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EVENT
After the election: what next for centre-left politics?
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THINKPIECE
#60 Responses to Recession
By-election Statement: Labour must urgently restore party democracy
Norwich North is yet another bad result for Labour and another self inflicted wound. When so many MPs across the parties who played the expenses system remain unaccounted for, why was Ian Gibson singled out? It was either cock-up or conspiracy.
If it's the former then who is to blame? If it's the latter then the conspiracy would centre on Ian's voting record as a centre-left reformer. If so the conspirators should stand and be held to account.
This is the crux of the issue. Labour is no longer a democratic party in any shape or form. Candidates are junked and imposed at the whim of a machine centred between HQ, Downing Street and one or two unions. We have now seen that this backfires, time and time again - since 1997 Labour has lost over 4 million voters, it's driven away over half its members and most recently suffered 5 by-election defeats. This seems inconsequential to the command and control structure which is crucial when you are governing against the wishes, values and desires of centre-left party members. Party conference, the NEC, the National Policy Forum and local selections are controlled by the centre because no one can be trusted to vote for New Labour's increasingly uncomfortable relationship with out of control capitalism.
Labour can still muster a professional team of apparatchiks for a by-election but across the country the party on the ground is just a hollowed out shell. The Iraq war, the 10p tax debacle, privatisation and an adoration of wealth have all taken their toll. It would certainly be worse under the Tories but when your own side do their bidding what's the point of being a member - let alone an active one? But despite all the media manipulation even David Cameron hasn't quite sealed the deal with the country precisely because this is a centre-left moment - when people want and need collective answers to their problems - not the tax cuts for a few and spending cuts for the many his party are advocating.
New Labour is at the end of the road. No money, no grassroots organisation in the field, no narrative and no policies that will make the fundamental change to people's lives that is now required. We are sleep walking to a calamitous defeat. David Cameron may win by default because as is always the case - it is government that lose elections, not the opposition that wins them. Even worse, this government is now losing without a real fight. If things continue in the same direction nothing but defeat is expected and it is quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Compass and others will continue to set out an alternative agenda and a positive vision for a social democratic future, but eyes and ears are either closed at the top or good Ministers have their heads down ploughing their own furrow. The decline in party democracy, the tightening control by the very top mean that the party is increasingly constricted and closed off. But to be successful all parties need to outwardly renew themselves through democratic debate and to answer the issues of their own time.
So as we stated in June Compass would urge the party leadership to seek to instigate urgent democratic engagement and dialogue with the party membership, unions, CLPs, affiliated societies and the PLP in the run up to the party conference. This could be easily based around a re-statement of Labour values and policy intent in the run-up to the next general election, with a draft statement put online for comment. A final version could be voted on by every party member with the result announced in Brighton. Unless such a statement signalled a clear change of direction with a bold set of centre-left policies it would not gain enough support. The party leadership must now use such a process to demonstrate their commitment to listen, engage and only then, lead.
When the challenges of democratic reform, growing inequality and climate change have never been greater the country is crying out for a democratic and social response. Labour must now step up and restate itself as a 21st century party of social democracy in order to meet these challenges and to build the good society.
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Comments
on 21 August 2009, 1:08:07 AM
Michael and Lourdes Kain.
on 05 August 2009, 1:51:24 PM
The LRC is the Masochistic Tendency. After the next general election we will see what remains of the Labour Party and try to make it better. If is beyond that, which I don't expect, I will look towards the Greens.
on 05 August 2009, 1:40:38 PM
on 04 August 2009, 10:29:21 PM
on 04 August 2009, 4:57:59 PM
What to do? My 20 years' hard work seemingly resulting in a Labour Party who doesn't give a stuff about its activists. .. Can someone give me a good reason to renew my Labour membership?
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Wait until Cruddas gives his lecture. You wont be able to keep yourself back. Get there early..the queues will start over-night.
