Dan Hodges « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Dan Hodges’

What will the Guardianistas do if we defy them and vote “no”?

20/04/2011, 07:00:14 AM

by Dan Hodges

I’m starting to feel sorry for the Yes campaign. Genuinely. They’ve got some good staffers. People with a sincere commitment to their cause.

But they haven’t got a prayer. And the reason they haven’t got a prayer is too many of their own supporters don’t actually care whether they win or they lose.

Watching the Yes campaign from afar is like watching the Labour party in the late eighties. By then, the harder edges of dogma and ideology had been blunted. There was a realisation that the principle meant little without power. But while there was an intellectual acceptance of the need to secure office, the hunger was lacking. We wanted to win. But not quite enough.

It’s the same with those who are supposedly fighting for a change in our voting system. They’re not actually fighting at all. They’re pontificating. Posturing. Striking a pose.

Get hold of yesterday’s Guardian leader. “Reformists have just 16 days to transform things”, it warns, “by countering a campaign of unremitting negativity, whose garish posters are explicit in saying that because the NHS matters, democracy doesn’t, and carry the implicit message ‘vote no or the baby gets it’”.

It then points out, “Dismal as the pitch is, it is making in-roads”. No shit Sherlock. You mean negative campaigning actually works? Who’da thunk it? (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 24 Comments »

The week Uncut

16/04/2011, 10:30:53 AM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Atul Hatwal presents the shadow cabinet goal of the month competition

Dan Hodges thinks blue Labour needs a spinner

Tom Watson says Rebekah Brooks should resign

Michael Dugher reports back from Leicester South

Stella Creasy says private debt is this government’s public injustice

Nick Keehan reports on Cameron’s immigration speech

Sunder Katwala says Nick Cohen is wrong on religion

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Blue Labour needs a dose of realism and a spin doctor

13/04/2011, 07:00:10 AM

by Dan Hodges

Blue Labour has been getting a bad press. First, there was Billy Bragg in the Guardian:

“Labour is already too blue. Blue Labour won’t win back voters. The party must remember it stands for ordinary workers and oppose globalised capitalism”.

Then David Aaronovitch in the Times:

“Dreaming of Merrie England wont help Ed. Blue Labour feels like Blackadder without the jokes”.

Finally, we had Progress, the in-flight magazine of Blairforce One. “Blue Labour isn’t the way forward for New Labour or for our party”, wrote Stephen Bush. A “political promise that offers a defence of yesterday, not a better tomorrow”.

Maurice Glasman, blue Labour’s architect, might be forgiven for thinking that if he’s got both Billy Bragg and David Aaronovitch gunning for him, he must doing something right. I think that would be a mistake. Blue Labour contains a narrative with much to offer. But it’s also in need of a good spin doctor. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 14 Comments »

Why don’t we try to find out why we lost?

05/04/2011, 07:00:15 AM

by Dan Hodges

We’re off. Boots on the ground, leaflets through the letterbox. The Labour movement is marching again, back on the campaign trail.

But while we throw ourselves body and soul into the battle to wrest our town halls and regional assemblies from the government’s grasp, a question. As we enter this election campaign, does anyone know why we lost the last one?

I don’t. Like every one else, I have my own pet theories. Assumptions. Random thoughts, shot through with the lack of objectivity and rationality to which we all succumb when the political party we’re close to relinquishes power.

The very first piece I wrote for Labour Uncut was my analysis of our defeat. “The Labour right must shoulder the blame”, ran the headline. Hmmmm. Fair to say I’ve been on a bit of a journey since then.

That’s not to say that there aren’t things in that article I still believe to be valid. The failure of banking regulation. Trident. Tuition fees.

“It was not the ‘usual suspects’ of the left”, I roared, “but the undisciplined out-riders of modernisation doing the damage”. A journey indeed.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 26 Comments »

Don’t disparage direct action: it works

03/04/2011, 10:43:09 AM

by Conrad Landin

It’s always a shame to see people on the left talking down our achievements just so they can prove their point. But this was exactly how I felt reading Dan Hodges’ argument that the rally last Saturday was “ruined” by the direct action taken against businesses in the West End.

Seeing smashed windows and paint-splattered police helmets weren’t my only memories of Saturday. And nor were these the only aspects picked up on by the media. The night before, for instance, saw the BBC talking to rather unorthodox protesters in the home counties, while live coverage during the day included the memorable aerial footage of the sheer scale of the crowds. Sky News’s subtitles – at least for some time – bore the simple words “250,000 on protest march”, or something to that effect.

In an age of sensationalised media, where it seems that, in the rather unfortunate words of Ken Livingstone’s reference to knife crime, “if it bleeds, it leads”, such attention for a peaceful protest isn’t bad going. (more…)

Posted in Grassroots | 9 Comments »

UK Uncut was always going to spoil Labour’s party, but we invited them in

29/03/2011, 07:00:01 AM

by Dan Hodges

By the time you read this I will just have completed my morning’s shopping. First, I’m popping into Fortnum and Mason. Unlike the majority of public school anarchists who were trashing the place on Saturday, I can’t afford a full hamper, so I’ll probably settle for a nice jar of strawberry jam. Then I’m planning to wander down to Topman. Not too sure what I’ll pick up there, seeing as I haven’t been in a Topman since Mark Harrison’s fifteenth birthday party back in 1984. I think I bought something grey. To me grey was, and still is, the new black. I was part of the south east London greyblock.

