Is Polly right - Labour’s now “the stupid party”?
May 6th, 2008
Some depressing words for Labour supporters in Polly Toynbee’s Tuesday Guardian column this morning.
After having this to say about May 22nd “..for the Conservatives are no longer the stupid party. Watch them win the Crewe and Nantwich byelection, easy…” she goes on:-
“…It is Labour that has become the stupid party - dumb, directionless, depressing. That’s why the voters gave them that 24% sucker punch: it wasn’t about ideology, it was about basic political competence. As the Conservatives unfurl new policies for the next election, how can Labour oppose them? It’s a poser because Labour has no firm territory of its own to stand on. They can hardly castigate Tory “reforms” out-sourcing more of education and the NHS. Labour did that too. Or rebut Tory promises to be even tougher on crime, sentencing and filling up more prisons, because Labour did that too. Favouring business and the hyper-rich? Labour did it too. Ungenerous to the poor? Labour will trip over its 10p tax debacle. Housing? Labour built the least since the war. Europe? Labour has been as Eurosceptic as the Tories are likely to be. So the party risks being struck dumb on almost every Tory policy - left to whinge on the sidelines about small differences of detail…”
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I couldn’t help but notice this bit:
“Victory will stifle Tory Euro-frenzy, letting Cameron escape his mad pledge to take Conservative MEPs out of the mainstream EPP into a little ragbag of neo-fascist stragglers.”
Since when were the Czech Civic Democrats and the Bulgarian UDF “neo-fascist”? Is it because the UDF opposed communist rule? She’s absolutely barking.
Whenever Pollly Toynbee and the subject of Europe come together, I always think of something which happened on BBC Question Time a few years ago. People were making suggestions about which European country had the worst railway infrastructure. Someone suggested “Albania?” to which the Pollly instantly rampantly blurted out “Albania’s not in Europe”. Such is the EU-blinkered fanaticism of pro-EU morons that she had lost any sensible knowledge of basic geography and was unable to distinguish between the EU and Europe.
That’s what you get when policy is determined by press officers chasing headlines in the Tory papers.
And it is worse. As yesterday’s re-U-turn on the rubbish tax shows, Labour seems determined to continue the assault on its own supporters.
Government advertising adds to the repressive atmosphere. On buses (used more by Labour voters than Conservative ones, I’d wager) as well as on television, we are harangued. Big Brother is watching us lest we commit benefit fraud, evade car tax, or watch television without a licence. It’s all stick and no carrot with this government, and none of it likely to promote a feel-good atmosphere.
2. Albania was in Europe; it is islamic territory now.
If Europe is a christian or post-christian territory, then she is right.
I don’t agree with the blessed Polly - the dividing lines are still there but the government has been lousy at communicating them.
Labour is the pro-European party while the cons are still hung up on the idea of a referendum on the EU Treaty - I note that the conservative challenger in C&N has put a question about Europe in his open letter to the Labour candidate, regardless of the fact that it is very low down on voter’s concerns.
Labour favours building more social housing while the Tory policy is that it should wither away. Labour is giving more kids the opportunity of going to university whereas the cons wish to cut the number, in order that more of them can become plumbers. Labour has recently announced new policies on children’s play and youth services - greatly mocked by the media and Tory blogs - but the cons haven’t come up with any chidrens’ policies of their own.
I wouldn’t pretend that Labour’s position is other than pretty dire at the moment but the direction of travel is certainly different.
Well, Mike…
Some of the guys on here don’t like it when I say we are all Tories now, and play about with my factions, but Polly puts my strange world into some kind of context.
Some of us oldies can look back at the Tory Party [SuperMac faction] and recognise the elasticism of an eclectic Tory economic policy. SuperMac kept a close eye on the workers and always found enough cash to keep them just happy enough. His patrician policies were determined to keep the working classes away from the levers of power and to benefit the middle classes to keep them voting Tory. Pure genius!
Then along comes Hilda with her magical 42% and tells the workers to fcuk off. She sells off manufacturing industry, closes the coal mines, decimates communities and rubbishes trades unions.
