serial killer movie, Labour MPs are finally facing up to the reality that he has to go.
The problem is they don't want him to go just yet because any new leader will have to face both the party members and the wider electorate - they surely, surely, dare not ignore both again (although I wouldn't put it past them to try) - it is this arrogance at the top which has got us into this mess in the first place.
It didn't take a genius to spot GB was a dud. I shouted from the rooftops to give the members a say, but even I could have had to eat humble pie if GB had had any sort of courage and called that election when the people initially gave him the benefit of the doubt.
The biggest problem with new Labour can be summed up in just two words - 'party discipline'. Ever since the party ditched democracy and started kicking people out just for having the 'wrong views', we have descended into inevitable oblivion.
The national scene is playing out exactly what happened here in Brighton and Hove in 2007. Labour here were massacred because the leadership had so stifled debate in the party that all we could offer the electorate was 'tough talk' on crime, silly machiavellian games - childish name calling the opposition that insulted the electorate's intelligence and a pathetic 'loyalty card' that gave small discounts at the leisure centre. That was it, no vision, no free bus travel for under 16s or radical congestion reducing measures that Brighton so desperately needs, nothing! Now Labour nationally can only offer new labels on real fur when the people are crying out to tax the rich - what a joke!
So Labour MPs are faced with having to put up with another six months of humiliation and then try to force Brown out Spring next year, giving time for a leadership election and then 'perhaps' half a chance with a new leader in an 11 June General Election OR biting the bullet now and risk getting massacred 18 months before they need to. All this just as the recession is starting to bite. Oh dear!
In the leader poll in the sidebar I have left off Alan Johnson - because I hear he is not interested, John McDonnell - because he probably wouldn't get the nominations and Jack Straw because I hope he would be nothing more than a caretaker PM as Brown goes off to sulk (Apparently I am wrong on this, I should have known the arrogant sh@# would have an ego big enough to think he should be PM longterm. But the only way Straw could become leader is if he could do a Brown and avoid an election in the party - hopefully, please, that won't happen again or we would lose every MP we have).
Once a new fresh faced leader is in place, maybe people will listen to us - but he/she would have to back it up with real radical policies - scrapping VAT on utility bills funded from a profits windfall tax or tax on super-rich, reinstating the 10p band or even raising the threshold to 10k to help the poorest. Without something really eye catching Labour would not stand a chance.
The problem is they don't want him to go just yet because any new leader will have to face both the party members and the wider electorate - they surely, surely, dare not ignore both again (although I wouldn't put it past them to try) - it is this arrogance at the top which has got us into this mess in the first place.
It didn't take a genius to spot GB was a dud. I shouted from the rooftops to give the members a say, but even I could have had to eat humble pie if GB had had any sort of courage and called that election when the people initially gave him the benefit of the doubt.
The biggest problem with new Labour can be summed up in just two words - 'party discipline'. Ever since the party ditched democracy and started kicking people out just for having the 'wrong views', we have descended into inevitable oblivion.
The national scene is playing out exactly what happened here in Brighton and Hove in 2007. Labour here were massacred because the leadership had so stifled debate in the party that all we could offer the electorate was 'tough talk' on crime, silly machiavellian games - childish name calling the opposition that insulted the electorate's intelligence and a pathetic 'loyalty card' that gave small discounts at the leisure centre. That was it, no vision, no free bus travel for under 16s or radical congestion reducing measures that Brighton so desperately needs, nothing! Now Labour nationally can only offer new labels on real fur when the people are crying out to tax the rich - what a joke!
So Labour MPs are faced with having to put up with another six months of humiliation and then try to force Brown out Spring next year, giving time for a leadership election and then 'perhaps' half a chance with a new leader in an 11 June General Election OR biting the bullet now and risk getting massacred 18 months before they need to. All this just as the recession is starting to bite. Oh dear!
In the leader poll in the sidebar I have left off Alan Johnson - because I hear he is not interested, John McDonnell - because he probably wouldn't get the nominations and Jack Straw because I hope he would be nothing more than a caretaker PM as Brown goes off to sulk (Apparently I am wrong on this, I should have known the arrogant sh@# would have an ego big enough to think he should be PM longterm. But the only way Straw could become leader is if he could do a Brown and avoid an election in the party - hopefully, please, that won't happen again or we would lose every MP we have).
Once a new fresh faced leader is in place, maybe people will listen to us - but he/she would have to back it up with real radical policies - scrapping VAT on utility bills funded from a profits windfall tax or tax on super-rich, reinstating the 10p band or even raising the threshold to 10k to help the poorest. Without something really eye catching Labour would not stand a chance.
"scrapping VAT on utility bills" ... "raising the [income tax] threshold to 10k"
ReplyDeleteEver thought about voting UKIP?
Mark: If we ever get PR, I wouldn't be voting for a Labour party with Brown as leader. Luckily I think PR would transform Labour into the sort of social democratic party that most people would think well worth voting for. At the present, it is a choice between Tory and Labour, all the other parties are wasted votes in most areas - especially UKIP - simple as that.
ReplyDelete...Also why would a pro-tax, pro-European like me vote for a bunch of disgruntled xenophobic ex-Tories who don't believe in the NHS?
ReplyDelete'Ever since the party ditched democracy and started kicking people out just for having the 'wrong views', we have descended into inevitable oblivion.'
ReplyDeleteThat's as far as I got this time before I again gave up. You people are right up your own posteriors.
The problem is that you are doing that to almost all of the general populace in one thing or another, and 'that's' why you're going to be sent into oblivion
And if you want to kick each other to death as we wait our moment, good. The more, the better.