Shift work
Peter Hoskin 12:48pm
Ben Brogan charts the growing debate about the future of the Labour party in his Telegraph column today. I'd suggest you read the whole thing, but it's this passage which stood out to me:
Brown is hardly one for reinventing himself, so I don't think Labour have much hope of unleashing Gordo the Great Liberal on the nation. But, as Brogan suggests, the point is more about how the political plates are shifting in preparation for a Tory government."Plans are afoot for a gathering in the coming weeks that will bring together Cabinet ministers, Labour grandees, policy thinkers, and – crucially – Liberal Democrats to flesh out a common ground on how to decentralise the state. The idea is nothing short of presenting Mr Brown with a liberal manifesto for the next election. Funding has been secured and a suitable venue is being sought before the invitations go out.To outsiders this must all seem a preposterous game of deckchair arranging on the Titanic. If Mr Brown is to be ejected, who cares who does it, let alone what they argue about in the pub afterwards? Well, the Tories for a start, who will see here the first signs of a new-look Labour Party ready to fight them on the new centre ground of politics."
Notice, in particular, the Lib Dems' involvement in this. After their Gurkha victory, and rumours that there have been "conversations" with certain Labour folk who might consider jumping ship, Clegg and Co. seem to be cultivating an influence which belies their poll position. There's a general air of unpredictablity around Westminster right now, and the role being played by the Lib Dems is certainly adding to it.
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Stronghold Barricades
May 7th, 2009 1:03pm Report this commentI do believe that any Lib Dem involvement in post Brown politics might actually damage the "anything but Labour" tactical voting which will take place at the next election.
It will drive those people who won't vote Tory on historical principle into the arms of either the BNP or other minor parties and thus split the protest vote and maybe nullify it.
Mr Green
May 7th, 2009 1:08pm Report this commentWhat I see is the Lib Dems becoming the main opposition party - to the Conservative's government.
Labour's reinvention as New Labour and slow slide back to the Labourish, statist, Marxist party has resulted in them losing many of their core voters. Only the party faithful cling on.
Before Labour manages to re-establish itself as something else (again), I see many of the disenfranchised moving over to the Lib Dems.
Rhoda Klapp
May 7th, 2009 1:29pm Report this commentAnd which of this dream team has done anything, just one thing, to peel back the power of the state? Not any of the current cabinet, that's for sure. This requires a complete volte-face, beyond the bounds of political credibility. Statism flourished under new labour too, and appeals to all liberals who wish to control what people do. Will they give up green taxes, five-a-day vegetables, food fascism, anti-smoking, anti-ever-bloody-thing? No, thought not.
Denis Cooper
May 7th, 2009 1:36pm Report this commentWe already know how the Liberal Democrats would "decentralise the state", and the first step would be to break up England into euro-regions.
Not Scotland - that would stay as one euro-region, for the present - nor Wales - that would also stay as one euro-region, for the present - nor Northern Ireland, but England, which many Liberal Democrats view with an all-consuming, visceral, hatred.
I well remember Charles Kennedy on Question Time, saying that he would continue to vote on England-only laws until there was "devolution" in England, by which he meant, until England had been broken up.
It's not "devolution", but "dissolution", that they want.
In fact, one Liberal Democrat councillor even wrote to a national paper claiming that "there is no England": Independent, March 16th 2006:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-the-debate-over-babies-470058.html
"Sir: Mary Dejevsky is wrong ("Why we need an English parliament", 14 March). There is no need for an English parliament because there is no England."
Eurofanatics, you see; devotees of a "Europe of Cities and Regions".
The EU's Committee of the Regions recent Mission Statement is available under the "Presentation" section of its website:
http://www.cor.europa.eu/pages/HomeTemplate.aspx
"We claim autonomy for regional and local authorities and their right to secure appropriate financial resources to enable them to carry out their duties. We therefore promote the principles and mechanisms of good governance and encourage the process of decentralisation."
My, there's that word again - "decentralisation".
Mr Steve
May 7th, 2009 1:58pm Report this commentWhat I see is a Lib/Lab pact. Why not? It's a rerun of the 70's afterall.
Colin
May 7th, 2009 3:27pm Report this commentBring it on !
The coalition of the already beaten...
Both the Liberals and Labour know that the game's up. We've had enough of being told what's good for us, by a cabal of left wing authoritarian chancers; most of whom are incapable or unwilling to differentiate between party and state.
Labour has once again wrecked the country and anyone who lives in a Liberal run council knows that there's nothing Liberal about the Liberals.
The real losers in the coming general election carnage will be the Lib Dems.
As I've written earlier, Brown will still be leading the Labour party, up to and possibly after the next election.
The implications of:
Vote Liberal and you may get 5 more years of Brown, are bound to resonate strongly in middle Britain.
John Wilkes
May 7th, 2009 3:40pm Report this commentI have always thought that the reason for the success of "New Labour" was that it re-integrated the thinking and supporters of the SDP back into the Labour party proper, thereby allowing them to pursue that agenda by using the votes of traditional Labour supporters to gain power. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the "Granita" argument Gordon was never in the SDP camp whilst Blair always was - hence his attachment to Roy Jenkins. What is surely going on now is that, as the Blairites no longer find Labour congenial, can't stand what Brown is doing and when the average activist is no longer prepared to sell its soul for power, they are gravitating to who they perceive to be their natural allies - the Liberal Democrats (who after all would be nothing without the boost they originally got from the SDP). Of course the policies that they espouse (jointly) remain bogus and proven failures but I don't suppose they care about that, as they are really only interested in carrying on their role of being a ruling elite. The sad truth is that, temperementally there is something to be said for links between Clegg and Cameroon if they share a greater sense of a low tax, get the state of my back society where we take responsibility for ourselves, individually and communally.
Frank Goddard
May 7th, 2009 4:06pm Report this commentBeware the "Proportional Representation",the enemy of first past the post voting.
I have recently returned from New Zealand after seven years of PR under a Labour goverment,and it does not work,why?Because the minority party's hold the whip hand and vote with the majority party in power to feather their own nest.It took the Nationalist's (conservative)nine years to get a mandate to govern, and then only by giving the Maori party,(evolved in Labours goverment time in power)concessions for their support.So watch out for Ashdown,Kennedy, and Kinnoch and Bliar!!!
Frank G..English pensioner.
Vulture
May 7th, 2009 5:36pm Report this commentI'm beginning to think that Bruin is a deep cover Tory agent after all. Either that or Liebour has simply got a death wish. (Let's grant it). I've just heard on the PM programme that the imbecilic Phil Woolarse is STILL telling Gurkhas that they can't live in Britain - including a wounded Falklands vet - infuriating an incredulous Joanna Lumley. This on the very next day day after she forced Bruin to meet her and said some quite undeserved nice things about him. IT beggars belief that after all that happened last week they are still on the wrong side of the public on this. If this goes on, Liebour won't have any sort of future - Bliarite, Bruinite, of Ballsite.
It simply won't exist. Goody!!
john miller
May 8th, 2009 11:28am Report this commentWhat a hoot! They want a new party which will be fashionable and therefore electable. Which of course was exactly what New Labour was in 1997.
All New LAbour stood for was to get as many Labour MPs into parliament as possible. It never had any guiding principles for government.
Blair and Brown's speeches were all things to all men. The appointment of the foolish Prescott tried to ensure that the hard left stayed on board.
But over the years most people have tumbled that you can tell everyone what they want to hear, but you can't DO it. This is what is really fracturing the Labour Party.
And finally, don't tell me that the politicians who want us all ultimately to have the barcode on the forehead and the chip in the wrist will enthusiastically support the micro state.
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