What a bitch you are, Lee !!
on 04 August 2009, 6:08:12 PM
on 04 August 2009, 4:57:59 PM
on 03 August 2009, 6:07:56 PM
on 03 August 2009, 6:06:46 PM
They're not going to though are they? They're "sleep walking to defeat". So it's up to the others to get their act together to combat the Tories. I'm greatly concerned that the Tories will get in on the back of a four way split with New Labour wiped out for at least a term, the remaining non-Tory votes divided amongst the Libdems, Greens, UKIP and BNP in that order. While I greatly respect Caroline Lucas and here wish not to merge, what a pity the Lib Dems won't promote Vince Cable to leader and find an accommodation with the Greens to avoid yet another Tory government.
Lastly the desired referendum on electoral reform needs to have its results acted upon on the votes cast in the 2010 election not the one after that or we'll be in for another five years of right wing drift.
on 01 August 2009, 9:25:43 AM
on 31 July 2009, 11:30:55 PM
on 29 July 2009, 11:35:01 AM
on 28 July 2009, 6:13:26 PM
on 28 July 2009, 3:41:00 PM
It seems to be relevant
The Future of Socialism
Wednesday 22 July 2009
by: Jacques Attali |
It's all about establishing the border between what must remain private and what must be a public service.
Nothing prohibits people from saying many stupid things during the summer vacations, and sometimes there's less fallout from them than there is in the winter. That's what we can hope for Martine Aubry, who, among other reproaches, made it known to Manuel Valls that if he didn't withdraw his request for reflection on a change in the name of the [French] Socialist Party, he should leave it.
One may well be surprised to see the leaders of the opposition, who should be thinking of nothing but finding better responses to the present crisis than those of the government, exchanging such ridiculous maledictions. One may be appalled to see Francois Mitterrand's heirs commit political suicide when they're in the electoral majority. And yet, this discussion is not without significance. It even presents two essential questions.
First of all, the question of the very validity of the concept of socialism: in a world in which so many barbarisms have been and still are being committed in its name, that name has been swapped in many countries for "social democracy." Yet it preserves all its Utopian power as long as it's not reduced to a foolish scientist positivism and returns to its original meaning, which is to privilege the common interest over private interests in certain domains.
So, it's all about establishing the border between what must remain private and what must be socialized (that is, what must be a public service). Now the present crisis teaches us that many things we thought should be kept private exert too much influence on collective well-being to not be, in one way or another, socialized: that's the case for finance; that's also the case for nature, since future generations belong to the society the interests of which are to be protected and ecology is now one of the essential dimensions of the necessary socialization of certain global interests.
Moreover, socializing a domain assumes its geographic framework to be specified: in many cases, as Marx had foreseen, today that framework is necessarily global, or at least continental.
The other question posited is that of the relevance of "Socialist" in the name of the primary opposition party in France, where the president of the Republic, supposed to be from the right, does his utmost to assert a discourse on many subjects that even the most demanding ideology of the left would not challenge.
De facto, and whatever name they adopt, if the French Socialists continue to fail to debate the border between the private and the public, the market and democracy, the for-profit and the free, if they do their utmost to keep the socialization of nature and finance away from the forefront of their program, if they continue to fail to define the levels where socialization must be established (the world, Europe, the nation, local government), they will do nothing along with their derisory quarrels but shepherd today's long evolution towards a society that privatizes profits more and more, socializes debts more and more and forces the poor to pay for essential goods more and more: music today; health, education and the rest tomorrow.
If they continue down this road, in three years, ten candidates from the left will be defeated by the only candidate who will have been - at least in his speech - openly socialist and who will be triumphantly reelected.
--------
Translation: Truthout French Language Editor Leslie Thatcher
on 28 July 2009, 3:11:47 PM
LYNNE Where have you been?
Yes there are some active local parties. But most wards are inquorate. Most CLPS are not active
Yes some people joined in 1997 who were not true supporters. BUt those who have left are lifelong members and activists.
I am afraid teh days of Labour asa mass party are long goen adn that is precisely what the leadership wanted.
Labour is finished
Better get used to it. No amount of 'debate' is going to revive a rotting corpse which now requries assisted suicicde if it shows signsof life.
on 28 July 2009, 2:02:35 PM
One source of enlightenment is to open the address list in the header of an email from the CLP (or branch or ward) addressed to all members and you'll probably find a list of every member (and in many cases ex-members) in the constituency (or branch or ward) with an email address. If your constituency has already been warned of this very sneaky way to contact for members to contact each other, just go back through old emails until you find one with a list. You can then use that email as to basis for "reply all" or you can harvest the names and contact them individually.
on 28 July 2009, 12:44:33 PM
How do you know that? I have belonged to the Labour Party for thirty years and been active where ever I have lived. Does that make me an insider. I certainly feel like an outsider with Loyalists controlling the two local parties I have been in the last seven years.
