BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!

Subject: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: akenaton
Date: 10 May 15 - 02:56 PM

Yes, remember the saga of the last socialist politician?
Michael Foot was sacrificed to the media, and that electable darling Mr A Blair, took the wounded Labour party to the right of the Tories.

Now, I haven't voted labour since that disgusting spectacle unfolded and socialism became a proscribed word in "liberal" circles, but for you staunch Labour Party followers, we have the unedifying sight of history repeating itself.

The zombies and hypocrites are emerging from under their stones to knife the decent but ineffectual Mr Milliband.
Be very afraid, Mr Mandelson, his protege Chuka Umunna, and all of the Blairites are back, even those who pledged loyalty to "Stressed Ed".

The Labour party is now officially dead, don't believe that there is any voice to protect the very poorest in society, any pretence of democracy will now be abandoned.
Already they are talking of the need to encourage and enrich the middle classes, to promote financial aspiration in a society rotten to the core.

The problem is, that as the Blair govt illustrated, "Red Tories" can achieve much more for the system than proper conservatives ever could, or would want to.
Remember Iraq?...Remember the failed PTI schemes? Remember deregulation of financial services?....even under a Conservative govt these horrors could never have happened......A "liberal" Labour Party is much more dangerous to our people and the world than any centre right Conservative administration could ever be.

I told you Labour was all empty rhetoric.....tell me I'm wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,weerover
Date: 10 May 15 - 03:27 PM

Quite a quandary for the Labour leadership: they can't get elected in England without moving massively to the right, and that would annihilate them in Scotland. Roll on elections to Holyrood next year.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 May 15 - 03:40 PM

I don't know whether you're right or wrong. I can't see through all the nonsense you typed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 10 May 15 - 04:12 PM

I would agree with your analysis, except I'm not convinced by 'more dangerous'. 'As dangerous,' maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 10 May 15 - 04:24 PM

I dreaded to put the news on in case the Tories had got in, or worse still Labour

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 May 15 - 04:28 PM

they can't get elected in England without moving massively to the right, and that would annihilate them in Scotland

How could they get any more annihilated in Scotland than they just have been?

The electorally logical thing for them to do is to go for the UKIP vote by turning themselves into a Strasserite fascist party. Which is pretty close to what Blairism is anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: akenaton
Date: 10 May 15 - 04:33 PM

Spleen...They are "more dangerous" because they will have no viable opposition if they achieve power.

Labour, in a Capitalist system should be a Party of opposition, if the Tories had been in power during the run up to Iraq, Labour would have opposed the war and used the strength of public opinion to gain political advantage.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 May 15 - 04:41 PM

I would remind the poster that the deregulation of financial services, which he says could never have happened under the Conservatives, was actually started by the Thatcher regime. Last I heard, she was a bit of a Conservative. As for the Labour Party being officially dead, it seems to me that every time a party loses an election in this country, it's "officially dead". Yet, within one or two more elections, it becomes "officially undead" and the other one becomes "officially dead". I'd say it is a rock-solid cert that the 2020 election will be between Labour and the Tories. They will both be a dead loss, but they will both be relatively undead.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 May 15 - 05:53 PM

ain't necessarilly so...

Kinnock didn't oppose Thatch over the Falklands...very gung ho, as i remember.

i have no idea, who will succeed Milliband. Wilson was always castigated for 'galloping pragmatism'. although much of what he did seems hopelessly idealistic - refusing to back America over Vietnam, creating the Open University, engaging with Sinn Fein in the Cheyne House talks - trying to defuse the Troubles before they really kicked off.

one thing is certain - a certain cadre of mudcatters will see no virtue in whoever emerges.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 10 May 15 - 06:10 PM

Labour won't gain back any ground in Scotland unless it moves massively to the left, which it won't do, or the SNP screws up royally. Labour thinks it can only gain ground in England if it 'occupies the centre ground' as they coyly put it, which means appealing to enough voters in those huge swathes of England that are now blue. But on the one hand, the Tories are better at being Tories than the Labour Party - though the urban political elite of the mini-Blairs and mini-Mandelsons would surely feel more at home in the Tory Party. I mean, why is someone like Tristam Hunt even in the Labour Party? On the other hand, the more Labour woos Waitrose woman, or whoever the latest middle class suburban target is, the more the traditional Labour base in the Labour heartlands will feel taken-for-granted, marginalised and disenfranchised. And as that happens, the process that is already underway will continue - UKIP came second place in plenty of safe Labour seats and the turnout in some areas was appalling - 18% in Manchester Central, for example.