The Liar, an old patrician Tory like SuperMac takes on poverty, fair enough [he fails] but adheres to Hilda’s authoritarianism and jingoism - sabre-rattling his way round the world.
Hilda caused NuLabour, and voters reacted against what she stood for accordingly. Now we have Pretty Boy Dave and The Man Who Was Never Elected desperately fighting for the ground on which stands paternalism, and Brownstuff wandering around in a blind stupour, tainted by Hilda and The Liar’s policies and unable to be patrician, for his natural authoritarianism stands in the way of any compromise.
Our country needs social liberalism and economic conservatism. We need to be a country that cares for those who need help but one that is wise enough to live within its means. We do not need to vie with the USA to be the world’s policeman but need to use what little remains of our influence to be a wise counsellor to those who seek answers to the devlishly difficult problems we face on this tiny ball of dust.
The last thing we need is a stifling nationalism in an ever-smaller world, for that way madness lies and history is full of examples of the nationalisms of small-minded authoritarians.
Sorry for this long post but for God’s sake let us get away from a politics that is about tribal hatred and ugly contest pageants and let us resume a discussion of the values of a mixed management of idealism and pragmatism that will bind us together and not pull us apart.
Malcolm
“Labour favours building more social housing” is rather like saying “Derby favour scoring more goals”.
6. I don’t really like making cheesy, unoriginal comments but the line below is just asking for it:
‘I wouldn’t pretend that Labour’s position is other than pretty dire at the moment but the direction of travel is certainly different.’
Yep, down, down, down for Labour… whereas it’s up, up, up for the Tories…
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Obama still +2!!!!!
She thinks that Labour were ‘radical’ in the 1997 Parliament. That is the tragedy of the whole new Labour con.
They were not radical. They had a humongous majority, the goodwill of millions of people and they achieved sweet FA. A government with no ideological basis started in 1997 with only one goal. That goal was not to end inequality, poverty or England’s woeful performances in World Cups post-1966. That goal was re-election.
It achieved it spectacularly, but that is all it had to show for 4 years of obsessive media-management.
The Labour government of 1997-2010 will be remembered for what? Waste. Waste of money and waste of a glorious opportunity.
People hated Thatcher more than they will ever hate Gordon Brown. But Tony Blair should have embraced being hated as only the truly successful ever get there.
He had the power to really achieve something in his life. Instead all he achieved was a few general election wins. He left the country pretty much as he found it with a bit of constitutional rubble thrown in.
The Tory years started with a battering, ideological oligarch who changed Britain forever. That made her loathed by about a third of the population. They then stumbled on with an affable chap trying to keep his party together until they got kicked out. But he never really had the power to do anything anyway.
Labour did this totally the wrong way round. They had their affable, please all-comers chap while they had the mandate, cash and power to do something to change the whole direction of the country. Now, in the lame-duck powerlessness of a declining government they have their clunking fist.
The Granita-deal was the wrong way round. Labour’s place in history will suffer for it.
Oh and on-topic. I thought Polly and pals said Boris would be a disaster for London. Now he’s actually won they accept he’s going to be a competent, nay loved mayor!?!?
Unbelievable. And there was I thinking The Guardian articles were honest assessments of London’s fate post-May 1… tsk
Polly gets paid to write sh1te like this.
What Polly is saying makes sense but frankly for all the wrong reasons and is predicated on the last great Labour fallacy. This fallacy is that there is something they can do to win the next election. There isn’t. The next 2 years for Labour is about losing well, and making opposition more painless. Gordon has to take the next months and years to prepare Labour for opposition and ensure that whilst defeated they are still in contention. I would suggest that they follow Polly on this, retreat to a core vote strategy.
Blairism is Labour’s only chance long-term but the problem is that whatever strategy goes down at an election will be eschewed. Gordon has to have the tactical nouse to discredit the strategy that would fail in opposition. Retreat to Blairism now and Labour would probably be out of power for a decade and more, discredit the alternative and Labour will certainly lose but they will have more of a chance of regrouping quickly.
