Home » Posts tagged 'general election' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: general election
The solution to the current malaise is not more extreme social democracy
There’s an argument from some that more trenchant tax rises, such as VAT or income tax, and ‘getting more from less’, will be enough to see through an incoming Labour government led by Ed Miliband.
Put quite simply, I don’t think this will be nearly enough. It would the best Labour could come to retoxifying its own brand, reestablishing its credentials as a ‘tax and spend’ government. In fact, for the last two decades, the taxation debate has got much more complicated due to an issue nobody wishes to admit. That is: you’re not actually using taxpayers’ money to go into the salaries or wages of employees of the State, you’re increasingly using this tax to subsidise the shareholder dividends of directors of outsourced public functions (such as beneficiaries of health procurement contracts). Whether you like it or hate it, and let’s face it most people are ambivalent to it, resorting to this would ignore all the groundwork the Miliband team has done on “pre-distribution”. Forgetting this actual word for the moment, making the economy work properly for the less well-off members of society should be an explicable aim of government on the doorstep. Putting the brakes on the shock of energy bills, from fatcat companies, is a reasonable self-defence against an overly aggressive market which has swung too far in much favour of the shareholder and director. Paying people a living wage so that they’re not so dependent on State top-ups to survive is as close as you can get to motherhood and apple pie. Even Boris Johnson supports it.
Of course, Ed Miliband’s natural reaction as a social democrat would be try and survive government as a social democrat. But that doesn’t get round the problem experienced by a predecessor of his, Tony Blair. When Tony Blair had his first meeting with Robin Butler (now Lord Butler of Brockwell), Butler asked, “I’ve read your manifesto, but now what?” Ed Miliband has low hanging fruit to go better than Tony Blair on his first day in office if he can come up with clear plans for office and government.
Let’s get something straight. I don’t agree that the scenario which must be proven otherwise is that Ed Miliband will come into Downing Street only enabled by Liberal Democrat voters. There are plenty of former Liberal Democrat voters who feel deeply disgusted by Nick Clegg not acting as the ‘brake’ to this government, but as the ‘accelerator pedal’. They have seen Clegg’s new model army vote for tuition fees, privatisation of the NHS, and welfare reforms, as if there is no tomorrow. And for many of his MPs, there will be no tomorrow. Clegg’s operating model of supplying votes for whichever party happens to be his employer is clearly unsustainable, as within two periods of office, his flexible corpus of MPs would end up repealing legislation that they helped to introduce to the statute books.
In answer to the question, “What do we do now?”, Ed Miliband does not need to reply with a critique of capitalism. Miliband will have to produce a timeline for actions which he has long promised, such as implementation of a national living wage, controlling seemingly inexorable increases in energy bills, as well as other ‘goodies’ such as repealing of the Health and Social Care Act (2012).
Andy Burnham MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, has already explained some of the ‘and then what’. Burnham has insisted that he will make existing structures ‘do different things’. But while getting of compulsory competitive tendering, Burnham needs to put ‘meat on the bones’ on how he intends to make the NHS work without it being a quasimarket. Burnham’s challenges are not trivial. Burnham seemingly wishes to maintain a system of commissioning, while intending to abolish the purchaser-provider split. Burnham also seemingly wishes to support local A&E departments in not being shut down, but has as not yet stated clearly what he thinks will work better than the current amendment of the Care Bill going through parliament for NHS reconfigurations. Furthermore, Burnham in advancing ‘whole person care’, in sticking to his stated unified budgets, may have to resist seeing the merging of the non-means tested NHS being merged with the means-tested social care. This might easily lead to ‘mission creep’ with merging with welfare budgets. And this brings up a whole new issue in ‘integrated care’ which Burnham has long denied has been on the agenda: “top up payments” or “copayments”. Reducing health inequalities by tackling inequalities social determinants of health should of course be well within the grasp of a socialist-facing NHS delivered by Labour. With patient safety also, correctly, a top priority for the National Health Service, especially for how frail individuals received medical care in hospitals, Burnham has in fact five timelines to develop fast as top priorities: health inequalities, commissioning, reconfigurations, whole person care, patient safety.