I don't know what the answer is, but Labour is in a double bind it won't be easy for them to get out of. I'm off to the People's Assembly meeting in Manchester this week to see what the chances are of helping to built some sort of grass roots anti-austerity alternative. If this sort of thing gains enough momentum, at least it means none of the buggers will get too easy a ride...

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 10 May 15 - 06:45 PM

One thing is for sure. Voters are more sophisticated than in the days of left and right.

The effect any government can have is lower than in years gone by and few people under the age of forty see themselves as traditional anything.

What I do find heartening is the huge number of voters in Scotland who voted for SNP, whose manifesto was based on prosperity through equality and who are a left leaning liberal party.

Labour? The New Labour ideal was to become the one nation party and for a while it worked. They had their left wing to deal with in the same way Cameron has his right wing faction to deal with.

Regardless of party, realists and idealists under one banner.

Nothing to see here. Nothing to get excited about. Cameron will carry out his renegotiating around the shape of Europe and commend the outcome in a referendum that he will win and his Euro sceptics will lose, The NHS will drop from front page headlines for a while and the austerity measures will fail but our industrial output will increase so it can be managed.

Funnily enough, other than the Euro referendum, about the same as Labour would have done.

Bemused as ever to see people getting excited. I wouldn't want to be poor and vulnerable over the next five years but I doubt Labour would have done any different. Even SNP for all their fine talk are making a hash of the powers they have through Holyrood.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 May 15 - 06:58 PM

Unfortunately due to very successful tory / right wing press propaganda;
as far as the average political illiterate in the 'general public' is concerned..

the word 'socialism' is fearfully & hostilely perceived as on a par with, or even worse than,
'paedophilia'

Labour supporters may whisper that pariah 'S' word in secret behind closed doors...
but are very liable to be lynched if they should ever mistakenly dare utter it again in public....😶

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 May 15 - 08:40 PM

Labour lost because the Tories fought a brilliant election campaign that lasted five years. Every time a Tory or LibDem politician came on telly he or she was telling us about how they were having to clean up Labour's mess. Hands up those who ever heard a convincing riposte from Labour. Thought not. And towards the end we had, not the prospect of a Labour wipeout in Scotland, but the dead cert., so the Tories were able to scare the country to death that Labour would be propped up by an SNP whose goal was the destruction of the Union. For five years Miliband has not been able to get off the back foot. In one sense that wasn't his fault, but, let's face it, he was not the aggressive, feisty, unapologetic, charismatic figure needed to take on Cameron's populist but ultimately vacuous persona. At the moment it's hard to see who is. But we don't want people who keep apologising. Gordon apologised and got slaughtered. Nick apologised and got his party annihilated. Andy Burnham apologised and that will come back to bite his bum big time. Ed Balls has been apologising now, which fatally wounds his missus. Tell us what bastards the Tories are (there's plenty of material) and stop bloody apologising! I didn't hear anywhere near enough about the cynical explosion of academies, about unqualified teachers taking classes all over the place, about useless and damaging free schools, about how NHS waiting lists are going out of control again, about food banks, about the bedroom tax, about the bloody potholes in the roads round Widemouth Bay, about the explosion of zero-hours contracts, about the terrible mistreatment of disabled people, about how bankers' bonuses are still out of control. If a Tory burbles on about how Labour wrecked the economy, remind them in no uncertain terms that the bloody Tories backed Labour's economic policies right up to the Big Crunch. They do not have the moral high ground so don't let them claim it. They would have been no different. I don't like Mandelson one bit, but I did like the bollocking he meted out this morning. The Tories are a bunch of gits, we know it, so let's take the fight to them in future. They've got hard times coming up. A majority of 12 feels like a rout, but it isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 11 May 15 - 02:04 AM

