Bring Back Blair!
The following is a guest Post by ‘Labour Loyalist’
The Labour Party has not suffered a catastrophic defeat in this week’s elections — the Labour Party is in total meltdown. Unless something is done, something radical, then Labour will be massacred at the next general election and could face years in the political wilderness. It didn’t have to be this way and it still doesn’t. Labour could do something it has seemed incapable of doing under Gordon Brown’s leadership – react, quickly and decisively to change the dynamic of a situation.
There are scores of statistics that could be used to highlight just how bad things are for Labour – here is a particularly alarming one: The party’s vote in the south-east of England was roughly level to that received by the BNP in the north-west. A fringe party in ’middle England’.
Labour were driven into third place on the UK wide vote by a party of eccentrics who think the Tories are too left-wing, they lost Wales to the Tories for the first time in 100 years. Labour has never polled under 20% in a nationwide election in its history.
If Gordon Brown were a football manager – he has just relegated Manchester United to League One and been beaten by Dagenham and Redbridge 4-0 in the Cup — at home.
There isn’t a football club in the world that would maintain the services of someone with Brown’s record. There isn’t a private firm in the world that would stand by and watch their profits slump into record losses and do nothing about the man in charge.
And yet Labour MP’s can do little more than pass around a few tentative emails. They are rightly frightened, yet they are frozen by that fear rather than agitated by it.
The problem, half-hearted loyalists to Brown will tell you, is that there really isn’t an alternative. Would David Milliband or Alan Johnson really turn things around before the next general election? Well, they have a point, Labour’s best talents departed the cabinet over the past three years and there isn’t much quality left to choose from.
Which is why Labour must now do what is at the back of everyone’s minds but which no-one has the balls to stand up and say – Bring Back Blair.
Sure, Blair lost popularity due to the Iraq war and the liberal media and those who sheepish follow their line did their best to drive the most successful leader in Labour’s history out of power. It will be hard for some to swallow if Blair came back to try and save the party but they will have to put their pride aside and accept the fact that their man wrecked in two years what had taken decades to build. Brown has been a disaster for Labour.
Blair made Labour electable, won three elections and then handed over to the man who had plotted against him and sought to undermine him for so many years. It was the worst decision Blair ever made. Brown in power, has needed just 23 months to send Labour back to Michael Foot levels of support.
Now with a Tory government looking inevitable and right-wing nationalists growing in strength all over the country – UKIP in the south, BNP in parts of the North and the SNP in Scotland – Labour cannot sit on its hands any longer.
Blairites always said – the alternative to New Labour doesn’t come from the left but from the right and now we are seeing the truth of that.
Blair would take some persuading but he must be persuaded. He is the only recognisable political figure Labour has who could begin to convince the electorate that there is an alternative to the Tories and the nationalists. He is the only politician with the political nous and the charisma to tackle the issues that have driven voters away from Labour. He is the only man who could begin to inject some confidence and belief into Labour supporters. He is the only leader who could (re)assemble a cabinet which is made up of serious politicians with experience and ability and build some sort of alliance with the Liberal Democrats before the next election.
The latest YouGov poll had a majority of Labour Party members saying Labour would be in a better position with Blair in charge. Only 19% of those surveyed felt the party would be in a worse position with Blair at the helm. Even former critics of Blair recognise that he has the ability to turn things around.
Why would Blair want to come back? Well, his legacy is about to be totally squandered. Does he want that? Or does he want the chance to come back and win a record fourth election? Surely he is persuadable. His current job cannot be satisfying and on a purely personal level the idea of taking over from a failed Brown must have some appeal.
Blair returning would be an astonishing global news story – it would change the narrative of British politics from the inevitable decline of Labour to the improbable but exciting story of the comeback.
There are no guarantees of course but I challenge anyone to produce the name of a Labour leader who would be a better bet to beat David Cameron in the next general election?
There has been a lot of talk about ‘Blairites’ in the papers recently — it is time for those who truly are loyal to New Labour and hope to continue the successes of that political project to go and speak with the man himself and convince him that his party and his country need him. Badly.
Bring Back Blair!
Comments
| 8 June 2009, 3:17 pm |
Since Blair became its leader New Labour has dedicated itself to dragging British politics through the mud through its smear campaign against ‘Tory sleaze’ and subverting the media, especially the BBC, to be its lapdog. Gordon Brown is so much worse than Tony Blair, at least the latter showed over Iraq his heart was in the right place despite the depths he sunk to to win power.