The global financial crash should have given some impetus to the Marxist critique of capitalism, but it didn’t. Tony Benn said famously that, when he asked to think of an example of ‘market forces’, he would think of a homeless person sleeping in a cardboard box underneath Waterloo Bridge. Benn further pointed out that the NHS was borne out of war, where normal rules on spending went out of the window: “have you ever heard of a General saying he can’t bomb Baghdad as he’s overrun as his budget?” However, it was not the global financial crash which caused there to be far too many people who feel disenfranchised from politics. Capitalism always drives towards inequality. It also drives towards economic and political power being rested at the top. The reason why people are well off tell you it’s important to do more with less is that they have a fundamental poverty of aspiration about this country. They don’t particularly care as the most well off are getting even more well off. This is an economic recovery for the few. The economy is not going to grow on the back of a record people with zilch employment rights under “zero hours contracts”. The economy is not going to grow either on the back of a property-boom based in London, even if a sufficiently large number vote Conservative as a result of a bounce in their property prices.
What there is a risk of, however, is socialism being popular, and this of course goes beyond the follower number of a few certain individuals on Twitter. Across a number of decades, particularly in Sweden and Cuba, we’ve been able to learn good lessons about what has happened in the worlds of communism and social democracy, as a counterpoint to capitalism. Tony Benn, when asked to give an example of ‘market forces’, would always cite the person sleeping rough under Waterloo Bridge. The Labour Party, most recently, in large part to Tony Blair being ideologically being ‘of no fixed abode’, has run away from socialism, meaning narratives such as Jacky Ashley’s recent piece are consciously limp and anaemic, a self-fulfilling prophecy of utmost disappointment. There is no sense of equality, cooperation or solidarity, and these ought to be traits which are found to be at the heart of Labour’s policy. If Ed Miliband hasn’t thought of how the answer to ‘Now what?’ fulfils those aims, it’s time he had started thinking about. With this, he can not only build a political party, but build a mass movement. With people choosing to become members of unions, and there is no better time with such a naked onslaught on employment rights, the Labour movement could become highly relevant, not just to very poor working men. Labour has to move with the times too; it needs to move away from reactionary ‘identity politics’, and seek to include people it hasn’t traditionally engaged in a narrative with. This might include the large army of citizens who happen to be disabled or elderly. There is no doubt that a socialist society needs the economy to succeed; if it is really true that the UK sets to be in a dominant position in Europe by 2030, surely the media should be helping the UK perform a positive rôle as a leader. The economy involves real people, their wages, their energy bills, their employment rights, so while it is all very easy to be po-faced about “the cost of living”, or have foodbanks in your line of blindsight, Labour needs to be a fighting force for many more people who otherwise don’t feel ‘part of it’. It should be the case that a vote should buy you influence in shaping society, in as much as the way to buy influence, say in the NHS, is to become a Director of a private health multinational company. This fight against how capitalism has failed can indeed become the alternative to commercial and trade globalisation; a peaceful transition into this type of society is one which the more advanced economies like ours is more than capable of.
Where Labour has thus far been quite successful in trying to make its policies look acceptable to the wider public is courting the opposition. Many would say they have taken this too far. Labour might wish to ‘look tough on welfare’, but Labour can easily advocate employed work being paid for fairly, while being fiercely proud of a social security system which looks after the living and mobility needs of people who are disabled. A radical look at ‘working tax credits’ is possibly long overdue, but Labour will need to get out of its obsession for triangulation to do that. If Labour merely offers a ‘lighter blue’ version of the Conservatives, members of the public will be unimpressed, and boot Labour out asap. Whilst Wilson and Blair both won a number of periods of government, the jury is out especially with what Blair achieved in reality aside from the national minimum wage (which was only achieved with the help of the unions). Many people feel that privatisation was a continuous narrative under Labour as it had been for the Conservatives, and many Labour voters feel intrinsically disgusted at the thought of Tony Blair being Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement. People instead of being liberalised by markets have now become enslaved by them. Across a number of sectors, there are only a handful of competitors who are able to rig the prices lawfully between them. The consumer always loses out, and the shareholders with minimal risk receive record profits year-on-year. Of course, rejection of privatisation does not necessarily mean nationalisation, in the same way that decriminalisation of illegal drugs does not necessarily mean legalisation. But it cannot be ignored that some degree of State ownership is a hugely popular idea, such as for the NHS, Royal Mail and banks. Where Ed Miliband might be constructively compared to Fidel Castro (in the days when things were going well for Castro) is that Miliband can set out a vision for a sufficient long period of time for people to become attracted to it (not disenfranchised by it). Thatcher, for all her numerous faults, was very clear about what she intended to achieve. As Tony Benn put it, she was not a “weather vane” but a “Weather cock which is set in a direction… it just happened that I totally disagreed with the direction which she set.”