I know there is more to it than this (% of GDP etc) but it seems to be that past figures show when it comes to the deficit (ie spending more than the country is making) the parties are in fact pretty similar. Why didn't Labour stress that?
From the table below I have taken a 29 year period which includes the Thatcher/Major years and then the Blair/Brown years up until the 2008 world financial crisis. So I have not included that year when the world was in economic chaos or the years since. So talking about normal spending over income during the period.
Out of the 29 years there have only been 6 years where there was not a budget deficit. Only 2 of those years were during a Tory gvt and the 3 best years were all in fact under Labour. The 2 years with the biggest deficits (1993 and 1994) were under a Tory gvt and in fact 4 out of the 5 worst deficits in this period were under Tory gvts.
I took an average of the respective years in gvt during this period and Labour's deficit was on average £16.49 billion – whilst the Tories were much the same, in fact they were slightly higher at £16.79 billion. So the idea that under normal circumstances we are the party to be trusted with the deficit and our record shows that just doesn't hold water – at least not in modern times!
Now the idea that it is the legacy of the previous gvt doesn't seem to fit either. Thatcher came into power facing a deficit of £8.4 billion but the Tory deficit hit its peak more a decade later after they themselves had run a surplus for a couple of years and Tony Blair inherited a deficit of £29.2 billion which was much larger than the previous Labour gvt had left Thatcher.
Again the idea is that despite the world crisis it was Labour who made the crisis even worse because of their spending mania. Really! Yes their deficit had increased from their surplus years but it was no worse that the Tory deficits of 1991 to 1995!
Now I know there are other factors to take into account and this is looking at one thing only but it is the one thing these parties were fixating on. It is clear that at least according to these stats neither party can boast over their record on the deficit and it has been normal that in most years there is actually a deficit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/9932748/Budget-2013-Britains-debt-and-deficit.html

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 15 - 02:25 AM

The immediate indications are that Labour is moving massively to the right. They will lose pretty much all of their old core voters. FOr example if it goes the way I think it will I will no longer be able to hold my nose and vote Labour.

But the conservatives have also leapt to the right - to the lunatic right in some cases - for example Gove is back centre stage, tasked it would seem with ensuring that any possibility of government being held to account for illegal actions (or indeed for any possibility for the poor to obtain justice) is destroyed.

So while Blue Labour may gain a foothold in what is asserted to be the middle ground there will be a large unrepresented area: the left ground.

So possibly if Left Unity and TUSC get their act together, and indeed get together with each other under a unity banner, there may be a substantial ground for them to occupy.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 May 15 - 04:31 AM

I think that history will be kinder to Blair than you all are.
He ended the war in Ireland.
He prevented a genocide of Muslims in Bosnia.
There are thousands of Balkan teenagers named after him.

Iraq was only a failure because of US mistakes made after the fall of Sadaam that left it to descend into lawless chaos.
Nothing he could have done.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 May 15 - 05:32 AM

Iraq was only a failure because of US mistakes made after the fall of Sadaam that left it to descend into lawless chaos.
Nothing he could have done.

"Nothing he could have done" only once he had taken us into the war.
He could have kept us out. Parliament could/would have kept us out if it were not for his lies.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 11 May 15 - 06:24 AM

You know, Keith was doing alright till he got to Iraq.

Yin and yang. There was a lot New Labour got right and a lot he did as a statesman to influence in a positive way. But the only way you can impress a red neck inbred US President with a low iq is to agree with him. The rest is, as they say, history.

Sorry Keith, you have again failed to grasp the point. The mess afterwards is irrelevant if the issue is whether there were legitimate reasons to go in in the first place. On that, Parliament was misled and that is up there with treason and sedition.

A pity. I genuinely believed in him for a long time, met him on a number of occasions and presented a proposal from a cabinet office think tank to him at No.10 on one occasion.

But all that is irrelevant. Call it misjudgement if you like, but there can never ever be a good judgement that includes lying to Pariament, especially as the Prime Minister and therefore First Lord of the Treasury. If that is allowed to happen, you may as well not bother with democracy because nanny appears to know best...

