Monday 15 April 2013

Blaerites are also the true heirs of Thatcher.


Its beginning to look like the Blareite criticism of the apparent direction Ed Milinand is taking Labour  is coordinated.

Firstly the Lad himself  Ex r Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in an article in the New Statesman  was in danger of becoming a protest movement without electable policies - his boldest foray into British politics since resigning.

In an article that prompted Labour leader Ed Miliband to defend his own leadership, Blair suggested the left-leaning party looked like it was offering austerity-hit voters sympathy but few specific remedies before a 2015 general election.

"The scenario is more menacing than it seems," Blair wrote in the New Statesman magazine. "The guiding principle should be that we are the seekers after answers, not the repository for people's anger."

The Labour party had to remain on the centre ground of politics if it was to succeed again, said Blair, arguing it was wrong to tack right on some issues and left on others. He did not mention Miliband by name.

He wrote:

The Labour Party is back as the party opposing “Tory cuts”, highlighting the cruel consequences of the Conservative policies on welfare and representing the disadvantaged and vulnerable (the Lib Dems are in a bit of a fix, frankly).
For the Conservatives, this scenario is less menacing than it seems. They are now going to inspire loathing on the left. But they’re used to that. They’re back on the old territory of harsh reality, tough decisions, piercing the supposed veil of idealistic fantasy that prevents the left from governing sensibly. Compassionate Conservatism mat­tered when compassion was in vogue. But it isn’t now. Getting the house in order is.
For Labour, the opposite is true. This scenario is more menacing than it seems. The ease with which it can settle back into its old territory of defending the status quo, allying itself, even anchoring itself, to the interests that will passionately and often justly oppose what the government is doing, is so apparently rewarding, that the exercise of political will lies not in going there, but in resisting the temptation to go there.
Newsstatesman 11 April 2013

Blair, was followed  by former Home Secretary, David Blunkett who urged Ed Miliband to look beyond 'selfish' public sector


"'One Nation' cannot and should never be simply the avoidance of the most obvious injustice or collective suicide.
"It has to be about a great deal more than politics built on grievance and the unhappiness of a resentful and selfish public sphere.
"More than putting right the playing-off of public sector workers against those in private enterprise. The retired versus the young, the migrant versus the resentful and excluded. Or, the badly housed versus the homeless.
"In other words, replacing the politics of Conservative division with a morally more superior and a politically more cohesive engagement."
Observer 13th April 2013 

Blunkett added 'that Miliband ne

"to speak to all parts of society from the "inner city with the rural hinterland, the more affluent south-east with the once powerful and prosperous economic engine room of the north".
He writes: "Changing the way in which we deliver our public services (as opposed to simply slashing and burning) offers common cause as much in Berkshire or Bedfordshire as it does in Bury or Bolton.".

And Blunkett's  former cabinet colleague  Ex Mp John Reid now Lord Reid, who held six Cabinet posts,  said Labour had to move beyond criticising the coalition and must propose its own solutions on issues such as welfare, the economy and housing. adding that  that while Mr Miliband had succeeded in establishing an effective opposition, he had yet to offer an alternative agenda for government.



The Blarites may be right because there are no votes in backing the poor  and dispossessed . Under the UK electoral system it not Bury or Bolton where the election will be pme by the two main parties but in that elusive Middle England that they both court enthusiastically.

For t he rest of us we can go hang. Our votes are either taken for granted by Labour otr are of no Importance in those Tories seats with huge majorities.

At least in Wales and Scotland there's an a chance that a vote for Plaid or the SNP can make a difference and for others there was always the choice of the Liberal Democrats who might be wearing their radical left of centre hat. 

But with three  right of centre parties ( and the centre  has itself moved right) the future for those on the bottom rung looks bleak

It seems that in the week we bury Margaret Thatcher  her victory may well be complete.


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