Posts Tagged "LabourList"

Countering the Coalition 6: Conclusion, a Soft Opposition

This is without doubt a new era in politics. The end of a Labour decade, the Liberals are back in government, and of course the start of a coalition.

The Education Secretary’s disastrous mishandling over the Building Schools for the Future program posed the question of how long the government’s honeymoon will last and there are multiple factors worth considering in response. The fact that this is a coalition opposed to a single party gives the coalition a certain novelty aspect, particularly so as it follows 13 years where Labour has had extremely large majorities, meaning that the public will be more inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.

However, the conditions that prolong the government’s honeymoon like the ‘time for a change’ feeling are likely to dissipate very quickly. As cuts begin to impact on frontline public services people will inevitably become less sympathetic, in addition to this we have had a few minor political scandals with David Laws and Chris Hunhe, and now a larger competence-based scandal surrounding Michael Gove, which will accumulate and test the public’s patience.

Labour has to act in two stages, the immediate term and then a deeper approach. The timing of this falls along two parallels, primarily with the duration of the government’s honeymoon period and secondarily the long process of the Labour Leadership election.

The Tory strategy is almost crass in its execution; Labour left us in this mess, but we are clearing it up. They gibber about the deficit and they panic over national debt, completely neglecting the economic recovery and, even more surprisingly, forgetting the massive global financial crisis that Labour had to deal with to stop the economy collapsing.

True or not, fair or not, their criticism has a bold simplicity. Our argument is more evolved than theirs which means it is more difficult to understand and therefore less popular. It operates under what I call the “Garden Shed Principle,” which is to say that normal people understand how their household finances work, and how to use bank overdrafts, and so it resonates when Cameron uses such an analogy. Nobody knows whether saving the banks is worth trillions and billions because nobody can really understand whether it is value for money. Yet the anger was so much more explosive during the expenses scandal because people know the price of a garden shed, and when an MP claims several thousand pounds for a duck house, they can see the injustice.

The solution is to disarm the government of the argument. The Tories are in the same mode as they were before the General Election in that they are trying to frame the debate around what happened in the past instead of policies for the future. We have to move the debate forward by “accepting and moving on.” Harriet Harman as acting leader is in the perfect position to act as a lightning rod and clear the ground ready for the new leader to make a fresh start without so much baggage left over from the credit crunch.

A strategy of Soft Opposition currently seems the most appropriate for Labour. My example to follow is how Zapatero conducted his party before becoming the President of the Spanish Government in 2004. His prescription was to be as calm and constructive as possible, even going so far as to offer pacts to the government of the time, which under Aznar was as equally dangerous as ours is now.

Zapatero was famous for this almost bipartisan style of opposition, for which the British public seem to have an appetite at present. Although some would suggest that the Socialist victory in Spain was as an indirect consequence of the Madrid bombings, the evidence showed a firm, slow but steady improvement for the PSOE in the polls. This is exactly the kind of foundation we need to lay over the next four years.

In contrast, the bland and non-confrontational style of Zapatero in opposition, which I must say suits perfectly all five Labour Leadership contenders, made his attacks against the government much stronger. Labour will look so much more competent and even statesmanlike than Cameron did when he was constantly on the offensive like the noise of WWI artillery.

To conclude this series, I hope that I have demonstrated some of the key features of the new government and set out a plan for Labour to proceed in opposition. The coalition showed that the Tories could not win a majority by themselves even in such favourable conditions. Labour needs to use this to our advantage in order to shrink both the Tories and the Lib Dems into a co-dependent state. The Tories lose their teeth and the Lib Dems lose their independence.

The coalition will survive for the duration of the Parliament; the conditions are right for it to last because we have seen just how willing the Lib Dems are to throw away their principles. The government is structurally sound because the Tories do not depend on the Lib Dems to be in power, but for the Lib Dems this is their only chance.