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 15 - 06:55 AM

I'm not convinced about all the talk of owning the centre ground, appealing to the middle classes, etc. Most people in reasonably well-paid work or with half-decent pensions know that it doesn't make much difference to them which lot is in power. It's wrong to assume that self-interest is the main driving force in making people vote one way or the other except for the few at the top. The Tories convinced the nation that Labour is incompetent with the economy (in spite of the fact that they're absolutely no better). They also persuaded the nation that the Scots are a dire threat to the Union. Those messages sank in, big time. The Torjes are ruthless bastards and they will not allow the truth to get in the way of their demonising. They let the LibDems take all the flak for the coalition's shortcomings then annihilated them. Ruthless, and Clegg, stupid bugger, never saw it coming. They stopped Labour's progress in England with the unfounded Scottish scare and the good old SNP did the rest. The campaign was a disaster, staying on the back foot and completely failing to take the fight to the Tories, in spite of having a ton of ammunition. Hypothetical talk about occupying the centre ground is just that, talk. Elections are won and lost on far less cerebral issues.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 May 15 - 06:59 AM

The other question is if a Tory-lite New New Labour government could be elected in future, would the degree of seperation from the Tories be enough to make it worth having them? Would their management of the NHS, education, the welfare system etc be enough of shade less cruel than the Tories to allow us to ignore all the other crap that goes with Blue Labour so we can lap up a few crumbs off the table? With mainstream politics in England, are those crumbs now the best we can hope for? And with the wholesale rejection of Labour by Scotland, is it all academic anyway? More questions than answers...

I also wonder if someone can explain Tory voters to me? What makes them tick? Where I live, it's Labour with the Lib Dems as the second biggest party, so I rarely get to discuss politics with Tory voters. I can't believe that all the people in the South, Midlands and pockets of the North who voted Tory are so weathly that they don't feel they need the safety net of a well resourced welfare state for themselves and their families... what drives them? Is it really the politics of 'I'm alright, Jack'? Or are they so surrounded by people who are doing ok for themselves that they can't conceive of the idea that there are swathes of ociety that aren't? Or is it all about swallowing the Tory lie about Labour rather than the bankers being responsible for the global financial disaster? Or are they just looking for a big strong daddy to look after them?

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:07 AM

It's swallowing the same lies that everyone else swallows plus I'm all right Jack for wealthier people. Add to that a veneer of demonising the unions and a few lies about benefits cheats and you're home. My grandad, who lived in a council house in Whitefield and worked in Salford docks, always voted Tory. The parish priest told him to, from the pulpit.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:26 AM

Interesting, Steve. My neighbours are from Cornwall, and reckon that there are still a swathe of Tory voters down there who gain no benefits at all from the Tories, but are still driven by a sense of deference to their 'betters'...

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:26 AM

Only tory voter I know and heard discussing things pre election is a brother of mine. He feels he has been better off over the last couple of years. I'm not convinced he would share your opinion (which I agree with you on) on the financial crash and a number of his employers (he is a self employed gardener) are very wealthy.

On the "Tory lite" bit, my own view is it shifts the perspective of the centre. Tories may be more extreme but if labour move further right, conservatives will look to go even further.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:29 AM

To be fair Steve, I don't think huge numbers vote on "I'm alright Jack" any more than "chippy envy." They are both sides of the same coin.

More younger voters each time there is an election. What do they know of Labour? Err.. A Tory government that business has less confidence in than the real Tories. They never saw the good that Wilson did in uniting the country, they never saw how Kinnock took on Militant, they never saw how financially inept the Major government was and they certainly didn't take on board the role of the Th*tcher years in creating a divisive society in the first place.

I think their trust is misplaced, but I blame Labour for not challenging myths, not setting out reality and frankly, for not coming over as electable to objective floating voters.

Cameron may wish to gamble with our standing in Europe but Milliband wanted to hand NHS to local councils. As somebody who has been involved in trying to unite health and social care, that frightened me almost to the point of not voting for them...

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:36 AM

So the defeat was due to feudal deference, religion and lies!

Even if those claims had any truth in them, Labour has shown over and over that it can win elections, even getting a majority of English seats.

It loses when it moves too far left as under Foot, Kinnock and now Milliband.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:37 AM

Talking of handing NHS control over to Local Councils, what about the Tories' 'Devo Manc'? Can't help feeling it could be a total disaster... the result may be the sight of the Greater Manchester Authorities doing the Tories' dirty work for them and privatising even faster than the Tories themselves would have done. Meanwhile Cameron and Co will be able to shrug and tell everyone it's none of their doing and none of their business...