The party is divided in to constituencies and there is no way of finding out what happens in other constituencies. The links all go through the centre. That was one of the problems we had when we tried to get some democracy back.
We couldn't even get a list of local members in our constituency.
on 28 July 2009, 11:49:14 AM
Whilst I have concerns and there are threads of reality in this piece there are some misleading inaccuracies.
We may have lost a significant number of members since 1997, but we need to set this against the growth in the run up to that General Election. Many of these were fair weather friends and others that signed up for fun - not traditional party members of any colour.
There are issues around activism, but to say we are reduced to a shell is to deny the activities of hundreds of local councillors and thousands of party members who continue to work extremely hard. The perception that local activism is controlled by 'apparatchiks' clearly does not come from an insider - and local parties have demonstrated that they will select against any 'central' powerbase if they want to badly enough. Unions can influence this only by mobilising their local membership - which is an integral part of the democratic structure of the party. The unions are not some separate malignant entity they are part of the history and very fabric of the party.
As for the Doncaster person - much of what happened in Doncaster was caused locally - another penchant we have for blaming anyone except looking at our own role. And, as far as I know, the ILP was founded in Bradford and the suggestion that the 1906 PLP decided to call itself the Labour Party came from the MP for Bradford West, Fred Willie Howett.
No - it isn't perfect, far from it, but I'd have more respect for people who offer some solutions rather than this endless tirade of making the situation worse in the voters eyes by overstating the bad things. And the person who called cabinet members 'girls & boys" needs to grow up. They are all adults - what do you want, a bunch of old men & grannies?
on 28 July 2009, 11:48:38 AM
Labour - dead or alive - it is democracy which must be saved from a Corporatist coup d'etat - everything else is just political theatre distracting us from the real 'power play'...
on 28 July 2009, 10:13:46 AM
It is what Stan Rosenthal would call a 'hysterical rant'.
Statemetns aboutthe futureof Labour should have been made years ago when it stillhada future. The truth is that all these initiatives come too late. The Labour party has ceased to exist in reality.
why not give up and move on?
on 28 July 2009, 9:44:00 AM
The accurate information it has given us this time as that Brown is unpopular with the backbenches... how very illuminating!
on 28 July 2009, 9:22:21 AM
Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 July 2009
Gordon Brown marked the beginning of his summer break today by issuing an "open letter to the public" saying the government was being "tested" by events but that he was confident the recession would end before the end of the year.
No 10 issued the statement as Lord Mandelson predicted that a "handful" of Labour dissidents would continue to attack Brown's leadership after the party's defeat in the Norwich North byelection.
Brown was warned by Alan Simpson, a leading leftwinger, that Labour's left could join the next anti-Brown revolt if the party's prospects did not improve.
Which left is that then?
And what about Labour Party members? What do they think? Who cares what they think.
on 28 July 2009, 3:21:47 AM
Mr Simpson said: 'If nothing is shifting in the way that Gordon has promised about a new era of openness, you will find that both the Left and centre are involved in the process. "
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Now, it is true that this is the Daily Mail. However, what is notable is that Simpson, now a Purnellite at Demos, is concerned about openness, not policy. Its all quite strange. Is the Cheshire Cat watching ?
on 28 July 2009, 12:16:44 AM
WAS Dracula elected ?
on 28 July 2009, 12:14:56 AM
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So ??!! What Dracula elected ??
on 27 July 2009, 10:53:59 PM
We have a boy who is International Development Secretary
We have a girl who is Labour Treasury Secretary
We have boy who is Labour Education Secretary
We have an unelected and unaccuntable Labour Business Secretary/Policy Advisor
We have a boy who is Labour Climate Change Secretary
We have an unelected and unaccountable Transport Secretary/Policy Advisor.
We have a boy who is Labour Health Secretary.
