One thing after another
Tamanou has a post that strikes a chord:
Particular highlights of recent months have included:
- the revelation that the Labour Party’s expenses last year were a secret between the PM and the then General Secretary (who seems to have gone very quiet)
- the inspired decision to timetable debate on the Education & Inspections Bill for this spring
- the monumentally screwed-up NHS budgeting process
- the decision to pick a completely unnecessary fight with the trade unions over the Local Government Pension Scheme
- irritating UNISON to the extent that they suspended co-operation with the Labour campaign
- the inexplicable decision by Brown in concert with the PM not to renew the Council Tax rebate to pensioners this year
- the order to Milburn & Byers, both slightly more charmless than gonorrhoea, to foster disunity in the party and undermine Brown
- the apparent availability of peerages on demand to those with the pockets to afford them
All that, and I wake up this morning to find that John Prescott has been having an affair, and Charles Clarke let foreign violent, sex and drug offenders wander off into the ether after their sentences.
Just one thing after a-sodding-nother. And it’s eight days to the election. A new leader won’t solve all our problems, but it would be a start. Time to go, Tony.
Juding by the Guardian Comments on this issue, letting out criminal immigrants should be good for our vote in places like Oxford. Apparently deportation is racist.
Time for the facist Labour mob to call a general election so that the public can vote them out of office.
I know a lot of Tories who will be taking great pleasure in this. But while I’ve had a slight smile I don’t take huge pleasure. I know what it’s like when you work your arse (sorry if sweary words bad!) off and just every day brings more rubbish. I’ve had days where I just want to cry my eyes out at what Conservative Government/MPs have done, or when a friend’s private life is splashed all over the papers. It’s crap, but we do it because we believe in more than just the individuals.
Keep your chin up.
It wouldn’t be so bad if our membership hadn’t plummeted so dramatically, but that means we really can’t wait till 2008 or whenever.
Well if i wasn’t narked before I am now. I don’t quite understand is the refusal of Tony to accept the resignation of Charlie - a strong point is supposed to be spin and PR; hello, wake up.
Case Study at hack training school
Your mate is head of a Dep’t that’s ballsed up and it’s election time. Your priority is to stop the issue dragging on, and giving Tories ammunition. Hmmmm what do you do?
Perhaps draw a line under the issue and accept the resignation. Frankly, right now losing an ally in the constant battle with a rival is a small price to pay 8 days before the elections.
IMO Tony’s living on borrowed time and a refreshing admittance of hands up we ballsed up wouldn’t go amiss.
Time for the facist Labour mob to call a general election so that the public can vote them out of office.
Labour may be many things, but we’re not fascist, C4. Don’t you think you ought to be a bit more careful about the terms you bandy around?
With a BA in History, I know what I’m talking about!
Hey, guess what Antonia did for her degree?
Antonia
You seem to forget that we won an election only just a year ago!
As for the NHS, well you are truly buying into the Tory/Liberal lie on this.
The NHS needs reform and restructuring and thats going to be hard but with an ageing population, escalating costs of new drugs etc it has to be done.
Pensioners do a lot better under this govt so the chancellor rightly decided to push more money to hard working families in this fiscal round.
As for UNISON,well I take no lessons from a union whose executive is stuffed full of Marxists and others who simply want to see the govt fall.
As for “peerages on demand” well you really should be a Daily Mail leader writer with the crap you come out with.
Try engaging your brain before opening your very big mouth!
We really dont need “friends” like you in the Labour Party!
You sound like you think you have some spurious justification for your point, C4. Care to share?
Chris - that’s right, boy wonder, bury your head in the sand. Everything’s fine, it’s just the nasty nasty media doing us down. You normally disappear pretty fast when I ask how many hours you’ve done on the doorstep this week, so let’s try that one. How many hours you done, bright boy?
If there were not people like Antonia and others like her (and to the left of her) in the Labour Party our party would lose its identity and foundation; that of socialism. If you fail to see that you have no business being in the Labour Party.
OK C4, I see your BA and I’ll raise you an MA (and not an Oxbridge one either). The government isn’t fascist - it lacks the aggressive nationalism that is a critical identifier of a fascist state, the strict totalitarianism and many other points.
Can I suggest that you return your BA degree to whichever cereal packet you got it from.