Brown though is the consumate cynic, not to say shameless thug. He wants power soley for reasons of vanity, and the country and the integrity of British politics suffers as a result. Apart from rare exceptions such as Harry’s Place, all that is left of the Left is ‘Leftopathy’.
| 8 June 2009, 3:20 pm |
As hilarious and entertaining as this article is, I’m sitting here wondering how he would get back into parliament in time to take over from El Gordo?
| 8 June 2009, 3:20 pm |
I can see (maybe) Blair campaigning for Labour at the next election but I don’t quite understand how Blair “comes back” in the sense of running the country, even if he wants to.
Can someone who knows the Labour Party rule book explain how he can become leader of the Labour party in time for the next election? Does he have to be re-elected as an MP first? Does this campaign start in Norwich?
I’m assuming that he can’t be Prime Minister if he isn’t an MP even if he can become leader of the Labour Party although it would be quite interesting to see Brown as PM and Blair as the heir apparent.
| 8 June 2009, 3:23 pm |
Funny joke, what next?
Dig up Clem Attlee? More like re-animate Ramsey MacDonald?
New Labour are the cause of their own failure, they are a bunch of unprincipled careerists, with a complete detachment from the lives of real people, thus it is hardly surprising that many people didn’t want to vote for them.
If Labour could put some very clear water between themselves and the Tories then they might, just might, have a chance, but as it is people look at New Labour then back again to the Tories and often have a difficulty telling one from the other.
| 8 June 2009, 3:24 pm |
Blair jumped off this particular handcart just before the sign that says “Welcome to Hell, twinned with Sunderland Nil”.
Does anyone imagine the crafty old bugger being stupid enough….?
| 8 June 2009, 3:24 pm |
You are Martin Kettle and I claim my prize!!!
Being serious for a moment, Blair cannot make a comeback as Labour leader as a result of his conversion to Catholicism.
The Act of Settlement doesn’t only prohibit Catholics marrying into the monarchy/line of succession, it also imposes a de facto prohibition on a Catholic exercising the Royal Prerogative, without which the Office of Prime Minister is meaningless.
So, yeah, come back Tone and we’ll chuck a constitutional crisis into the mix as well.
| 8 June 2009, 3:27 pm |
The party’s vote in the south-east of England was roughly level to that received by the BNP in the north-west.
Yup pretty much fuck-all red Labour roses in view in the desperately pretty leafy lanes of the Surrey/ Hants/ Sussex border.
Mind you, people were writing off the Tories 12 years ago, so I’m not sure this is permanent; one can but hope.
The longer Brown remains at the helm, the worse the defeat will be and the longer any rehabilitation will take. For the party’s sake, Labour need a caretaker leader to boldly lead them into electoral evisceration!
Labour are having more of a problem than I thought establishing themselves a post Blairite post socialist identity. I guess the Blairites would be best being done with it and be honest about really being ‘one nation’ Tories and throw their hat in with David Cameron.
| 8 June 2009, 3:27 pm |
Modernity – do you really believe that far-left nonsense?
“New Labour are the cause of their own failure”???? Blair won three elections in a row – unprecedented success.
The working class have been lost without New Labour. It is time we got New Labour back.
| 8 June 2009, 3:40 pm |
If I didn’t care so much about the fortunes of the Labour Party I’m sure I would find this amusing.
| 8 June 2009, 3:40 pm |
The smear tactics and subversion of the media Labour used to get elected under Blair have been used by Brown against rivals in his Party to the point it’s now at war with itself and faces electoral decimation. Unfortunately the Conservative Party under Cameron is so supine in the face of the New Labour hate machine that is the BBC this is something he would never articulate. New Labour is in meltdown, but all we have is a defanged Tory Party that is ‘Blue Labour’.
| 8 June 2009, 3:41 pm |
Now with a Tory government looking inevitable and right-wing nationalists growing in strength all over the country – UKIP in the south, BNP in parts of the North and the SNP in Scotland – Labour cannot sit on its hands any longer.
Why can’t myopics like you accept that:
1) Tony Blair never had a proper mandate to govern given that Labour’s share of the vote was only marginally higher than Major’s Tories in ‘92 and this mainly due to some 3/4 million Tory votes leaking to the Referendum party. In 2002, Labour’s share of the vote was lower than the Tories in ‘92.