The fact that the coalition will go the distance is good for Labour as we can occupy a broader space on the centre-left. It is important to stick the other two parties together, which is why we are better off referring to John Major’s government and its divisions over the callous spending cuts of Thatcher.

In doing so, we must move away from the line that the Lib Dems betrayed their voters. If the voters feel betrayed, we cannot mock them if we want their support, this is why it is better to dismiss the Lib Dem leadership as useful idiots or even hostages in some cases, while we concentrate are arguments against a typical Tory government.

However, we do need to understand that the game we play with the Lib Dems has changed, or perhaps it would be better to say ‘exposed.’ This is why we have to resist the obvious temptation to mock their hypocrisy.

Finally, Labour needs to accept responsibility for its record in government and act accordingly. We have to show that the party is not bitter and can be constructive, but that we are always ready to right for those who need help. It is a case of picking battles carefully.

The coalition does not represent New Politics, but as the Labour Party it is our duty to come up with new ideas.

Countering the Coalition 5: A Few Lib Dem Legends

In the days following the General Election, the Liberal Democrat Party changed drastically. In Part Four, I looked at how Labour should treat the Lib Dems in a temporary coalition, now in Part five I intend to look at the party in the longer term.

In a Politics Show debate between the three prospective chancellors, Andrew Neil asked a flailing Vince Cable “Isn’t the greatest myth of this election your reputation?” In some respects, he was right, because when the Liberal Democrats joined the Tories in government several myths surrounding the party were proven and others were dispelled.

It has now proven beyond doubt that the party is a broad grouping of people from across the political spectrum, or a rag-tag mob of unprincipled opportunists, depending on your register. Clearly, however, it can no longer be suggested that the Lib Dems are somehow more to the Left than the Labour Party because with the exception of a few collaborators like Frank Field a Lab-Con pact is unthinkable let alone a full-blown grand coalition like in Germany.

Gone too is the myth that the Liberal Democrats are “equidistant” between Labour and the Tories as Paddy Ashdown had hoped. They best they can hope for now is to be known as watered down Tories, but considering that they are making up the numbers in a Tory government (as I set out in Part Four) this will be unlikely to comfort Labour tactical voters or anyone who voted Lib Dem to stop the Tory candidate.

Most importantly, we can no longer say that it doesn’t matter whether you vote for them or not because “they’ll never get in.” We now know that they can get ‘in’ and after all the interfering in the electoral system, it is quite possible that a permanent feature of government will have the Lib Dems ‘in’. Fortunately, though, it is still true that whether you vote for them or not, their policies will never be implemented, just those of the party with which they side.

This presents an extraordinary opportunity for Labour. As the one and only party of opposition (ignoring ‘others’) we can legitimately and effectively steal what made the Lib Dems unique as a party, which is to take away the catchphrase of “the other two parties.” Throughout the debates, Nick Clegg tried continuously to emphasise or create similarities between Labour and the Conservatives. With the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives together, both of which will be, defending their identical record in government (taking credit themselves for successes and blaming the other party for failures) the work is already done for us.

The Lib Dems threw away their independence as the third party; they are no longer a protest vote and can no longer claim to be an alternative, real or otherwise. It is now clearer than ever that it is up to Labour to resist the damaging austerity of the new conservatives, and the ones Cameron is leading as well.

The idea of the Lib Dems as an alternative to the Tories as a kind of Labour substitute is an important one. It leads me to explain in more detail a point I made briefly in part Four, which is to examine the case of the MoDem in France.

The MoDem is almost identical to the Lib Dems, from its orange/yellow colours, to its centrist rhetoric to its composition of left and right factions. It also provides an interesting precedent for what might happen to the Lib Dems in Britain from which we may draw some conclusions.

