Light blogging
Posting from a wifi hotspot in a hotel somewhere in the Midlands. I’m away at a conference for the next few days, so there will be little activity on the blogging front.
About Antonia
I'm a Labour councillor for Rose Hill and Iffley ward in Oxford. More information about me here.
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When you get back, let us know whether it’s the Inner Party or the Outer Party of which you’re an activist….
Sorry mate - not the foggiest what you’re going on about
Could he mean the Inner and Outer Parties in ‘1984′?
And in 2006, if we are to believe Messrs Dromey and Prescott.
Come on, when are we going to hear Labour Party members actually call for Blair’s resignation? Openly? How much more contempt does he have to show you?
“Come on, when are we going to hear Labour Party members actually call for Blair’s resignation? Openly?”
I was thinking about this the other day, and I’ve been calling for Blair’s resignation since about 1998. The problem with the Labour Party really isn’t that everyone is robotically loyal - there have always been lots of people who have a whole range of criticisms of the leadership, increasing in number every year since we’ve been in government. Problem is that we are much more comfortable with comparisons to dystopian fiction and inventing conspiracy theories as to why we aren’t more successful then we are at persuading people to agree with us rather than the Blairites.
Dan
People like you were the reason we were out of office so long.
It was the “Blairites” (or as I see them,people with enough sense between their ears to know that you dont win elections of a hard left ticket and that times had changed) who got us three election victories and it will be Gordon (just as much New Labour as anyone) who will win us a fourth.
That is if people like you are kept as far as possible from anything!
Yes, that’s right. Dan was entirely to blame for 18 years of tory rule. Particularly those early years when he was a wee baby. Bad Dan!
Steve: so it wasn’t all down to Blairite discipline rather than Labour establishing itself as more credible economically (with the help of the Tories blowing it in 1992?)
Now, why is Steve’s line of argument strangely familiar? Ah, I know what it reminds me of, doubtless unfairly:
‘”Bravery is not enough,” said Squealer. “Loyalty and obedience are more important. And as to the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the time will come when we shall find that Snowball’s part in it was much exaggerated. Discipline, comrades, iron discipline! That is the watchword for today. One false step, and our enemies would be upon us. Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?”
‘Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: “If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right.” And from then on he adopted the maxim, “Napoleon is always right,” in addition to his private motto of “I will work harder.”‘
(Animal Farm, Chapter 5)
yawn
Well you can bleat animal farm to you are blue in the face when the Tories are in power
Keep it up everyone - over in the blue corner we’re all enjoying watching Not So Very New Labour imploding itself into another long spell in opposition! At this rate you’ll make the Liberal Democrats look like a party with a direction!
Hey Tim
eat my shorts pal
Your Eton chum aint going nowhere near 10 downing street
Steve - So basically you haven’t got a cohesive argument and decide to resort to childish outdated class warfare when all else failed. Once again it shows that Labour is not a party for the entire country.
Not like the Tories eh! I would be happy to discuss their problems all day long!
Oh come on Tim, you know better than to make sweeping comments like that based on one idiot’s comments on a blog
To be fair though Jo, as thoughtful as he no doubt is, he is going to be tempted to take advantage of Labour’s misfortunes by almost any means
Paul - we try to be a party for all the country (and on a different definition I do mean all) - when did the Conservatives last suggest someone was unfit for office because of where they happened to have been sent to school or some other irrelevant distinction?
Jo - I agree, but since significant Labour figures, including your Deptuy Leader (unless I’m mistaken and the loans row just proves he’s insignificant) have made a point of this, I question that it’s just one comment on a blog.
Er, how about all the constant sniping at John Prescott (and others)? In more than a few cases it seems like snobbery plain and simple.
Sniping at someone based on what his parents do / did, where he went to school and the like usually looks like snobbery. Sniping at someone because they appear to be lacking in the qualities that you think their job requires is nothing like snobbery.
Some fraction of the sniping at Mr. Prescott is based on his well-known inability to construct a coherent sentence. Mr. Prescott himself admits this weakness, but claims that he is able to make himself understood and whether he does so in grammatical English or not is of little relevance. That’s a reasonable argument, but there is also a reasonable argument that for a politician on the international stage, the ability to speak correctly is of some benefit.
Sam - I agree with you, up until the point that people judge Prescott not on his record but on his background and career as a ships steward. Ditto for Speaker Martin.
Steve, I will indeed continue to bleat about Animal Farm, and I’m sorry you find it so boring that you apparently never managed to read it through to its conclusion:
‘Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’
I went to school with Tim Roll-Pickering. The guy is potentially the biggest loser on this earth, with only Cameron providing the competition for this ‘accolade’.
Real losers are people who post crap like that without even leaving their real name.