With today’s incredible local Government election results and Cabinet Ministers deserting the Government like rats from the sinking ship. The time has come for opposition parties locally to act.
I see no reason the good people of Reading not to join the rest of the country in it’s universal rejection of socialism. I would therefore call on the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal groups to propose & second a motion at the next full Council meeting which dissolves the present Council and brings forward the Local Government elections to this Autumn.
I see no reason the good people of Reading not to join the rest of the country in it’s universal rejection of socialism. I would therefore call on the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal groups to propose & second a motion at the next full Council meeting which dissolves the present Council and brings forward the Local Government elections to this Autumn.
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Be fair, i am just as happy with NewLabour's demise and collapse in the local elections more than the next man, but to call it a rejection of socialism... NewLabour have not been a socialist party for a 'ell of a long time- they have become a party without an ideology.
ReplyDeleteA good point on New Labour, the day's of, 'we can look just like the Tories,' are well behind us.
ReplyDeleteWhere I am coming from is looking at where Labour seem to be heading:
Nationalisation.
Taxing the Rich out of the country.
Class War against Middle England.
It all has a pre Blair very Socialist ring to it.
Ok, i can sort of see where you are coming from, but i still feel that socialism is not the direction New Labour are going in, i just think that public pressure and the worldwide reponse to what is described as 'the recession' leans towards nationalisation et al- just look at Bush in America before he went, arguably he was heading that way as well! New Labour are essentially a populist party as well.
ReplyDeleteNew Labour are going to spend the next 10 years working out what they are about, once they are repeatedly demolished in the polls, once they are properly (as in general election) overtaken by the LibDems, then all the career driven politicans in NewLabour flee to other parties or differnet jobs (i can actually see some NL politicans go over to the Tories), then we will start to see NewLabour develop a ideology again. Whether it will be a good thing or not....
Some very interesting thoughts & comments.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to see New Labour as a political grouping which given time will reinvent itself, as you say, maybe over the next decade.
Personally, I have always viewed New Labour as more of a marketing experiment, which ultimately has failed because it’s main presentational face was forced from office by an old guard anxious to reassert their authority.
Whilst, I was never taken in by the policy light Tony Blair, it must be said that he was a leader of men, and a good orator with the common touch. But the New Labour concept has reached it’s sell by date and can never be sold to the party faithful or the public again. Hence for me, it is how Labour as a political group redefine themselves and if that is not around their Socialist routes, I struggle to see how they define a message for the future.
As for the Liberal Democrats filling the void left by New Labour, this to me makes perfect sense given the direction of travel in modern society. However, want prevents me from signing up totally to your prediction, is the fact that they have not made anything like sustained progress over the past 30 years, having had ample opportunity to make ground against both Labour & Conservatives in opposition.
My personal theory, is a Blairite breakaway group forming at some point after the next General Election which in time finds a home with the Liberals. But it make take another 20 years.