Wise words from Neal Lawson of Compass on the 'Volvo' plot and Labour leadership:
So despite its lazy error about my non-part in Blair's downfall, the Daily Telegraph offers an important lesson to today's would-be plotters in Labour's ranks. Stop thinking it's all about you. Instead, start to build a vision of the good society and develop a policy programme that will stop the poor getting poorer and the planet burning. Start an open movement to transform Labour into a democratic, pluralist and confident party that trusts its members and those in other parties who share its vision for change. Then and only then will you deserve the leadership of this once great party — and, what is more, you might just be able to lead it and the country.
Yay! I say.
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Could just join the Green Party and leave all the baggage behind you….
Yay indeed! But lets have passion in there too! There has been too much controlling, too much being ‘on message’, too much managerialism: not enough liberation, harmony & leadership. Let’s stop chaining ourselves.
Whatever you think about Blair, the fact that Balls, Ed M and Co were plotting his downfall WEEKS after labour (with Blair as leader) were re-elected by the general public stinks.
Labour needs to get real if it wants to get back into power. What ever Mr Murphy or anyone else thinks, the public don’t like Ed Balls and also my opinion is that Ed Milliband seems like a poor leader.
I work in the private sector (not banking). I’m on a lower wage and far worse benefits than similar workers in the public sector. Labour and the unions don’t speak for me. The Torys and Libdems don’t speak for me. Nobody speaks for me and i’m not alone.
There is a big chance for someone (anyone) to start a new movement here. Start with schools and jobs please….
James
I think you’ll find that is exactly what Neal Lawson is calling for
And so am I
But that’s a transitional process. Labour has issues – we know it, and will say it. But it’s down to people who’re willing to say it and think big new ideas to change it
That’s what Neal’s trying to do
In some ways, so am I
Starting with schools and jobs, and pensions, and health and housing….things that really matter
Richard
Yes – agreed, these should be the objectives. However, taking into consideration the number of open goals (destruction of the NHS, the dismantling of the state education system and, most of all, the clear failure of Osborne’s Plan A) missed by the “Dear Leader”, I cannot help being reminded of the succinct and perceptive comment made by the historian Tacitus concerning the very temporary Emperor, Galba, who lasted only a few months after Nero’s sucide – “omnium consensu, capax imperii, nisi imperasset” (Loosely to be translated as “Everybody held the view that [Galba] was well up to the job of being Emperor, if only he had not succeeded in becoming Emperor”).
There’s no strategic vision, worse, there seems to be no tactical expertise either – 5 months to elect the “Dear Leader” (when we can elect a Government in 6 weeks!!), so leaving the ConDems a whole 4 months to lock in their narrative in the mind of the public; all the missed penalties at an open goal; and now all the “Anti-Blair putsch” stuff (if only Blair had gone in 2004, when he had his serious heart trouble), and the clear signals that David Milliband is waiting for Ed to fail (how can you tell? It seems he has already done so!), allowing Labour to the painted as divided, squabbling, adrift and clueless.
And are the public wrong to think that? Frankly, Ed, and all his Shadow Cabinet, need to be saying on every occasion, as their first statement, and endlessly repeated (Just like the ConDems said “We’re all in this together”) – “Labour did not cause the credit crunch – indeed, Labour saved the situation by acting decisively” – the difference being that Labour’s statement would be true, where the ConDems slogan was patently untrue. Come on, Ed – buck up, and start firing at the advancing enemy!
At last, someone has said what needs to be said so well done Neil Lawson.
We have become an uncivilised, unprincipled society. Can we consider ourselves anything else when we read of such monumental injustices as 1 in 3 children under 16 having to live in poverty or 31,000 elderly people having their care threatened, all in the service of the great god profit directed to a handful of mercenaries? Enough already.
I believe that the vast majority of people, regardless of political affiliation or leanings, do not want what either of our main political parties have to offer – for the simple reason that those parties coalesce around a dependence on finance to drive our economy and a complete lack of courage and/or will to tackle the excesses of finance that have driven us into so deep into a hole.
If Labour cannot take this golden opportunity to redefine themselves as party of morality, fairness and justice and engage with the vast majority, or are too afraid to define and defend a set of principles that most people will engage with, they deserve to be consigned to history and replaced with a political party that will.
However great or small our individual voices, we all need to be heard. It’s pretty clear that the ConDems aren’t listening, but is Labour any less deaf? Answers please Ed – and now.
@James Martin
“What ever Mr Murphy or anyone else thinks, the public don’t like Ed Balls”
Most of the public don’t even know who EdB is and most of those who do know only know what they are fed about him from the Tory press.