In the Presidential elections in 2007, the MoDem leader Francois Bayrou won a surprisingly large 18% of the vote. This gave the party a certain element of confidence before the local elections in 2008, at which he tried to assert his party’s independence as the ‘third force’ in French politics. The strategy was to refuse ‘bipolarisation’ and make deals on a case-by-case basis. Depending on local factors, the MoDem decided either to go it alone, campaign alongside the Socialists or campaign alongside the conservatives. Consider the difference between what Lib Dems say and do in the North with the words and actions of Lib Dems in the South.

The strategy was confusing and opportunist, and showed just how little independence it really had as a third party, provoking internal dissent (notably in Lyon, a large socialist city) and their vote fell considerably.

The decline continued in the European Union Parliamentary elections in 2009, where the MoDem vote dipped from 12% to 8%, and it officially lost its ‘third force’ status to the Greens. There were two main criticisms that explained such a failure. The first was the MoDem’s lack of an ideological spine; the second was that the campaign focused itself too much on the personality of its leader. The parallels for Britain should be evident. Finally, in the Regional Elections in March 2010, the MoDem secured its worst score ever of 4.2% leaving the movement essentially moribund.

The MoDem lost because they failed to win credibility. The question we have to pose is whether the act of being in government makes the Lib Dems more credible, to which I would say no. Though they have a little bit of experience for a handful of ministers, they have lost or thrown away everything the party had tried to establish since the 1980s. They abandoned their position on Tuition Fees, they abandoned their position on cuts and it can only be a matter of time before the voters abandon them.

If Labour lost its soul during its period in office, the Lib Dems have sold theirs for a few ministerial cars (which Cameron then took away). Our job now is to make sure Labour remains credible in Opposition, which I shall discuss in my sixth and final article.

Countering the Coalition 4: Don’t attack the Lib Dems

In the previous one, two and three parts, I have covered various opportunities that have arisen from the peculiarity of a Coalition government, argued that the Coalition will remain intact until the end of the parliament and why Labour should not try to drive a wedge between the two parties. The first trilogy was about what we should do, this next one will try to explain how to do it.

It is lots of fun and easy to do, but the Labour Party needs to be disciplined enough to resist attacking the Lib Dems over the betrayal of their voters. However, as the parable of the Labour MP on a cliff goes: kick off the Tory before the Lib Dem; put business before pleasure.

In many ways, this is not the New Politics but an even more secure return to two-party politics. As much as we would like to say that it was Labour that denied the Tories the majority they took for granted, until the Lib Dems gave it to them, the increased amount of ‘others’ in the Commons make it more and more difficult for any party to win a majority. This is the real damage done by the Lib Dems, and perhaps in the future we will have to add the Greens to the list.

To that extent, we should prepare ourselves for two party politics and focus our arguments against the real enemy of the Tory Party.

It is important to remember the real reason that the Coalition exists: the Tories could not get a majority by themselves. The fact that Conservatives released the “Hung Parliament” scare video should show that they invited the Lib Dems into the Government not by choice but by necessity. Cameron will rightly want to go it alone as soon as he can, though given his own announcements on fixed terms and dissolution he will have to bide his time unlike Wilson in 1974. Even if Cameron does wish to continue the coalition for a second term, it will be almost impossible to convince his backbenchers.

The key point is that the Coalition is not a marriage of two equal partners; it is a hostile takeover of a big company consuming a little one, and not all the Lib Dem shareholders will agree.

A similar example is President Sarkozy’s party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Few people realise that his government is actually UMP-Nouveau Centre. The Nouveau Centre was originally part of the Mouvement Democrate (MoDem), a party very similar to our Liberal Democrats, which will be a point of focus in Part Five, but it was formed by a group of MPs who decided to break away and ally with Sarkozy.

The worry for the UMP is that the Nouveau Centre will present its own candidate in the presidential election in 2012, draining a few important percentage points away from Sarkozy and a time where he is currently on level pegging with the Socialist Leader Martine Aubry. The Nouveau Centre thus tries to assert its independence despite not having any, being a tiny minority within the government.