2) Smearing UKIP by associating them with the BNP and SNP as ‘right wing nationalist’ bedfellows is shameless partisanship and reflects badly on you. You fail to realise just how mainstream the belief in the primacy of UK sovereignty and conservative values is; even a majority of Labour MPs used to endorse them…some principled members still do.
3) Blair was first and foremost a liar who betrayed the disaffected Tory voters who supported him and his empty promises on public service reform.
4) Most British citizens are sick to death of the hypocritical revolutionary cultural agenda pursued by Liebour and its smug partisans. Mainstream opinion is that they should be cast into the depths of Hell from whence they came…never to darken the British political scene again.
5) Blair will return as EU President and by proxy on British shores in the personage of one David Cameron.
The sooner Tony B. Liar and his band of moribund hypocrites are forgotten about, the better as far as I’m concerned.
| 8 June 2009, 3:41 pm |
So let me get this right. In a party brought to its lowest ebb in 80 years by faction-fighting between Blairites and Brownites, you want Brown, who finally ousted Blair two years ago, to be replaced in turn by Blair? And this is going to reduce the infighting, huh? Never heard anything so silly in my life. One minor point, Blair is no longer an MP, so you’ll need to find him a constituency quick (Ian Gibson’s ?) or he’ll have to be Prime Minister as an unelected member of the House of Lords (Lord Blair of Basra?), the first since the 19th century. In all, definitely the daftest post I’ve seen on Harry’s Place in years.
| 8 June 2009, 3:43 pm |
1) Tony Blair never had a proper mandate to govern given that Labour’s share of the vote was only marginally higher than Major’s Tories in ‘92 and this mainly due to some 3/4 million Tory votes leaking to the Referendum party. In 2002, Labour’s share of the vote was lower than the Tories in ‘92.
OK, I’m hardly a fan of Blair but he was elected fair and square under the rules.
| 8 June 2009, 3:45 pm |
Look at the right-wingers already worried…..
| 8 June 2009, 3:45 pm |
I agree entirely – Bring back Blair !!!
Best article on Harry’s Place in years.
| 8 June 2009, 3:48 pm |
Ravingloony – no smearing of UKIP at all.
I am sure that Nigel and co are perfectly happy to be described as nationalists – after all it is a perfectly legitimate name for a party which makes national identity and sovereignty its central position.
What’s the problem with being called a nationalist if you are?
(I’m not saying UKIP are identical to the BNP – they clearly are different kinds of nationalists – the BNP will be joining the Euro group of various racist parties on the continent. UKIP would never be so ‘federal’)
| 8 June 2009, 3:54 pm |
If Labour has no credible challenger to Brown for party leader from the ranks of current MPs, then they really are in sorry straits.
| 8 June 2009, 3:55 pm |
You can’t go backwards…
He is the only man who could begin to inject some confidence and belief into Labour supporters.
You know what Cameron’s greatest fear would be? A female Labour leader. But there isn’t a Labour woman with the presence of even a Shirley Williams these days is there?
| 8 June 2009, 3:57 pm |
I thought the post was by Labour Royalist for a while
How would Blair had carried on past 2005? Which exciting new worlds might we be visiting today on our hooverbikes?
| 8 June 2009, 3:59 pm |
Exactly two months and a week late, today, this piece.
In the mid-1990s and after 1997 I warned anyone who would listen about the moral and philosophical vacuity at the heart of Blairism; how it would reduce everything it touched to what was “pragmatic” or “relevant”, devoid of any other content of substance or importance.
And, then, as the only viable alternative (I am not the sort of chap to contemplate voting Green or Lib Dem) destroyed itself for a time, I grinned and beared it, stiff upper lip, keep buggering on, and so on.
Now, everyone sees what would have been evident were they ears and eyes and brains open 15 years ago; but at least now Blairism and its utter lack of principle has had its day; it has outlived its purpose; it has destroyed not only itself, but the party that bore host to it, and done immeasurable damage to the country that had it inflicted upon it.
It’s notable too that (unlike the quarrels that brought Major down) the disputes today are purely ones of egotism and personal dislikes: not those of policy or choice. The only point of question is whether the talents of those who have resigned (in various self-seeking ways) are more minimal than those who have taken their place (well, not in the case of the defence secretary; that much is obvious in that case).