We have a boy who is Labour Foreign Secretary.
We have an unelected and unacountable European Minister.
and finally we have a Prime Minister who is unelected.
There appears that there are not many girls or women or ethnic minorities or ex forces in the Cabinet
How can this shower champion Constitutional reform when they are condoning the very practices they aim to abolish.
Typically hypocritical. Can this nightmare be ended soon
WHERE IS THE EXPERIENCE, POLICY AND IDEAS?
on 27 July 2009, 7:19:24 PM
I think that this more than a concern - it is looking more like a democratic crisis. Each Government seems to be elected on an ever dwindling turnout (with 1992 being an exception) and yet they seem to be handing over more and more of Public control, to unelected Business interests who's primary motivation is of course profit. And wo often donate to the Governing Party's coffers and indeed often receive ex-Ministers as members of their guilded Boardrooms.
The substext to this is that more and more people logically conclude that the most important area of the UK is in the Private Sector. Why campaign or get involved in politics when you can better serve your interests and/or ambitions through your ruthless pursuit of a career in the money and power making Private Sector?
And less ambitious people conclude that it is more friutful watching shares or Proprty values than any sppech or article by a mere Politician. Lloyd George, Harold Wilson (incredibly intelligent but flawed) and many others today might have heade straight for the seat of power today - the City, bypassing that quaint old Institution in Westminster...
But more importantly the very people democracy was meant to help take control of their lives - will more and more turn their backs on the 'system' in contempt.
The Corporatist Workfare State is getting bigger all the time:
'The Insurance Industry Working Group (IIWG), chaired by Alistair Darling, has issued a report suggesting that insurance companies could take over the payment of benefits such as JSA and long-term sickness.
The relevant section reads:
Recommendation 7: The Group recommends that industry and the Government assess the scope for a greater industry role in helping people deal with risks such as unemployment, ill-health, and the need for a retirement income or longterm care. If in principle partnership is seen as positive, a more detailed plan should be agreed, based on a common understanding of the benefit of involving industry on a commercial basis.
This may not be quite as drastic as it seems at first glance, though. According to the report, the government currently underwrites 64% of social insurance, and the insurance industry the remaining 36%. The suggestion is to transfer a further 5% of this to the insurance industry, which doesn't by itself sound like the end of national insurance. The suggestion may fit with the Social Market Foundation's Anglo-flexicurity report, which recommends introducing automatic-enrolment income insurance primarily to increase JSA and similar benefits to higher levels for higher earners. The advantages of this may have become a bit more obvious in the recession, as there are plenty of people who have lost moderate incomes, many of whom are wondering what the point of signing on for a benefit that pays less than a twentieth of their previous earnings is.'
The above is an extract from an article on the Indus Delta website whose mission Statement is 'providing information services and consulting to the welfare-to-work industry in the UK'...
on 27 July 2009, 7:14:35 PM
Who cares what they want? Who cares what they want about anything.
They no longer have any way of expressing what they want or making their MPs support it.
Our MP voted with the whip against the local party until the electorate threw her out. The politicians controlling the party are only interested in playing to the electorate - they might as well be selling cornflakes.
on 27 July 2009, 6:40:08 PM
I am concerned that Chloe Smith was elected ,as I understand it, on a 45% turnout with 40% of the vote. This does not strike me as good representation.
Obvioulsy we cannot even begin to have a true democracy without a fairer voting system than this and one where the people believe thir votes will count.
on 27 July 2009, 6:11:21 PM
Tell that to the people of Doncaster.
There used to a Labour Mayor and now a right wing English Democrat leads local Governemnt.
The Labour Party have approximately 1/3 of councillors elected to serve in local government. (NOC) Parish councillors are far worse
The Labour Party have approx 800 Labour Party Members and decreasing (of which max of 200 show any interest) in three constituencys with a population of approximately quarter of a million - Doncaster North, Don Valley and Doncaster Central.
There is a probabilty that at least two serving Minister, possibly all three will lose their seats in the next general election.
The origins of the Labour Party were from Doncaster (Labour Party History)
The overwhelming (all what is left of the Labour Party) are not in favour of Gordon Brown and beleive he is a liability and not entirely truthful in anything that springs from his mouth.
