Since May 6th, the Conservatives (I largely discount the Lib-Dems now, because they are now part of the Tory machine) have been in power and have already made savage swipes at our welfare system. Although the Tories once insisted frontline services would not be affected, we are regularly hearing each day of redundancies in our schools, hospitals and police forces.
Despite this, a recent MORI poll for the Economist showed the public viewed Osborne’s Budget as one of the six best since the 1970s. Even more disturbing is that fact that now the Tories are languishing on a 40% share of the voteand Labour is largely unchanged since the election – even though our public services are now seriously under threat.
Several reasons spring to mind to explain this bizarre situation. Firstly, it seems the public are satisfied to bury their heads into their hands and assume “if it’s not affecting me, then it’s OK”. So, if you aren’t unemployed, or living on little more than a basic living wage, then you may feel you are not being dramatically affected by the recent austerity measures. Indeed, evidence from a number of think tanks suggests large numbers of people now classified as middle class will only experience a minor change to their standard of living, so there is some truth to their analysis.
What these people fail to see is how the next round of cuts, expected in the autumn, will affect us all. All pointers suggest the cuts, along with VAT increases, will substantially change the way many of us live our lives. Our hospitals will be less efficient, our schools will have more children in each classroom as the number of teachers is reduced, with less police officers on patrol there will be more crime. Oh ... and the skill level of our workforce will deteriorate as the government and private sector fail to invest in training and skill development. All of this happening in a nation with constantly rising unemployment.
Now you may wonder why Labour hasn’t been doing more to expose this to the electorate. After all, there is a leadership election on and it offers an ideal time to flaunt our more radical policies as we expunge ourselves of the New Labour project. Unfortunately, the entire election process has been taken over by the ‘management team’ at Victoria Street, leaving most party members and, it seems, the broader public disillusioned by the entire process.
If you don’t think the candidates are being stifled by the party machine, then ask yourself why is it the candidates are either absent, or silent at PMQ every Wednesday? It’s all very well each of them organising a petition to oppose some aspect of Tory policy, but why are they not shouting from the rooftops – this is wrong! A few tweets each day and the odd television appearance are pretty half-hearted measures.
Instead, we are forced to endure another three months of Harriet Harman as acting leader – a political lightweight by any stretch of the imagination. Thank goodness parliament goes into recess in a couple of weeks – at least we won’t have to face the agony of watching Cameron systematically destroy her. Her pleas of “he isn’t answering the question ...” are starting to bore even the most dedicated Labour party member and I am almost beginning to assume it will never get better.
I was one of those people who argued for a long debate over the summer to decide on our future leader, but I am starting to question whether I was right. The hustings are a joke, offering no real chance for the candidates to debate the issues and instead they only allow them to roll out bland ‘non-statements’ of where they stand politically.
David Miliband is fighting for the centre ground and seems destined to win, so is already being crowned by many, even before the vote. Ed Miliband is vying for the soft left vote with his “I wasn’t in parliament, so you can’t blame me” approach – pretty weak as he was and adviser and then later a member of parliament during the period – so his hands are just as tainted as any of the other candidates. As for Ed Balls, well he hasn’t really said very much, other than how he wants to blame all those nasty immigrants for taking our jobs – a bit unfair perhaps, but it isn’t far off the truth. Poor old Andy Burnham seems to have already acknowledged he is one of the runners-up and hardly makes a peep in the hope he can appear the strong, silent type.
Good old Diane Abbott was set to carry the mantle of the left and if she is the best we can offer, then we had all better pack up and go and play dominoes. Let’s be frank, her defence of sending her child to a £10,000 per annum private school is indefensible, even though we may understand why, as a parent, she felt it necessary. More importantly, raising the subject at every husting is dreadfully boring – and seems to achieve very little. If only she would just shout out mea culpa and be done with it.
With all this in mind, is it any wonder Cameron feels confident? If Labour fails to get its act together in the next few weeks, we can look forward to the Tories being in power not only for the full term of this parliament, but for the next as well. So, our MPs and leaders must be held to account. We should be asking why there is no real debate in the election hustings. Why are the candidates not attacking Cameron at PMQ? Why are MPs not joining with our brothers and sisters in the trade union movement to mobilise opposition to the cuts? And how can we rescue the party before Harriet Harman and all the old guard from the New Labour era edge us towards disaster?
Above all, we must see RESISTANCE!
Showing posts with label Diane Abbott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diane Abbott. Show all posts
Monday, 5 July 2010
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
'Basher' Paxman stifles the Labour hustings
Having sat through the Jeremy Paxman roadshow last night, I was left wondering why it was hailed as a Labour leadership hustings. Twenty prospective Labour voters were bundled into a studio and forced to endure 30 minutes of Paxman demonstrating why he is one of the most unlikable political commentators in the UK.