Just as – full of egotism – Blair jumped ship and left, just in time; sure Brown is deeply uninspiring as a leader
Time to go. All of New Labour. Brownites, Blairites, the lot of yer
Goodbye. You will not be missed.
| 8 June 2009, 4:02 pm |
You want a Blair. You want a female Labour leader. Get Cherie in there quick. Caroline Flint could give up her seat for her, she’s just window dressing after all..
| 8 June 2009, 4:02 pm |
Labour couldn’t afford his fees. I hear his developed a nifty business advising various Middle Easten despots on governance, that must be a nice little earner, so you’d have to cover that as well. He might be persuaded to give up the Catholicism, on account of them being behind the times and anti-gay.
| 8 June 2009, 4:02 pm |
The Blairites have shown their hand by undermining Brown BEFORE the Euro elections in the hope that Labour’s vote would collapse, and their personal and factional position would be strengthened.
“Party loyalist” my arse!
| 8 June 2009, 4:06 pm |
Hilarious. I liked the bit where the SNP is right-wing, and lumped in with UKIP and the BNP. All in all, a most excellent parody of an unhinged Labour apparatchik.
3 1/2 stars.
| 8 June 2009, 4:06 pm |
I’ve no time for the SNP but their policies on everything except the constitution are fairly middle-of-the-road. It’s inaccurate and unfair to lump them in with UKIP or the BNP.
Okay, some of their supporters are anti-English bigots who think that anyone who doesn’t think Scottish independence will automatically solve every problem facing Scotland is a quisling and hireling traitor (see the comments on almost any politics story on the Scotsman website), but the party leadership isn’t like that. They’re more pro-EU than Labour.
| 8 June 2009, 4:08 pm |
“Brown in power, has needed just 23 months to send Labour back to Michael Foot levels of support.”
It was already at Michael Foot levels of support when Blair was leader, that’s why he was forced out. So now that the Labour Party is as unpopular as it was when Tony Blair was leader, it should bring back Tony Blair? Yeah that makes sense.
| 8 June 2009, 4:10 pm |
something tells me this isn’t the first piece this writer has had up on NP Sauce.
| 8 June 2009, 4:10 pm |
something tells me that 1) this is actually deadly serious, embarrasingly, and 2) this isn’t the first piece this writer has had up on HP Sauce.
| 8 June 2009, 4:12 pm |
Yeah, cos Things….Can Only Get Betta! Only get betta! Only get betta!
This IS a joke, isn’t it?
| 8 June 2009, 4:13 pm |
I read somewhere… was it the Independent?… a fairly convincing argument for why Brown will get the heave-ho in the Autumn. It hinged on the problem of having to call an election if the leader is replaced again. In the Autumn, Alan Johnson will be able to promise to call an election in the spring- round about when the election is likely to fall anyway.
Mind you, by then we’ll be out of recession and Brown will be popular again. Possibly Labour will have released a new manifesto as per the recommendations of Roy Hattersley, and as a result the electorate will be energised by the exciting ideas therein.
| 8 June 2009, 4:15 pm |
Labour Loyalist???
Ha Ha, oh he means it.
Is NealD worried that the Royal Mail might not get privatised now
| 8 June 2009, 4:16 pm |
Graham:
You know what Cameron’s greatest fear would be? A female Labour leader. But there isn’t a Labour woman with the presence of even a Shirley Williams these days is there?
Not really; the Tories already had a female PM 30 years ago, so I can’t see a critical mass of people voting for a woman simply because of her gender. No, to get the full electoral advantage of identity politics…..the full liberal guilt swing vote – she’d have to be a one legged, black, lesbian Muslim. Cameron then wouldn’t have a chance.
Perhaps Dianne Abbot could have a nasty argument with a bendy bus, utter the Shahdra loudly and publically on This Week, don a hijab and have photos published of her caught in flagrante by the mirror enthusiastically munching the nethers of Hazel Blears……sorted….. Camreron….history!
| 8 June 2009, 4:19 pm |
At Downing Street upon the stair
I saw a man who wasn’t Blair
He wasn’t Blair again today
Oh how I wish he’d go away
| 8 June 2009, 4:25 pm |
I was thinking more of how Cameron would handle her at Question time than whether the mass of the public would vote for her merely because of her sex (he’s lucky most of his own Tory women seem to have gone in the expenses scandal cos they sure would have been watching the likes of Flint knifing Brown.)
| 8 June 2009, 4:32 pm |
OK, I’m hardly a fan of Blair but he was elected fair and square under the rules.