I think Labour have a real tactical dilemma here. The New Labour project worked by sailing as close as possible to the Tories, while throwing the occasional bone to the left. That way they got anything in the wide open space to the left of the Tories, from the centre-right all the way to George Galloway. That worked great while the Tories were determined to make themselves unelectable and people still had bad memories of them from last time. But neither of those things are true now. So when Gordon tried to follow the formula by doing Toryish things on Inheritance Tax and income tax, he ended up losing his left-wing (who didn’t bother turning out) without attracting centre / centre-right voters.
The question for Labour now is whether to shore up their core vote in the virtual certainty of losing their majority or carry on somehow trying to hold the centre at the risk of losing everybody. For Gordon personally this is the choice between certain doom and probable doom, so I guess he’ll choose the latter.
The Granita-deal was the wrong way round. Labour’s place in history will suffer for it.
That completely ignores the fact that Gordon Brown is completely unsuitable to lead. He can only get his way through bullying and bad mannered behaviour.
Add to that the fact that he really doesn’t have a clue, or a coherent belief in anything other than his own position and was a barrier to the few ideas that Tony Blair ever had.
Part of Tony Blair’s appeal, was the dour, prudent and sensible chap that stood by his side. He had the down to earth sidekick to balance his charm. Now the voters have realised that only the dour bit is correct, and they are completely disillusioned.
You could ask the same question about Scottish politics too.
We all know what the SNP want. The Scottish Tories have something to say for right wing Scotland - mind you supporting the SNP government makes it a bit odd and here is a clear niche for the Scottish Lib Dems on civil liberties, environment etc
, but what is Scottish Labour actually for?
I was out canvassing last night and predictably the Labour vote is so soft it is barely registering. They have to have a campaign/message or enthusiasm to bring those voters back. I can’t see what it is.
10. Of course Labour made radical changes in 97. For example, the minimum wage is part of our political/economic landscape now but when Labour set out to introduce there was bitter opposition from the Tories who claimed that it would bring about mass unemployment. Labour within weeks of office signed up to the EU’s Social Chapter, entitling workers to a package of basic rights. The Tories declare that they want to withdraw from it all over again it again – a completely potty proposal because they would now have to withdraw from the EU to make this possible.
Tony Blair’s talent as a politician was that he made these radical changes while indeed presenting himself as an “affable, please all-comers chap” – and he obviously convinced you.
a completely potty proposal because they would now have to withdraw from the EU to make this possible.
You make that sound like something negative
This is simply Polly Toynbee pursuing her own agenda. Her Tuesday articles are her tub-thumpers, her Friday articles are more considered. Amazingly, her prescription is what she has long advocated - soak the rich. That may salvage Labour’s core vote, but it’s not an election-winning strategy.
http://www.politicshomeindex.com/landing.aspx
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Didn’t last long, did it?
16 - The minimum wage wasn’t particularly radical. I speak as someone who benefited at the time. Sure, it was opposed. That doesn’t make it radical. It was hardly the social democrat version of union smashing!
20 170-seat majority. He could practically have gotten away with stringing up the Queen mum! He adopted Tory spending plans!
15 On Scotland it seems Wendy Alexander didn’t discuss her support for a Scots referendum on independence with Gordon, that is the briefing no 10 seems to be giving papers (nor of course did she tell the Lib Dems and Tories in what now seems a dead initiative of a commission into new powers). She gets support from Douglas Alexander, who presumably has decided to unhitch his wagon from Gordon’s train.
Telegraph has a comment piece on this UDI from Scots Labour
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/06/do0604.xml
19 I can get Politics Home OK.
Here is a little tidbit for those of you betting on the date of the next UK GE:
- “Last night, a spokesman for Ms Alexander said: “A tipping point has been reached. It is now clear the general election will not take place for some time… “
I interpret that as being “the longest possible time”, ie. May/June 2010. In my opinion if you are betting on anything other than May/June 2010 then you are absolutely barking mad.
