Wednesday 15 July 2015

Interesting Times for the Labour Party

Intruding on private grief is a disgraceful thing, I know ...

But.

What times for Labour, eh?  SNP, UKIP and even the Wicked Tories taking all their best lines as well as their votes;  nobody paying them the slightest attention;  Harriet Harman splitting them with her New Realist strictures;  Jeremy Corbyn steaming up on the left;  little Owen Jones floating the idea of supporting 'Out' at the euro-referendum.  

And the achingly glamorous, oh-so-tempting possibility of becoming the British (English?) wing of a pan-european anti-austerity movement !  With real street-fighting !

Can they resist it ?  One thing's for sure: all the leadership candidates except that nice Liz Kendall will be trying to keep the LabSyriPodemos option open.  What else have they got for 2020?

ND 

PS: errr ... so, would that be 'In' or 'Out ' - ?  Decisions, decisions

17 comments:

Roderick said...

If only Labour's grief was private, not spun into a ragbag of soundbites by the forelock-tugging media...

dearieme said...

When the lights go out this winter Labour will leap in the polls even though it will be largely their doing.

Most of party politics is readily explained by the stupidity and ignorance of much of the electorate.

Elby the Beserk said...

Huge fun every day, isn't it. The delights of Corbyn - I must pay my £3 to vote for him, as did Lilith, the SNP being hung out to dry by Cameron after their cretinous but oh-so-predictable volte face on not voting on English/Welsh matters, thereby showing that

1. They cannot be trusted
2. That they play the politics of the JCR
3. That Cameron was right to warn of the dangers of the SNP and Labour collaborating.
4. That Old Etonians, whilst the butt of many a joke and much abuse, are infinitely smarter than petty (petite) little Scottish demagogues.

add to that war between the EU and the IMF, and oooh, I think I'll sing the Ode to Joy!

andrew said...

Chris Dillow said it better than me:-

It's because the Labour party ceased to be the party of workers and become a party for workers. Rather than be a vehicle whereby workers can advance their own interests**, Labour became a managerialist party, offering workers just so many crumbs from the table as capitalists could spare. This has allowed Osborne to pretend to steal Labour clothes by proposing a high minimum wage.

i.e. what is the Labour party for

Having said that I said the same thing about WHS 10 years ago and they aren't doing so badly.

Bill Quango MP said...

This is the first stage.
The idea that they could have won if they had been much more left wing. The evidence for this is small. Labour would have not had a workable majority even if it had won EVERY seat in Scotland.

But they refuse to believe that. The defeat wasn't comprehensive enough.
Much like Major's defeat in 1997. It was a disaster for the Tories. It wiped them out for ten years.

But in both cases what hadn't been understood is that the political ground had moved. The social mood had moved.
Labour activists have no wish to get out of their oh-so comfortable zone of 'we hate rich people'

It will be another 5 years of stagnation for them. No doubt they will come up with the lefty equivalent of 24 hours to save the pound.

Timbo614 said...

@Elby "war between the EU and the IMF"

I really do not understand the logic in this move by the IMF. They sit there squabbling and insisting for months that all debts must paid (to them). They get their way and then take out their AK-47 aim at heir own foot but shoot everyone's feet off.

If I was Tsipras...



CityUnslicker said...

BQ - the Labour core issue is tha the same slogans have been used in 3 straight elections and will be used in 2019...planning goes lihe this...

"right what are our big messages...hmmm..

1. 24 hours to save the NHS
2. tax the rich
3. More welfare for a fairer society"

"OK, that was easy, let's carve them into a stone and get on with it"

So ND is right, they have a real prediliticion for going Syriza on us because hose messages don't conflict with a left wing agenda.

The reason they lose is they do not discuss the economy, immigration, education or crime - in fact the NHS is the only thing people experience and of course they will know by 2020 that the Tories have not abolished it or privatised it.

Blue Eyes said...

Of course, the boy Owen is right that outside the EU Britain could go North Korean if it wanted to. There's a small matter of whether a Corbynite/Jonesian Labour party would win enough seats...

But what a dream duo Nigel and Owen will make during the referendum campaign! You can hardly imagine the Inners being able to find front-line politicians who will be capable of capturing the natiom's imagination with those two calling the shots!

Anonymous said...

"calling the shots!"

I think not.


Perchance by 2017, the teutonic plate is moving and with the first tremors detected deep, far away in Greece, they may herald the commencement of a national people movement and fault line fissure which will render the sordid Brussels federal fantasy hopelessly and forever sundered - hip bloody hoo ray.

Fuck off to the EU and to the wet dream of Germ-nanny and where Mitteleuropa became transeuropa and consequent hegemony.

Anonymous said...

And while the teutonic tectonic plates are shifting what is cast-iron Dave doing? Worrying about his rabid pals and their blood sports.

Greece - not at the table

Iran - bag carriers for the US

China - kowtowing to those that once kowtowed.

And the little Englanders sit in the delusional isolation thinking about the Empire

Anonymous said...

Cut away from the shackles of the Brussels empire.

Sovereign again, free to hold our own at international summits whether it be on trade or; geopolitics and lots else besides - Britain could cut it's cloth as it once did and perfidiously at that. Iceland, does quite nicely playing one big nation against one another and that should be our geopolitical manoeurvre and always dodging at that.
We would need to build up [or buy from our allies in the States] an effective Navy [+amphibious forces] plus with a much beefed up coastal patrol service with lots of very fast craft. Forthwith and in time; we'd have to rebuild some old friendships and kowtow when we needed to but not like we do now, with noses stuck hard to the ground - a lowly bow with eye contact made rigid: is just enough.

We could play our part and be beholden to no one.

Blue Eyes said...

Few too many tins at lunchtime, Anon?

Ravenscar. said...

"Few too many tins at lunchtime, Anon?2

Are you speaking from - experience fuqwit?

Some, we don't all live in the bottle.


Ravenscar.

Scan said...

@Timbo

"I really do not understand the logic in this move by the IMF."

Perhaps a shot across Germany's bows by the US via proxy; just a reminder not to get too sure of themselves and just to remember who the daddy really is?

Sobers said...

"Perhaps a shot across Germany's bows by the US via proxy; just a reminder not to get too sure of themselves and just to remember who the daddy really is?"

Quite possibly true.

But the Americans also need to remember it isn't 1950 any more. They themselves are a hollowed out shell of the nation, much as the USSR was in 1985. All big military might out front, Detroit out back. If circumstances align in a certain way, America would collapse like a house of cards. They are like the neighbourhood hard guy who used to be able to beat down anyone who challenged his authority. Now he's got older, slower and softer bellied. One day someone will catch him with a punch and down he'll go.........

Phil said...

The problem that Labour have is that this incarnation of the Tory party is a rather more "political" outfit than the one that was led by Thatcher. It is difficult to see how they could lose the next election, given that Labour will really have nothing new worth saying. Even in the event of a major recession (which is about due now) I think people will feel a lot safer with the Tories in charge.

If Cameron was to take us out of the EU and into EFTA, they would not even need to worry about an attack from the right, and with what has happened to Greece being a good example of what can go wrong, Cameron could do just that and nobody would bat an eyelid. After all, if we had been in the EZ we would be in much the same position as Greece by now.

Anonymous said...

"the Americans also need to remember it isn't 1950 any more. They themselves are a hollowed out shell of the nation, much as the USSR was in 1985"

As are the UK - we must be realistic. The same social and economic forces are acting here, only more so.