Fair and square? Yes. Democratic mandate to govern? Hardly. The real winner was apathy and it *has* been ever since.
What’s the problem with being called a nationalist if you are?
None. But some balance on the matter would be nice. Say, lumping New Liebour, the Lib Dhimmis and Blue Liebour under an extreme-left, Maoist label would exorcise a few of mye demons.
(I’m not saying UKIP are identical to the BNP – they clearly are different kinds of nationalists – the BNP will be joining the Euro group of various racist parties on the continent. UKIP would never be so ‘federal’)
Oh, *do* tell us all about the sort of company Liebour partisans will be keeping in the sham parliament, Labour Loyalist? No Maoists, Troofers or fascists, then?
| 8 June 2009, 4:36 pm |
Walter Sobchak? Seen the Dude recently?
| 8 June 2009, 4:37 pm |
Labour Loyalist,
Well, your argument might be stronger if that old Thacherite, Alan Sugar wasn’t being sucked up to by New Labour.
I look forward to your explanation as to why the LP lost much of its vote in traditional working class areas, etc???
| 8 June 2009, 4:39 pm |
If Alan Sugar wants to help turn around failing businesses, why doesn’t he take a job with Newcastle?
| 8 June 2009, 4:43 pm |
Labour were driven into third place on the UK wide vote by a party of eccentrics
This attitude is EXACTLY the reason why Labour is in such meltdown. The voters are sick and tired of Labour patronising them and telling them that if they don’t vote for Labour’s destruction of this country, then they are eccentrics / bad children / will be sent to the naughty step. In response, the electorate are responding in the expected way: holding up two fingers to Labour.
| 8 June 2009, 4:53 pm |
The problem, half-hearted loyalists to Brown will tell you, is that there really isn’t an alternative
Why buy a failing company and take on its debt when you can pick up its assets cheap from the administrators after it’s gone bust?
| 8 June 2009, 4:59 pm |
Blair’s probably laughing too hard at Broon to be able to come back. Let’s face it, Labour are doomed no matter who is in charge. And it’ll be at least two elections before they get a sniff at power again.
| 8 June 2009, 5:01 pm |
Blair may be banned from ever-more countries because of his war crimes, but those crimes have made him too rich to care. Just the sort of PM we need…
| 8 June 2009, 5:18 pm |
Anybody what Lindsay is going on about now? “War crimes”? Has Lindsay joined “Respect”?
| 8 June 2009, 5:43 pm |
If Alan Sugar wants to help turn around failing businesses, why doesn’t he take a job with Newcastle?
Where there’s a Will there’s a way.
| 8 June 2009, 6:33 pm |
I was in a meeting in a Commons committee room with an Afghan woman MP chaired by Dennis McShane when at 5.20 McShane had to leave hurriedly for, he said a very important meeting about the future of the Labour Party. Someone else took over the chair, and when the meeting concluded just after 6 pm I went into the corridoor into a scrum of 100 news people waiting for the outcome of Brown’s meeting next door. We could hear banging of tables and cheering. Nick Robinson said a piece to camera that all this was of course staged and that no reporters were allowed in. The room was locked as it was overflowing, and MPs and cabinet members were banging on the door to get in to no avail. It was all very exciting but I couldn’t hang around for the outcome and have come home to find no news yet.
| 8 June 2009, 7:04 pm |
“Unless something is done, something radical, then Labour will be massacred at the next general election and could face years in the political wilderness.”
You say this like it is a bad thing. Why not have a left-wing alternative to the Conservatives that is not full of socialist assholes, former Trotskists, former communists and other inhuman scum; such as the Lib-Dems
| 8 June 2009, 7:33 pm |
“Why not have a left-wing alternative to the Conservatives that is not full of socialist assholes, former Trotskists, former communists and other inhuman scum; such as the Lib-Dems”
Because they aren’t socialists for starters. And they aren’t really left-wing. They’re basically the Tory wets Margaret Thatcher drove out aren’t they?
| 8 June 2009, 8:41 pm |
“Liebour”!?!?!? Geddit??!?