This year, as in past years, I’m taking two weeks of my holiday to work on the Labour campaign in Birmingham - day after day of pounding the streets and trying to get people to vote for us. I’m not doing it for Tony or John P or Charlie Clarke. I’m doing it because I know that Labour can run the City better than the current incompetent LD/Tory coalition and that the people of Birmingham deserve better.
And the fear of that being translated to national politics is what convinces me that the time is right for Tony to go. We need a new leader to take us up to win a fourth term. We’re haemorrhaging members and voters over Blair and without them, we can’t hold on to our position in local government, nor can we win parliamentary seats.
I don’t like it and I hate having to say it, but he has to go. My loyalty to the party goes deeper than my loyalty to our leader.
For God’s sake man, go.
How many times you hump your lard arse around the streets is irrelevant antonia, compared to the damage people like you do by coming out with the total crap that really does read like it came from the pages of the Daily Mail.
I am doing election work,thankfully with people who prefer to champion our government rather than castigate it, all this after winning a third term under Tony Blair, a man some on here forget has won elections,not lost them.
Chris, is the election work involving canvassing (and not just the streets where just about everyone is down as Labour (Firm) ), leafleting, and basically just going out and meeting members of the public over a period of time!
I don’t agree with everything Antonia says, but if you are going to accuse her of disloyalty in a rather shrill manner, please show a bit evidence about what you are doing, because, like it or not, she works incredibly hard during Labour election campaigns
Chris, I’m glad you’re actually doing some work to get Labour councillors elected.
And you’re right - the NHS is better-funded than it has ever been. But I stand by my point that the budgeting, management and accountability processes are screwed - and that means a huge budget deficit threatening jobs and services in my city. How many angry nurses have you spoken to this week? Because there are lots in Oxford.
The scandal over peerages - whether true or not, and I believe, perhaps naively, that it’s probably not true, is damaging us. John Prescott’s shenanigans are damaging us.
And the one you don’t mention - the foreign prisoners not being deported - is really not going down well with our core vote. How can I explain that to voters plagued by petty and not-so-petty crime on the estate that I hope to represent?
I’m not criticising from the right, from Daily Mail land; nor do I come from Guardian-liberal-land. My criticisms are grounded in a history of activism for our party and a real concern for the people we represent and hope to represent. I’m not a wrecker, and not one of the usual suspects. I am a socialist and a democrat. My views are far more widespread in the party that you think, and people like you don’t win elections without people like us.
Feel free to insult ordinary members, Chris.
After all, we’re just the poor sods who do all the hard graft to try and get people elected. Why should we be allowed views on our leadership or our party? We should just follow the Great Leader into oblivion. Because we are members and the party is supposed to belong to us, not Tony, Gordon or anyone else. We are the bedrock of the party, not faceless apparatchiks who get their kicks by insulting the workers.
I want there to be an effective Labour Party after Tony. If he can leave us with a chance of rebuilding, that would be a worthwhile legacy. It isn’t all lost and I will champion the great things that this government has done - massive investment in the NHS and schools, a minimum wage, extending workers’ rights to holidays, extending gay rights and providing extra money for the poorest pensioners. All those things would not have happened under a Tory government, so I thank Tony and his colleagues for delivering that.
For the sake of the party and the country, the time has come for him to move on. Go with good grace rather than be dragged kicking and screaming from No 10.
Chris: are you real? I’m a floating voter (Ind/Green/Lab/LD) in a marginal Labour/LD constituency and it’s the kind of crud you’re spouting that puts me off Labour, not intelligent socialist criticism from Antonia and her local equivalents. No one on the left will think that things have not improved massively since 1997 but that’s no reason to pretend that everything’s faultless. To paraphrase the Great Leader, surely we shouldn’t be satisfied with having to defend to the hilt ‘what you’ve been given’ when socialists and others should be arguing ‘what they want’?
Well I raise you again Hack with both Oliver Kamm and Norman Tebitt backing me views on the nature of fascism.
As for you Chris, if Antonia is an apologist for the Furher and his not so merry men, then you are a colaborater.
C4 - you said “the facist Labour mob”. Political Hack explained why you are wrong. You quoted Norman Tebbit (who thinks anything he disagrees with is left wing) and Oliver Kamm (ditto). I’m still not thinking you’ve explained why you think such an odd thing.
