Posts Tagged ‘Corbyn’

Unfinished revolution: is Labour’s conversion to a party ready for power complete?

07/10/2023, 09:46:50 PM

by Rob Marchant

Philip Gould’s book, The Unfinished Revolution, was an emblematic tome of the late 1990s, documenting New Labour’s lead-up to governing in 1997. But in the 2020s, have we yet reached where we need to be?

Polls: clearly good. Policy programme: we are making respectable progress and cutting out the mad, or madly-expensive, stuff. Tick. Tick.

News management: we are perhaps not yet as ruthlessly disciplined as we need to be, but we seem to be getting a lot less accident-prone than we were even this time last year. And, looking at our opponents this last week, the Tories are hardly the well-oiled spin machine they once were. Good, although room for improvement.

Party management: we are working through the disciplinary cases, and expulsions have happened. While there are still – anecdotally at least – a lot of cases about antisemitism, the party has come a long way. A number of the more cranky and toxic members who joined under Corbyn have left of their own accord, often joining the Greens. It doesn’t bear thinking about how the party would have responded at Labour conference to the awful events in Israel during the Corbyn years and the coming days will be a highly visible test of how Labour has changed.

There have been some rule changes, which last week caused a ripple of protest from the usual Corbynista suspects, but the story is thin gruel: although it may have been paused or ignored during the Corbyn years, the requirement that conference motions need to be contemporary was put in place at least twenty years ago, to stop endless debates about long-dead issues making conference unspeakably turgid[i].

There are also some disciplinary-tightening measures, making it easier to expel those supporting candidates outside the party, aimed at cleaning the Augean stables of our local parties which, after the infiltration from outside that went on in the Corbyn years and some of the nuttiness which still persists in some of our backbenchers and councillors, seem more than welcome. Err on the side of caution if you aspire to be a party of government.

Damage limitation: some of the previous legal actions, such as the defamation case with the Panorama whistleblowers – which the outgoing regime first caused and then somewhat unhelpfully left David Evans’s new team to clean up afterwards – have been settled, and at least there are no new ones being triggered. But some are still pending, including that against former LOTO chief of staff Karie Murphy and four others over the “LabourLeaks” debacle, and may be expensive; the party is trying to kick it into the long grass post election but on that decision, as it were, the jury is out.

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Labour’s Vietnam

14/03/2018, 10:04:18 PM

by John Wall

There are parallels between what’s happened to Labour since 2015 and the Americans in Vietnam.

It comes down to underestimating or not understanding the opposition and forgetting that sometimes you need to do unto others what they would do unto you – but do it first!

Vietnam is controversial, although it’s difficult to argue that it wasn’t worth trying to prevent what happened after the Communist victory.

The Americans expended a lot of blood and treasure and won most of the battles, but when they left and were preoccupied with domestic issues, the North Vietnamese conquered the south.

The North Vietnamese were frequently down, but never out, and only had one objective, to reunite the country under their rule – and were prepared to play a long game.

Unless the Americans had reunited the country under South Vietnamese rule or maintained a permanent military presence the outcome was probably inevitable. That’s very simplistic as the memory of Korea was strong, particularly the Chinese intervening to prevent UN forces occupying the whole peninsula.

Hindsight is wonderful, and infallible!

I see Labour as having, basically, two creeds; social democrats (pragmatists) and socialists (dogmatists).

The former recognise that appropriately regulated markets and competition create wealth which can then be taxed. They see how innovation driven by the survival instincts of the private sector can be used to deliver public services. Politically, they consider the western democracies as a force for good.

The latter hate markets and competition and despise the private sector. To them America is the “Great Satan,” and Russia – whether Communist or under Putin – is an ally. Their mantra is inevitability, communism (where Corbyn and McDonnell fit), probably preceded by socialism, is the inevitable, and final, form of society.

After the early 1980s the hard left were – particularly during New Labour – little more than lost sheep.

It’s instructive to see the intolerant vitriol now directed at those who aren’t disciples of the bearded messiah, and the worst seems to be reserved for non-believers on the left.

The homophobic abuse (in a party that practices identity politics) against a heretical lesbian Labour MP is just one example.

The Labour leader of Harlow is leaving because of:

“…an active campaign against my leadership by a local Momentum organiser, being called a neo-Nazi by some Corbyn t-shirt wearing person outside the Labour Party Conference, and events at a national level targeting Labour Councillors and Labour Councils that do not conform to the particular form of ideological purity that seems to have taken a grip of the party…”

Previously, the Labour leader of Haringey quit saying:

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Uncut Review: Pod Save America in London

19/01/2018, 10:02:14 AM

by Jonathan Todd

Kings of the King’s Road is a book about the Chelsea football team of the 1960s and 70s. The street has much changed since. Last Saturday, looking for somewhere serving a pint of beer, Uncut walked some distance past its high-end stores, little distinguishable from those of Manhattan, Dubai and so on. And then, inevitably, paid £6 for average IPA.

With 950 other paying customers at Cadogan Hall, we attended a self-help group for liberal America. Otherwise known as a recording of Pod Save America. Ex-Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor debated politics in their inimitable way.

Comedy is the new rock’n’roll and podcasts are the new comedy. Our three heroes rode on stage to a backdrop of a video reminding us of some of Donald Trump’s most amusingly daft moments – which was reminiscent of the entrances made by some stand-ups. For example, Russell Brand on his Scandalous tour. The sense of comedic theatre did not end there: Lovett, in particular, delights in a well-timed zinger; the crowd, enthusiastic participants in a political pantomime, heartily cheered and booed on cue.

One of the targets of Lovett’s mirth was Sadiq Khan for turning down the opportunity to appear in the London show. He was busy being heckled by Trump supporters at the Fabian conference. While the headline slot at the Fabians is invariably a top gig in the early new year diaries of Labourites, it does not – unlike Pod Save America – average 1.5 million listeners per show. About as many people, as the New York Times recently reported, as Anderson Cooper draws on prime-time CNN.

These 30-somethings have transitioned from helping sow the Obama stardust to being media pioneers. Backstage influencers to main stage ringmasters. On a self-built stage.

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