Posts Tagged ‘hope’

Three reasons for Labour moderates to stay and be confident the fever will eventually break

14/01/2016, 07:44:33 PM

by Atul Hatwal

Optimism has been in short supply for Labour moderates. Ed Miliband, general election disaster and now Jeremy Corbyn. What a time.

But in the gloom of Labour’s long winter, all is not lost.

It will take patience. Years, maybe. But as George RR Martin might not say, summer is coming. Perhaps at the same pace as Martin’s next novel, but nevertheless, come it will.

Here are three reasons to be confident that these hard times will pass.

1. The soft left will switch

A common thread in the interviews and analysis of Labour’s massive influx of new members and supporters is that while the overwhelming majority supported Corbyn, they are not from the hard left.

Over the past three months I’ve spoken to CLP officers from over 30 constituencies on the make-up of the new membership and the response of Jane Middleton, chair of Bath CLP, in the Guardian’s recent survey of 100 CLPs exemplified what I’ve been hearing,

“They are mainly Corbyn supporters, some of them enthusiastic Corbyn supporters, who joined specifically because of him…A number of them had left during the Blair years and the Iraq war. What they are not is members of the far left. These people are in no way like the radicals of the 70s and 80s.”

This is the soft left. The Labour party is currently softer and lefter than it’s ever been.

The soft left view at the leadership election can be characterised as apathy at Yvette’s establishment, Brownite grind; an allergic reaction to Liz’s late-Blair confrontation and scepticism at Andy’s reprise of Ed Miliband’s muddled equivocation.

In the absence of an alternative, Labour’s largest grouping opted for the only choice before them not to have demonstrably failed in the past twenty years – Jeremy Corbyn’s hard left dreaming.

The trouble with dreams is that they rarely come true and sometimes turn into nightmares.

(more…)

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Hope, help and community

12/08/2011, 01:30:03 PM

by Stella Creasy

Fear is a powerful motivation for action. As I stood on Sunday night with other terrified and angry residents and watched looters turn up and trash Walthamstow I wanted it just to stop. This was our home. Our shops. Our people frightened. Nothing justifies this and ever will.

Since then I have worked with police, outreach workers, residents and the council to try to restore order and calm to our streets– to sweep up the glass, separate internet fact from fiction, account for the welfare of people and try to assess the damage. To channel this fear into something positive. To draw strength from a commitment to the capacity of collective endeavour to restore and replenish rather than demolish and destroy. Because to do otherwise is to give up hope.

Those who label these events indicative of a sickness in the areas where they happened get short shrift in Walthamstow. Only a strong community could put together a pop up canteen for all those helping to keep our community safe. Springing up overnight, with hundreds of volunteers we are providing cakes, tea, hot food and friends for our police and outreach workers. That tells you what we are capable of – not the broken glass outside our local bank.

Following the weekend, young people have played cat and mouse with the authorities in Walthamstow. They are setting fires, taunting officers, frightening residents and damaging local businesses. My community, like many others in the UK, is now dealing the fact that the looters have unravelled the boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour.

Changing this isn’t about shutting down twitter, or handwringing about liberal elites. It is about restoring those boundaries and showing those testing them there are consequences to their behaviour.  That’s why speedy justice and strong sentences are important as a means to illustrate to those rioting and looting- and those who help them- that it isn’t worth it.

It is also about our increased police presence. Our Borough Commander Steve Wisbey and his team have had less sleep than anyone, working round the clock. Only when the calm has held for several days will the emotion of this time dissipate- and so too the rumours driving the tweets, bbms and texts which are fuelling disorder and fear.

Yet it is too easy to see this as solely about criminal acts and mindless thugs. On Sunday night there were agitators who instigated events, exploiting tension and technology to organise criminal activity in a way not seen before. But a strategy that only deals with these people is one which only sees half the story. (more…)

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John Woodcock finds glimmers of hope amid the grey

25/10/2010, 09:00:00 AM

And so we charge on into the new landscape. It is cold and bleak. And it is dominated by the comprehensive spending review.

While I am not as pessimistic as some Uncut contributors (you, Dan Hodges) about how the announcement played out last week, we shouldn’t for a moment think it was a good week for the Labour party, or, more importantly, for the country.

Even accounting for a little slanting of questions and selective reporting of the answers, the YouGov poll in last week’s Sun was sobering. Taken after the CSR announcement, it suggested that 47 per cent of respondents blamed the last Labour government for the programme of cuts compared to 17 per cent who blamed the Tory-Lib Dem coalition that is making them, and 20 per cent who cast a plague on both our houses. Sure, respondents didn’t get the option to blame the bankers – but even accounting for that bias, the figures suggest that the Tory message machine is having some considerable success. (more…)

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