Kamm is a left-winger actually, one of the very few that are.
One of the very few good ones actually
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/staggering.html
Far be it from me to speak for Oliver Kamm, but praying him in aid in defence of the notion that this Government is fascist is either ignorance or mischief-making on your part, C4. Kamm has consistently stuck up for Labour and against truly far-right sympathising parties like Respect. You might want to try reading his blog …
I am not a Labour voter and I wonder if any of you can explain something to me. Why do you call yourselves “Labour” and not “New Labour” which is actually tbe name of your party. Is Labour just shorthand for New Labour or is there something more sinister behind it, are you distancing yourselves from New Labour?
June
They dont like the name New Labour as it irks them that New Labour is what actually wins elections, they much prefer the barricades and wilderness of not being in power, with all the reality that goes with it.
They snipe from the sidelines.
Oh shut up Chris, you’re getting really boring now.
June, it’s quite simple. We disagree with a lot of the things that New Labour has done but we’re loyal to the values and principles that underpin the Labour party - democratic socialism, social justice, redistribution of wealth, etc etc etc. That’s what we’re about and that’s what the Labour party is all about.
Chris that’s rubbish and you know it!
New Labour is just a nickname for those within the Party who are Blairite, as well as those who agreed with the internal reforms needed to win in 1997.
The Labour Party has always been called The Labour Party, and as far as I know it will be for a long time to come!
By the way, June, are you the same June who left a comment over at Dirty Leftie’s blog earlier today saying that you’d love to vote Labour but your only option is New Labour?
Seems to me that you already know exactly what we mean…
New Labour is more than just a nickname - it was used to emphasise the rebranding of the party in the early years of Blair’s leadership, right down to being at the top of the 1997 manifesto. (It was also yet another thing nicked from the Conservatives, albeit this time after over sixty years - “New Conservatism” was used to refer to Baldwin’s brand in the 1920s.)
June - actually, it’s the other way round. We’re registered with the Electoral Commission as The Labour Party, and on ballot papers the legend reads “The Labour Party Candidate”. New Labour was a clever marketing device used to emphasise that Labour 1994-7 had changed from Labour of the nadir of 1983. It worked, very well. However, increasingly, many of us that are uncomfortable with some/many aspects of Tony Blair’s agenda prefer just the name of our party to a past-its-sell-by-date marketing slogan. “New Labour New Britain” was a great slogan for 1997; but in 2006, using it might imply that Labour has done nothing to improve the UK in nine years, and that’s not true. Besides, “new” and “old” Labour are increasingly terms to describe wings of our party rather than the party as a whole - which is why I prefer just “Labour”.
Chris - nonsense, mate. I like being in power - it means we have the chance to change people’s lives for the better rather than snipe from the sidelines. You won’t find any Labour members that think we could do with a spell in opposition here. I have set you straight on this point several times already: do you actually read my responses to you? How’s the good fight going in your part of the world, anyway? I’m assuming you’re somewhere in London, so are we going to hold your borough?
Jo said: “By the way, June, are you the same June who left a comment over at Dirty Leftie’s blog earlier today saying that you’d love to vote Labour but your only option is New Labour?
Seems to me that you already know exactly what we mean.”
No, I absolutely did not know what you meant. I have never understood why the “New” part of the title was dropped. It is rarely used in the news broadcasts on TV or in the papers. And I genuinely wondered why that was. As you may surmise I am certainly not a fan of New Labour (ever since “shock and awe” which certainly shocked me). I could never have imagined the old Labour doing that, but obviously New Labour had no problem with it. But I just wondered if there had been some sort of executive decision to drop the word “New” from New Labour. That’s all.
I do read Kamm’s blog and a lot more besides.
Just looking at a labour leaflet in Stockport saying how the Lib Dems are weak on crime!
How we laughed!
We will be reminding them of Labour’s criminal record lol
Ah the Lib Dems, you will never be in government so stop worrying yourself about grown up stuff chummy boy
They ARE in Government - Stockport for example - guess who DIDN’T put forward a budget this year - yep the opposition Labour party.
Your arrogant comments go down well with the voters round here - NOT!
