From today's Guardian:
Cancel new year, put back the clocks and forget the fireworks. There is nothing to celebrate in the dismal year ahead. The Labour party is sledging down a black run, eyes tight shut, the only certainty the electoral wall at the bottom of the hill.
This is Polly on familiar theme: the tragedy of Brown. So his her last paragraph:
The unions are still powerful Labour kingmakers: failure to reform party funding was another great Blair dereliction. Until now the unions have been Brown's praetorians, whipped in by Charlie Whelan. But it's time union leaders asked themselves if it's in their members' interests to see Labour crash out under Brown. The cabinet is frozen by individual self-interest — shame on all of them. They want Brown gone, but none dares wield the knife without the others. Future contenders be warned: those who fail their party now may face stern questions about their leadership qualities in any future contest. The country doesn't much like the Conservatives, but voters will throw Gordon Brown out — unless Labour does first.
So where's the clue? In the penultimate pargraph, I think:
The Blairites raise up illusory spooks of an old left. True, the party in the country is somewhat to the left of the cabinet — but Compass and Jon Cruddas are hardly a Militant resurgence. As for the charge that "class war" is a loser — polls show the last-minute tax on bankers' bonuses and the tardy 50% tax rate on top earnings are the most unequivocally popular things Labour has done in years. It is not "class war" to point out that all Cameron's tax plans benefit the very richest: it's true and it's a Tory own goal.
She's right about Compass: I know Compass quite well having written for them. Neither they or Jon Cruddas, who I know a bit, are anything but true social democrats.
Is this their moment?
Is that what Polly is saying?
This election is not over yet.
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Sorry, we see through Compass, and Cruddas as the token strategic ‘Leftie’ in the East End.
They all avoid the elephant-in-the-key issues that people want addressed, and so does the ‘Green New Deal’ that you vaunt.
You and they have the chance to get real and you are wasting it, so dont complain when Nu Laba loses. Them’s the choices.
Linda
Vote for a party with no prospect of delivering change then
To call Compass and the Green New Deal New Labour is just daft
And you should know it
Richard
I am a member of John McDonnell’s Labour Representation Committee and think their LEAP committee is doing splendid work. However I know that they have little chance of influencing the Labour Party. I am also a member of Compass. They are not as radical as I would prefer but I think they have real influence now. I’m glad that the New was added under Blair’s leadership. We can soon, I hope, return to Labour without having to invent a new name. But there’s a long way to go to wipe the neo-liberal stains out and I can be proud to be a member of the party again.
Very amused to see Gordo today running the line that the election won’t be a referendum on his performance. Of course it will be. We all want the same things – we all want a fairer society where there is less crime, less poverty, less anti-social behaviour. We all want Britain to be a “world leader in the digital and low-carbon future”. But aspirations are just that, and only the political classes believe they matter.
The real choice is who we want to put up with for the next 10 years explaining that everything is getting better when everyone knows it is getting worse. Because it will get worse until someone has the guts to stand up and say that Britain is no longer a world power and should stop wasting money on the wort of things only world powers can afford.
Richard,
Brown is making the right arguments against Cameron on the economy. Toynbee is taking her eye off the ball. Please keep yours on it. Britain needs Labour and it’s supporters to tackle the Tories now.
Polly seems to be endorsing class war as an electioneering tactic?
Of course hitting bankers bonuses was popular with the lumpen proletariat , heck, I was appalled by the ridiculous amounts paid – and I am a banker.
However New Labour desperate resorting to snide ‘class war’ politicking is low and deeply cynical and will back-fire.
Many Tories ( including this non voting one ) will be uncomfortable with the idea of Osborne as the next Chancellor- not because of his background – but his lack of experience and intellectual gravitas. Pity it can’t be Vince Cable ( ‘the best Chancellor Britain will never have’). Unfortunately a deal with the lib dems will require a commitment to PR, which is a recipe for weak chaotic government and a godsend to the BNP- the British (white) working class is fed up and is at heart reactionary , suspicious and a tad racist).
Of course it’s class war. But the classes need to be distinguished as the workers and the capitalists (owners of capital) who live off their labour. There is no need for a separate class to own capital – as Marx exposed.
The landlord class has largely disappeared but the privatisation of uneared land rent has not.
Unfortunately very few minds are concentrating on the practical policies which would achieve these fundamental goals. But there are some.