The lesson from France is that Labour the best kind of Lib Dem squeeze will be to drop all the clumsy and ineffective lines it has been using since May. References to the “Con Dem Party” and repetition of the word “coalition” and “betrayal” serve no purpose except that it creates a novelty factor that will undoubtedly prolong the honeymoon period.

It is this appropriate to treat the Coalition not as something strange but as something that is all too familiar; this is a Tory Government in all but name. It is up to Labour to call it as it is.

By doing this, it takes away the room to manoeuvre that both parties are currently enjoying. They cannot keep using the excuse that their weakness, hypocrisy, u-turns and climb-downs are simply a result of having to compromise and that it is the “other party” that is responsible for all the bad things while they take the credit for the rest. In interviews, you can be sure that when things are going well a Conservative will represent the government but when it gets tough, they will wheel out a hapless Lib Dem fall guy. We have already seen it on Question Time over the last few weeks.

This reinforcement of collective responsibility is the only way Labour can hold the government to account from Opposition. The central theme is not to play on what the Lib Dems have done to form the Coalition but instead Labour should emphasise their similarities over their differences. It is vital that any Lib Dems who would associate themselves more with the left come to Labour instead of “others” however, it is possible that protest voting is just a component of the Lib Dem DNA.

Ultimately, we have to keep in mind that the Lib Dems are just there to make up the numbers on the Tory backbenches. We should therefore show them up as what they are: useful idiots. In interviews, you can be sure that when things are going well a Conservative will represent the government but when it gets tough, they will wheel out a hapless Lib Dem fall guy. We have already seen it on Question Time over the last few weeks.

Repeatedly, the Tories have taken advantage of the Lib Dems who are hopelessly out of their depth and essentially benign in that the Tories are winning the internal arguments so easily. On the Economy, on Foreign Policy, on Europe, on Health, Immigration, Families and more the Tories get their way, and that is just the original coalition agreement. It is clear that the Liberal leadership is content to let the conservatives run free, providing that they get a ride on the odd hobbyhorse. Instead of Proportional Representation, a referendum on Proportional Representation, the Alternative Vote, they seem to be happy with a paltry referendum on the Alternative Vote, which the Conservatives (and Labour if we have any sense) will oppose. There is no better example of giving a baby its bottle without literally presenting Clegg with one.

Before the election, the Lib Dems were given an inflated about of publicity which Labour now needs to suffocate by sidelining and dismissing the yellow dummies at the back. Here I have described how Labour should change its response to the Lib Dems; in Part Five I will examine how the Lib Dems have changed by themselves.

Countering the Coalition 2: Why the coalition will go the distance

At the start of the hung parliament, our instincts told us that the coalition would be unstable and probably break down within a year or two. Be it out of No Confidence from parliament or confidence that the Tories could win a majority alone, as Harold Wilson did in 1964. On the contrary, everything we have seen so far suggests that this coalition will be able to continue for the duration of the parliament.

Primarily, coalitions do not break down as easily as we are prone to think they do, and they last for as long as they need to last. Cameron can no longer call an election as it suits him, not least because he would need to include his deputy, who happens to be leader of a different party, it will even be constitutionally unavailable pending the introduction of Fixed-Term parliaments. Given the games the two parties are playing with 55% and 66% and dissolution votes being different from No Confidence votes, the framework is being set to keep the coalition in government for the whole five years.

If the coalition is going to be constitutionally secure, it is also structurally sound. We might have assumed that more Lib Dems would be feel uneasy working with the Tories but there has been little resistance so far, with the exception of a little tantrum over the rise in VAT. There seems to be very little dissent and no defections yet.

However, the VAT rise may be revealing. The parliament is young and the government has yet to face any real stress tests on difficult decisions where there exists a huge canyon between policies. With the exception of the Euro currency crisis, “Europe” as an issue is unlikely to arise as it did over the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties. The economic crisis is over and slowly recovering, giving the government a temporary sense of direction as it aims to reduce the deficit, which will keep the two parties on the same path.