At the outset he implied the audience would be given the opportunity to question the candidates on their policies and views on a variety of current issues. When it came down to it, none of this happened and all we had was ‘Basher’ Paxman interrupting the candidates every time they tried to answer a question.
Unequivocally, he had his favourites and Ed and David Miliband were given a much easier ride as well as more time to put their view forward. Ed Balls also had a fair bit of air time but was harangued by ‘Basher’ for his links to Gordon Brown and his refusal to stand against him – has ‘Basher’ never heard of loyalty?
Poor Andy Burnham looked scared stiff throughout the entire proceeding and never really managed to move off the starting line. In his delivery he sounded wishy washy and barely managed to sound like he was engaged in the entire process. Oh .. and a silly question. Was he wearing too much make up? He looked like way too orange .. like he’d been Tango’ed.
Diane Abbott managed to battle through ‘Basher’s’ inherent sexism and put forward some interesting points, but because she was stifled on so many occasions, it did little to move her forward. ‘Basher’ steered the debate in such a way as to allow David and Ed Miliband (Tinky Winky and Laa Laa) to organise a pincer movement against her, but she’s too astute a politician to fall for it. One thing though, why does she always use the line “I’m not like the other people up here”?
Finally, in the programme, David Miliband said he wanted more powers to be devolved to English local government outside of London. Good point – but then he went and spoiled it by saying Labour could not argue against the vacuous notion of “Big Society” because we are too associated with the centralised state and, according to him, that explains why Labour won just 10 seats out of 213 in the three Southern English regions. Has he been taking happy pills? We should be breaking down this whole Tory idea of the Big Society. Besides, wasn’t it Cameron’s big pal, Maggie Thatcher that said there is no such thing as society?
Ed Miliband also called for greater power for local government and used local bus services as his example. He might like to try visiting Great Haywood, just outside Stafford. Our local bus service is a joke and no matter how much you complain, nothing happens. Is this enough for me to vote for Ed “Laa Laa” Miliband? Ummm – I don’t think so!
With all her weaknesses, I am sticking with Diane. She’s increasingly showing herself to be stronger, more clear-minded and more focused on where the Labour party should be going over the next few years. Above all else, she’s not afraid to say where she stands on policy issues.
My one big hope is that in the next televised debate Andy Burnham finds his start button and helps Diane prevent this whole leadership contest becoming the Ed and Dave Miliballs show.
At the outset he implied the audience would be given the opportunity to question the candidates on their policies and views on a variety of current issues. When it came down to it, none of this happened and all we had was ‘Basher’ Paxman interrupting the candidates every time they tried to answer a question.
Unequivocally, he had his favourites and Ed and David Miliband were given a much easier ride as well as more time to put their view forward. Ed Balls also had a fair bit of air time but was harangued by ‘Basher’ for his links to Gordon Brown and his refusal to stand against him – has ‘Basher’ never heard of loyalty?
Poor Andy Burnham looked scared stiff throughout the entire proceeding and never really managed to move off the starting line. In his delivery he sounded wishy washy and barely managed to sound like he was engaged in the entire process. Oh .. and a silly question. Was he wearing too much make up? He looked like way too orange .. like he’d been Tango’ed.
Diane Abbott managed to battle through ‘Basher’s’ inherent sexism and put forward some interesting points, but because she was stifled on so many occasions, it did little to move her forward. ‘Basher’ steered the debate in such a way as to allow David and Ed Miliband (Tinky Winky and Laa Laa) to organise a pincer movement against her, but she’s too astute a politician to fall for it. One thing though, why does she always use the line “I’m not like the other people up here”?
Finally, in the programme, David Miliband said he wanted more powers to be devolved to English local government outside of London. Good point – but then he went and spoiled it by saying Labour could not argue against the vacuous notion of “Big Society” because we are too associated with the centralised state and, according to him, that explains why Labour won just 10 seats out of 213 in the three Southern English regions. Has he been taking happy pills? We should be breaking down this whole Tory idea of the Big Society. Besides, wasn’t it Cameron’s big pal, Maggie Thatcher that said there is no such thing as society?
Ed Miliband also called for greater power for local government and used local bus services as his example. He might like to try visiting Great Haywood, just outside Stafford. Our local bus service is a joke and no matter how much you complain, nothing happens. Is this enough for me to vote for Ed “Laa Laa” Miliband? Ummm – I don’t think so!
With all her weaknesses, I am sticking with Diane. She’s increasingly showing herself to be stronger, more clear-minded and more focused on where the Labour party should be going over the next few years. Above all else, she’s not afraid to say where she stands on policy issues.
