What Next?

adrian drummond

We have also......

'witnessed how an over-mighty government can operate'

.....with the connivance of a largely compliant main stream media - notably the BBC.

Outrage fatigue

It is truly disgusting watching our legislators squirming like naughty children, offering feeble excuses with a smirk.

They have truly lead by example over many years, that responsibility means nothing, all you need is an excuse. This is what the very essence of politics has reduced to.

The very concept of responsibility has been eroded almost to nought throughout society.

Just hope that your insurance company doesn't catch on (we didn't crash your car; not our fault!)

Hawkeye

Martin said: "there is the distinct possibility that the Labour Party will go into terminal decline as a credible political force."

Good. I hope socialism goes the same way.

Bill Llewellyn

Doubtless you will by now have been alerted to the grammar howler at the end of your first paragraph.(sight? not site?). Perhaps before blogging on political matters, you should re-sit GCSE English.

Ronnie

Martin, the Labour Party IS in terminal decline and has been for some time, let's say from around Robin Cook's resignation.

In the context of your peice the party has to accept that Brown is destroying it every bit as quickly as he is reducing the country's general polity to rubble. A man who insists on being elected unopposed, because he sees the position of leader as being rightfully his, will not stand down. But he will take everyone down with him.

Right now the Labour party in general seems to be in denial. Once they lose power they will come to accept what happened and then begin a long process of grieving.

It is a great pity that the country at large must also suffer terribly through the current denial phase. After that, we won't really care.

I suppose there may be a realignment on the left, but then there are always realignments on the left. That is all those who actually are on the left in Britain seem to talk about. The question 'why?' is never asked.

Major Plonquer

'there is the distinct possibility that the Labour Party will go into terminal decline as a credible political force.'

Jeez, sucker, where have you been for the last year? The Labour Party is NOT about to go into terminal decline. It' DEAD. It's been given the last right, autopsied, buried exhumed, reinvestigated, cremated and had its ashes scattered to the wind. Done. Finished.

There is no way back - ever - for this rabble. As Jack Kemp so aply put it, socialism is debunked and defunct. Good bloody riddance too.

Boudicca

"If the collapse continues for much longer there will be no one of any seniority or experience left standing. Some will think this is no bad thing and that the Labour Party needs a completely fresh start"
-------------

I hope Labour ceases to function in any meaningful way as a potential Party of Government.

Labour has totally failed this country. We need a new Opposition and under our 'first past the post' system, that will only happen after the next election if Labour ceases to function.

Slim Jim

Heavens above Martin - the party is rotten to the core and will have to start from scratch. Just look at the decline in membership over the past 12 years. You didn't mention that. The Labour Party needs to eject the cabal that hijacked it and start to reinvent itself as the party of working people. It cannot continue to rule by deception, smoke and mirrors, or spinning plates. Hark! Hear them crash to the ground!

Rhoda Klapp

Would you care to give us a list of reasons why the Labour party should continue to exist? Would you then like to compare the reasons with its record in office?

Oh, did I mention that they are incompetent crooks? It matters not that the others are too.

paracelsus

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

The whole idea and philosophy of socialism is flawed. Labour has brought this country to its knees, as it has in the past, and their terminal avarice and incompetence will not lightly be forgotten by the people of this country.

paracelsus

The main stream press, and in particular the BBC, have a lot to answer for their compliance and copy taking over the last decade.

Honestly, how could you all be so naive to believe people like Blair, Prescott and Brown? It really beggers belief!

James C

The best that could happen is that Labour is destroyed forever.
Then the Conservative Party splits into a "proper" conservative party on the one hand and the Cameroon LibDem fellow travellers on the other.

James C

The best that could happen is that Labour is destroyed forever.
Then the Conservative Party splits into a "proper" conservative party on the one hand and the Cameroon LibDem fellow travellers on the other.

JohnAnt

"The real question for Labour now is how the party will rebuild itself."
No, the question NOW is how parliamentary democracy will recover from the body blow dealt to it by greedy government ministers. The future of the Labour Party is an academic discussion - it cannot survive, neither electorally nor - even more crucially - can it keep going financially.

mac

'What Next?'

Didn't you and your chums plan the nation's next instalment of socialist idealism at Portmeirion earlier this year?

If not, then I'm sure those comradely Fabians and Smith-ites have no end of worthy schemes aimed at delivering the nation's monochrome socialist destiny . . .

Steve.W

Yes a strong opposition to government is needed in parliament, but no it need not be Nulabour, the LibDems could overtake them.

Stephen

Good. An end to the labour party
and it's idiotic delusions will greatly benefit Enland.

Oscar India

It's a good point but the fact remains that everyone outside Brown's inner circle has spent years predicting, accurately, that he would be exactly like this. And this was deemed unacceptable by all those now trying to work out how to get rid of him.

Diversity

"But unless it happens there is the distinct possibility that the Labour Party will go into terminal decline ..."

Doesn't this remind you of what was being said about General Motors a year or two ago? "Saving" GM or Labour appeals to our (old-fashioned conservative) sense of heritage; but the basic questions remain unanswered:

- Is the organisation capable of producing anything that ordinary people will buy/vote for?
- Or is it all about protecting the few people that make a surprisingly good living out of the organisation?

If GM goes, the USA has good Toyota factories. If Labour goes, Britain still has the LibDems. There is no danger of monopoly.

Wily Trout

The clue's in the name, son. 'Labour'. The party is supposed to respresent the interests of people who work. It doesn't. It's steals from people who work and hands their resources out to minorities in order to buy votes. It imposes the will of its bought minorities upon the people who work. I think your party still as no idea how much it is loathed out here amongst the people who work. You are going to find out, though.

EC

"But I have always felt there is considerable talent in the younger generation of Labour politicians ...."

Where FGS? Can you name one that hasn't been a Public/Third sector freeloading drone since leaving school/uni?

Jonathan Todd

http://jonathantodd.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/where-now-for-labour/

Alf Tupper

I'm with the Wily Trout on this one.

Scot Richards

No. You just don't get it. In the Internet age there is no place for collectivism. Period.

The Labour Party has had its day and every time it stepped up to the bat it has been found wanting. Enough. No more.

There will NEVER be another Labour (or leftist) government. And good riddance. What an evil and corrupt concept left-wing politics is.

mark

What an awful lot of wishful thinking about the demise of Labour!

A few facts. Labour is not and arguably never was a "socialist" party in any meaningful sense.

It's philispohy over its history was based on social democracy and the philosphoical creed of people like TH Green (rather than Marx) who in the laet 19th cebntruy began to see a more interventionist role for the state.

Tony Blair continued and further updated that clarifying the aprty's position on the market and so giving the UK perhaps its most successful 10 yeasr or so in a very long time. Whatever one thinks about Iraq (I think it was right by the way) he also managed to win an election during that largley unpopular war in 2005.

Yes - it is clear that with Gordon Brown L:abour has taken a wrong turn which is why it badly needs to get back to the Blairite stance of those like Alan Johnson.