Although Labour is fascist party under Blair, the most fantical fascists are members of the Lib Dems. Helen Watters is an infamous Lib Dem anti-Semite and Stalinst from Newcastle, while Adam James is another fascist with a fetish for foul-mouthed yobbery.
Am I the only one who finds that the description of the mainstream parties as facsict only serve to legitamise the politics of the BNP et al?
However, much i disagree with the policies of the Labour Government and Tory Party i would draw the line at the labeling of them as fascist. I believe this cheapens the fight against the far right and provides room for the scum to operate.
I disagree because the increasingly fascist nature of mainstream politics demostrates how far this country has devolved since 1994 when Blair became Labour leader. We cannot allow people like Blair, Griffin and Galloway to dominate the political agenda because it is their poilicies and attitudes that have caused the present crisis of confedence in politics.
We have to take seriously and confront the spectre of fascism in all it’s evil shapes and forms.
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I hope Antonia won’t mind if I tell CHEESEBALL to f**k off and die!
Although I despise what the BNP stand for in every way possible, it is true that Labour is now a party of the middle class,from its activists to its staff and MPs.
This has meant that Labour no longer represents or understands working class people.
Its no use simply castagating the BNP because they are just reaping what Labour has sown.
Labour is a party for all and one whose ethos is to help the downtrodden in society
Paul Burgin - you should contact Margeret Hodge and ask her why 8 out of 10 white persons in her constituency are considering voting BNP or why 25% of the English population are considering voting BNP.
I am sure that there are a no of reasons, but with the BNP there are issues of ethics and common deceny in how people should vote, as well as policy! If I was so sick as to vote BNP, I would not only be insulting to many of my friends, but also I would be commiting an act of great cruelty to many of the minorities in this country, as well as letting down those generations who fought to preserve our freedoms during the Second World War.
“Labour is a party for all and one whose ethos is to help the downtrodden in society ”
Not anymore it isnt, once it was but no longer
Except that its membership fee is now beyond the reach of people on min wage, it has undermined its previous friends in the union movement (so is left with hardly any grassroots),is made up of middle class aparatchiks who have politics degrees and no knowledge or understanding of what it is like to be poor.
Whole communties where people have 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet and where poverty and degradation are a fact of life, these are places the clique that took over the Labour party neither care about nor understand.
The middle class so called left guardian reading types write about issues and people they have nothing in common with.
Its a huge huge con.
Labour membership can be had for £1/month (unwaged), or £3/month (under £20K income) - is that so much? Besides, you can register as a Supporter for nothing.
Labour has to govern for all, not just the minority of people who are trade unionists. If the unions hadn’t abused the power they had at the top of government in the 60s and 70s - an authority which neither came from the voters, nor from individual union members (many of whom weren’t even Labour supporters by the 80s) - things might have turned out very differently.
You’re right to worry about politicians and party members being distant from the people they represent and the communities they’re from, but anyone can be out of touch - you don’t have to be middle class. Besides, people have been saying for decades that Labour members are not a representative bunch (remember Militant?), just as they aren’t in other parties. They’re people who are interested in the theory and practice of politics, which has always made them pretty rare in this country. To lay this all at the door of New Labour is really looking back through rose-tinted spectacles.
What do you think the party should do?
This is Blairs Britian:
1. Diabolical Hikes of around 15 - 20% on gas and electricity prices
2. Continued destruction of our manufacturing sector by foreign investors
3. Letting a thousand Immigrant murderers,rapists,paedophiles on our streets only to commit crime again
4. Letting upwards of 283,000 illegall immigrants roam our streets while awaiting deportation
5. Dumbing our Labour market by letting swathes of eastern european workers work in this country thereby decreasing the wage of your average Brit. Companies are now actively seeking cheaper labour from eastern Europe at the expense of a British workforce.
6. Complete lack of affordable housing for the poor
7. Taxed to death - the average Brit pays over 6o% of his income through direct and indirect taxation
8. Subjecting the British population to the orwellian culturally marxist principle known as political correctness
Yes Labour is doing wonders for Britian.
Careful, Cheeseball, you’re scaring the BNP.
I thought CHEESEBALL would be proud of Blair’s record in government considering that Blair like Griffin and Galloway is a nazi.