A query for you guys with bitter experience of bookmakers, and how they choose to settle bets:
I assume that all these types of bets are worded something like ‘the date of the next UK general election’. But here’s a poser: what if there never is another election to a United Kingdom Parliament? I ask in all seriousness, because it is now looking increasingly clear that Wendy Alexander is going to try to push a Scottish Independence Referendum Bill through the Scottish Parliament. IF it gets through parliament and onto the statute book, and IF the Scottish people say ‘Yes’, then there will no longer be a UK Parliament to which to have an election. Quite what the new southern state would be called is open to suggestions (the Kingom of England, West Anglia and the Wee Poor Daft Corner of Ireland?), but it would not be the ‘United Kingdom’, would it?
While I’m on the topic of Labour’s mooted referendum bill: how will you Tories and LabDims vote? And how on earth can Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg deny us all a vote on the EU constitution (which was in their manifestoes), but support a referendum on Scottish independence (which was not in their manifestoes, and in fact seems to have been made up by the Alexander siblings on the back of a fag packet last week when they heard that the Tories had won Southampton Council.)
- “… one Labour MP asked if Ms Alexander “was off her head”, adding: “What is she thinking?”"
Well, quite! I could not possibly have put it more succinctly myself. It is so rare to find such an articulate Labourite these days…..
- “What questions would be asked?
Three options have been mooted:
Should Scotland be independent? Yes or no.
Or: Which of the following do you prefer, Independence, more powers for Scotland or the status quo?
Or Question 1: Do you want independence? Question 2: If devolution continues, do you want the Scottish Parliament to have more powers?”
“Alexander ‘wants poll in 12 months’”
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics/Alexander–39wants-poll-in.4051886.jp
‘Labour within weeks of office signed up to the EU’s Social Chapter, entitling workers to a package of basic rights. The Tories declare that they want to withdraw from it all over again it again – a completely potty proposal because they would now have to withdraw from the EU to make this possible.’
The great lie of the pro Europeans. Do you really think the for the sake of a few rules, the EU would risk losing our £10 billion a year contribution.
23. typo
“the Kingdom of England, West Anglia and the Wee Poor Daft Corner of Ireland”
23. Stuart, if Scotland left the UK, England, Wales And Northern Ireland would be left. I have heard the term ‘Ewanistan’ used.
26.
4.Phillipe…Thank you for being so funny but as Thora Hird once said on “Last of the Summer Wine” - “Don’t show your ignorance in front of strangers love”. Apart from the obvious fact that a religion is not a geographic location (Oh! You are being ironic? What wit!) there is a strong Christian Orthodox presence in Albania too.
As for the Labour Party - in a post-industrial Britain can there still be a compact, recognisable “working class” which can be relied on to vote Labour asa knee-jerk reaction? Even Ken Livingstone’s campaign so heavily reliant on labelling Boris as a toff who went to Eton and Oxford failed to realise that many people who could loosely be defined as “working class” would love their son to go to Eton and Oxford and see nothing wrong in Boris having done just that. Why? After Blair made even bad or mediocre university education so expensive (and especially so for “working class” families) people realised that if you can afford it you may as well have the best for your child and good luck to anybody who can manage it. The question now facing the Labour Party is “What is the point of the Labour Party?”.
- “LABOUR leader Wendy Alexander called for an independence referendum nine months ago, it was revealed yesterday.
An internal Labour Party document, prepared by her for “senior figures north and south of the Border” last August, called for her party to take on the SNP in a poll as a matter of urgency.
The document, exclusively revealed to the Record, warned that First Minister Alex Salmond wanted to wait until 2010 for a referendum.
It said he would then take maximum advantage from “three-and-a-half years of SNP engineered constitutional debate and having established himself and his party as a credible party practised in government”.”
So, even way back in August 2007 Wendy Alexander acknowledged that the Scottish National Party administration would perform well, or at least competently, being “a credible party practised in government”. She knew that Salmond and his Cabinet were good: very, very good! She’s not as daft as she looks then.
- “Last night, a source close to PM Gordon Brown said: “We are not frightened of a referendum because, like us, the vast majority of Scots believe in the Union.”"
Indeed? Well, we’ll all find out if that statement is true or false soon enough…..
The Daily Record/Sunday Mail are clearly being fed these “Exclusives” directly from John Smith House. This is not the work of a ‘mole’, this is coming straight from the top - the very top. This stuff is coming straight from Gordon Brown himself. I will be keeing a close eye on those newspapers.