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:43 AM

The thing is, Keith, the so-called centre ground has shifted so far to the right that someone who would in the past have been seen as being on the right of the Labour Party, like Milliband, can be cast as a left winger purely by being a shade to the left of the Blarites. Millaband was never any kind of left wing firebrand, nor did he claim to be. In this day and age, even Kenneth Clark is a dangerous subversive :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 11 May 15 - 07:59 AM

It could be.. The problem is that joint planning and seamless care are the outcomes people want. The Issue is that The NHS is, according to ONS, Treasury figures, Audit Commission and every other public sector regulator, far more efficient than local government. As chairman of a PCT a few years ago, I was horrified when disability aids went single budget and social services took over our service. They managed in the first year the neat trick of overspending by the first quarter and providing a lower standard of service. We however still had to handle the complaints but not able to change it...

Handing over health budgets is fine if the effect is to prevent over burdening in the first place. (Cold snap? Expect 10,000 old people entering hospital because with a little more support they could be cared for far better at home.) but that isn't what happens.

Manchester is under the spotlight. If they can pull it off, and if it can be seen to work, then so long as the success was due to far more than just progressive local government and NHS changing how it works, then it could roll out.

But I doubt it..

At the risk of agreeing with someone who gets confused when reading posts in the name of Musket, I shout from the roof tops that there is a difference between political interference and being accountable.

You can't put £105billion of tax payers money out to play and ministers say it's none of their business. Conversely, I see a future of a councillor being elected on forcing NHS to do things and the fun when doctors flick Vs at them. (Example that really happened - a councillor locally writing to Sec State to "force" a local hospital to reintroduce grommets for glue ear. No evidence for success, so no way a doctor would go against his or her clinical judgement and the only regulations in force back the doctor. A junior minister wrote back suggesting the councillor reads up on evidence based practice. But imagine a manifesto promise???)

Mind you, successive governments have tried to claim they don't interfere by interfering with reorganising the structures after every bloody election. Fingers crossed the cabinet listen to Hunt as one thing I will say for him, he regretted the Lansley reforms and sees no future in doing it again.

Conversely, when Labour said the would repeal what the last government did, it was Islington speke for reorganise yet again.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 May 15 - 08:31 AM

Yes, Keith, the lies of the rich media barons stuffed Labour - but not standing to fight the lies wa a mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 11 May 15 - 08:40 AM

Labour are now the political equivalent of a clone band.
Why would you go to see a tribute band when you can see the real thing?
Why vote for a red Tory when you can have a bona fide one?
There are very few options for any voter left of centre voters in England and I don't see the situation changing in the near or distant future.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 May 15 - 09:04 AM

Richard, if it was really the lies of rich media barons that stuffed Labour, how come we have had so many Labour governments?
Have rich media barons changed?
No.
Labour has.
It has moved to the left again and stuffed itself, again.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Penny S.
Date: 11 May 15 - 09:41 AM

Apparently, Guardian letters - last one on page

"One significant fact not reported on in this general election is that Labour increased their share of the vote by 3.6% in England. Why is this being ignored?
Stuart Raymond"

Which rather challenges the idea that Labour was trashed because of their policies, or being perceived as too far left.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 May 15 - 09:58 AM

On top of all the drip drip effect tory media lies,
and unprecedented orchestrated tory supporter sniping
in the new fangled internet forums and chat rooms...

In the eyes of a large mass of floating voters,
in a key TV debate,
Leanne Wood did more than anyone else to attack,
interrupt, and try to publicly derail Miliband
and make him look a flustered twat....

Divide and rule...

Cameron just stood on the sideline observing with relief and smug satisfaction
at her public display of petty divisive carping and attention seeking.

btw.. my mrs is Welsh, proud of her nation, and fancies the idea of a bit more independence...
but even so, she is dispairing of Leanne Wood's undisciplined destructive antics.

Well done Ms Wood, just look at what you achieved for even Wales
let alone the rest of us...😬

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 15 - 10:03 AM

Er, Keith, I seem to remember Murdoch siding with Blair.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Teribus
Date: 11 May 15 - 10:09 AM

If "New" New Labour isolates the trash who did this then all the better

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 15 - 10:13 AM

Bad link.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 May 15 - 10:14 AM

You all show contempt for the electorate.
They are to blame for for the election result.
Not Murdock or rich media barons, not priests, not class deference.
They just reject Old Labour.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 May 15 - 10:22 AM

Keith - not 'contempt'..

but dismay

[for a multitude of complex interrelated factors..]

