“So fuck off. Really. And then don’t come back”

That’s how most people view Labour and your seven years of rejoicing,.Ben. It isn’t that Brown and the end of Blair caused all of the problems, nor can this be pinned on the outrageous behaviour that reflected so poorly on us in the international community (agree with the war or not – it doesn’t mean “we” handled matters well). No, the resulst at local councils reflect such matters reaching critical mass at a time when the PM happens to be a cold lump of rancid meat. The vilification of Brown that cuts so deep into every other Labour member and supporter began in earnest when he did not call a general election last year. He didn’t have to, but blanking out the very suggestion and letting Blair make the most of his departure – rather than communicating more of his own arrival – was foolish. Brown, assuming it was deserved that he move in without a support base in the public, looked more than a little arrogant. Surprise! He is now unpopular with the public, his every move is questioned in the media and he works without trust from outside the party. He needs to remind people what has gone well rather than firefighting areas party members can and should be dealing with, but his shaky moves at refusal to separate his record from that of the party means he will not defend himself when the party he leads is attacked nor humbly allow the party to speak when he is being criticized. Blair did the same thing – but with personality (admittedly, a hugely thumpable personality, but that never does Vernon Kaye any harm).

Some of the populace (those that needed the help the Tories so arrogantly will not provide) are better off at the expense of huge risks for the majority. The middle classes can cope just fine if they learn to manage their finances in ways that offer protection in times of personal crisis, but when has effort on the part of the then middle classes ever really been likely? Is that not what politicians have been for over the last few decades? Ben, your point of fairer lives is fine, but it would be easier for the majority of the populace to get over recent moves by Labour if it were not for the fact that everything the government has been pushing out for a decade are short-term solution with long-term debts, in the hope someone thinks up some unbelievable solutions in the future. Why should people feel good about being stuffed for thinking the same way? Maybe it is the fact that you have gotten so involved that blinds you to it, but this might be why the majority of your piece is getting most people so worked up on a blog that you thought (well done for standing corrected) could yet be more supportive. Perhaps it is the Arrabellas you want to stick it to feeling slightly aggrieved at the suggestion they need to both support Labour and shut up at the same time. That was how Thatcher thought. It was a mistake then and it is a mistake now?

If the party itself wanted to defend their record on women and homosexuals, they could get their female and gay MPs to do so. There are far fewer of them, and rather more boring straight men in their late forties, than there were as Labour MPs in that now apparently disposable line up of over a decade ago, but it could work. Why not call up good old Jane Griffiths and see if she would like to comment on the way some men in the party treat women? Maybe call Thatcher and see how she coped in such a male dominated party? Not being stuck under Thatcher means that the precious little being done toward equality and valuing diversity was shouted about more under Blair than during Major’s tired little reign, but I can say that, the end of section 28 and the start of civil partnerships aside, it would be ill-advised to talk up Labour over the other parties. Get Harman to do it if you must – that should be a laugh (no stab proof vest in recent visit to the boundary of the halves of Reading either – she picked the right week, obviously).

“We are about to let go of the finest government with the best anti-poverty track record in history. I could insult you by giving you a list of achievements. But I think you’re tired of that. ” Nope – so go on. Others have asked. List them. People don’t think you know as much as you claim, so prove them wrong. And why not get a job in the wonderful public sector you speak of? It is still a shambles (lord knows I’m losing patience with working in it and being considered for outsourcing every few weeks, where ever I go), but if you don’t like it there you can always go back to the consultancy group that probably gets you in there and ask for a change. People who work in the public sector are being paid more though, so things must be going well? Not good, not smart, not an achievement to boast about and you are not as informed as you want people to believe. Why stop other people ranting when you can so ignorantly do so?

YOU say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in. I think it would be “perfectly proper” to accept that factions have existed longer than democracy – and for a reason – and move on to defending what has worked, rather than faking a confessional. If your way of fighting apathy is to try to find a solitary weak point, bully people into corners and present one side of a single argument as if it solves every problem that comes along, I should point out that the voting age might be a little too high for most of your apparent target audience. Look at what you think has worked, and begin expanding out from that. Taking general terms around one point, applying it to 11 years of governance, then bitching at whoever disagrees marks you out as a hopeless sycophant and you have already lost at then.