‘Labour planned for independence u-turn nine months ago’ -
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/05/06/labour-planned-for-independence-u-turn-nine-months-ago-86908-20406625/
22
Ta. Had to change browsers.
Philippe Magnan in 5: 2. Albania was in Europe; it is islamic territory now.
If Europe is a christian or post-christian territory, then she is right.
Philippe…trolling for Hillary and now this, eh? Fact: Albania is applying to join the EU. It is obvious that Polly Toynbee was referring to the EU and not the continent of Europe. Fact: there are millions of Moslems living quite happily within the EU.
It is opinions like yours which allow those who wish to perpetuate fear politics (eg. Dubbya, McCain, Hillary) to do so. It is the fear generated through this which causes those on both sides to think that a bunker-mentality is a good one.
What is really strange is that “God-fearing” so-called Christians are happy to judge anyone who isn’t white and who doesn’t turn up to hear a white so-called Christian preacher every Sunday. Strange, because one of Jesus’s most powerful messages was of unconditional love. You see, love and fear cannot co-exist simultaneously.
20 – re the minimum wage. I don’t know how you define “radical”. It had never been done before - for example by previous Labour governments. They had certainly considered the measure too radical. You also have to define “radical” in terms of what everyone else believes. The consensus of Conservative and business opinion at the time was that the minimum wage would bring about mass unemployment, the collapse of business, and mayhem in the streets. The Tories fought the measure bitterly and MPs had to stay up all night to get it through Parliament.
I am very glad that you benefited from the minimum wage, David. The fact that you don’t give the government much credit for it shows the political dilemma for any incumbent government, I suppose. However great the government’s achievements you cannot simply go on reminding people about them, because they won’t believe you. You need to spell out a vision for the future.
Gordon Brown is not, frankly, providing that vision at the moment. Dave Cameron is. Dave’s vision is mostly b*llocks, but it is enough for many electors to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Off for a spot of breakfast now
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To those of you having bundles of bacon on Clinton.Wins.Indiana: do not worry about the last Zomby poll.
It’s rather good, in fact, for it might keep the odds in the 1.2 area…
31
What do you mean ‘trolling for Hillary’, seriously?
Looks like the Herald has commissioned another TNS System 3 opinion poll, but are refusing to publish (or delaying publishing?) the key findings: Scottish voting intention. I wonder why?
Nevertheless, it is wonderful to be getting so much polling information from Scotland lately. I think that it all adds to the general air of excitement north of the border. Things are happening.
‘46% of Scots support SNP local income tax, says poll’
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2248241.0.46_of_Scots_support_SNP_local_income_tax_says_poll.php
13. EiT asks all the right questions. New Labour was able to get away with its big tent triangulation strategy for its first seven or eight years because it had no serious competition on either the left or the centre. The Lib Dems co-operated in the centre-left and neither the BNP nor Respect had found their place in the system. The price of that electoral success was not doing much that could disrupt the coalition, which is to say, not doing much at all.
In what I hope will come to be seen as one of the best pieces of political positioning in a tough corner, much credit for the Conservatives current success should go to William Hague. He tried to match Blair in the centre early on in his leadership and found that he couldn’t, and continuing to try risked losing his core vote as well as failing to win the centre - a similar dilemma to that which Brown is now in (except that Brown has the bonus of being able to do more as he’s in government). Hague therefore adopted a core-vote strategy and saw off the UKIP challenge with his keep-the-pound campaign. It lost him the election, but it kept the Conservatives in the game. It was also successful in its own right, in that it more or less ended discussion of adopting the Euro. He knew the time wasn’t right to go on the offensive.
How will Brown adapt to the challenge? The first thing to say is that it is far too soon to write Labour out of the next election; they have a huge advantage in seats over the Conservatives and that matters in terms of local organisation and spending. On the other, Labour has much more competition. The Conservatives only had to deal with UKIP; Labour has the Lib Dems, the Greens, the BNP and Respect all fighting for chunks of the Blair coalition (the BNP also attracts parts of the Conservative coalition as well but that’s not the point here).