Out of touch Mandelson may believe Brown is safe, but Labour Party members, supporters, activists, MP's, the electorate, Labour councillors and Labour Parish councillors, trade unionists in Doncaster and the Yorkshire region as a whole are questioning him all the time and want him out
Mandelson the overwhelminging majority of policy advisors (representatives) are unelected, unaccountable and not fit for purpose...and that my dear Peter includes you.
You may certainly may have been at the birth of New Labour and you will certainly be present at the death of it.
on 27 July 2009, 3:24:56 PM
on 27 July 2009, 2:49:31 PM
Lee: I was never deluded about Brown. I said that he was even more central to the New Labour project than even Blair and that there was no prospect of him moving leftwards. I clearly remember Paul di Leeds saying the same.
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I recall not being deluded either, but I felt that it would be gracious to participate in collective responsibility. Maybe I could have shouted louder.
on 27 July 2009, 3:13:38 PM
on 27 July 2009, 2:49:31 PM
on 27 July 2009, 2:26:24 PM
on 27 July 2009, 1:11:21 PM
Is this from Brave New World, 1984, or The Trial Lee ? It seems curiously disembodied. As far as government is concerned, and it is not the only centre of power in the country, Brown remains in charge until he is toppled, one way or another. Mandelson holds delegated power to try to keep the Blairites in line. That was the decision by Brown, to try to remake the New Labour alliance and not to move to the Left. He has good reason to regret it already.
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Dugsie, it is how I see it. It feels disembodied because the undergrowth that is a recognisable part of everyday life, has been removed, so that the stark, simple truth is exposed. That at least is my intention. Of course, I may have removed undergrowth that is essential to full understanding, and my interpretation may be wrong. As always I begin with my best analysis, and learn from the critiques of others.
I think we so much wanted Gordon to disavow Blairism and move left when he took over, that we persuaded ourselves that he had that option in mind. If you recall, Compass was announcing the imminent natural birth of the good society when Gordon took over, and encouraged us to think Gordon saw himself at such cross-roads. I conclude now that we were deluding ourselves and that thought never crossed Brown's mind.
Robert: Why should decent Labourites waste time making the argument within Labour for another ten years?
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Robert, we are a curious species. When we continue to repeat behaviors that makes no sense, we call it a habit or an obsession, depending on how charitable we feel. Ten years is far too precious for me to waste it habitually having the same discussions with Blairites who already claim to be social democrats, but arent. I agree with you, that the prospect of change happening in Labour while it is in power, is astronomically minute. Power groups are there precisely to prevent that from happening, and I see no signs that the power of the group controlling Labour has weakened within the party at all. Anyway, if the group in power can simply pretend to believe in completely different things, and enough people believe them (as is almost always the case), why should there be any change ?
After the election defeat, in my view, the only thing that will produce real change is the defection of the true left in an effort to form a new progressive alliance. Otherwise the current Blairite leadership will change its packaging (it might even become quite rude about Blairism...so far it is trying to pretend it no longer exists)and cement its control. If it worked for Blair, it will probably work again.
on 27 July 2009, 1:21:48 PM
on 27 July 2009, 1:16:39 PM
Labour will not move to the left until they have lost at least two, probably three elections and are forced to recognise that moving to the centre ground means moving left. As long as FPTP or the even worse system of AV remains they will simply say that Middle England floating voters in the marginals are the only game in town. Why should decent Labourites waste time making the argument within Labour for another ten years? Their energies would be far better deployed working to build up the Liberal Democrats and fighting within the infinitely more democratic Lib Dem party procedures to stop the Orange Bookers doing to the Liberals what Blair did to Labour.
There is nothing more important to those who believe in democracy than to build a centre left party. Neither the far left sectarian groups like the SWP or the left wing of Labour have a snowballs' chance in hell of acheiving anything. The Lib Dem party machine is the only thing that stands between the weakest people in our society and the Purnellite corporatist bully boys. Unless people have somewhere else to go on the left the full American Nightmare will be imposed on England forever. The Scots can break away and restore civilisation north of the border once Holyrood has responsibility for benefits not Westminster. Both those of us living in England don't have that option.