Firstly, Labour will not get massacred in the next election. It’s virtually impossible for that to happen given the majority they currently enjoy the current electoral system (that favours Labour at the constituency level). The Tories need more than a 7% swing to get a majority of 2. They need to be closer to 44% than 40% to have anything like the sorts of majorities that Labour carried at the last 3 elections.
This could happen, of course, but it’s by no means a done deal. Labour can’t win the next election but a mini-revival is all it takes to stop the Tories getting a working majority.
Also, the Tories must win big against the Lib Dems as well as Labour. Trouncing Labour in all the Tories’ target seats alone will not be good enough.
It wouldn’t be the done thing for the sake of the country, but Labour could – especially on the back of UKIP’s rise in the Eruo elections – use the nuclear option: hold a referendum on our membership of the EU.
The Tories would disintegrate almost overnight as the Euro-sceptic looney tunes crawled from under their rocks in a fight to the death for the soul of 21st Conservatism. Brown could put his feet, light a cigar and watch the fun.
| 8 June 2009, 9:04 pm |
put his feet UP.
| 8 June 2009, 10:04 pm |
Brown could put his feet in his mouth, light a cigar and watch his socks catch fire.
And Brownie would still be insisting the guy is unassailable.
| 8 June 2009, 10:53 pm |
And Brownie would still be insisting the guy is unassailable.
Do you actually read anything you respond to?
For the umpteenth time, I never wanted Brown as leader. He is classic no.2 material and some of the party bigwigs should have had the balls to tell him this years ago, irrespective of any deal struck with Blair in the mid-90s.
If things look as bleak for Labour come the conference season as they do now, Brown will be toast. The Labour strategy will be to bring in Johnson (or similar) followed by a swift election during which the party will hope to capitalise on the inevitable honeymoon period and thereby restrict any Tory majority to double figures (which current polling suggests should be easily achievable with only a small upturn in Labour’s fortunes). This means a return to power in 4/5 years time is well within reach.
Such a move would also put pressure on the Tories to make certain manifesto pledges that might perhaps restrict their more radical wings and make it harder for them to undo some of the good work of the previous 12 years (e.g. they may be forced to pledge to retain the minimum range in an election that promises to be closely fought).
If Labour continues to struggle and Brown plods on regardless, Labour run the risk of a cataclysmic defeat that sees them occupying the opposition benchs for the next decade.
But there is no need to make a rush to judgment now.
Brown has 100 days to save himself.
| 8 June 2009, 11:02 pm |
“It was already at Michael Foot levels of support when Blair was leader, that’s why he was forced out. So now that the Labour Party is as unpopular as it was when Tony Blair was leader, it should bring back Tony Blair? Yeah that makes sense”.
Blair was forced out because his support had fallen to Michael Foot levels??
Interesting planet you must live on. Back here on earth, Blair had already announced before the 2005 election that, if he won for a 3rd consecutive time, he wouldn’t then go for a 4th term. You remember the 2005 election, don’t you? The one Blair won with a majority of 60 odd seats.
Can’t remember Michael Foot ever doing that. Nor do I remember Blair ever getting a 15% share of the vote in a national election. So Labour is actually rather MORE unpopular now than when Blair was leader, wouldn’t you say?
| 8 June 2009, 11:08 pm |
Deary me Steve. Your memory must be going; Blair was terribly unpopular and we have always been at war with East Asia. Also, it’s NuLiebour, not ‘Labour’. (There’s a good reason that you aren’t supposed to spell the word ‘new’ properly, it’s… uh… well, I can’t recall at the moment but it must be a really good reason).
| 8 June 2009, 11:09 pm |
“Blairites always said – the alternative to New Labour doesn’t come from the left but from the right and now we are seeing the truth of that.”
Well that was certainly true. At such a disastrous time, it is almost funny (if it were not so deeply tragic) to hear the usual leftist suspects saying that a radical left turn would save the Labour Party. They confuse analysis with self-interest.
Sadly the Great Leader returning is a little far-fetched. But we do need to replace Brown with someone who isn’t associated with his camp, and who is committed to keeping Labour in the moderate centre. I.e., a Blairite. (Or a semi-Blairite like Johnson – he would be fine.)