The real pressure will come when by-elections and councils start to swing, but until then we have no effective barometer. Thus far, the Liberal Democrats have shown themselves to be much closer than anyone had expected, and coalitions have gone the distance between much more distant colleagues.

The regional government of the Generalitat in Catalonia has been governed by a coalition of three parties (a ‘tripartit’), and is now just a year away from the end of its mandate. They have been able to stick together despite mutually exclusive policy differences; that is to say, one party is against independence and the other is for it, as we might imagine a Labour-SNP coalition in Holyrood. The tripartit has been relatively successful in implementing and delivering a program. A government with three voices and three leaders gives itself to certain incoherence; the government will spin “normal constructive debate” but it inevitably gives the impression of disunity and confuses the public.

On a national level, it is more appropriate to draw a parallel with cohabitation in France. Cohabitation, where the President was of one party and the Parliament was of another, occurred three times. There was the widespread assumption that the public institutions would halt, and there would be political deadlock until the next election. This never happened because they found a way to work together; in essence power, responsibility, and the realities of government; something with which the Lib Dems are wholly unaccustomed, kept them together.

The Cohabitation governments were inevitable when Presidential terms were seven years and parliamentary terms were five years, but there was a constitutional provision for it but our constitution (or lack thereof) means that on the one hand the Coalition is flying blind. On the other hand, it also means that they are free to move and adapt with little constraint. As constitutional reform is on the agenda, they have even more freedom to set precedents for the future.

The coalition only exists because no party could win a majority. Depending on the effects of tampering with the electoral system, this is not the New Politics, but we are stuck with it for now at least.

It is Labour’s duty to defeat the BNP, we must end the ‘No Platform’ policy

The rise of the BNP is an issue that strikes a strange nerve in the Labour movement, one that triggers a huge sense of panic and hysteria. It is time to confront this phobia so we can confront the problem head on. Our first act must be to renounce the No Platform Policy.

Those in favour of the ‘No Platform’ policy see engaging with the BNP as tantamount to “legitimising them.” As if a number of councillors, a London Assembly member and two MEPs were not enough to prove the BNP’s electoral support it also arrogantly supposes that Labour is the only organisation which can decide whether other parties are legitimate or not. If we do not trust voters enough to make their own choices, then we have a far greater problem with democracy than we do with the BNP.

Positive change requires action; the only change without action is decay. ‘No Platform’ can work only when there is no platform on which the BNP can stand. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats do not share our practice of collective deafness and thus render ‘No Platform’ completely ineffective. On the contrary, the struggle against extremism is given yet more credibility with Labour taking a leading role in a united front.

Being the only major party refusing to participate in a debate always comes across as cowardice, always. Regardless of the principles that may lie behind the decision, refusing to enter into a debate projects a lack of confidence in our own abilities. Our values are invincible and so we must use them to full capacity. We cannot take the moral high ground in battles of fascism against democracy if our means are suppressive instead of progressive.

Our strategy must change from ‘crushing the vermin’ to ‘catching flies with honey’. The BNP will exist as long as there is racism and nationalism. Instead of trying to eradicate the party like continuously trying to stamp on a cockroach, our cause is so much more powerful if we use the strangely democratic means of persuading the persuadable. If there are some who cannot be reasoned with then yelling “Nazi Scum” will not change their mind but rather make them ever more determined.

Assuming that all BNP voters are racist is also to presume that core Labour voters are racist, if polling research is to be believed; the main reason people are likely to consider voting BNP is fear. They are fearful for their jobs, families and homes in a time of unprecedented economic instability and this fear is so easily exploited by the far-right against the easy target of immigration. Their success at the EU Parliament Elections (regardless of the electoral system), showed that people have turned to them as a non-mainstream party alternative, then combined with the MPs Expenses scandal it showed that voters feel more disconnected that ever. Surely this is sufficient enough to demonstrate that Labour needs to act quickly and decisively.

