Labour’s new attack strategy: Cameron’s a right-winger

Sally Chatterjee

If only! The nation is crying out for someone to end benefits for workshy scroungers, to shake up the EU and smash leftist ideologues, from councils to unions.

Cameron seems rooted to the soft centre. If this is the new attack from Labour, Ed Miliband will soon be a footnote in British political history. I suspect his brother would be a more powerful critic.

Publius

Would that be millionaire socialist Shaun Woodward? The one with the weight problem?

David Ossitt

Sally Chatterjee

Well said madam.

Right On

Not a surprising line of attack since the real criticism of this government is that they are little better than than Blair's Labour Party and remain unwilling to make the truly difficult decisions that the country needs.

Can't see Miliband and Balls leading that attack somehow.

Brownloather

Publius, I think you will find that it is his wife who is the millionaire. He attached himself to her and eventually the Labour party as 'parties of maximum personal advantage' rather than for love or ideology. Typical of this nasty little scumbag.

TomTom

Labour is run by schoolboys. Labels like Right Wing and Left Wing are childish and belong in the political kindergarten. Incompetence is a far more salient point.

35% increase in taxation by 2015 to fund an extra £585 billion in borrowing. Turning over Tripoli to Al-Qaeda makes it look as if Britain should simply declare itself an Islamic Republic. No controls on immigration, yet foreign aid without limit.

Labour cannot attack on Substance because its policies are THE SAME. They are different wings of the SAME Party - the Corporate Party working for Banks and Bureaucracy to extract money and liberty from the voters

whatawaste

Who said irony was dead in the UK Labour Party? Absolutely hilarious!

Dennis Churchill

The so-called Decontamination was about trying to neutralise the anti-Conservative media and associated entertainment establishments’ portrayal of the Conservative party. The electorate are in fact much more conservative than the political class, regardless of which brand individual politicians belong to.
This group of Labour apparatchiks is probably more out of touch with the British people than has ever occurred in any party before, so let them get on with it. How can the son of leading Central European Marxist “intellectuals” (within the Hayek definition) understand the average citizen of this country?
The danger is the BBC; it must be made to be truly representative of all political views or broken up and sold off.
Keep Labour talking about immigration and the Andrew Neather revelations, the Human Rights Act and the EU.Start talking about an English parliament. Emphasis how much different the Conservatives would be with a clear majority.

Nicholas

If Labour spent a tenth of the time they spend on their "anti-Tory" obsession taking a good hard look at what went wrong with 1997-2010, admitting it to themselves and the public and determining what really lies in the best interest of the country they might just get somewhere. They won't so they won't.

Tribalism, propaganda and the party politics of someone else to blame is all they know. Detestable group of charlatans.

WIlliam Blakes Ghost

If Labour think that Cameron is right wing they know even less about political ideology than they have previously demonstrated. Utterly preposterous attack line but Labour are an utterly preposterous party.

That said given it is published by a Labour supporting paper I can only assume it is a false story that has been planted by Labour as a diversionary tactic. Frankly, I just don't believe it.

I wonder what Labour's next real attack will be?

Gawain

Champagne socialists calling a Tory prime minister right wing ! You can always rely on Labour for the type of withering philosophical and political insights which will solve the country's problems. It makes one proud to be British.

Paddy

How about Ed Miliband decontaminating the Labour party.

It would be a start if they admitted the fact, they "wrecked" our country.

They need to reform by admitting all the terrible mistakes they made in education, hospitals and the economy.

They need to be more caring and prove they have the interests of our country at heart.

I'm afraid the whole shadow cabinet come across as nasty, lying and self-serving charlatans.

lescam

If Dave "You do the fighting and I'll do the talking" Cameron, and his "government" (I use the term loosely) of bedwetting, bleeding-heart, wishy washy morons are rightwing, then I'm Carmen Miranda. As Sally Chatterjee rightly says, "If only".

About the only thing that can be said for this shower of a govt is that Labour would be even worse. A plague on both of them.

Dennis Churchill

Nicholas
August 28th, 2011 12:49pm
Why would cultural Marxists be bothered about what was good for Britain?Andrew Neather made it clear that their Open Doors immigration policy (probably unlawful)was about changing the ethnic makeup of the country in order to favour future Labour administrations and “Destroy the right forever”.
Like the EU it is not about what is good for Britain, particulary England, but what is good within the current European politically correct ideology.

FvH

A lot of the decontamination if the Tory brand was about sleaze rather than being right wing per se.

If they want a more mature critique of Cameron they should look on this forum

I.e. He promises much but delivers little. He is obsessed with speech making, image and spin but lacks the hard political skills to actually make things happen!!

Woody

If ONLY Cameron was a right-winger, he would have had his majority at the last GE. We wouldn't have those simpering, hand-wringing Lib Dems watering everything down.

John B (UK)

"Cameron himself now appears to be a recognisably rightwing prime minister."

We can but hope.........

Paul Danon

Socialists can always play on fear. The worry for the Tories now should be that their meagre economic measures won't deliver a recovery in time for 2015.

English Pensioner

Are Labour sure about what they are doing? There's a lot of us who would vote for the Tories if only we were convinced they were right wing.

