Not that it matters. It's not just that he shouldn't win, although he certainly shouldn't, not that he would change anything even if he did. He actually cannot win, and anyone who says that he can simply can't add up.
Brown never mentioned the Tories once when he addressed the Labour Conference, and already has two Tory MPs and a Lib Dem as Ministers in all but name and salary. That is "a new style of politics", Dave.
In his posh Scottish way (complete with the requisite English public school, Oxbridge degree, Southern English seat, and wife whose father is an English baronet), Dave simply cannot believe that some state school, non-Oxbridge son of the manse from Kirkcaldy has the effrontery to be Prime Minister when he himself wants the job.
He honestly imagines that this state of affairs cannot and will not survive a General Election, and so does anyone who thinks that he either could or should win. Moreover, those who believe in that possibility are psephologically innumerate.
But in that case, deprived of even the theoretical possibility of a Tory victory, what is the point of the Labour Party? What is it for anymore? Why are even so very few people still in it?
"But in that case, deprived of even the theoretical possibility of a Tory victory, what is the point of the Labour Party?"
ReplyDeleteDavid, this question is incoherent. The only reason the Tories can't win (if they can't) is that Labour will beat them (if they will). If Labour didn't exist, then the situation you describe, in which the Tories can't beat Labour, wouldn't exist either.
No, they can't win because elections are now, to call a spade a spade, rigged against them. I do not, of course, write this as any fan of the Tories. It is just the fact of the matter.
ReplyDeleteThe Tory bogeyman is the only thing keeping the Labour Party in existence. If such members as there still are (mostly retired, almost all over 50, in safe seats normally in receipt of councillors' allowances or married to people who are, practically unheard of anywhere else) ever cottoned on that no such bogeyman existed anymore, then that would be the end of the Labour Party. It has never had any concept of itself apart from as a weapon against the Tories. But no such weapon is now necesasry.
And they will cotton on, sooner rather than later. Labour is as doomed as the Tories, precisely beacuse, without the Tories, there can be a social democratic party, or a left-wing party, or a trade union-based party, or whatever, but there cannot, and there very soon will not, be the Labour Party.
David,
ReplyDeleteTracked you down from the Hitch. I can't help but ask you a question (well two)because you seem to think that you will be posting candidates far and wide.
Could you tell me, where is the list of your current candidates and how do you propose to raise the £330,000 minimum it will take to stand at each of the 660 seats?
Thee's plenty of time between now and May or June 2009. Anyone before then would be self-funding. But then, there simply shouldn't be a General Election before then. I mean, why?
ReplyDelete