Might we safely say that New Labour is over?<\/p>\n
Peter Mandelson was arrested yesterday. Whatever happens now, he, his career, and anything that he thought might be his legacy have been discredited.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Tony Blair is advocating the total destruction of Gaza as a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
Alistair Campbell makes a podcast that is increasingly irrelevant.<\/p>\n
Morgan McSweeney has been sacked.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer is living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n
And the New Labour operatives working in the Cabinet look to have not a single idea between them.<\/p>\n
The shenanigans that brought them to power are being exposed, along with those who participated in them, such as Josh Simons MP.<\/p>\n
To describe the remnants of this operation as a busted flush would be too kind. It is a movement past its sell-by date, because what has been apparent since the day that Starmer became Prime Minister is that it is an organisation without an idea. Apart from the desire for power so that it might wreak havoc wherever it might turn, New Labour has nothing left to offer. And, precisely because its leading lights were always set on destruction, of government, of democracy, of the relationship between power and working people, and of the desire to control the worst instincts of capitalism, their legacy looks, universally, to be one of failure, precisely because that is what they set out to achieve.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, it is highly likely that people in Manchester will kick Labour out of a parliamentary seat they have held for as long as political memories exist. The artifice that was once Labour, and which was corrupted into New Labour, is now being seen for what it is, and that is a mechanism for the supply of power to a few at a cost to many.<\/p>\n
The game is up for Labour. I cannot see it being revived, any more than I can see any real chance of a Conservative revival.<\/p>\n
We need renewal. The only problem is that, as I have noted already this morning<\/a>, the thinking that might provide the foundation for that renewal has not been done by many people. It is that which worries me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"