Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
A Guardian Leader today emphasises just how complete the Blairite victory has been... We are all progressives now. To read a Guardian Leader praising David Cameron for accepting all of the things that Tony Blair created as New Labour demonstrates just how deeply ingrained the new centre ground consensus has become. Whether Thatcherism consumed Labour, or Blairism destroyed the old-style Conservatives for good, who knows, or cares, the result is we are left with consensus politics. Butskellism lives!
Yes, there will be those in my Party who still hold out for hope that the Party will adopt socialist policies, and within the Conservative Party there remain those who pine for free market economics. But deep down, in our heart of hearts, surely both of us must know we are fighting a losing battle.
Sure Start children's centres, reductions in child poverty, raising the school leaving age, the national minimum wage, flexible hours for parents and carers, better conditions for part-time workers, the decent homes programme, free museums, more foreign aid. All these are real achievements and deserve to be celebrated.
And there is more, particularly in the gender, sex and race equality measures. But as Monbiot points out, on the negative side, there are a lot of things that New Labour have done that only a decade or so ago we would have found truly repulsive, and some of us still do.
Yes, I know, I've said it often enough, history is a long march, and Blairism, Thatcherism and all the other-isms are only mere steps on the path to progress. But the Blairites swallowed most of the central principles of Thatcher's Tories, including monetarism, low taxation, and the use of the private sector to make a profit out of public services. In turn Cameron has accepted the central principles of Blairite social democracy, or as he calls it... the progressive consensus. The notion that the state will intervene and direct, that it will provide by way of social welfare, and ensure equality and wealth redistribution.
Those on the right of the Conservative Party, the little xenophobes and free market economic libertarians, will either remain in the Party and act as the conscience of the party, or drift away to engage with UKIP, the BNP or other even smaller factions or involve themselves in single issue (usually anti-EU) campaigns such as the Taxpayers Alliance.
Equally, on the left, some of us will remain in the party claiming to be keeping the flame of socialism flickering in the Labour Party, others will move away into the in-fighting of socialist sects, concentrate their efforts in the trade union movement (which has its own severe identity crisis) or into single issue (often environmentalist) campaigns. The Liberal Democrats will, of course, continue to be the Liberal Democrats. In national terms a futile wasted vote, locally a protest vote against one of the other two.
So, that's it then. Not a glimpse into the future, but what is happening here and now. A one-party system in which all three factions in the Party accept the economic consensus and the only arguments concern issues on the margin. Labour will jump up and down complaining that the Tories will bring about hellfire and damnation. The Tories will suggest that if the Labour win the last survivors should switch off the light. the Lib Dems ones will say.... well, anything you want to hear, but usually that both of the other two are wrong and really only their policies will save society - but they won't spell out too precisely what they are in case they frighten the voters.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot the voters. Where do they fit in? Well, that's easy, you see all three parties can agree on one thing. People should have choice. Choice is very, very good. We can all agree that having choice empowers people.
We used to have one in politics... but people said it was all nasty, old fashioned, class-based stuff. You can have any colour you want, as long as it is black, as Henry Ford put it.
So, remember, on Friday morning, when Nick Robinson, Adam Boulton, Iain Dale and all of the other tea leave gazers tell you there has been a seismic change in British politics, all they are really telling you is the barometer has moved a very tiny fraction. Nothing has changed... we are all New Labour progressives now!
How many of Monbiot's achievements would a Tory govt have implemented?
The myth of no difference in party is just that, a myth, perpetrated by the cosmopolitan media elite. These are the people who don't notice the difference because their lives are so insulated from the reality of ordinary life.
At the next election there will be a choice, between a party whose members believe in fairness and equality to the root of their being and a Tory party which wants tax cuts at all costs.
If you want examples of the sort of Tory I mean just look where they have taken over in Local Govt. Shocking cuts in Hammersmith and Fulham and elsewhere.
Fascinating stuff Bob, but do you see an alternative? Should Labour really rediscover its heritage and set out a 'true Socialism' message? Wouldn't that risk splitting the parliamentary party for good?
That is a good post superbly well constructed although I believe it is quite wrong You are trying to suggest that the forthcoming Conservative victory if it happens ( which astonishes me ..in Crewe !) , is actually only a victory for a centre progressive mush and I dispute that . Conservative Policies on education , welfare , housing and more as they emerge are actually quite radical and pressure in the Party for tax cuts is only held in check by the knowledge that we are far too indebt for such a gesture to be possible now . This is no secret. Immigration is up the agenda as is national sovereignty, marriage is coming back and multiculturalism routed . Abortion is no longer accepted as a means of contraception whatever the result today so it is not all one way. So , while social advances of the 60s have been accepted others have been resoundingly and rightly rejected .Meanwhile state encroachment on personal space is not accepted and sure start for example , an expensive waste of time. Conservatism and free market Libertarianism have never been the same thing.