Ag – if you and Ben could get together to put his argument across in your words, it might produce something which achieves it’s purpose (as opposed to calling someone a “loony c**t” and saying the majority of the country are liars for pointing out what they don’t like and getting cross at not being listened, obviously).

And no offence Graham but…actually big offence, since that piece about being “as dead as Napoleon” refuses to address the initial point, was part of some infantile attempt to bully another blogger, and steadfastly turned it’s head away with fingers in the ears to the suggestion that the problems in Iraq may not be over and that the middle east has carried on bubbling over. The army is clearly not destroyed, the government are completely different in that they are now the blind being led by the blind, .to insist against all evidence that the same war was still going on suggesting you only look at half the evidence. But if you want to show how you can only view the world through the lens of a twat (constantly) please carry on.

Oh, and Mettaculte – “spite filled colostomy bag” – ahem? Thank god for Labour, since we would never got those under the Tories, etc etc. And the working classes would be rather unlikely to be caught “spitting up” – since they are short of privilege and opportunity, not gravity.

I was understanding, if bored, of the initial entry that started this. Reading the responses was what made me go mad. I was seconds away from gnawing my knuckles off until I started typing. I’m a nice enough, gentle bloke really, but most of you lot really needed a smack as children. It’s like a gaggle of schoolgirls on the top deck of a bus. But skankier.

No. Two fifths do. Less than half. Poor people can’t afford cars. Get it?

Meanwhile in the top quarter more than half have two cars.

Talking about cavialier approaches to statistics as you were.

so almost half of bottom quintile households have a car.

>I think this makes the point.

And you’d be wrong to think that. relying on staistics that don’t really support your claims is hardly ‘making your point’.

>And, even if I had been wrong, I am surprised that one comment is deserving of such raking over. Nice bit of attempted character assination, guys.

I think that your cavalier approach to statistics, debate and politeness is doing the ‘character assination’ for you Ben.

So, you *were* suggesting that we should expect no more than changing it once every five years? What the fuck are you talking about?

You said opposition to the war had dissipated.

Compared to the one and a half million strong plus march that day, the handful just a few months later certainly suggest that. Never mind that it had already been launched, where was the smeddum? The fact the Vietnam War was in progress didn’t halt protesters. Iraq went in reverse; start big, whither away in weeks.

And I’m really not interested in discussing Israel.

You don’t have to. Just the point that “strong feelings” on a subject do not automatically give the speaker any authority. They could be obsessional nuts.

But even if I’m wrong on that, what I haven’t heard from you is what you think we (not just you and me but people who opposed the war in general) could have done other than what we did.

That’s reasonable. Starters, though, would have been not tacking on too many side issues – Israel or anti-capitalism to name two – and joining an umbrella body which had been formed in response to the threat of war in Iraq, and not the mass killing of thousands of American civilians. Distancing ourselves from said bunch of political freaks and racists and fascists, AS I AND OTHERS WERE VAGUELY AWARE OF AT THE TIME, may have helped paint the opposition as accessible to the mainstream.

Then again, I was just a puppy at the time. Others such as you (or am I thinking of Coatsy?) supposedly had years of experience in political campaigning. And I am not the one who is exculpating himself in faux fatalism by saying nothing could have been done.

OK, I think the outcome was worse than most rational predictions.

Such as? This is a genuine question, as I cannot remember that many of what you’d call rational predictions. The opposition was that ill-formed. Those I do remember from the likes of Alex Higgins, whilst not giving specific numbers of dead and dates of mosque bombings, *did* warn of unpredictable events. And did British intelligence not warn it would “hypercharge” international jihadism?

I haven’t heard anyone ask for congratulations.

A still in production postcard at sale in all Oxfam shops shows the London march and a single arrow saying “Me”. Yeah, well, you were useless. What do you want? Congratulations?

The point of the march was to demonstrate that there was large and strongly felt public opposition to the war.