In reforming our approach, the policy of demonising the BNP as fascists and Nazis needs to stop. Despite whether the accusations are true or not, it plays into their own hands and illustrates the worst features of the “loony left” that descends to the same level of the BNP. All too often the questions of martyrdom and freedom of speech are classic features of the debate, though make no mistake, Griffin is no champion of Free Speech and to use such an argument is to do a disservice to one of our most precious and fundamental rights. They are not worthy of such a title.

In my personal experiences with the BNP the behaviour and conduct of those who chase the BNP in the name of freedom and democracy has been far worse than that of the BNP themselves. No matter how noble a cause, little has disappointed me more than a gang of young UAF protestors (their faces hidden by scarves) tripping up a poor elderly man with a cane who was trying to take part in the democratic process. It was more horrific than seeing some protestors with anarchist symbols and others running around with flags of the Soviet Union in the name of anti-fascism. To see a (now-former) Labour MEP standing alongside them was all the more painful.

Sitting on ivory towers refusing to get our hands dirty leaves an open goal for those who already feel disconnected. It astounds me that Labour’s predominant method of re-engaging with voters has been explicitly to avoid listening to them.

It is time to stop sounding the retreat and start taking back lost ground. We must not shy away from the challenges ahead; for the worst of enemies require the best of weapons.

A word of thanks to Bryony and Adam who played the role of Editor and provided some very useful feedback.

We're going to get hammered on June 4th – and videos like these don't help

I am absolutely furious at the disgraceful PPB released last week. There was no mention of Europe for the European Parliament Elections, there was no mention of councils for the Local Elections, and there was barely any mention of Labour either.

The broadcast was 2:40 of pure negative embarrassment. It is an obviously testing time for many Labour activists and with every punch the man in the video laid on that punch bag, it felt like one more blow to my self-respect as a Labour member. David Cameron would do X, David Cameron would do Y. Well what are we going to do? Yes, the broadcast may have been factual; yes, these things need to be said, but Labour comes across as a bully, scaremongering the electorate into voting for it. Maybe I’m a romantic, but I would prefer to ask people to vote out of support for us rather than fear of the opposition.

Before I go on to talk about the Party at large, I want to talk more specifically about this broadcast. Not only was it a more despicable campaign than the one in Crewe & Nantwich, it was also poorly executed. The people who made this video need hurling into the boardroom for a right ticking off from Sir Alan. Given a camera and a tenner, I would have produced a better PPB, and made a tenner. I’m no spin doctor, but I know that the first 30 seconds of a PPB should not be some mystery bloke walking up to a punch bag, and it shouldn’t continue for a cumulative minute throughout. “Where’s yer bloody product?”

Contrast this with, say, the Green Party broadcast: It was interesting, simple, and coherent, struck the right tone, dealt with misconceptions while also promoting their policy, with a decent dose of humour too. Contrast our broadcast with that of the Welsh Labour Party too, which was all-in-all a good PPB because it used the platform to promote the program. Rhodri Morgan talking about people “not getting paid to sit at home, but getting paid to train three days a week and work the other two” is exactly the kind of message we as Labourites should be sending all across the country. He even mentioned the word “Europe”.

“Europe” brings me neatly to the Conservative Broadcast. Too bad for us, it was a stroke of genius and Cameron killed two birds with one stone. He realised that nobody really cares about the European Elections, which is symptomatic of how little priority all the parties have given their MEPs, none of whom feature in our broadcast to talk about what they’ve been up to. He realised that voters want to sort out MPs’ expenses. Cameron confronted this immediately, and on top of that, he managed to avoid alienating half of his party by steering well clear of Europe. (UKIP’s PPB, while giving the impression of a daytime TV accident helpline advert, at least stated their case).

Controversially, offence is the best form of defence. We don’t need to focus on defending record in government which should speak for itself; we do need to show a way for the future. This is not to say that the two are mutually exclusive, but there is now a Blairite Generation of first-time voters (myself included) who don’t remember first hand how bad the Tories were, and there are even more (myself not included) who don’t even care.

