Unity
One of the hardest and most valuable lessons that new Labour taught the party was about the electoral importance of appearing united. I’m not pretending that the Labour party has always been the best advert for unity, and I’m not saying that those who have aired their disagreements in public over the past few years didn’t have legitimate concerns. I just think that it’s a bit rich that those who berated people for going public with disagreements about policy appear to be hell-bent on shattering any appearance of a cohesive party and government because of politics. I think it’s time for Tony to step down, and I’ve gone backwards and forwards on who I might support in a leadership contest. But right now all I want is for the whole bloody lot of them to put a sock in it.
It’s amazing the bit your tongue loyalty demanded of us lower orders in the party. Meanwhile those at the top lay into each other (on the basis of personality) on a daily basis and by briefing journos.
I agree LH - both Blair and Brown could have ended this months ago, but they are too used and ocmfortalbe with off the record briefings and chats with journalists they think will paint them in the best light. I understand why people are calling for quiet and unity, but the effect, if not the intention, is to pass over the views of party members once again.
How can the Brownites and the other malcontents think that what they are doing is doing anything other than helping Cameron’s Tories…The distasteful briefings and counterplays does much to discredit the image of a Chancellor who would be PM backed by a majority of the Party.After this weeks events, I cant say that I can bring myself to support a Brown premiership.
Young Fabian - that’ll just put you into the position of the rest of us who for some time now have been unable to wholeheartedly support a Blair premiership.
Everything is a tradeoff. For a socialist, it will in general be preferable for the Labour party to be in power than for the Conservative party to be in power. If a Labour government moves too far away from the ideals held by that socialist, it may be more important to move the party back to the left, even at the cost of a few years of Tory rule, than to continue to support a government which is Labour in name only.
Each individual has to decide for himself if or when the party leadership crosses his individual line.
What about Blairites briefing and sniping against Gordon? What about the fact that a timetable was given to The Sun two days ago, but that the PM did not bring it forward at today’s press conference?
Loyalty can go two ways
I have received an email from the General Secretary forwarding Blair’s statement. This was my reply:
He has been Prime Minister for too long. As a Labour Party member I say he can’t go soon enough. I’ve read you - party HQ - haven’t issued annual nomination papers to MPs for the leadership for several years, which is a disgrace. This kind of mess is what you get when you have closed down the democratic mechanisms in the party and Blair refuses to listen to the party. He will only listen to open mutiny, but he has to go.
Daniel (and I was delivering local party leaflets last Saturday and will be again next weekend)
I am very angry at the lot of them. This is Westminster village crap and they all seem to have forgotton what a labour Government is for. Also the fact that none of them would be there without all the hard work that was put in by party members.
Mmm, unity unless you’re engineering an unnecessary fight with the left to keep the tabloids happy and prove a point
Unity?Ah the good old days!
The Bulgarian National Assembly building, presumably for the benefit of parliamentarians who have forgotten its truth, has the words “UNITY IS STRENGTH” (albeit in Bulgarian) across the front of the building.
Labour needs to remember that it is at it’s best when it is united. Both the Blairite, Brownite and Real Labour camps also need to remember that what the Labour Party should be fighting is not each other, but fighting poverty, social injustice and inequality.
Whilst I can’t deny taking some pleasure from this (but hey, those of you I knew about three years ago will remember the ribbings we got over IDS’s fall) I do think there are wider problems here than just the behaviour of certain individuals in all parties.
People don’t give off the record briefings and ensure noises are attributed to “sources close to [name]” (remember when during the 1997 results show a journalist inadvertantly outed “Sources close to Stephen Dorrell” as none other than Dorrell himself?!) for the sake of it. They do so because the media is willing to run them. In turn the media hates the way confidential exclusives and books are publicly rubbished when everyone at Westminster knows its true.
Maybe if a more honest approach to political reporting was adopted all round, with the media refusing to run stories that can’t be publicly attributed and politicians either briefing on the record or not at all, then a lot of these personality disputes would take place out of sight and politics could get on with the issues that matter.