Tony, Gordon and Peter saved Labour: now they’ll destroy it

wonderfulforhisage

Interesting that you see Blair, Brown and Mandelson as the three musketeers of NuLab's first ten years in office. From where I type, admittedly much further from SW1 than you are, Blair, Mandelson and Campbell were the satanic trinity.
I always felt that Brown was more a Hubert Lane figure to Blair's Just William. Similarly I see Ed B. as Bertie Franks.

Wikipedia: 'William has a few arch-enemies - Hubert Lane being the most sought after. Others include Hubert's lieutenant Bertie Franks and supporters.'

Ethan

I hope that all that you say comes true, but I have a dreadful premonition. First, Brown’s diversionary tactic on proportional representation gains traction. After all, it’s only fair, isn’t it, and although there are good constitutional arguments for FPTP, the Tory position looks self-serving. Second, the Tories continue to fail to find a convincing narrative on public expenditure, (a) because it’s complicated, and (b) because Labour lie about it. Those two factors pull Labour back far enough from their 15% trough to allow them to hold enough seats in the general election to form a coalition with the LibDems. Then it will be the Tories that do not survive, not least because the voting system will be fixed to ensure it.

Rhoda Klapp

Do try to go easy on the metaphors. A feeding frenzy of crazy phrases snapping at each other in an attempt to devour any meaning

Sarah

Wonderful summation of a Labour Party led by an empty tin-pot who is being dangled on the end of a string by a thrice dis-credited Machiavelli clone.

dorothy wilson

Maybe I'm cynical but my view is that one of the key reasons why Labour MPs stuck with Brown is that to do otherwise would be to trigger a General Election. Now how many of those who would lose their seats would be able to find a job paying equivalent salary and benefits in the private sector? Very, very few. Thus they are simply clinging on as long as possible to line their pockets for a little longer.

Kalvis Jansons

When the world looks at the Number 10 website they see this:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

Let us make it look even better for them and even worse for Mr Brown.

Moraymint

Yes, Matthew, it is 'Groupthink' that now defines and, indeed, paralyses the Labour Party in Government. Of course, it was 'Groupthink' that led to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The Labour Party's 'Groupthink' will, as you say, lead to its consignment to oblivion in due course.

It seems quite weird being able to predict the future with such certainty like this. It's like watching lemmings pour over a cliff and wondering why on earth they don't simply stop being so stupid?

The Labour Party in power has been an unprecedented peacetime disaster for this country. The behaviour of the Labour Government and its parliamentary members now is merely a symptom of their shocking contempt for the British people over past 12 years ... contempt that will conclude in ignominy for Gordon Brown and the crew of incompetent cowards who have sailed with him.

The Labour Party deserves never to recover from this shameful episode in British political history.

Tariq

This article makes perfect sense, as long as one assumes that the expenses scandal and the European election results will will not be forgotten in a trice, that Messrs Purnell and Johnson have a real chance of displacing the prime minister, and that the prime minister and his deputy will not pull every one of the many levers still at their disposal to stave off disaster. In other words, it doesn't make much sense at all. Entertaining read, though.

Ruth

'the Miliband-Purnell generation'! lol

So that's why they all hung on to Gordon.

Ivor Evenden

Nixon's adviser, Charles Colson, explained the NuLabour dilemma: "When you have them by the balls, their hearts and mids will follow." Where does our democracy stand? - Unelected leader, six unelected gurus to see them through and a peasant Cabinet. It begins to look a bit like the Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao. Send them out to be 'educated' by the peasants!

Herbert Thornton

"The party is still in thrall to the trio who invented New Labour and cannot think beyond the Blair-Brown era — an incapacity for which it will pay a terrible price."

"A terrible price"? Boy, if that comes true it will be worth every penny of it.

Ethan's premonition of a Labour/LibDem coalition is worrying, but would not New Labour's presence in the coalition poison it?

Might there be a coalition of the Tories and UKIP? So long as the Cameron mindset dominates the Tories I should think it impossible, but is there any chance of enough Tories moving to UKIP to render the Tories obsolete too?

It would be even better if most genuine Tories - along with a great many former Labour supporters - would then join the BNP. This may seem unthinkable to some people, but in G. Lowes Dickenson's "A Modern Symposium" the full text of which can be accessed here - http://www.archive.org/stream/modernsymposium00dickuoft/modernsymposium00dickuoft_djvu.txt - one of the characters - Allison - adumbrated that kind of possibility when he said - "I'm not without hope of seeing, before I die, a Tory-Socialist party." Perhaps we can hope along similar lines and that we will progress to having, as our two main parties, UKIP and the BNP? Indeed, to my mind, the BNP is the natural party for both genuine Tories and traditional Labour supporters to join because its core beliefs are virtually identical to theirs.

Incidentally, I first read "A Modern Symposium" around 1945 and after reading it again, much of it seems very much relevant to the present day.

J.F.

Dead maggots 'w.. er' crawling

Peter W Watson

We are emigrating. These Marxist bastards knew all along what their orders were. Well when the UK Prison finally descends into civil unrest, I for one can say "I told you so", having warned since 1997 but no one wanted to hear it. And Cameron is useless or he would have exposed the evil these men do. Satanic is the correct choice of words.

Scott Mebeat

Ever since the europhiles bumped Margaret Thatcher - the last eurosceptic prime minister - her fate has haunted all her successors.

Bottler blatantly broke his party's promise and failed to call a referendum. Such a treacherous action can only have been at the behest of the EU. It is therefore clear that Bottler dances to Europe's tune, just like all the others since Margaret Thatcher.

The EU (assuming that it does not implode under the weight of its own contradictions beforehand) will not allow Bottler's government to fold while there is still time for Cameron to kill the treaty, if at all possible.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if the Irish stuck to their guns?

It's the common meerkat - simples!

Thomas Maren

'James Purnell will be able to hold his head up high'. ??? Not very, if Rod Liddell's piece last week is accurate, and I have no doubt that it is, to wit, that Purnell is one of the worst crooks re flipping. So do we just forget about that? Better to give Red Ken credit for telling it like it is, that Blears, Purnell et al were caught with their hands in the till, and the purported reasons for their resignation are diversionary tactics which Mathew d'Ancona appears to prefer to emphasise.

Andrew Bamji

A test for dementia requires patients to be able to answer "Who is the Prime Minister?". If one of mine says "Peter Mandelson" do I mark them down?

John Corfield

Superb analysis Matthew you hit the nail on the head with such a chillingly incisive article exposing the gruesome threesome

martin

well said
the source of the problems are nulabor, not The Labour Party, and unless and until nulabor are purged from the party this country will suffer

Wayne Barnes

The sad fact is that during the past month, not one person came forward and acted like a statesman. Not one person spoke for the people, not just the electorate. I would like to believe that NuLabour will be voted out in a forthcoming election but I no longer trust Brown, nor do I trust Parliament and the people, who feel so thoroughly ignored, to do anything other than switch channels to Britain Has Talent, when Brown engineers a situation that rules out the need for any further elections...

Pem

When reading this last week the song that came to mind was "i'm dead but I don't know it" by randy newman (listen from 2.00 mins onwards)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW4qx3iCrcg