Negative campaigning is both necessary and effective, but it won’t work for us in this situation. Labour is deeply unpopular by itself, so it’s up to us to sort it out, though when I say “us” here, I mean of course “them”, the people like “Gordon”, “Harriet” and “Ed” who keep emailing me to tell me everything is fine and that we’re actually 20 points ahead, it’s just that the newspapers (boo hiss) are bitter, and the PM is actually brilliant, oh and it’s America’s fault too.

There’s an argument I’ve heard around the Internet that “you just can’t attack Cameron” because he is genuinely liked. You’re much better off attacking the run-of-the-mill moat-owning Tory. This is true for the moment, but I believe it may be more effective to paint Cameron neither as a “shallow salesman” nor as “chief economic adviser to the Treasury on Black” when he was apparently little more than an intern. It’s my understanding that he was Michael Howard’s right hand man and chief speechwriter. He’s the Sorcerer’s Apprentice who wrote some of the worst kind of Tory anti-immigration scaremongering. You need a mix of positive and negative stuff.

I do blame Brown for the weakness of the Cabinet and of the Party. For a decade, the government was distracted by his ego, as he as his “Brownites” crushed and pushed any potential rival out of the way and blocked reform at any opportunity. It is for this reason Tony Blair hesitated to promote David Miliband, as much as we say “Brown’s Budget” instead of Alastair Darling’s, why Alan Milburn was sent to the back, and why Blunkett and Clarke had their trigger fingers ready. Dominated by Brown’s “flawed” personality, the legislative program has come to a complete halt.

Unfortunately, Labour’s interests are currently no longer compatible with those of the nation. Of course it is in the interest of the country to have a Labour government (not matter how bad Brown is, I can’t believe that Cameron will be better), but it is not in the Party’s interests to be in government. We need to finish modernising; there will be former Labour activists, who left because of Blair and Iraq and so forth, who have been waiting on the sidelines with their watches out waiting to pronounce the time-of-death of New Labour. This is no time to “go back” to Old Labour, as we so desperately need to go forward. The Old/New Labour divide remains a scar on the party that has to be overcome the PLP has to get over labels, whether they be Blairites, Brownites, Brownies, Harmen, or Milibandistas.

We’re going to get hammered on June 4th (though I’ll still be working faithfully in Regional Office up to polling day). By coincidence, so will our friends in the French Parti Socialiste, who have also had their fair share of leadership issues. They, however, have the advantage of Opposition. It is lamentable that when the world needs a credible centre-left ideology in the wake of an unprecedented economic crisis, Social Democrats across Europe have been caught unawares, despite the relative success of Zapatero’s PSOE; we have heard strangely little from him.

The impression I get from various people is that we are somehow repeating history. We might be in for a circa 1997 landslide, it might be a new Thatcher ‘83. High-up Labour figures suggest that we’re actually back in 1992. None of these seem very appealing to me, for if by some miracle we were to win the next General Election, without a battle plan in “the fight for Britain’s future” it might be better to cut our losses before it gets so bad we’re out for another 18 years. We have to reunite, rethink and be ready to return in four years time.

Article after article on LabourList, I see saccharin phrases like “if we get rid of Brown, that’s just what the Tories want” as if the Tories don’t want a worn out Labour leader who is politically inept, nationally despised and who can’t flash a decent smile. There will be people who will call me a “defeatist” or a “fatalist”; in return I’ll call them “complacent” and “foolish”. I can’t remember where I read it, either LabourList or LabourHome, but the fact we’ve fallen below 30% (20% on some polls) means that even the ‘core vote’ is deserting us. There is no hope that, unlike what the emails tell us, the Tories will come unstuck over policy, because they are not going to face any scrutiny while everyone watches Labour stumble behind from disaster to disaster. The party is at its lowest rating ever and ministers need to get their act together.