More from The Independent for their chattering classes… but a lot of this from Joan Smith makes sense:
“I don’t underestimate the scale of the task facing the party, but I do know where it should start: it must get rid of the impression that it’s managerial, pragmatic to the point where it has lost sight of principle, and useless when it comes to delivery ….Lots of erstwhile Labour supporters no longer know what the party stands for, other than a vague aspiration to be a bit nicer than the Tories; and even that modest ambition has been hobbled, in practice, by anxieties about what it might cost, and fear of upsetting the public service unions.
Mr Cameron is getting away with the political equivalent of murder, highlighting nasty but isolated phenomena such as knife crime – it isn’t clear from published statistics that it’s got worse in recent years – and using them to bolster his claim that we live in a “broken society”. This is a slur on millions of people who don’t carry knives, cheat on benefits nor abuse their children, despite not living in traditional families, and it’s a bit much coming from a party whose leadership is a triumphant declaration of inequality. If a dozen members of the Cabinet had been educated at my state school in Basingstoke the media would be incredulous; last year, when it was revealed that 14 of Mr Cameron’s spokesmen were Old Etonians, along with several of his closest advisers, barely an eyebrow was raised.
It isn’t so much Mr Cameron’s policies that are objectionable (we haven’t yet seen all of them), as the Conservatives’ underlying philosophy. After decades of contracting out the business of running the country to the people whose families used to serve them and run their shops – Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major – Mr Cameron’s suave multimillionaires have taken it back into their own hands.”
Given what the Tories have done to the country in the past, coupled with their current make-up, we should be knocking them for six.
Suppose it just goes to prove the old adage that elections are not won by the opposition, but are lost by governments
The key to the whole piece in the last paragraph. Its just Tory toffs all over again. A fat lot of good it did in Crewe and Nantwich and Henley, it’ll do no better anywhere else
Its the politics of desperation, like re-branding New Labour and the continual relaunches.
Bob
I agree with most of this article but recommend Polly Toynbee’s excellent Unjust Rewards, for anyone wondering the Labour Party is or dshould be about. I’m just reading it and hope to review it in the next couple of days before I fly off on hols.
Bill… you’re not married to Judith Chalmers by any chance? How many holidays can a man fit in to one year, I ask myself?
This is a slur on millions of people who don’t carry knives, cheat on benefits nor abuse their children, despite not living in traditional families
No it is not and the public understand that Cameron is only saying that marriage should not be actively discouraged in the tax system. He is also saying that we are killing off an institution that works and their are endless figures to prove this is true ( as if we did not all know anyway ) . This is the sort of dated rhetoric that simply does not work anymore, and my suggestion would be that the Labour Party stops imagining they are the only people capable of intelligent thinking . Again and again the propaganda line is pitched at an idiotic level ( Toffs, swanky boardrooms, public schools etc.) .
Stop trying to reinvent the class politics of the 60s and 70s and start making the case for high taxes. If you are incapable of doing so then give up. I doubt you will be interested but I have a post up suggesting ( convincingly I think0 ., that the Labour Party is reaching its end whatever it says .
As far as your final sentence is concerned, and I don’t say this very often newmania… I think you are dead right.
Yeah Bob! Explain why you want high taxes!!?!! But wait until Cameron explains that he wants low ones – and lists the sections of the public sector that he’ll sack first though, eh?
I’m not convinced I need a tax advantage because I’m married. I don’t get the logic.
I accept that a tax advantage is beneficial for the number of children I have due to the desire of Government to keep the numbers up.
I accept that Labour has done quite well under the priciple of ‘fair taxation’ and no increases to basic taxation (PAYE).
I accept that this priciple may be nearing its end (a correlation of tax and New Labour is not there) but the priciple of the rich paying a ‘fairer’ share of the spoils is untested within the sphere of a modernising New Labour agenda.
I doubt it will happen but the despondency within the Labour ranks is certainly found within the idea of pips being squeezed by the poorest of our society and the ability of the richer elements just idly buying their way out of debt.
A Labour Government can set the record straight and has been seen to build, build and build buildings everywhere. What we want to see more of is good old fashioned ‘redistribution of wealth’.
This is not asking for higher and maybe, damaging pay increases, but a fairer redistribution of essential services that offset the current punitive taxes we are suffering.
Cameron can play it for all its worth as he talks up a non policy party, but if Labour’s wheels are greased a little, his dream of office is dead.
Newmania should not fall into the trap of believing that Labours membership have had enough of leading this Country.Far from it, it may be the case that the membership has been a part of a political system (the third way) that has run its course.
The left of the labour Party is possibly stone dead with only a few critics shouting from the back seats, so it is probably up to whoever wishes to lead a winning party in the future.
More of the same may just do it, but the public appear to be suggesting otherwise, regardles of the laudible tactics and reasons given in the past.
Paulie – Cameron has already admitted that there will have to be tax rises. He did so at some considerable risk and must have been suprised how meekly the Conservative Party accepted he it. He knows and we know there is no option so that charge is way off
Gary – No-one is suggesting you get an ‘advantage’ for being married , just a level playing field .
On the way forward for Labour I can see a case for a left wing Party of course .I am having difficulty seeing the case for a Labour Party somewhat to the right of the Conservative Party .
What is the point of that?