I wish I had your optimism, Brownie. Even with the electoral calculations being as they are, if we remain as wildly unpopular as we are then it is unlikely that the uniform national swing much of the pro-Labour bias in the system is based upon will almost certainly cease to operate – has done already in fact. Down 6% in parts of the south and 12% in Wales.
I do not understand the lack of a self-preservation instinct in the PLP. It seems Labour has always (with the exception of the last 15 years) had more trouble with being ruthless to survive than the Tories.
| 8 June 2009, 11:22 pm |
It seems Labour has always (with the exception of the last 15 years) had more trouble with being ruthless to survive than the Tories.
It was ever thus. The Tories have always been far more cut-throat in such circumstances, whether it be changes of leadership to give them a sniff of victory, or deposing prime ministers to preserve/prolong power.
| 8 June 2009, 11:42 pm |
The ludicrous thing about this squabble between Brownites and Blairites is that there is no substantive difference between them on ideology or policy. The Labour party is truly brain dead if it allows itself to be destroyed over so little.
| 8 June 2009, 11:42 pm |
The PLP are clinging to their leader after all. They are also clinging to their pay, and their severance money when they finally get voted out. By far the most lucrative option.
But this seedy self-interested dog and pony show is going to damage the party in the future. The damage down the line, will be inflicted on folk who aren’t labour MPs yet, and possibly never will be.
| 8 June 2009, 11:42 pm |
The ludicrous thing about this squabble between Brownites and Blairites is that there is no substantive difference between them on ideology or policy. The Labour party is brain dead. That is why it deserves to be destroyed.
| 8 June 2009, 11:42 pm |
The ludicrous thing about this squabble between Brownites and Blairites is that there is no substantive difference between them on ideology or policy. The Labour party is truly brain dead if it allows itself to be destroyed over so little.
| 8 June 2009, 11:58 pm |
“Blair was forced out because his support had fallen to Michael Foot levels??”
According to the polls, yes. Blair wanted to stay until the end of the term. He was forced out because the polls in early 2007 showed Labour doing worse than it had under Foot. And also the 22% Labour got in the European election under Blair in 2004 was well below what Labour got in 1983.
| 9 June 2009, 12:11 am |
Hector,
Yeah, but Blair still had credibility even amongst his opponents. He was considered a genuine parliamentary heavyweight and a formidable political foe who had achieved for the Labour party in general elections what no previous party leader had come close to achieving.
A straight fight between even a stale Blair and Cameron at a general election is not something the Tory party would have been relishing, whatever bluster you might get from them now.
BTW, in the last Euro elections before Labour were swept to power they polled 44% of the vote, a mere 16% more than the Tories managed this time around.
| 9 June 2009, 7:49 am |
I think it is totally unfair and way off the mark to lump UKIP as an extreme nationalist party in the same breath as the BNP – which in any case is a party of the extreme Left if you look at its programme. Blair laid the foundations upon which Brown stands, shuffles and gurnies – bringing him back is a laughable idea.
| 9 June 2009, 8:28 am |
Labour could certainly do worse than bringing back Blair. Trouble is, is there a seat left safe enough to parachute him into. Passe Gordon Brown, we couldn’t have a PM in the Lords too now could we!?
| 9 June 2009, 1:27 pm |
I think it is totally unfair and way off the mark to lump UKIP as an extreme nationalist party in the same breath as the BNP – which in any case is a party of the extreme Left if you look at its programme
The BNP is left wing because of its programme? Since when has the left espoused ‘blood and soil’ nationalism and white supremacy? Its economic programme, if it can be dignified by the term, is a hodge podge cynically adopted to appeal to disgruntled Labour voters.
Agree with you about UKIP, though. I’ve got to know quite a few UKIPers through my opposition to ID Cards and they are not Nazis!
| 9 June 2009, 2:02 pm |
XofTheX, quite so. If the BNP is a party of the Left, then why did it and the Tories (and Harry’s Place) run a joint candidate for Mayor of London?
Vanishing Point, good to hear from the deniers, if only to remind the rest of us that you are there. Again, you are much of a piece with the BNP.
| 9 June 2009, 3:03 pm |
For the umpteenth time, I never wanted Brown as leader. He is classic no.2 material…
Oh, I agree. (You’re saying he’s a turd, right?) Yep, complete and utter no.2 material. Thank God him and his wretched party are finished.
For a moment you had me there!