POLICY CHANGE NEEDED

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has predictably ditched the dividing lines between his party and the Tories which made some Labour voters switch at the last General Election. Scrapping the policy on care for the elderly and tuition fees was not "grown-up poliics." It was a white flag of surrender to neo-liberalism.

The good news for Labour is that his sharp turn to the right will do the Fibs no favours whatsoever. The bad news that Labour is still hell-bent on sticking to the Tory cuts agenda.

Last night on Newsnight doyenne politicians Prescott and Hattersley were steadfastly loyal but also singularly blinkered in their dogged assertions that Labour still stands for a different way of governing. How Mandelson, chief architect of the GE strategy, praises Thatcher and continues to bang the New Labour drum.

I think it's excellent the coup led by Hoon, Hewitt and Charles Clarke died in the water. But what we need, as left Mps and trade union leaders are pointing out, is real policy change which helps, to use the cliche, "the many not the few." and which will bring our core voters back

The PLP most move fast to make the General Election campaign one which puts clear red water between Labour and the Tories. With the Lib Dems giving up any claim to being left-of-centre, now is the time for Labour to seize the moment.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/85247

WHAT A HOON.....

The latest attempt by the disaffected wing of New Labour to dislodge Gordon Brown is truly pathetic. Geoff Hoon, the worst Defence Minister ever, and Patricia Hewitt, schoolmarmy superintendent of NHS privatisation, join forces in the third attempt at a coup in less than 18 months.

It won't work, of course. By the law of diminishing returns such highly personalised attacks rightfully garner only disgust and incredulity that a matter of months before a General Election, these selfish beneficiaries of Government office choose to sharpen their (increasingly blunt) knives. And it's nothing about policy or principle.

They are terrified that if Brown loses he will not be replaced by another acolyte of neo-liberalism. Ther fears are probably groundless as neither front-runners Ed Balls or Ed Milliband would exactly frighten the horses of the City. Nor would the Guardian's favourite Jon Cruddas. But David Miliband is their man and they fear his time is running out.

What a distraction all this is. At a time when Labour COULD be clawing back votes by seriously changing direction, these buffions show how much they have lost touch with the grassroots by falsely imagining their back-door back-stabbing will get them the result they want.

Ex Labour MP Clare Short once referred to such characters as the "people who live in the dark." It is time their light of nasty cliques and cabals was permanently extinguished.