How much more reason do you need to oppose this wretched scheme?
For the very few, but very influential and very
noisy, people who have not already done so, it is high time to get over Tony
Blair. He was only ever the central character in an Ealing comedy. Our hero is
wandering aimlessly on the fringes of London society when he unexpectedly falls
for the left-wing girl at work. In order to impress her, he involves himself in
the Labour Party. Then, over 20 years, a series of accidents makes him Prime
Minister. However, his political interests do not develop in any way at all,
not even during the further 10 years of his Premiership.
He does not know that they speak Portuguese in Brazil, and he surrounds himself with the most undistinguished courtiers of any Prime Minister in history. He is totally removed from the civilised and civilising world of the trade unions and the co-operatives, of the Workers’ Educational Association and the Miners’ Lodge Libraries, of the pitmen poets and the pitmen painters, of the brass and silver bands, of the male voice choirs, of the people’s papers rather than the redtop rags, of the grammar schools, and of the Secondary Moderns that were so much better than what has replaced them.
Ian Carmicheal in the lead role, essentially the same character as his Stanley Windrush in I’m All Right, Jack. James Robertson Justice as Derry Irvine. Hilarious yet poignant stuff from the golden age of British cinema.
He does not know that they speak Portuguese in Brazil, and he surrounds himself with the most undistinguished courtiers of any Prime Minister in history. He is totally removed from the civilised and civilising world of the trade unions and the co-operatives, of the Workers’ Educational Association and the Miners’ Lodge Libraries, of the pitmen poets and the pitmen painters, of the brass and silver bands, of the male voice choirs, of the people’s papers rather than the redtop rags, of the grammar schools, and of the Secondary Moderns that were so much better than what has replaced them.
Ian Carmicheal in the lead role, essentially the same character as his Stanley Windrush in I’m All Right, Jack. James Robertson Justice as Derry Irvine. Hilarious yet poignant stuff from the golden age of British cinema.
After the death of John Smith, those who seized
control of the Labour Party erased the fact that the combined Labour and SDP
votes had been larger than the Conservative vote both in 1983 and in 1987. Such
people still deny outright that the opinion poll rating that was the 1997
result had not varied since Golden Wednesday, 16th September 1992.
There were swings of 1997 proportions in the European Elections just after
Smith’s death, i.e., under the leadership of Margaret Beckett.
Among those of us who have been active in the Labour Party in County Durham, it is common knowledge that Blair had been about to announce his departure from Parliament at the General Election then expected to be called in 1996, but Smith’s death changed his mind, at least conditional on his victory in the consequent Leadership Election.
But do not try and tell that to these people, who include David Cameron and those around him. Instead of the verifiable facts above, they would have us believe that the 1997 victory was all the work of their own archetype of those who did best, ostensibly, out of both the 1960s and the 1980s.
Among those of us who have been active in the Labour Party in County Durham, it is common knowledge that Blair had been about to announce his departure from Parliament at the General Election then expected to be called in 1996, but Smith’s death changed his mind, at least conditional on his victory in the consequent Leadership Election.
But do not try and tell that to these people, who include David Cameron and those around him. Instead of the verifiable facts above, they would have us believe that the 1997 victory was all the work of their own archetype of those who did best, ostensibly, out of both the 1960s and the 1980s.
The old Clause IV did not mention nationalisation,
although it certainly allowed for it; it had been framed so that people who
already had nationalisation in mind could read that presupposition into it,
even though no one could have read that presupposition out of it. But Tony
Blair and his fan club thought that it was about nothing else.
So, in repudiating it, they repudiated public ownership in order to repudiate everything that public ownership delivered and safeguarded, notably national sovereignty, the Union, and the economic basis of paternal authority. Likewise, in repudiating trade unionism, they repudiated controlled immigration and the moderating influence of the wider electorate in the affairs of the Labour Party.
Mercifully, that latter, at least, reasserted itself in the victory of Ed Miliband over the Blairite candidate. But it still needs to be emphasised that requiring the production of a union card is no different from requiring the production of a British passport or a work permit, while the closed shop was as important for that as it was for giving the Tory 45 per cent of the industrial working class a moderating influence in the selection of Labour candidates for the safe Labour seats in which they lived.
So, in repudiating it, they repudiated public ownership in order to repudiate everything that public ownership delivered and safeguarded, notably national sovereignty, the Union, and the economic basis of paternal authority. Likewise, in repudiating trade unionism, they repudiated controlled immigration and the moderating influence of the wider electorate in the affairs of the Labour Party.
Mercifully, that latter, at least, reasserted itself in the victory of Ed Miliband over the Blairite candidate. But it still needs to be emphasised that requiring the production of a union card is no different from requiring the production of a British passport or a work permit, while the closed shop was as important for that as it was for giving the Tory 45 per cent of the industrial working class a moderating influence in the selection of Labour candidates for the safe Labour seats in which they lived.
They are also insistent that General Elections are
won and lost in the South East. The South East is the least conservative part
of the country. It is therefore the part with the highest level of support for
the post-Thatcher Conservative Party. If General Elections really were won and
lost there, then there would have been a Conservative Government with a large
majority in 2005.
In the days when that party used to win Elections outright rather than having to be propped up by someone else, then it did so by winning considerable numbers of seats in Scotland, Wales, the North and the Midlands. The equally ignored battle between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the West Country and in Hampshire has also made the difference between a majority government and a hung Parliament at every General Election for many years. The consequences of that fact last time might even cause a bit of attention to be paid to the more westerly half of the South next time. But do not hold your breath. Those are all much more conservative places than the South East.