I think Ed Miliband will surprise people, exactly as he has done so far, in winning the general election on May 8th 2015. I also feel that he will surprise people by having answers to the “And then what?” bit too.
What more can Labour do?
There’s an old adage that a third of all the people who know you will love you, no matter what you do, a third of people will hate you, no matter what you do, and the rest will simply be indifferent. It’s only one day every few years, but there will be millions on 7 May 2015 (if that’s the actual date of the General Election) who literally won’t be arsed to go down to their local election headquarters, because they feel their vote will not make any difference.
As usual, all of the nation’s woes and triumphs will be distilled into an election campaign, where you can sure that some things will be blown up out of all proportion, and other things won’t be discussed. Because of the short attention span of the media, and possibly even some readers/listeners, many issues will be distilled into soundbites. Remember the ‘tax on jobs’ debate we had last time in 2010 when the economy was actually recovering, prior to any discussion of ‘double dip’ or ‘triple dip’. You can rest assured that there’ll be no debate about A&Es closing, or the GPs’ out-of-hour contracts. Immigration is likely to be a headline though, not least because of Nigel Farage whose party has yet to get a MP elected to Parliament. However, the debate won’t go anywhere near how migrant workers are needed to keep the NHS alive, or the inevitability of globalism.
All Councillors I know are incredibly passionate about their ‘doorstepping’, and the general impression that I get is that the general public is generally more clued in than one might expect. However, because of the nature of politics, it’s going to be as usual pointless voting for certain parties in certain constituencies. Last time saw Nick Clegg being propelled into the limelight, with his famous tuition fees pledge. If there is to be another battle of the personalities, it is likely that Nigel Farage will be invited this time. Some gimmick like the “worm” will be back, and we’ll all be none the wiser until polling day.
So does this mean that politics doesn’t matter? Probably yes, as long as politicians fail to inspire potential voters. Many people on the left wing are just totally uninspired between a choice between Tory and Tory lite, and do not see a Labour leader leading on issues such as disability, a state-run NHS, or an economy which doesn’t take workers for a ride. Is there much Labour can do? Possibly get a move on, as people are totally sick to death of waiting for the climax of this neverending “policy review”, which many suspect will not answer certain fundamental issues, such as the fate of NHS Foundation Trusts. We seem to be waiting an eternity to find out what else will accompany ‘The Living Wage’ as a major manifesto issue, and if Labour didn’t do as well as they had wished for in the local elections it was simply because many voters did not consider them to be offering a valid alternative.
This is dreadful, when you consider quite how disastrously this current parliamentary term has gone for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Clearly, ‘One Nation’ is going to run into trouble, if voters in the South of England only feel as if they have a choice between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. If the Greens are becoming increasingly popular, it is because many people believe they deserve it: for example taking a strong stance against the Bedroom Tax. Labour indeed seems to be populated by ‘big personalities’, but there is no coherent strand to their philosophy at the moment. Their narrative appears to be a collection of sparse streams of consciousness, and this does not constitute a useful sense for direction.
It is not too late for Labour to remedy this. The reputation, deserved or not, that Labour is “fiscally incontinent” is going to be difficult to shift. Whether or not Labour was right to increase the deficit through recapitalising the banks as an emergency measure is not going to be a battle to be won now, ever. If anything, the Coalition have already won that battle, as they still cite the deficit for the reason that they are governing ‘in the national interest’. Labour can take the lead on a NHS which is universal and comprehensive. It can decide to push for an economy where workers have some security and long-term prospects in their job. It can also decide to represent the views of disabled citizens, many of whom have felt demonised by this Government.
Or else, despite great Councillors, it can carry on being… well… very bland.
Cameron won't get as far as holding a referendum in 2017, as he'll have been shown the door long before then.
The reply “The Tories just feel like crap managers” was in response to my recent question, “Do you think people are excited about politics?” Suzanne Moore instead suggested, “Yes but not the political system or way it is represented.” Olivia simply replied, “If people were excited about politics wouldn’t more people vote? The fact that so few actually bother to vote, suggests that people are far from excited about politics.”
