Priti Patel and two others of the Conservatives' 2010 intake were interviewed on Radio Four this morning, banging on about how "Eurosceptical" David Cameron was. Where do they find these people? In fact, the mildly sceptical view of the EU was the only aspect of The Orange Book that did not appeal to David Cameron.
Fearing that he might win an overall majority, Cameron publicly announced that Peter Mandelson, Alan Milburn, James Purnell and Andrew Adonis would all be in his Cabinet, Adonis in the job that he had always wanted, Purnell in the job that he was already doing under Gordon Brown; before his little spot of bother, Stephen Byers's membership had also been made clear. So at least four, and initially five, New Labour figures in a Cameron Cabinet, all in the Lords, but all nevertheless receiving the Labour Whip there without, apparently, anyone's thinking that this was at all amiss.
But while Cameron is many things, he is not stupid. He knew that a hung Parliament was quite likely, and that permitting the media's three-way televised debates would make it practically certain. So he agreed to those debates, with a view to discarding both parties and their manifestos in order to stage a coup based on The Orange Book. And it all went according to plan. That coup has been staged.
What did not go according to plan, however, was the installation, in either of the above events, of David Miliband as Leader of the "Opposition". There would have been few or no parliamentary votes, as in the Blair years. And when the Leader of the "Opposition" had objected to anything, then it would only ever have been to the slow pace of slash-and-burn domestic policy or blow-up-the-world foreign policy. Accelerating those could then have been presented as "bipartisan", a sign of "a listening government", and, moreover, "progressive", since it had been demanded by the person holding the office of Leader of the Labour Party.
If Ed Miliband were to be removed as Labour Leader, or if he were not to become Prime Minister at the next General Election, then the transformation of this country into that one-party state for neoliberalism and neoconservatism would be complete. Do not allow that to happen.
This makes a frightening amount of sense. In fact, it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
ReplyDeleteWe all remember the Blairites publicly promised jobs when Cam thought he was going to win outright, but only you are ever rude enough to keep mentioning it. Or to keep mentioning how nobody in the Labour high command said or did anything about it.
A hung Parliament was likely anyway? Yes. It was guaranteed if Clegg got the exposure of the leaders' debates? Yes. A coalition based on the Orange Book rather than either manifesto was Cameron and Clegg's dream government? Yes. But nobody voted for that, so setting it up amounted to a coup? Yes.
Plus your nightmare vision of what a David Miliband Labour front bench would have been saying and doing is perfect. Ed is our last hope and he is very lucky to have you on his side. When are you going to re-join Labour? Great things await you when you do.