In the days when that party used to win Elections outright rather than having to be propped up by someone else, then it did so by winning considerable numbers of seats in Scotland, Wales, the North and the Midlands. The equally ignored battle between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the West Country and in Hampshire has also made the difference between a majority government and a hung Parliament at every General Election for many years. The consequences of that fact last time might even cause a bit of attention to be paid to the more westerly half of the South next time. But do not hold your breath. Those are all much more conservative places than the South East.
By losing first many and then most of its Scottish,
Welsh, Northern and Midland seats, and by failing to hold or regain ground in
the West Country and in Hampshire, the Conservative Party first nearly and then
actually lost power in 1992 and 1997 respectively. (It seems that by 2015, they
will have condemned the electorally key areas to darkness long into the morning
for much of the year, by having imposed Central European Time with the
connivance of a Coalition partner which has already collapsed north of the Wash
and is ripe for collapse west of the Solent.)
In 1992, only the most obsessive political anorak had ever even heard of Tony Blair. And that was still the case on Golden Wednesday, when the Conservative defeat, and thus the Labour victory by default, became a done deal. Furthermore, the Conservatives’ failure to regain power first at all and then on its own has consisted precisely in its failure to regain those Scottish, Welsh, Northern and Midland seats.
By contrast, the Labour gains in the South East in 1997 were just a bonus, and the loss of most of them in 2005 made no real difference. Indeed, only in 2005 did Blair finally influence a General Election result at all. Specifically, he lost Labour 100 seats that any other Labour Leader would have saved. Thus he moved from being a mere irrelevance to being a positive liability.
In 1992, only the most obsessive political anorak had ever even heard of Tony Blair. And that was still the case on Golden Wednesday, when the Conservative defeat, and thus the Labour victory by default, became a done deal. Furthermore, the Conservatives’ failure to regain power first at all and then on its own has consisted precisely in its failure to regain those Scottish, Welsh, Northern and Midland seats.
By contrast, the Labour gains in the South East in 1997 were just a bonus, and the loss of most of them in 2005 made no real difference. Indeed, only in 2005 did Blair finally influence a General Election result at all. Specifically, he lost Labour 100 seats that any other Labour Leader would have saved. Thus he moved from being a mere irrelevance to being a positive liability.
However, the Conservatives, deprived of any
significant parliamentary link with the areas that really matter electorally,
entirely failed to register this. Instead, they installed as Leader a Blair
clone, because he played well in the South East and in polls with the 34 to 38
per cent of determined non-voters dishonestly factored out. What do those 34 to
38 per cent, and the thoroughly disgruntled Conservative and Labour core voters
who remain (for now), actually believe?
They believe in national self-government, the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts. In local variation, historical consciousness, and family life. In agriculture, manufacturing, and small business. In close-knit communities, law and order, and civil liberties. In academic standards, all forms of art, and mass political participation within a constitutional framework. In short, they are conservative.
They believe in national self-government, the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts. In local variation, historical consciousness, and family life. In agriculture, manufacturing, and small business. In close-knit communities, law and order, and civil liberties. In academic standards, all forms of art, and mass political participation within a constitutional framework. In short, they are conservative.
Therefore, they cannot be in favour of “free”
market capitalism, which corrodes to nought all those good things and more.
Rather, they see the need for the universal Welfare State, including farm
subsidies, and for the strong statutory and other, including trade union,
protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former
paid for by progressive taxation, the whole underwritten by full employment,
and all these good things delivered by the partnership between a strong
Parliament and strong local government.
Since they rightly oppose the unregulated movement
of labour, they rightly also oppose the unregulated movement of goods, services
and capital; and vice versa. Since they rightly oppose the decadent social
libertinism deriving from the 1960s, they rightly also oppose its logically
inevitable, and not unwitting, development into the decadent economic
libertinism deriving from the 1980s; and vice versa.
And since they rightly oppose the erosion of self-government and cultural distinctiveness by the European Union, they rightly also oppose that erosion by American hegemony and global capital, closely connected as all those three are; and vice versa.
And since they rightly oppose the erosion of self-government and cultural distinctiveness by the European Union, they rightly also oppose that erosion by American hegemony and global capital, closely connected as all those three are; and vice versa.
These are the only means of defending the
conservative values against capitalism. After all, what other means are there?
Correspondingly, those values provide the only grounds for needing or wanting
those means. After all, what other grounds are there? A new political movement
in that vein could take at least a third of the vote.
But first, we all need to do what most of us have already done: get over Tony Blair.
But first, we all need to do what most of us have already done: get over Tony Blair.
Going back to the topic of Labour leaders, David Lindsay's assertion that Harold Wilson was more electorally successful than Tony Blair (and therefore a better, more popular politician) is technically correct but disingenuous. Labour, with Wilson as leader, only won with a single-figure overall majority in 1964, even though this election followed13 years of three successive Conservative governments and four successive Conservative Prime Ministers, the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the Profumo Affair of 1963. In February 1974, Labour with Wilson's leadership got back into government, but, like in 1964, only with a paper-thin single-figure majority, even after 4 years of the Edward Heath Conservative government and the 1972 Miners Strike, power cuts and three day weeks and all the rest of the early 1970s havock. That meant that, within a few months, there was another general election in October 1974, which Labour won, re-instating Wilson as Prime Minister, but again, only with a wafer thin majority. In fact, in 1976, the year Wilson handed over to Callaghan, the Labour Government became a minority administration and from 1977-78 there was the Lib-Lab pact with David Steel's party. The only time Wilson won with a decent overall majority (of 96 seats) was in the general election he called just 18 months into his first Premiership, in early 1966. The history of general election victories and defeats in the 1960s and 1970s tells one that Wilson was electorally mediocre, certainly compared to the first two of Tony Blair's three wins (1997 and 2001).
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