Forget about loyalty to the Labour party as an insititution. There is a higher loyalty to British democracy here.
on 27 July 2009, 1:11:21 PM
on 27 July 2009, 1:00:23 PM
Some of the "underclass" might not stop voting. If they are Muslim they can vote Respect. If they are white they might vote BNP. Then the market fundamentalist liberals who are ever so politically correct about race, gender and sexual orientation - which doesn't cost them anything in taxes or oblige them to pay their employees more - but who don't want to hear about class and like to make out we are all middle class now because David Beckham is millionaire - they will all make pious noises about how terrible it is that the chavs are going fascist. Never mind the lack of decent housing, jobs paying more than a pittance and no dignity for the unemployed.
The thing about private security guards is that they're not necessarily reliable. Many of them have a criminal background. Plus if I was Al Qaeda's chief of operations in Britain I would try finding a private security guard who's father has just killed himself because his small business has gone bust thanks to the City bankers and the humiliation at the benefit office was the final straw. That might be one way to get the package into Canary Wharf.
on 27 July 2009, 12:53:22 PM
Things arent happening to Labour by mistake. Its not as if Gordon Brown is just unlucky. And its not as if Gordon Brown is occupying No 10 handing down disastrous Stalinist edicts on his own. Although others disagree with me, I dont eventhink he is in charge.
The "leadership" is not identical to the "leader". The leadership of the party is an organic entity. It is there because it has the power, will, and tactics to remain the leadership. Where necessary, it will shed a leader, like Blair, or Brown, to retain its position and control. The leadership of New Labour has been unchanged for 12 years. That is not that remarkable a tenacity...many other parties witness the same.
The core leadership group is quite large, sufficiently united, and able to deal with overweening ambition of treachery within its ranks. Blair ensured that this leadership is highly centralised and exercises full control over all internal Labour procedures. Like all long standing regime, the leadership has tendrils, roots, offshoots, and vines everywhere, to ensure its stability. The bulk of the parliamentary membership has GIVEN the feadership the power it has and is now dependent on the exercise of that power.
When the leadership decides the time is right, it will decide either to make Brown responsible for the coming defeat, in which case he will stay and lead Labour into the election (after which he will be booted out/decide tospend more time with his family); or they will decide to send him home before the election blaming him for everything that has gone wrong, and announcing to the voters that a NEW New Labour has emerged with great left-wing credentials. Compass will, probably without fully realising how it has been used, help in that effort.
Comrades, the leadership wont change. It may change its narratives or advertising materials, but the leadersrhip that is there now, will be the leadership that leads Labour into the next election. If there is to be a new leader before the election, the leadesrhip group will arrange that. The majority of MPs that has slavishly obeyed and voted with the Government for the last decade, will vote for the candidate the leadership selects. It is almost certain to be David Miliband, but if its one of the others it wont matter a damn. The leadership may be incompetent, but it is still capable of playing some tricks. So in addition to announcing that it has completely changed its ideology and is now left-wing social democrat (and quite a lot of otherwise sensible people will believe this), it will invite some stars in from outside the leadership group to show how pluralistic it is (this time, I predict Cruddas will accept the invitation, and who knows, maybe even Alan Simpson, now a Demos Purnellite, could be drafted). There may be a referendum on the most useless alternative to FPTP, to get the juices running, and I am sure a few other things for the kiddies.
Friends, please do not torture yourself with a dream of a "leadership change", unless you have a credible scenario as to how that might conceivably happen. All you will get is the coach turning into a pumpkin on the eve of the election,
on 27 July 2009, 12:47:45 PM
On welfare well there is the market fundamentalist Thatcherite tendency in the Tory party which is every bit as brutal as New Labour, but there is also the One Nation tradition of Disraeli and Macmillan for Tories to fall back on if they choose. They are not directly responsible for beating up the mentally ill and if a few truly shocking cases of suicide are reported in the media it is at least possible that the Tories will change the law since they could do the decent thing without losing face. It would also be a wonderful weapon against the New Labour opposition. Every time a New Labour spokesman speaks up on Question Time about the damage Tory unemployment is doing to society and talks about a lost generation the Tory can say, excuse me you hypocrite, we didn't put the boot into schizophrenics so don't try lecturing us about social justice. They can say that cruelty and New Labour authoritarian incompetence are two sides of the same coin. They can hit the Labour opposition from the left as well as the right and the effects will be devastating. I still can't believe the stupidity of what they've done. I know the Purnellites don't have a spark of humanity in them but even in terms of their political careers - which is obviously all they care about - this is catastrophic.