My one big hope is that in the next televised debate Andy Burnham finds his start button and helps Diane prevent this whole leadership contest becoming the Ed and Dave Miliballs show.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Diane Abbott, the left and the leadership campaign
The news today that John McDonnell has chosen to stand down as a candidate in the Labour Party leadership contest raises a series of issues on the state of left-wing politics in this country. Even if he had chosen to continue, it seems unlikely he would have secured the necessary 33 nominations that would have allowed him to move forward to the next stage.
This is despite the fact he managed to secure the support of a number of trade unions, including RMT, BFAWU and Unison United Left. However, within the Socialist Campaign Group (the group most likely to carry John through to the next round) there was obvious division when Diane Abbott announced her own candidacy.
It would be easy to blame Diane for John’s demise, but in her defence, it was reasonable of her to want a woman and someone from an ethnic minority in the leadership hustings. Indeed, it is the very essence of our party rule book that we should positively encourage this to take place.
In a reply to a question I posed to Diane about her splitting the vote, she replied: “There always was a tendency to say that if women stood it split the vote. I think that there is the politics that I’m on the left, and have as good a voting record on left wing issues as John McDonnell, but there’s another issue which is about gender. It’s not so much that I stood against John, but that John stood against me.”
Now I think it is a matter of semantic as to whether John stood against her, or she stood against him – but the fact remains the left were not strong enough to sustain the candidacy of two strong nominees.
Why? Well it would be easy to lay the blame on Tony Blair and his Third Way approach that resulted in the stripping of Clause lV. It would be convenient to blame it on the undemocratic nature of party conference. And of course, it would be simple to blame the demise of the left on a savage campaign by the political right since the time of Neil Kinnock resulting in the departure of good socialists like Dave Nellist, Arthur Scargill, Ricky Tomlinson and George Galloway.
As important as all of these issues were, they are only a part of the problem. Undoubtedly, the shift in political culture after 1997 did little to help the left, but we cannot legitimately sit here and blame someone else for something we allowed to happen. After the demise of Clause IV, the party haemmorraghed members at a rate that no party could endure, least of all the Labour Party.
At the same, the left failed to fully engage with new technologies, which resulted in the left losing a vital avenue to outline its views. In days gone by members of the public would walk along any High Street and see vendors selling “Socialist Organiser”, “Socialist Worker”, “The Socialist” or, of course, “Morning Star”. But the hard left split and divided – the Communist Party, once one of the bastions of the labour movement fractured into so many pieces that few, if any, can truly understand the difference between them. Similarly, groups like Socialist Worker Party linked with Respect to create an united front .. then once they started to become a cohesive force, decided to split. As for the Respect Party itself, well Galloway’s appearance on Big Brother did little to promote their credibility as was shown in the last election.
Similarly, rather than stay and fight within the Labour Party, Arthur Scargill chose to leave and form his own party – the Socialist Labour Party. Unfortunately, although he was true to his word and helped develop a sound socialist manifesto, the party failed to achieve any significant results and is now largely in decline.
Finally, the left have failed to unify under any common themes – CND, although still active has failed to smobilize radical forces in the same way as it achieved in the 1980s; the Anti–Nazi League has gone and its successors United Against Fascism and Hope not Hate have done a sterling job in minimize the virulence of the BNP, but again haven’t managed to draw the left into a mass movement. Even the Iraq issue and the Stop the War campaign with the stalwart of modern socialism, Tony Benn at its helm have not managed to unify activists from a broad range of groups, as we saw in the Thatcher years.
Indeed, the sad but real fact is that although Tony Benn has campaigned endlessly for socialist causes, he is not the man he once was – the reality is Tony is getting older and understandably slower. He needs to be allowed to retire with dignity and respect and for a new generation of socialist campaigners to take over carrying the banner.
I mean no disrespect to Tony – he has done more than anyone and I stand in awe of him and his political analysis. If the labour movement is to truly respect Tony, we should carry on his fight … and fight with the same passion he has shown!
If the left are to have any chance of success in the future we will have to organize at two levels. Firstly, this should be through the normal democratic process with activists engaged at all levels of power – holding office in local branches, CLPs, trade unions, local authorities, county councils, national assemblies and the House of Commons.
However, there is another dimension of activity demanding our urgent attention and this is the extra-parliamentary route. The new coalition is intent on destroying our public services, pushing thousands into poverty, misery and unemployment. The left must oppose this! We should be mobilizing under the banners of the People’s Charter and the Right to Work Movement, whilst at the same time, encouraging the trade union movement to activating and organizing their membership to oppose these cuts wherever they occur.
The coming years will be hard – of this there can be little doubt, but we can win. If we refuse, we risk a Cinderella complex where we will always want to go to the ball, but never taking the risk and thus missing the chance of kissing the prince (who, of course, being a democratic socialist immediately renounced his title and redistributing his wealth to the poor).
