A moderate proposal to respond to working class concerns in Labour heartlands

by Dean Quick

Few things signal what has gone wrong with the Labour party than its MPs voting time and again for policies that they know their working class supporters detest but which are celebrated by professional liberals who would never dream of renting a council house but are the first to condemn those who want to exercise their right to buy.

It is time that Labour’s moderates broke with this metropolitan elitism and actually started listening to their voters. No more of the politics of endless repetition of facts and figures which comes across to so many working class voters as just more patronising prattle from the folks who live at the ends of houses with drive-ways.

One does not have to agree with Michael Gove on everything to acknowledge that he hit the nail on the head when he said the people of this country have had enough of experts: for ordinary voters their everyday experience trumps any facts, research or evidence.

So it is time Labour brought back capital punishment.

After all, the Attlee government executed people – even innocent people like Timothy Evans. If such judicial killing was good enough for Clem then it is about time we returned to the Spirit of 45 and got the gallows going.

One huge advantage of this proposal to respond to working class concerns is that, unlike the other idea that has been floated in this regard – leaving the European single market so that we can restrict immigration into Britain – the net economic impacts of my proposal are likely to be positive.

For while further restricting immigration would stunt economic growth, limit tax revenues and thus damage public services, a good round of hangings would actually increase growth – think of the jobs needed to construct the gallows and carry out the killings – and would free up public money currently spent unproductively in keeping murderers in jail.

Where the two proposals similar, of course, is that they won’t actually solve any of the social problems that many voters think they address. Stopping free movement will not increase wages, in fact it is more likely to see them fall as the economy slows. Similarly, of course, the evidence shows that judicial executions of murderers has little impact on the murder rate.

This moderate proposal is designed to give those trying to save Labour some edge and definition. Though it does not have to be seen as in any way divisive. Jeremy Corbyn plainly has no fundamental problem with working with those who support judicial executions or even torture to extract a confession, but I am not proposing we follow his friends in the Iranian regime and hang people for being gay.

But it certainly would make life easier for some Labour MPs who would no longer have to offer leadership of the debate by relying on facts and evidence. Instead they could just get down to pandering to people’s fears. Unless, of course, someone tried to fit them up for a murder. But that is a risk we will just have to take.

Dean Quick is a pseudonym


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15 Responses to “A moderate proposal to respond to working class concerns in Labour heartlands”

  1. Tafia says:

    The problem with this article is that it’s a fact that the return of capital punishment is a very popular idea amongst the blue collar Labour voters. A very popular idea indeed. And they would support it being expanded to paedophiles – especially grooming gangs – which means a large number of people that would be swinging from a rope would be asian muslims from northern England.

    And drug dealers – they would like them hanged as well. And rapists. And anyone convicted of any terror offence (whether they kill anyone or not) – Islamic or Irish.

    And Blair for treason.

    So be careful what you suggest tongue-in-cheek because the idea is far more popular amongst Labour’s core than you may care to think.

  2. buttley says:

    Its like silly season on here, three articles in a row.

    ex Labour blairite agitating for a split in the party.

    Tory telling us, Sadiq, is now the way forward.

    One, so piss poor, even the author was too ashamed to put a name to it.

    Uncut, are so totally devoid of ideas its an embarrassmentification.

    Why not write about something relevant, like the housing shortage and how we solve it!

    This country needs housing & very badly.

    Even if there was universal agreement, on where to place these badly needed millions of housing units.

    Even if there was funding in place to get the projects underway spit spot.

    Even if we had a shiny new workforce in place, balanced with pros, retired skilled workers, & trainees, all chomping at the bit to get building……………

    We need bricks, millions of them, all over the country, we don’t have the capacity to produce enough of them.

    This requires infrastructure in place, ahead of time, & stock piling.

    This should really be a government exercise, mandating leading producers to tool up government plants, much like war time munitions factories.

    Until this fundamental is addressed, there is no increase in house building.

    New Labour did f**k all house building for thirteen years, at least Corbyn wants to try to make some amends.

    When he starts to unveil plans along these lines, which I hope, in time, he does.

    Labour will begin to start looking like a government in waiting.

    Seriousness of intent, is what the public will eventually judge Corbyn on.

    And your insightful contributions to this pressing national problem are ????

  3. NickT says:

    Tafia, I assume you’d be happy to see supporters of the IRA terrorists marched to the gallows as well. We can start with Corbyn and McDonnell! Won’t that be wonderful!

  4. Mike Stallard says:

    Ho! Ho! Ho!
    Very droll!

