Labour Future
It's an iron rule of Labour politics that every time Labour starts to recover in the polls, Charles Clarke does or says something to destabilise the leadership.
This time its a new grouping of MPs (lots of whom I like and respect) who have called themselves Labour Future http://www.labourfuture.net/. Unfortunately the involvement of Charles means no one will read their worthy policy essays - instead they'll just assume it's an anti-Brown vehicle. Indeed that's already how it is being reported.
This is an almost exact re-run, with a cheaper website and less illustrious patrons, of the short-lived "The 2020 Vision" project launched by Clarke and Alan Milburn in February 2007 when they were pondering running a candidate against Brown for leader.
My hunch is that "Labour Future" will have about as much impact on Labour's future as "The 2020 Vision" did, i.e. nil.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 10:15 am
2 Comments:
I'm not convinced Labour is recovering or going to get a recovery. But I do agree the alternatives at the moment are zero.
If Labour gets a recovery it will because people are too scared to vote conservative because of the promised cuts in public spending.
Personally I think New Labour have made such a mess of virtually everything and is finally coming around to the plain fact that markets don't work.
You can't apply free markets to everything and get all what you want. It is like shitting into a slurry pit and expecting it to turn into gold. The problem now is that the country is skint and what ever Browns vision is he can't afford to deliver it.
Labour are going to cut, so are the tories and the lib dems...yet the banks that caused this mess are now back in profit and paying billions in bonuses. Why is that fair, why is the tax payer paying yet again.
These banks are no different to an individual who borrows too much and can't afford the repayments. People with poor credit ratings are penalized with high interest rates so why were the banks given virtually free loans? They should have repaid the loans plus 40%...thus resolving the countries debt problems.
The whole thing stinks.
9:14 pm, October 15, 2009
Dear members of Labour Future
I have just read this article in the Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/out-of-power-for-a-generation-warns-labour-group-1803300.html
and then visited your website here:
http://www.labourfuture.net/
I understand that the Labour Party is currently in crisis and in need of some
fresh ideas. The ideas which have come from your group so far, as listed in
the article, and in the essays on the website, are certainly most uninspiring!
Here some ideas off the top of my head:
* Get out of Iraq now
* Get out of Afghanistan now
* Provide a clear commitment that the UK will never attack Iran
* Restore the 10% tax rate
* Stop the creeping privatisation hiding behind "foundation" hospitals and "academy" schools
* Halt the proposed privatisation of Student Loans
* Implement clear environmental energy policies (non nuclear)
* Make the whole of the UK a GM-free zone
* Ensure that only elected MPs can be Government ministers
* Nationalise the rail network and drastically reduce rail fares
* Free prescriptions
* Free dental treatment
* Free optical treatment
* Free residential care for the elderly
* No "user fees" on any public service - it's high time to ignore the
IMF/World Bank dogma and put people as a priority, Mr Clarke!
* Renationalise water, gas and electricity
* Scrap Trident and its successor now
* Scrap ID cards and the ID database now
These are all policies which can save the country billions and restore people's trust in Labour by doing things that the people really want.
For the sake of the party I hope you can get this resolved ASAP. I don't want to live under Conservative rule ever again, but neither do I want the same Labour Party that was behind the disastrous war in Iraq and which kowtows to
big business at every opportunity.
If you can't make the necessary changes, then it's time to abandon all
political parties and recreate parliament based on a system of only
independent MPs. In that way the MPs will exclusively serve their
constituents, rather than serving two masters, their party and their constituents, as it is at present.
And why on earth create a website which merely contains wordy but worthless essays by members of your group? No pictures, no contact details, no contributions from people outside your party, no discussion forum, no possibility for interaction. Quite frankly, it's dreadful, with nothing that will make any real difference at all to the lives of ordinary people...
Look forward to your comments. Please say something on the Labourfuture
Yahoogroup...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/labourfuture/message/1
Thanks & regards
Marcus Williamson
10:52 am, October 16, 2009
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