Occasional Ostrich

Brownloather @ 12:13pm

Ah, but did you think of him as a "nasty little scumbag" when he was Conservative?

Hexhamgeezer

Cameron, if he had a spine, could say 'actually, yes I am right wing' even though it would be a routine lie from the metropolitan club. He could say ' and Labour are a left wing one' which would be true. He could then offer himself to the country on that basis and see what happens.

Doesn't he want to run a majority Con government, however small (rhetorical question)?

disenfranchised

as ghastly as the coalition has proved to be, the truly terrifying thing is that these shameless labour people, be they ex-tories or union stooges, will probably be ruining the country again in four years time.....

EC

Surprisingly mellow, even charitable, today, Nicholas. ;-))

Hangmansknotinn

Cameron? Right wing? You're having a laugh.

Simon Stephenson.

"That's just a taste of the negative sentiment on twitter, a strong indication that the Labour movement is still searching for leadership and direction"

So, what, despite the impossibility of making 140 characters comprise anything more than basic sloganeering, Twitter is now supposedly the place where serious changes of political sentiment are born and nurtured? May God help us!

graham

Ha,ha! Is this same Mr Woodford with a country pile, London mansion & heiress wife? This strategy, if it can be described as a strategy, won't resonate with the general public. Labour need policies that make sense to the voters rather constantly carping & criticising the Government! Wakey, wakey Ed Siliband & Co!

Brownloather

Occasional Ostrich @ 3.20 pm

A reasonable if rather smug question and the honest answer is that I didn't know that the nasty little scumbag existed until his defection to the Labour party.

J Wright

If I was in the labour hierarchy I would assume that Woodw.ard was a long term tory plant

Archibald

So where does this new strategy sit with the whole Blue Labour movement? Has Glasman been pushed to one side? Perhaps you could interview Glasman, Mr Blackburn, or invite him to blog here on the subject.
I've said this before, but I find the partisan nature of UK politics so infuriating. Like with education, where ideology comes first and the pupils a distant second, so with politics the parties come first and the country comes second. Better the country fail than the other side succeed. That someone like IDS is seen as exceptional for working with who he sees as the best, regardless of party, to aim for a better Britain is depressing in itself.

Baron

Here some news for you: whether the Tories get labelled right wing or whatever matters as much as does calling the air blue rather than transparent, what will matter to everyone, but in particular to a very large section of the unwashed (see below) is what happens to their pockets if inflation remains as it is, perks up some more, energy prices go up a lot in large part because of green taxes, real wages dip, entitlements get threatened with more cuts.

You keep ranting about Neather forgetting Neather’s imports remain, more are coming, add to it the five million or so who never had a job, rely on transfer payments, those within the nomenclature who dish the entitlements out, do the outreaching, those in the private sector on contract to the entitlement culture all that lot paid for by the taxpayer, you still reckon the millions of these burghers will care what the Tories are labelled as, or will they revolt against the boy regardless?

Baron has said it before, we’re post the point of return, the cuts the boy is talking about will turn transient at best, illusory at worst not because they cannot be actually implemented, but because the idea of entitlements has so pervaded the psyche of the nation it cannot be dislodged.

You had a good example the other day, agency workers will be given the same range of benefits as permanent staff.

You wait abit, you ’ll see who’s right.

Cynic

I should imagine the majority of England (outside inner urban areas) is probably far more "right-wing" than Cameron. Most people I know consider him to be a social democrat and would like him to be right-wing.

Occasional Ostrich

@Brownloather 7:22pm

Me neither.

Smug? I hope not, but we're now approaching the question: If he was so ineffectually insignificant as a Tory, is he likely to be any less ineffectual in the Labour party.

One notes, in another posting, that some Labour members regard him as a Tory plant. Perhaps there are Tories who regard him as having been a Labour plant, of which they are well red.

2trueblue

Cameron is not, and never could be considered to be right wing. That for us is the tragedy. I don't know what he is, when he actually gets round to telling us what he stands for we will know. We could be left waiting! We do not actually have any politician that attracts interest. They are all from the same stable, professional politicians who have little to offer in experience of the real world.

Dimoto

Nicholas: "If Labour spent a tenth of the time they spend on their "anti-Tory" obsession taking a good hard look at what went wrong with 1997-2010, admitting it to themselves and the public and determining what really lies in the best interest of the country they might just get somewhere".

Nicholas, they could have done what you suggest, IF they had elected a new regime.

The current crowd are just the Brownite perpetrators less their leader, all hopelessly compromised.

After an audit of "what went wrong", how could (say) Balls, up-to-his-neck implicated in every wrong policy and sleazy ploy, and without a single regret, apology or second thought, stay on the front bench ?

Jeremy

David Blackburn:

"Labour’s new attack strategy: Cameron’s a right-winger."

Ed's certainly got his work cut out for him, trying to convince anyone of that.

Occasional Ostrich

memo to self:

Must refrain from posting after a good dinner and a few brews.

Reed

"a recognisably rightwing prime minister"

They say it like it's a bad thing.

Steven Carrington

I will take David Cameron any day of the week in preference to Ed Miliband who is in hock to the unions like Unite.

The last thing the UK needs is a swing to left wing policy, the country will well and truly become bankrupt.