Griffin is not a Nazi - far from it
Well if you want to go down to brass tacks, there is the fact that he has a history of Holocaust denial, plus the editing of an anti-semitic magazine. Then there is his admiration of Neo Nazi and former colleague of Hitler, Otto Strasser!
C4 I have no doubt you believe what you say, but you are misguided and wrong. Many Labour Party members take issue with your comments and some would find it distressing. If Labour were facist, by now we would have abolished political parties, had our opponents imprisoned and/or executed and started persecuting minority groups, amongst many other despicable things of the sort Hitler did!
Wake and smell the coffee CHEESEBALL! If truth be told, you know Griffin is a fascist and it is very likely that you are one as well, so quit trying to insult our intellegence.
Paul, I agree that most members of the Labour party are not fascist and are firmly “Old Labour”, but these people don’t lead the party anymore, Blair, his cronies and the sellouts now do. Yes, it is distressing to be told that the party you’ve supported all your life has now become a fascist organisation and of course you’ll want to deny it, but it does change the fact that it has indeed become fascist. Not only is “New Labour” fascist, but many of those “Old Labour” diehards (that’ve remained with the party in the vain hope that things will get better becasuse they’ve no alternative to vote for) also deep down know this to be true.
C4, that’s completely moronic. Don’t you realise that as soon as you bring up the F-word it’s incumbent upon you to raise the level of the debate? You’ve got a bit of a cheek criticising CB.
Show me that New Labour are economically and socially conservative, distrust democracy, and stress order, obedience, discipline, and have a pessimistic view of human nature. Then I might agree with your analysis.
Griffin is a Nationalist not a fascist - big difference.
If Griffin was a nazi then why does the BNP have several Jewish members and even one successfully elected councillor, Clr Patricia Richardson on Epping Forest Council? Wake up its time you stopped believing the lies diseminated by the mainstream press.
And by the way - the BNP have just doubled the amount of elected councillors they have.
Griffin was once editor of an anti-semitic magazine, as for the councillor in question, well I would need to look into that!
As for doubling the amount of councillors that is no recomendation. The Nazis won a no of seats in the Reichstag in 1933. It just says that the people who voted BNP were either naive, misinformed, ignorant, vile, or racist, or all of the above!
Oh no the dreaded racist accusations yet again. Its very strange that Labour and Tory politicians seem quite intent on throwing thier weight behind Asian only or black only organisations but as soon as a white person decides to do the same he is either a Nazi or a racist. Its a terrible double standard that the politically correct Tory/Labour/Lib dem parties seem quite happy to accept, while at the same time seem intent on taking all of us into some multicultural ‘colourblind’ ideal.
Otto Strasser’s ideology continues to this day to influence the BNP which clamours for a variant of feudalism (with the state in place of the King) and wholesale land redistribution. Thats about the only Strasser philosophy that does influence the BNP.
Hi all,
Apologies for allowing a pro-BNP conversation to go unmoderated for several days. I’m on to it - my blog can be a forum for robust conversation but not for promoting racism.
“Griffin is a Nationalist not a fascist - big difference.”
Nationalism IS fascism!
I’m proud to be British and I hate the EU, but doesn’t mean I’m a Nationalist. I consider myself a patriot and patriots respect other cultures and peoples, where as Nationalism doesn’t and in some cases even seeks to impose it’s intolerance on other peoples (Imperialism).
BTW, don’t use this arguement against US foreign policy because there is a clear difference between the two.
Nationalism in early 20th-century Europe helped create the conditions that gave rise to fascism, because nationalism is integral to fascism. However, although fascists were typically fanatical nationalists, the vast majority of nationalist movements have not been fascist.
Nationalism gave rise to fascism in the early 20th century but not all Nationalist movements are fascist. Nationalism is to the right of the political spectrum but if you read the BNPs’ 2006 council election manifesto you will find that most of their policies are actually quite left wing. Just ask Lord Tebbit.
There is plenty of anti-capitalism, opposition to free trade, commitments to “use all non-destructive means to reduce income inequality”, to institute worker ownership, to favour workers’ co-operatives, to return parts of the railways to state ownership, to nationalise the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and to withdraw from Nato. That sounds pretty Left-wing to me.
There will be no more BNP-justifying comments on this thread, as I’m turning them off while I’m on holiday.