    Allow me to point this out:
    1. The industrial base and the manufacturing base of Britain went ages ago and with it the traditional working class. (Baseball hats now: not flat ‘ats.)
    2. Comprehensive Education has produced what it said on the tin: equality. That means no giants and no one left behind. So no poverty in this country except immigrants and – hey – they are not us are they! Mind you, Diane Abbott’s children, Will Straw and Ewan Blair are exceptions because they bought their way out of the system.
    3. The real working class is largely made up of women who teach, are in minor roles within the NHS, the TU movement and Library system. Or who are in some sort of bureaucracy. And they just love Jeremy!

    So your hilarious joke misfires! You have already sold out to the working class!

  5. Mark Livingston says:

    I don’t think we could get the New Labour types who wear Moss Bros suits and bouffant hair-dos to support the idea! A lot of them are still turning up at conference.

  6. Tafia says:

    Nick T – Tafia, I assume you’d be happy to see supporters of the IRA terrorists marched to the gallows as well. We can start with Corbyn and McDonnell! Won’t that be wonderful!

    Not really. I don’t support capital punishment (even though I have first hand experience where the Republicans killed 7 civilians & 11 soldiers in one attack, 8 from my regiment, 5 of which were friends of mine. A former employee of mine also died in 7/7. But I would prefer our prisons to punish people severely who are convicted of certain types of offence such as terror related and sexual. A bare cell, no visitors, no mail, no TV, no association, no reading material, no religious services, no lights, no hot water. If you want it, you earn it on a daily basis by your compliance, behaviour and willingness to assist the authorities with everything you know and give testimony of that knowledge.

  7. Rallan says:

    An alternative proposal to respond to working class concerns in Labour heartlands: Vote UKIP.

  8. ad says:

    for ordinary voters their everyday experience trumps any facts, research or evidence.

    Everyday experience makes it look as though the Sun goes around the Earth, but most ordinary people trust the astronomers who say the Earth goes around the Sun.

    They just don’t trust Labour politicians. Or the governing class in general. I can’t say I blame them: if enlightened liberals feel good about themselves for supporting immigration and a ban on the death penalty, there is no way they are going to hear, much less repeat, any evidence to the contrary.

  9. Martin says:

    There is s serious point buried in this rather ham-fisted satire.

    Labour MP’s: Pro-EU, pro-single market, pro-freedom of movement, anti-capital punishment metropolitan liberal types.

    Momentum: Pro-EU, pro-single market, pro-freedom of movement, anti-capital punishment (except in Iran) metropolitan liberal types.

    Whoever wins the slap-fight in the sandpit (I won’t glorify it by calling it a civil war), Labour will still be disconnected from its core voters.

  10. Roderick says:

    I don’t think much of your gallows humour… 🙂

  11. paul barker says:

    You are a sick little twat arent you ? Bugger whether murdering people in cold blood is morally right, as long as those Real Worker types dig it. Labour really is the Nasty Party.

  12. paul barker says:

    Ok, hands up, I didnt read all the way to the end but, come on, its quite plausible in a Blue Labour context & this site.
    I should have clicked the “Modest Proposal” reference though.
    I go on my way, a sadder but a wiser man.

  13. George Potter says:

    Well at least this is consistent from Blairites.

    Political problems caused by a decades old failure to tackle structural social, political and economic inequality between different areas of the country?

    A gimmicky policy based on pre-conceived notions about what working class people want will make everything better!

    Listen folks. I’m a Lib Dem. It’s not in my interests to help Labour out of the hole it’s dug for itself, but, as a simple tip, if you say “we need to listen to voters” then it helps to actually talk to them and listen for at least a little bit before coming up with a gimmicky idea (which involves abandoning your principles) in the mistaken belief that this must be what they really want.

    It’s this willingness to junk pretty much everything for the sake of media headlines and superficial popularity which is why you lost control of the Labour party in the first place.

    I might not like Corbyn or his principles but at least he actually has them.

  14. Carol says:

    Could you actually provide some data to back up your assertions. Like could you explain how low skill immigration does not affect wages. Used to be called supply and demand. Was supply and demand wrong then? And could you explain how the rate of killing has not increased. Cos I am old enough to remember the BBC announcer telling the nation that a murderer had been hanged. It was beyond scary. This article is pathetic. Labour is finished. You are a party of minorities and misfits. Mrs May knows it. She will compete with UKIP for working class votes.

  15. TheJudge says:

    “Sorry, can’t use this. Editor, Spiked”

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