Unusually, somebody in her 60s last week told me that she and her husband were determined to vote in the General Election anticipated around June 2015. Vicky and John are not impressed by the current incumbents but feel passionately that any party is better than ‘this lot’. Returning to the answer, “The Tories are just crap managers”, there is an overwhelming feeling amongst my friends in real life, my 3000 friends on Facebook and 7000 followers on Twitter amongst both my accounts that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are playing for time. They offer no leadership, and are sub-standard managers.
They have bungled the forests issue, raised tuition fees, scrapped Building Schools for the Future, scrapped education support allowance, killed a growing economy from 2010, told Europe that they only wish to be in Europe on their own terms, unilaterally decided to scrap GCSEs, outsourced the NHS on the way to privatising it, produced a shambolic budget last year with numerous U-turns, and shut libraries.
The £3bn re-organisation of the NHS, which nobody voted for, was probably the pièce de resistance. The Conservatives have done a disgraceful job of explaining what these reforms mean, and the BBC have made no effort in explaining what is clearly a very significant issue of public interest. The public are none-the-wiser that NHS services have been completely thrown open to the private sector, such that you can walk into a walk-in centre with it having NHS branding but being run to maximise shareholder dividend for a private company. The medical Royal Colleges all opposed it, as did the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing. The marketisation of the NHS means that the service cannot be guaranteed to be anywhere near comprehensive, and already evidence is accruing of definite examples of rationing (e.g. in cataract surgery).
A similar disenfranchisement of key professionals was seen in the high street with the Government, the Conservatives enabled by the Liberal Democrats, ramraiding through the ‘Legal Aid and Sentencing of Offenders Act’ which has seen destruction of legal aid on the high street, killing off access-to-justice for social justice fields such as housing, immigration and asylum, welfare benefits and employment. The marketisation of law on the high-street means that the public are left with an incomplete fragmented service, and again these ‘reforms’ were officially opposed by the Law Society and the Bar Council.
A third disgrace has been the “reform” of GCSEs. Michael Gove barged through processes which meant that even examining in last year’s GCSE English ended up being a shambles, and had to go for judicial review in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. The teachers, notably the National Union of Teachers, were not consulted about the changes to the GCSE system, a completely ludicrous state of affairs that there are GCSE courses presently in progress.
The “political process” is the third arm of the long-awaited policy review of the UK Labour Party. Whilst millions will have been spent cumulatively on the Scotland referendum, and the AV referendum, and on the introduction of Police Commissioners, there is no doubt that the political process is broken. David Cameron’s talk of holding a referendum in 2017 shows complete contempt that he has disconnected him and his party from major areas of society. The list goes on – disabled citizens are sick of the welfare reforms in progress, with the disastrous introduction of the ‘Personal Independent Payment’ following fast after the pitiful administration of Work Capacity Benefits by the Department of Work and Pensions.
Cameron won’t get as far as holding a referendum in 2017, as he’ll have been shown the door long before then.
Nick Clegg's promise to be in the Top 40 was a promise too far
I’d like to take this opportunity to set a few things straight. Nick Clegg’s promise to be in the Top 40 was a promise too far. In fact, he didn’t enter the Top 40 at all as exclusively revealed on National Radio 1 yesterday, according to the Official Charts Company. Congratulations, however, to ‘Professor Green’ with ‘Avalon’ at number 38. Professor Green made his feelings known about ‘the Nick Clegg apology’ perfectly clear last night. 15 hours ago (as of the date and time of this post), Professor Green had received 1,933 re-tweets for this comment:
I am further disappointed and angry that Nick Clegg could not keep all his promises, such as to enhance the powers of PCTs in the NHS (in the Coalition Agreement). The PCTs have now been abolished. I am sorry, am sorry, so so sorry, but you are insincere, duplicitous, untrustworthy and a complete liar.
And please add to that ‘hypocrite’. It is easy to underestimate the significance of many students being conned into voting for the Liberal Democrats on the basis of a ‘cast-iron pledge’ not to increase them. Nick Clegg had previously sounded off about ‘broken promises’ in this PPB. Clegg had said categorically, “Now it is time for promises to be kept”, knowing full well that he had made an undeliverable policy.