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 11 May 15 - 10:53 AM

"You all show contempt for the electorate."

Either demonstrate where I did or apologise.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 May 15 - 11:43 AM

Yup. Dismay.

***********************************

Terribus, demos sometimes get out of hand. The right knows all about this - check out what happens when the English Defence League or the Northern Infidels turn up in a town near you.

Despite the actions of a few of the people who turned up at the PA demo, they are a peaceful movement for change:

The People's Assembly:

1. Is a broad united national campaign against austerity, cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services, based on general agreement with the signatories' Founding Statement.

2. Is linked to no political party, committed to open non-sectarian working and dedicated to supplementing, rather than supplanting, trade union, student, pensioner and community opposition to austerity measures.

3. Is based on affiliation by individual supporters, unions nationally and locally, anti-cuts campaigns, and other student, pensioner, unemployed, disabled people's, women's, Black people's, youth and LGBT campaigning organisations.

4. Aspires to support, encourage, coordinate joint action, and facilitate a transfer of experience rather than to command.

5. Encourages the establishment of new local campaigns and/or People's Assemblies.

6. Organises newsletters, a website, twitter, Facebook and social media, meetings, conferences, lobbies, rallies, marches, demonstrations and other events.

7. Vehemently opposes all proposals to "solve" the crisis by discrimination or scapegoating on grounds of disability, race, religion, ethnic origin, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation or identity.

8. Liaises closely with similar movements in other countries resisting austerity measures.

9. Encourages a wide debate on how to protect the welfare state and develop an alternative programme for economic and social recovery.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST,weerover
Date: 11 May 15 - 02:47 PM

Jack,

Next year's elections to the Scottish Parliament use a "list" system in order to produce an element of proportionality. If everyone voted as they did last week, that would still give Labour a decent number of MSPs. If there is a perceived Labour shift to the right, even those could well be in jeopardy.

wr

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 May 15 - 03:14 PM

Musket, you did not suggest that Labour was right and the electorate wrong.
When I said "you all" I should have exempted you.
Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 11 May 15 - 03:53 PM

Thank you

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 May 15 - 08:10 AM

David Milliband,
"There's absolutely no point in blaming the electorate. Any suggestion that they didn't 'get it' is wrong. They didn't want what was being offered."

Miliband said: "I think that the voters have delivered a very clear verdict. And unless Labour is able to embrace a politics of aspiration and inclusion, a politics that defies some of the traditional labels that have dogged politics for so long, then it's not going to win."

He said the choice was "very, very clear" – "either we build on what Labour achieved in 1997 and we have a chance to succeed, or we abandon it and we fail. That's what's happened in 2010, in 2015, and it mustn't happen again."

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 15 - 08:55 AM

... and David Milliband is some kind of serious supreme authority
whose opinions are more substantially correct than anyone elses ?????

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 15 - 09:48 AM

and who exactly is "blaming the electorate" ?

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 12 May 15 - 10:26 AM

I'm not sure. There was a suggestion that everybody was though.

Labour does need to reclaim the middle ground. We don't have an SNP to claim it in England and Wales so it shouldn't be too bloody difficult.

Five years of honing skills as opposition is generally good training ground for a would be leader. Be biggered if I know who is up to the task though. Andy Burnham has the intelligence but statesman quality? Not too sure about that. I would pop down the bookies if Alan Johnson throws his hat in the ring. I doubt I would get good odds though.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 May 15 - 10:36 AM

The Labour membership,the MPs and MEPs all voted for DM to be leader.
It was the affiliated members vote that got EM in.

That is one reason I thought it worth quoting him.
The other was that it endorsed my views.

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Musket
Date: 12 May 15 - 10:51 AM

Be buggered if I meant to say biggered in my last post.

iPad for sale.
Tsk

Subject: RE: BS: The Return!....of....New Labour!!!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 15 - 05:52 PM

I am blaming the idiots who failed to read behind the lies in Murdoch (not "Murdock") and Rothermere, and Desmond propaganda. Why don't they THINK?