These are, I concede, small gestures. But there are times one has to take stand. Fight the power. Face up to the man.

At the moment I’m a lone voice. But I have high hopes of blossoming into a fledgling movement. UK Half Cut. Or Half Baked. Something like that.

Meanwhile, as I await the flood of applications to my new, organic, grassroots protest group, (I hope I can get a few grandmothers who have never protested before; the BBC love those), I must proffer an apology. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 47 Comments »

The week Uncut

26/03/2011, 10:30:52 AM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Tom Watson decided to back Cameron… and then changed his mind

Dan Hodges says Libya is not Cameron’s first war, it’s Blair’s last

Sally Bercow predicted the usual Tory fare on budget day

Atul Hatwal reveals how the fuel stabiliser will hike household energy bills

Peter Watt asks: where’s the social care in the health and social care bill?

Rob Marchant doesn’t want Ed to march for the alternative

Jonathan Todd thinks Miliband can own the future in a way Cameron can’t

…and in this weeks Half a minute Harris, Tom backed Theresa May on student visas

Posted in Home | No Comments »

Libya is not Cameron’s first war. It is Tony Blair’s last.

22/03/2011, 11:30:43 AM

by Dan Hodges

In Saturday’s Independent, Robert Fisk, the venerable if jaundiced middle east sage, posted a missing persons bulletin:

“Why we have not heard from Lord Blair of Isfahan recently? Surely he should be up there, clapping his hands with glee at another humanitarian intervention. Perhaps he is just resting between parts. Or maybe, like the dragons in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, he is quietly vomiting forth Catholic tracts with all the enthusiasm of a Gaddafi in full flow”.

Unfortunately, about an hour after this latest condemnation of Western imperialism / inaction / barbarity / pusillanimity (delete as appropriate), up popped the man himself:

“The decision to impose a no-fly zone and authorise all necessary measures to protect threatened civilians comes not a moment too soon. It is a shift to a policy of intervention that I welcome. Such a policy will be difficult and unpredictable. But it is surely better than watching in real time as the Libyan people’s legitimate aspiration for a better form of government and way of life is snuffed out by tanks and planes”.

Fisk may know Libya like the back of Colonel Gaddafi’s hand, but he certainly doesn’t know Tony Blair. The clear implication of his jibe is that military intervention against Gaddafi is a rebuke to our former prime minister and his policy of enticing the Libyan dictator back into the international fold. A further shredding of his already tattered foreign policy legacy.

Robert, you couldn’t be more wrong. Libya isn’t an embarrassment for Tony Blair. It’s his validation. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 10 Comments »

Who will be the next Labour leader?

09/03/2011, 02:05:27 PM

by Dan Hodges

One day the unthinkable will happen. We will be forced to stop all the clocks. Ed Miliband will cease to be Labour leader.

For those of us who have supported him loyally from the outset, it will be tough to come to terms with. But struggle on we will, because that is politics, and that is life.

Then our gaze will fall upon another. Were Ed to slip under the wheels of a passing automobile tomorrow, aside from hoping his brother possessed a cast iron alibi, the search for his replacement would be unlikely to extend beyond the same household. Ed Balls or Yvette Cooper would be a shoo-in. The contest would probably be decided around a kitchen table in Stoke Newington.

But throw things forward a few years. Let time march on. Who are the standard bearers of the next, new generation?

Over the last couple of months two names have begun to flutter around the tea rooms and stronger watering holes of Parliament. One has not exactly fluttered, but soared. Chuka Umunna, a political prospect so hot that bookmakers William Hill and Victor Chandler have (wrongly) installed him ahead of Ed Balls in the leadership sweepstakes. The second name is less heavily supported by the turf accountants, but is starting to attract increasing interest from those inside the Westminster beltway: Stella Creasy. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 32 Comments »

Ed’s not going to take down Gaddafi with a sustained blast of the Reith lectures

01/03/2011, 07:00:52 AM

by Dan Hodges

Libya has turned into the first international crisis of David Cameron’s premiership. And he’s flunked it. When an ash cloud stranded thousands of British holidaymakers, the previous government deployed the Royal Navy. With the Middle East aflame, and hundreds of British workers in peril, this government turned to the heavy metal band, Iron Maiden. Bruce Dickinson, the group’s lead singer, is also marketing director and chief pilot of charter airline, Astraeus, one of the first to land at Tripoli to begin a belated evacuation. The RAF heroes of 633 squadron have been pensioned off for the heroes of flight 666.

At times like this, there is frequently a populist rush to judgment. “Something must be done”, goes the cry, even though operational and political realities make the situation far more difficult and complex. This is not one of those times. Ministers had sufficient warning of the spreading unrest in the region in general, and Libya in particular, yet they clearly had no coherent strategy in place for the evacuation of British nationals.

In fact, it is amazing that there appear to be no settled contingency plans for the rapid deployment of military or other assets to remove our citizens from areas of potential instability. It doesn’t need a doctorate in international relations to tell you that Colonel Gaddafi is a fruit cake with the potential to tip his country into chaos at the drop of a pair of his designer shades. Surely one of our chaps in the FCO should have twigged that a guy who calls himself “the Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” is worth keeping a wary eye on. (more…)

Posted in Uncut | 12 Comments »