The fundamental problem is that “Plan A” has failed due to a complex interplay of factors nothing to do with the Eurozone crisis, such as the withdrawal of infrastructure investment which might have kick-started key industries such as the construction industry (“Building Schools of the Future”) and the murder of consumer demand (through the controversial increase in VAT). As a direct consequence of this, Richard Reeves’ plan for the LibDems, Plan A, has been severely derailed. The first half of this parliament was of course to consolidate growth – and this failed as a predictable consequence of the economic incompetence of Coalition policy. The second half of this parliament is supposed to be ‘differentiation’, but there is nothing to distinguish the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, in everything from austerity, to NHS privatisation, to scrapping of the education support allowance, to scrapping of libraries, to imploding GDP figures, demolition of high-street legal aid, and a welfare benefit policy providing a substantial tax cut for the rich, for example. This desperate situation is accurately described as one of ‘despair’, by Linda Jack, Chair of the ‘Liberal Left’, as described on BBC Radio 4’s “Westminster Hour” last night. Nick Clegg is not just a ‘figure of fun’ politically. Actually, politically, he is hated, in as much somebody that you have never met can be hated. There is absolutely no sense that the Coalition reaches a consensus on anything. The idea of a permanent coalition in UK politics, specifically, fills people with utter dread. The ‘pupil premium’ is cited as a LibDem triumph, but independent experts unanimously agree it’s been a damp squib. The Conservatives wished the Health and Social Care Act to be passed, giving a free run for the corporatisation of the NHS. They have succeeded. It is likely that all the key personnel of Monitor will from the big corporates. Even Jeremy Hunt’s new assistant is likely to be the Communications Manager of Circle, it is reported. When Nick Clegg offers to tax the wealthy more, because he feels that the current frontloading of the austerity agenda is unfair to those who are disadvantaged in society, he has to concede briefly, as he did on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday morning, that he does not have a cat in hell’s chance of getting this approved by David Cameron and George Osborne. This is a current example of why the idea that ‘coalition politics’ works is simply outrageous and banal, and insults the intelligence of voters.
In the midst of it, Clegg knows he has no choice but to carry on lying. He lies, lies, and thrice lies about the financial stimulus which was required by the last Government to avert a serious depression. Clegg also had no choice on tuition fees, the abolition of large swathes of legal aid including welfare benefits legal aid advice, or the education support allowances. The ‘Building Schools for the Future’ initiative, which would have assisted in the recovery through stimulation of the construction sector, was also killed by LibDem MPs. Clegg’s career is over, and he has done spectacularly in damaging the future of coalition politics forever. Nobody serious on the left can trust the Liberal Democrats to be a force for the public good, as evidenced by the examples above. He has also failed spectacularly on Lords reform, and the alternative vote, which had been deemed as ‘once in a lifetime opportunities’. People will be terrified to vote for the Liberal Democrats, because their function is toxic and poisonous, and actually worthless apart from supporting a weak government. This Conservative administration actually lost the election, and have been given no mandate to bring into law any of their unpopular or undemocratic policies. Of course, desperate times call for desperate measures, and most Liberal Democrats feel as if they’re trapped are “in the loveless marriage”, where they are better off staying put in the Coalition for fear of going alone. Jon Lansman (@JonLansman) produced a very clever analysis on the blogpost in “Left Futures” this morning, which offers an interesting solution to the mess which is simply dragging the UK down ‘in the national interest’.
People are not stupid, and certainly not stupid enough for vote for him or his party in 2015. They simply would prefer not to take the risk. When he gets angry, he spits bullets at Gordon Brown and Labour in general, and his manner is repulsive. He has embued a visceral hatred by Labour members for the Liberal Democrat party, which are seen as limp, principle-less, direction-less and ineffective. Nick Clegg has proved himself to be willing to lie to the general public, against the advice of Danny Alexander and other members of his party, to win a few extra seats over a promise which he knew he could not deliver. Nick Clegg is treated with contempt for much good reason, and the demise of his political party is certain. The electorate’s frustration will be at tipping point when they finally have an opportunity to deliver a verdict on his MPs, but Clegg must know the ‘writing is on the wall’. He came from nowhere, so it’s only appropriate that he should return to nowhere. The tragedy is that some Liberal Democrat activists have had the “crisis of insight”. Clegg wishes to portray the situation as him needed not bailing out in a ‘difficult climb up the mountain’, but whilst Clegg, Laws and Swinson remain in this political suicide pact and do not comprehend that there is unlikely to be growth in the economy in the near future due to the death of consumer demand as a direct effect of Coalition economic policy, they do not comprehend that half-way up their mountain claim they have become submerged in a near-fatal avalanche.
A coalition with the LibDems would stink, but Clegg's motives are nakedly clear
I know it’s all about not shutting any doors, and keeping all options open. However, much as I like Neal Lawson personally and the whole of Compass, especially Gavin Hayes, I think the best way to save the “progressive left” is to vote Labour at the general election of 2015.
