Completing The Coup

Neither Ed Balls nor David Miliband could win a General Election. But, if anything, the latter is an even worse proposition than the former for the position of Leader of the Labour Party, a position for which there is no vacancy, and for which there may yet be none for another five years. The same can be said of the office of Prime Minister.

Miliband is not merely a member, but a dynastic godfather, of the subculture that has done most to destroy the Labour Party, having always hated it for daring to be what they felt that they ought to be: the main force on the Left, as they could have expected to have been in the Continental countries from which they had so very recently and, which is the rub, unwilling been extracted, extracted to a city never all that much like the rest of Britain, and not at all so now. Thanks to them, so few people have voted Labour that there is now a hung Parliament.

All of which makes Miliband not so much an enemy, as a mere irrelevance, to those of us who, not least with a view to impending electoral reform, look to the re-emergence, as a very significant force, of a left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, is morally, socially, culturally and constitutionally conservative. A left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, is patriotic, feeling not the slightest need of any alternative focus, whether the Soviet Union yesterday or the European Union today, whether the United States or the State of Israel. A left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, has several profoundly religious streaks.

A left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, is provincial as well as metropolitan. A left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, is rural as well as urban and suburban. A left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, fully includes all classes at all levels. A left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, has not a Marxist bone in its body. And a left-wing party that, to the utter bafflement of the David Milibands of the world, really does deliver social justice, and really does deliver peace, because it really does place any priority on either of them.

So, let's get our act together and create that party. The completion of the academic sectarian Left's coup within the Labour Party, for that coup has always been the true character of the New Labour Project, need not concern us, and must not distract us.