The long term aim of the Conservatives is that the state should be small responsive and cheap, that as true before and it is truer today than it has been in along time .
Blair may well have despised the Labour Party but Cameron is a. We have not had a clause four moment , a change of name or ditched our beliefs , we are not New Conservatives and we are not squawking about a new dawn . We will build Council Houses true but we do not and will not ever regard their construction as other than a temporary stay on the way to free property owning people directing the nation as they see fit .
I would just like to thank the Labour party for giving Blair a job. He is up there alongside Churchill and Thatcher as one of the all time Conservative greats.
I see Gordon is rather fond of Churchillian quotes these days, he won't make a great though and as for his political leanings I haven't a clue.
.... a party whose members believe in fairness and equality to the root of their being...
I don't think I could disagree with that.
But read the lines in read on the left above. Do you see any signs of a fundamental and irreversible transfer of the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families? If so, you must have bloody x-ray vision.
The Tories aren't necessarily winning in "Crewe". The Crewe and Nantwich seat contains many affluent suburbs & villages, so it isn't as if you're storming a Labour stronghold.
If you ever captured Stoke North (the seat I grew up in) then you'd have something to write home about...
Mick Davies said:
May 20, 2008 5:10 PM | permalink
Bob
The one thing we have they dont is a philosophy that is inherently moral. Socialism is the philosophy of internationalism and comradeship,the philosophy that has spurred on thousands in the quest for a better life for all.Across the developing world socialism is still the philosophy of hope for the disadvantaged and dispossesed. Bob at times like these I always read La Pasonaria's farewell speech to the International Brigades.... 'Tell them of the International Brigades. tell them how,coming over sea and mountains,crossing frontiers bristling with bayonets and watched by ravening dogs wanting to tear their flesh,these men reached our country as crusaders for freedom....We are here.Your cause Spain's cause is ours. It is the cause of all advanced and progressive mankind' Thats socialism. Cheer Up mate
Mick, that's all well and good mate, but if I just wanted to feel good about being on a moral crusade I would have joined the methodist preacher and the happy clappers.
The task in hand is not to interpret and analyse the world, and hope for a better tomorrow, it is to change the world, and that's the bit that seems so far away at the moment.
Gotta say, I'm with Monbiot on this. I'm a man who would dearly love to vote Labour bu my conscience doesn't allow it.
Their right wing policies regarding the NHS is enough for me to look for a socialist alternative. Their immoral war mongering will see that I'l never vote for New Labour.
Joe... I'd settle for the foothills of the socialist utopia instead of grubbing around in the sewers occupied by the Tories.
Gazza, my point was simply to emphasise that Monbiot at least recognised we had made some positive changes, but also to pint people in the direction of his article which expressed disillusionment with the New Labour movement. I think you will find that there is a link to Monbiot's article in the text.
As things stand, there is not a socialist alternative, and with regard to the NHS, at least the repulsive PFI and semi-privatisation has been accompanied by doubling health expenditure from the desolation of the Tory years.
Bad as things are, I wouldn't advocate a Tory/Lib Dem solution to anything.
Gary Hurdman said:
May 22, 2008 9:11 AM | permalink
Sorry Bob, perhaps I read this rather too quickly. Glad to see that parity is restored. It’s not often I disagree with the content of your blog. It seems you’re closer to Old Labour after all. Phew!
Bob Wrote: -> Bad as things are, I wouldn't advocate a Tory/Lib Dem solution to anything.
Not entirely sure I agree. As New Labour has progressed they have felt more like a Tory government than John Major’s Conservative. Like me, you’re appalled at the PFI initiatives and should the proposed Polyclinics proceed we’re a step away from being the 51st state. It’s incredibly sad because we’ve lost so much in our country that set us apart from much of the developed world. Remember how we used to laugh at the absurdities of the American system, how we all felt it was unfair and oppressive? Why are a socialist party emulating this system, forgoing the protection our country used to offer to the poor and vulnerable?
I voted Socialist Alliance in the last General Election. I wanted New Labour to see they’d lost a left vote. I’m not entirely sure they cared. And I’m afraid I have been voting Green in the council elections. I would dearly love to vote Labour again. I just can’t as things stand.
So in summary, I don’t agree. I think we need a period of opposition to remind the party exactly what it is we stand for. And that is the people, not the profits.
Gazza, I remember some comrades saying they were going to vote Tory in 1979 to: a) give Labour a bloody nose over the IMF cuts; and b) because the public would rise up against the Thatcher government and throw them back out of office.
May 20, 2008 1:34 PM | permalink
Great post, Bob.