Why do I bring this up now? Nick Clegg said he could imagine working with Labour after 2015, and Ed Miliband has said politely, “it would be difficult”. This is the equivalent of a boy saying, “Do you fancy us going to Claridges’ tomorrow evening?”, and the girl saying, “Not really, you stink”.
It would be impossible for us to work with Nick Clegg or the Liberal Democrats. While Clegg can use empty words such as “duty” and “national interest”, actually his proposition is deeply offensive. It’s deeply offensive to those innocent people who objected to his party enacting the privatisation of the NHS. It’s deeply offensive to those disabled citizens who hate the new disability benefit legislation. It’s deeply offensive to those with housing or other social welfare problems who are seeing a swathe of free law centres and citizens advice bureaux shut down.
The Liberal Democrats are now in self-destruct mode, en route to commit a full political apoptosis on May 8th 2015. They will be utterly obliterated from English politics. Do you think that Nick Clegg is lending an olive branch to Labour members? No, Nick Clegg hates Labour and the Unions. He is sending out a message that a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for Labour.
Ed Miliband must reject this at all costs. We do not need a sympathy vote from Nick Clegg or his party. His MPs enacted three of the most destructive laws, without involvement of the people concerned, in my lifetime. He is hoping that Social Liberal Democrats won’t bother voting at all, and his Orange Liberal Democrats will provide “one last heave” to get David Cameron winning his first ever general election.
Nick Clegg’s message is politically odious. He never explained why the deficit had increased due to spend on the hospitals or schools, nor why a desperate measure was needed to save the banks. I would say, “If he wins Sheffield, I’m a baboon”, but unfortunately he has a very safe seat which would be impossible for Labour to win.
The LibDems need to go further right for political harmony to be restored
It is a long way until the General Election in 2015, but this election will be pivotal in determining the future landscape of Britain.
Parties tend to win a multiple number of elections, and it is rare for oppositions to have only a single term. However, the circumstances in which David Cameron did not win a working majority, despite having all the media on his side or Nick Clegg’s side, are exceptional.
Despite this background of David Cameron having failed to win the 2010 election, the Conservatives are likely to have been successful in obtaining Royal Assent for “reforms” of the NHS, legal aid, and welfare, made only possible through the support of the Liberal Democrats.
The facts speak for themselves. The only way for the Liberal Democrats to avoid political oblivion in 2015 is to lurch further to the right, as they have no hope of regaining left-wing voters which have left them in droves. This is their best bet for winning seats in the 2015 General Election, particularly if they are mainly competing against Conservatives in some seats. David Cameron’s best reaction would be to move his party to the right, but history provides that he is reluctant to do this.
Labour, in refinding its roots, can easily win against the Liberal Democrats in Lib-Dem/Labour marginals, and can put forward a convincing agenda for the UK against the unpopular NHS reforms, legal aid reforms, welfare reforms, inter alia. The economy will be nowhere normal in 2015, as due to the lack of investment in growth by the current Coalition, the deficit will not be paid off until 2017 at the very earliest. With some Conservative voters going to the Liberal Democrat party, Labour’s chances of gaining a majority get very much easier.
Therefore, an initial instinct amongst some Labour voters for the Liberal Democrats to be ‘demolished’ in 2015 as punishment for supporting the Tories may in fact be wrong. Labour maybe should be actively encouraging the Liberal Democrat Party to move further to the right, for their sake too.
Election night
This is my brand new blog. I am hoping to keep a record of what happens to Labour during the term whether or not they are in government. Whatever the result tonight, I suspect Labour will finally ‘put up and shut up’ if Cameron or Clegg are in power. Labour only have themselves to blame, and I personally consider it is a massive achievement that Gordon Brown has got this far. Impressive, given all the media apart from the New Statesman and Mirror hate him, and the Conservatives had a formidable advantage. They were able to pay for 100,000 text messages (we still don’t know how they got the private phone numbers of individuals) or a giant advert on the front page, on Tube. At least we had something truly brilliant and authentic, and it is with a heavy heart that I say that I am disgusted to live in the UK tonight – disgusted because the Tories truly disgust me, whether it includes Warsi’s offensive comments on Muslims, Stroud’s offensive comments about the mentally ill or Grayling’s offensive comments about homosexuality. This has now received over 100,00 hits gratis.
