More from the good old days
The next chapter in "The Road to Brighton Pier" takes us to the Labour Party Conference debate in the aftermath of the 1955 election defeat.
Harold Wilson moves a report on organisation which says the CLPs are not up to scratch when it comes to campaigning and the central party machine was "a penny-farthing in the jet age".
Bevan lays into this report by his former ally denouncing it as organisational response to a political problem. Labour lost, he says, because it was not socialist enough to inspire its activists and core vote.
Now where have I heard that before?
All this was conducted in a secret "closed" session to bypass a party rulebook ban on personal attacks on other members.
Except the conference organisers being part of the "penny-farthing" machine they neglected to notice the hall was not soundproof so all the journalists turfed out of the hall listened to the "private" session and transcribed it word for word whilst huddled round the ventilation ducts and open windows.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:58 pm
4 Comments:
Why are you even in the labour party? I really want to know, i mean, the labour party is a Socialist party yet people like you have joined it...in your previous comment you talk about the 'heroes of 1945' but if they advocated policies today of the same socialist strength as they advocated then- you would laugh and piss take probably call them looney left wingers. So, given this absolute contradiction in your terming of those social democratic and socialist politicians as heroes and your own political beliefs, how can you explain this contradiction. Why did you join a socialist (ON paper at least ;0) party in the first place...
1:09 am, February 27, 2007
"All this was conducted in a secret "closed" session to bypass a party rulebook ban on personal attacks on other members."
Can one safely assume, from the frequency of the attacks you make on other members, that this party rulebook ban is no longer in force?
4:53 am, February 27, 2007
This comment has been removed by the author.
7:53 am, February 27, 2007
Dear Mr Shef Socialist,
I joined the Labour Party because I wanted to get Labour governments elected that would increase spending on public services, reduce unemployment and poverty and create a more equal society. This one seems to have been doing that pretty well. If they were alive today Ernie Bevin and Herbert Morrison would also laugh at people who were so politically obtuse that they thought that the policy solutions - i.e. nationalisation - appropriate in 1945 for rescuing collapsing industries in a Britain nearly bankrupted by WW2 were relevant in a 21st century globalised economy. They would also be pleasantly surprised that policies to the left of those carried out by the 1945 government like Lords reform, devolution and a minimum wage, had been implemented.
"Jack" - correct. I try, however, to attack people's politics rather than their personalities, in part because I actually like on a personal level a lot of the people I politically disagree with.
7:55 am, February 27, 2007
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