This leadership election is the first stage in that process. We must put our differences aside and wholeheartedly support and endorse Diane Abbott and look to her to lead our party back to its socialist roots.
This is despite the fact he managed to secure the support of a number of trade unions, including RMT, BFAWU and Unison United Left. However, within the Socialist Campaign Group (the group most likely to carry John through to the next round) there was obvious division when Diane Abbott announced her own candidacy.
It would be easy to blame Diane for John’s demise, but in her defence, it was reasonable of her to want a woman and someone from an ethnic minority in the leadership hustings. Indeed, it is the very essence of our party rule book that we should positively encourage this to take place.
In a reply to a question I posed to Diane about her splitting the vote, she replied: “There always was a tendency to say that if women stood it split the vote. I think that there is the politics that I’m on the left, and have as good a voting record on left wing issues as John McDonnell, but there’s another issue which is about gender. It’s not so much that I stood against John, but that John stood against me.”
Now I think it is a matter of semantic as to whether John stood against her, or she stood against him – but the fact remains the left were not strong enough to sustain the candidacy of two strong nominees.
Why? Well it would be easy to lay the blame on Tony Blair and his Third Way approach that resulted in the stripping of Clause lV. It would be convenient to blame it on the undemocratic nature of party conference. And of course, it would be simple to blame the demise of the left on a savage campaign by the political right since the time of Neil Kinnock resulting in the departure of good socialists like Dave Nellist, Arthur Scargill, Ricky Tomlinson and George Galloway.
As important as all of these issues were, they are only a part of the problem. Undoubtedly, the shift in political culture after 1997 did little to help the left, but we cannot legitimately sit here and blame someone else for something we allowed to happen. After the demise of Clause IV, the party haemmorraghed members at a rate that no party could endure, least of all the Labour Party.
At the same, the left failed to fully engage with new technologies, which resulted in the left losing a vital avenue to outline its views. In days gone by members of the public would walk along any High Street and see vendors selling “Socialist Organiser”, “Socialist Worker”, “The Socialist” or, of course, “Morning Star”. But the hard left split and divided – the Communist Party, once one of the bastions of the labour movement fractured into so many pieces that few, if any, can truly understand the difference between them. Similarly, groups like Socialist Worker Party linked with Respect to create an united front .. then once they started to become a cohesive force, decided to split. As for the Respect Party itself, well Galloway’s appearance on Big Brother did little to promote their credibility as was shown in the last election.
Similarly, rather than stay and fight within the Labour Party, Arthur Scargill chose to leave and form his own party – the Socialist Labour Party. Unfortunately, although he was true to his word and helped develop a sound socialist manifesto, the party failed to achieve any significant results and is now largely in decline.
Finally, the left have failed to unify under any common themes – CND, although still active has failed to smobilize radical forces in the same way as it achieved in the 1980s; the Anti–Nazi League has gone and its successors United Against Fascism and Hope not Hate have done a sterling job in minimize the virulence of the BNP, but again haven’t managed to draw the left into a mass movement. Even the Iraq issue and the Stop the War campaign with the stalwart of modern socialism, Tony Benn at its helm have not managed to unify activists from a broad range of groups, as we saw in the Thatcher years.
Indeed, the sad but real fact is that although Tony Benn has campaigned endlessly for socialist causes, he is not the man he once was – the reality is Tony is getting older and understandably slower. He needs to be allowed to retire with dignity and respect and for a new generation of socialist campaigners to take over carrying the banner.
I mean no disrespect to Tony – he has done more than anyone and I stand in awe of him and his political analysis. If the labour movement is to truly respect Tony, we should carry on his fight … and fight with the same passion he has shown!
If the left are to have any chance of success in the future we will have to organize at two levels. Firstly, this should be through the normal democratic process with activists engaged at all levels of power – holding office in local branches, CLPs, trade unions, local authorities, county councils, national assemblies and the House of Commons.
However, there is another dimension of activity demanding our urgent attention and this is the extra-parliamentary route. The new coalition is intent on destroying our public services, pushing thousands into poverty, misery and unemployment. The left must oppose this! We should be mobilizing under the banners of the People’s Charter and the Right to Work Movement, whilst at the same time, encouraging the trade union movement to activating and organizing their membership to oppose these cuts wherever they occur.
The coming years will be hard – of this there can be little doubt, but we can win. If we refuse, we risk a Cinderella complex where we will always want to go to the ball, but never taking the risk and thus missing the chance of kissing the prince (who, of course, being a democratic socialist immediately renounced his title and redistributing his wealth to the poor).
This leadership election is the first stage in that process. We must put our differences aside and wholeheartedly support and endorse Diane Abbott and look to her to lead our party back to its socialist roots.
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