrary nationalisations, etc.
"New Labour used to scorn the 1983 election manifesto as the "longest suicide note in history""
I would certainly not agree with their remedy; but would you not agree that their criticism is correct?
This, for me, is the core issue of distinction between hard and soft left (which is ironic, because at the time, the manifesto was largely considered 'soft').
But presumably Tom, had you had such a candidate you would have lobbied the so-called 'hard left' that it would be logical for us to support your candidate, despite our differences, in order to ensure a contest and because, pragmatically we'd agree more with your candidate than the alternative.
Was the same not true of John McDonnell re: the so-called 'soft left'?
Isn't it the case that people like me, who have always thought of themselves on the 'progressive right' of the party, are equally horrified by some of the blatant own goals and the way that the government appears desperate to appease voters who only ever voted Labour once, in 97?
Its like the battles of 96 all over again. Things have moved on. The Tory party is plausible again and it has returned to a centrist position. The problem is that Labour now appear to be further to the right on some issues.
There are two groups of voters who Labour should be aiming to motivate. First, those who could be considered the 'core vote'. That means a change inn taxation policy. Secondly, the middle class voters who abandoned Labour because of Iraq, or gritted their teeth and voted for them last time, but won't do so again unless there are changes.
Right,where to start, Tom,you say you agreed with Meacher's politics, Meacher's"politics" were surely closer to John McDonnell's and surely closer to what you think than the Brownite New Labour position. Tine has proved us right (or left).Merseymike, you are horrified at the rightward drift of this Govt. Does not all of that suggest we on the left were absolutely right to insist there should have been at least a demonstration that people in the Party cared about the core vote and the middle-class liberal vote.
"you would have lobbied the so-called 'hard left' that it would be logical for us to support your candidate, despite our differences, in order to ensure a contest and because, pragmatically we'd agree more with your candidate than the alternative."
Indeed, but only because of the political realities of nomination. Has the hard left a chance of winning anything, I would be arguing instead for you to support our candidate on the basis of the details fo their politics - though it would of course make less sense fro you to vote for them on that prospectus (that said, you pressure them leftwards).
"Was the same not true of John McDonnell re: the so-called 'soft left'?"
Between McDonnell and Meacher, neither of whom had enough parliamentary backing to recieve nomination (according to my predictions at the time), I am much closer to Meacher. He is on the right of the campaign group. I am just right of the group itself.
It makes as much sense to say that I should have backed him as to say that I should have backed McD.
In practice, I backed neither, as it was obvious to me that for different reasons between them, neither would enter into the contest.
There is little point in supporting the practically impossible. If there was, I'd just be a trotskyist.
"Its like the battles of 96 all over again. Things have moved on. The Tory party is plausible again and it has returned to a centrist position. The problem is that Labour now appear to be further to the right on some issues.
There are two groups of voters who Labour should be aiming to motivate. First, those who could be considered the 'core vote'. That means a change inn taxation policy. Secondly, the middle class voters who abandoned Labour because of Iraq, or gritted their teeth and voted for them last time, but won't do so again unless there are changes."
I entirely endorse this point of view. My wing of the Party is qwuite happy to work with yours in remedying this problem, and we prioritise the overturning of this immediate malaise before nationalising the Bank of England.
"Meacher's"politics" were surely closer to John McDonnell's and surely closer to what you think than the Brownite New Labour position."
Indeed. I did not support Brown either, as I have made clear.
"Does not all of that suggest we on the left were absolutely right to insist there should have been at least a demonstration that people in the Party cared about the core vote and the middle-class liberal vote."
Aboslutely. But to state that this is the problem does not make a McDonnell candidacy a necessary (or indeed apt) solution.
The Campaign Group has no shared "ideology." Meacher was not even in it. This is goingv over old ground but his candidacy did NOT help the left get a candidate and his support was far less than that of John's.At the risk of stating the obvious, they didn't enter the contest because of a supine PLP - now paying the consequences. Are you seriously suggesting that had John McDonnell stood we would not now be in a better place - with more motivated members and at least a bit of hope of changing the Labour Party long-term.
Tom
The Bank of England is nationalised.
It was nationalised by Attlee in 1946.
Brown made it independent.
He didn't sell it off.
I don't honestly think a McDonnell candidacy would have made any difference as his result would have been derisory.
I can't see anything changing the direction of the government bar a real threat of election defeat.
I think Brown is a disaster. I may have disagreed with Blair on a lot but I did have some admiration for his style. But now we have a mess in terms of policy and little appeal either.
Well, I don't think it would have been derisory at all.
Look at the support Cruddas got and he was standing on a platform largely nicked from the LRC. Whatsmore, as has had been said ad nauseam, it would have motivated socialists to re-join Lsbour. Where's the motivation now? Everyone I talk to is resigned to defeat at the General Election and pretty despairing. Yes, Blair had style. And that's about it. People want substance and all they see is someone desperately clinging on to power and becoming lessand less credible.
Aye, the support Cruddas got, much to the derision of commentators such as yourself.
"The Campaign Group has no shared "ideology.""
That's untrue. Along with Briefing it was a Bennite split from the Bevanite Tribune Group, most of the MPs in it now were active on the left when the split happened.
In my view Compass is the inheritor of the Tribune Group's brand of democratic socialism; one which is left but is candidly prepared to handle the compromise demanded by government and hegemony-building.
Post a Comment