They will defend the City crooks to the hilt and they will oppose trade unions fiercely but even here they wont be any worse than New Labour. They are going to savage the public sector, jack up the unemployment figures and make the recession that much worse, but that will have the positive side effect of forcing even more of the middle class to experience the reality of Workfare.
So we have nothing to fear from a Tory government. It's going to happen and it should happen - it would be a travesty if Labour didn't lose the next election after what they've done since 2001.
on 27 July 2009, 12:41:11 PM
on 27 July 2009, 12:27:35 PM
The daily struggle to live will continue despite the best endeavours of our elected members of parliament to continue to ignore the plight of so many.
Several posters have suggested a hung parliament to be the best option .... I will safely assume that there will be many only too willing to supply the rope ?
No , democracy itself is in grave danger ... the options available to the electorate have now diminished .... a case of more of the same , or .... is there an electable alternative ?
Politics are now virtually meaningless to members of the Underclass ... the daily ritual to struggle on takes precedence irrespective of whatever witch doctor comes calling for their vote in the near future.
on 27 July 2009, 12:16:27 PM
Sheila, frances, I discovered that democracy is so noticeable by its absence, and it would take too much time and much too much effort and result in so little effect that it wasn't worth my while to do anything other than give it up as a ba job, resign and join the LibDems, a party which, at least, shares many of the values and aims which are significant to me.
on 27 July 2009, 11:24:29 AM
The truth is ther is not going tobe a sudden restoration of democracy within Labour
It will lose the election and nothing will change.
Labour is finished and sudden rediscovery of democracy will not convince anybody. '
Your assumption is just as 'endless' (it is your single issue or even obseession) and ir/relevant as the dignified oppostion to the Workfare Bill (which your silence on is quite deafening) and you could have made it just as well or bad by not trying to impose what you think people should or shouldn't discuss.
on 27 July 2009, 11:23:58 AM
All sick people are now at the mercy of private contractors on bonuses and their benefit can be taken away if he thinks they aren't striving hard enough to find work even if their illness is the most severe.
I know the MP lost a fortune in income and perks but the £62 a week is a lot to a very ill person if that is all the have to live on. There are no rules. The advisor can put on sanctions for non compliance with his 'direction'. The sick person has to show 'good cause'.
No wonder the Tory lords say this kind of arbitary justice with no involvement of the courts is unconstitutional. Ian was a good MP - he helped carers a lot - but he is rich and well. Sick people will be far more hurt by summary rough justice in kangaroo courts.
on 27 July 2009, 11:22:53 AM
And what about that statement of values?
I suppose the statement will be along the lines of
‘We are launching our new values which are part of our vision(sic) for renewing the country. It is part of our strategy an d armed with this strategy and our values we believe that this great party of ours is on course to renew our contract with the British people’
LoL
Self-parody or what?
This laughable piece of political slapstick is pointless. And on the eve of a general election it beggars belief.
Will this be produced after a focus group discussion and will it be market tested to see what marginal voters think?
What will it be called: the Social Contract or ‘My vision of a young country?
And will it be changed after Labour’s election defeat to something else well a little more, er, voter friendly?
It is all too late.
A ‘statement of values’ apparently suddenly rediscovered will not make the party more democratic and will not make the party believe in anything. Like a deathbed conversion it would be theatrical. If it actually believed in anything it would be more democratic in the first place. If it believed in anything it would not have passed three thousand new criminal laws. It would not have made society more unequal and uneducated. It would not have turned society upside down as it has done nor squandered vast sums of public money to no purpose.
The country is broken and unhappy and more unequal than in Edwardian times. It may be on the brink of serious social unrest.
In any case Labour cannot win the election
Labour’s great coalition is broken and Labour may never again govern with an outright majority. Indeed it might not even continue to exist in its present form
It may carry on as a historical curiosity like the Independent Labour party or other grouplets. But its historical role may have come to an end. And what a sad end.
