Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The Blairites are back. But if Labour falls to them, the party may as well give up
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/15/blairites-new-labour-aspirationDefine the past, dictate the future. That’s what the Tories did with the financial crisis: spun it instead as a crisis of public spending, and used that story to hammer Labour and justify austerity. And that’s now what the Blairites are doing with last week’s election disaster. The problem, as they define it, was not Labour’s suicide in Scotland and the consequent anti-SNP backlash in England and Wales; not failing to defend New Labour’s spending record; not lacking any coherent alternative at all; no, Labour failed because it wasn’t Blairy enough, not rightwing enough. Sure, I knew that this co-ordinated campaign – backed by virtually the entire mainstream media – was coming, but the chutzpah, the vacuous nature of the counterblast, has been compellingly awful.
The Blairite warriors should consider Labour’s 2015 offer. Cutting taxes on small business, maintaining the lowest level of corporation tax in the G7, slashing spending every year, temporarily increasing the top rate of tax to the same level as Japan. Wasn’t exactly The Communist Manifesto Redux, was it? The gimmicky energy price freeze is produced as evidence to the contrary – but didn’t your beloved New Labour introduce what was then deemed an outrageously anti-business windfall tax on privatised utilities? Or the “anti-business”, “anti-jobs” minimum wage, with the state intervening in businesses to dictate a wage floor? On immigration and Labour’s trade union link, Ed Miliband’s leadership actually represented a shift to the right from the Blair years.
Here’s my big problem, though. I don’t know what these people even want. I’ve heard their obsessive chitter-chatter over aspiration alright, but I have no idea what they mean by it. So let me call the Blairites’ bluff. Come on, ghosts from several Christmases past, stack your policies on the table.
Perhaps they simply believe that Labour should be a more competent version of the Tories. I happen to believe the Tories are extremely competent at introducing their horrendous policies. If this is what Labour really is to do, then it should simply politely bow and walk off the stage of history. Why even exist if it is to be a more competent privatiser and cutter than the Tories?
The Blairite warriors should consider Labour’s 2015 offer. Cutting taxes on small business, maintaining the lowest level of corporation tax in the G7, slashing spending every year, temporarily increasing the top rate of tax to the same level as Japan. Wasn’t exactly The Communist Manifesto Redux, was it? The gimmicky energy price freeze is produced as evidence to the contrary – but didn’t your beloved New Labour introduce what was then deemed an outrageously anti-business windfall tax on privatised utilities? Or the “anti-business”, “anti-jobs” minimum wage, with the state intervening in businesses to dictate a wage floor? On immigration and Labour’s trade union link, Ed Miliband’s leadership actually represented a shift to the right from the Blair years.
Here’s my big problem, though. I don’t know what these people even want. I’ve heard their obsessive chitter-chatter over aspiration alright, but I have no idea what they mean by it. So let me call the Blairites’ bluff. Come on, ghosts from several Christmases past, stack your policies on the table.
Perhaps they simply believe that Labour should be a more competent version of the Tories. I happen to believe the Tories are extremely competent at introducing their horrendous policies. If this is what Labour really is to do, then it should simply politely bow and walk off the stage of history. Why even exist if it is to be a more competent privatiser and cutter than the Tories?