No. The groundswell of opinion were “strongly felt”, there would have been coherent arguments and the political freaks told to naff off and, if opposition had been maintained afterwards, it would have shown a glimmer of realization that many Iraqis felt differently or, a la Harry Barnes, that regardless of the invasion – which you say we then could have done nowt about – the time was to work with Iraqis.

It didn’t happen. Either this “strongly felt” opposition dried up like hot spittle, or a lot of people suffered severe narcissistic injuries and wanted to utterly destroy those who’d rejected them.

Everything I have read and heard regarding the decision making process in the run up to the war leads me to believe that Blair’s mind had long been absolutely made up

You know that now. Not then. So, why did you give up so easily?

and the only way the invasion would have gone ahead would have been if he had lost the vote in parliament.

This stands in contrast to your previous statement that the only guaranteed way of changing government policy is a General Election. Do you not think it would have been a good idea to target MPs’ opinion in a rational and considered manner, then, and not pinned it all on one march?

And no, I don’t feel any contrition because I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to feel contrition for.

Failure. Failing to take the largest peacetime marches and actually do something with it. This certainly ain’t the Clare Short position of amorality, but it sure as heck ain’t anywhere close to Robin Cook.

I did initially assume you were referring to that, but it makes even less sense. What in buggery’s name are you talking about?

I was pointing out the means we have of changing government policy in the absence of an imminent election.

As before, so?

You said opposition to the war had dissipated. And I’m really not interested in discussing Israel.

What was being predicted by the public case against ain’t happening now. Or have I missed the use of nuclear weapons, and invasions of Iran and Syria?

OK, I think the outcome was worse than most rational predictions.

What I am saying, and which you are studiously ignoring as demonstrated by the subtle changes of tact in your previous post, is that maybe if we hadn’t been such directionless and ignorant twats, something could (note the use of the conditional) have been done.

I haven’t ignored this – I have been saying all along that I disagree. Both that we were “directionless twats” and that if we had done things differently the war might not have gone ahead. Everything I have read and heard regarding the decision making process in the run up to the war leads me to believe that Blair’s mind had long been absolutely made up and the only way the invasion would have gone ahead would have been if he had lost the vote in parliament. But even if I’m wrong on that, what I haven’t heard from you is what you think we (not just you and me but people who opposed the war in general) could have done other than what we did. And setting up some alternative to the STWC is not the answer. It’s not as though Blair did not understand our arguments or was unaware of the strength of public feeling. So what else would actually have made him change his mind?

What I am objecting to are those who want congratulations for attending one march on a fine spring day and then leaving to let a bunch of vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries take over.

I haven’t heard anyone ask for congratulations. The point of the march was to demonstrate that there was large and strongly felt public opposition to the war. That’s really all that any public protest can achieve and so in that sense it was massively successful. A lot of people did nothing at all so I’m not going to sneer at the ones who at least made some small effort.

What precisely is the difference between your comments here and Brownie’s?
In some ways very little. We both had strong feelings about the war. We both on balance still believe we were right. I disagree with him but I don’t doubt his motives are genuine, as I believe are mine. And no, I don’t feel any contrition because I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to feel contrition for.

Well waddya know? Ben and I agree! Except that I’d go for a boot up the jacksie, in place of “very gentle chiding”.

I’m afraid the best I can find (and I’m not prepared to spend more than five mins on it) from going over to the National Statistics website and searching by topic on vehicle ownership is this pithy abstract:

“Car ownership is related to household income. Three-fifths of households in the bottom quintile of the income distribution in 1996-1998 did not have a car, while almost half of those in the top quintile had two or more cars.”

I think this makes the point. And, even if I had been wrong, I am surprised that one comment is deserving of such raking over. Nice bit of attempted character assination, guys. Unfortunately, you were wrong. Both on the material point, and (if I may say so) the character point.

The very idea (though I should say that I thought ag’s second post was more engaged and less reading from a particular hymn sheet) that vehicle taxes are some sort of poll tax designed to hit the poor is clearly nonsense. Just read that abstract again.