It is a tragedy foretold and in the making
The party is marching to its doom. In spite of warnings for many years the leadership, the Parliamentary party, the membership and the activists ignored every opportunity to call a halt to the destruction of the party. Now it is too late.
Now the activists have gone, the membership is in meltdown, unions are disaffiliating, and voters are switching. It is above all the core vote on which Labour relied rather arrogantly which has gone. But this time it will not be coming back.
Like shoppers voters have become consumers as they have sampled the goods on offer and Labour’s has a peculiarly bitter taste
Labour has lost legitimacy and moral authority. It is now little more than a marketing operation for shoddy goods. Why should anybody want to buy it?
Why not stop pretending to be a party and just sign it over to a marketing operation. Just get some sponsorship revenue instead. The manifesto can be changed every year depending on who pays most. One year it can be the Barclays conference, next year it ca n be Coca Cola.
Just get it over with
on 27 July 2009, 11:18:04 AM
The truth is ther is not going tobe a sudden restoration of democracy within Labour
It will lose the election and nothing will change.
Labour is finished and sudden rediscovery of democracy will not convince anybody.
on 27 July 2009, 11:04:26 AM
that "what happened to Ian was unfortunate but let's forget it and move
on." Many of us want to move on but we cannot do so at the moment without the Prime Minister publicly apologising to Ian for the injustice meted out to him by a government that lost its moral compass in the panic ceated by the Telegraph's accusations, and also to the citizens of North Norwich who are still unclear as to exactly why Ian was singled out for special
punishment. If such apologies do not come over the coming weeks I suspect that many former labour supporters in North Norwich will only find
themselves able to renew their support under a new labour leadership that
is convincingly able to demonstrate that it is devoid of 'Stalinist'
tendencies.
on 27 July 2009, 11:04:13 AM
'Organized greed will always beat disorganized democracy.'
And our democracy - withelements still left from the Middle Ages etc- is very 'disorganized' not to say incoherent and top down...
on 27 July 2009, 10:53:15 AM
So the country has run out of money. Who stole all the pies. Was it the bankers, was it the MPs here and in Brussels, was it the PFI firms - no - let's say it was very sick people on £62 a week. Let's all stand round on our indexed linked pensions and watch the government kick them.
We have the lowest welfare in Europe.The expenses fiddled by the average MP would pay benefit for a sick person for five or ten years but let's blame the sick for the missing money because they are weak.
on 27 July 2009, 10:38:46 AM
'...discrimination law is money for lawyers, from those that can afford them, MOST SICK AND DISABLED CANNOT, New Labour has made a lot of propaghanda from all of this, whilst on the ground we are victims of draconian legislation that we can do little about. with much worse to come. This legisalation will not save money.'
And considering the post-Thatcherite settlement prizes 'government efficiency' by only protecting the most vulnerable - just shows how far the project has become unhinged from any original rationale (dubious though this was).
Targetting the MI may be more obscene but the entire witch-hunt on those who can't find a job (I wonder why?) by those who have index linked pensions guranteed by the tax payer is truly dystopian. Added to this that the purveyors of such counter intuitive and destructive legisaltion are also complicit in killing and torturing ordinary people in far off lands - from today's Guardian:
'A businessman who was held and mistreated in the United Arab Emirates following the London bombings believes he has evidence that British consular officials asked permission from the UK's own security services to visit him while he was detained.
Heavily redacted documents seen by the Guardian appear to indicate that the request to visit Alam Ghafoor was made to an unidentified British intelligence officer and not to officials in the UAE.
Ghafoor is one of several British men who allege there has been British complicity in their detention and torture while abroad. The businessman, who is 38 and from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, was detained and tortured while on a business trip to Dubai following the London bombings in July 2005'
Trying to play the 'which policy is the most draconian' should be left to the historians of the future - the bigger picture is clearly that the premises on which the New Labour-Old Tory Corporatist consensus is built on is collapsing before our very eyes - but without a coherent alternative really being put forward by anyone.
Unless this change soon the social and economic situation will only get worse and it will harm the poorest and most vulnerable people the most.
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