Unless Labour can give some positive reason for people to vote for it, what is its future? Put another way, what is the point of a ‘Stop the Tories’ party which is less popular than the Tory Party?
Toynbee is right: Labour has lost touch with its core vote and in a difficult situation runs the real risk of irrelevance and replacement by one or more on the centre/left if it does not address that issue. Doing that runs the counter risk of failing to build an election-winning coalition.
There is a final point where Toynbee is somewhere close to right. People need to believe in their government’s belief in itself and its policies. The dithering and u-turns mean it is impossible to get out a clear narrative as to what the government’s goals are. People respected Thatcher (often even while hating her) because she knew what she was trying to do and knew how she was going to get there. There is no equivalent thrust to Brown’s government, and consequently, no equivalent respect. It might just be worth creating a few enemies if it means creating a few supporters.
32. Well, a national minimun wage hadn’t been done before, but the Liberal government before the First World War introduced wages councils, which amounted to much the same thing - so reintroducing a variant of a policy first implemented ninety years or so earlier can’t be that radical.
31
“Fact: Albania is applying to join the EU.”
Sure. As well as Turkey.
But that does not make ‘em European countries — in a cultural sense.
It depends of HOW Europe is being defined.
For me, Europe is of Roman, Greek, Judeo-Christian Heritage, and since the birth of the modern state, it is capitalist.
Islam — as a theologico-political doctrine, and as a way of life — is not European at all. It is foreign.
That does not mean it is evil, that it shall be feared.
It only mean that sharia-law, for instance, is diametrically opposed to liberalism, christianisme and the Rule of Law. It is incompatible.
Of course, it is possible for a lot of moslems to live and reproduce happily in Europe — by becoming European. Not by islamizing it, for the later will only give rise to fascistic reaction. This shall be prevened, doesn’t it?
It is obvious that Polly Toynbee was referring to the EU and not the continent of Europe. Fact: there are millions of Moslems living quite happily within the EU.
It is opinions like yours which allow those who wish to perpetuate fear politics (eg. Dubbya, McCain, Hillary) to do so. It is the fear generated through this which causes those on both sides to think that a bunker-mentality is a good one.
What is really strange is that “God-fearing” so-called Christians are happy to judge anyone who isn’t white and who doesn’t turn up to hear a white so-called Christian preacher every Sunday. Strange, because one of Jesus’s most powerful messages was of unconditional love. You see, love and fear cannot co-exist simultaneously.
Former Labour MP and Old Etonian Tam Dalyell, the original poser of the infamous ‘West Lothian Question’, had a letter published in the Scotsman yesterday:
- “Some of us have always thought that MSPs, not just of the SNP but of all parties, would ask for more and more, for the institution in which they found themselves, until either we reached a situation indistinguishable from an independent state or the English simply said (in a referendum that could hardly be denied to them): “Let the Scots go their own way!”
If a separate state is what people really want, so be it. But we should not allow the continued existence of the parliament, inevitably, to be the motorway-without-exit to a separate Scotland and the dismantling of the British state.”
I miss old Tam: he always had such a wonderful way with words.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters/Case-for-a–fourth.4051829.jp
36. Brown is obsessed with being right. Every decision he makes is followed by him saying ‘this is the right/correct thing to do’. He make’s out that all the other alternatives are wrong, no matter how similair to his position. Over the 10p tax rate, he keeps saying ‘everyone agrees scrapping it was the right idea’ really? Who are these people then? Then he goes on about how no-one knew it would affect so many people, well the institute for financial studies worked it out.
I suppose it is right to describe NuLabour as the “Stupid Party”
after all their leader is known in certain circles as”Brown the Clown”
Is there no stopping the dithering and u-turns of NuLabour???
Downing St stands by rubbish tax
Trials of a scheme to tax householders who throw away too much rubbish are to forge ahead, Downing Street has said.
It had been reported that Gordon Brown was planning to scrap the policy after Labour’s disastrous showing in the local elections in England and Wales.
The huge losses on Thursday led to heavy criticism of the prime minister’s leadership by backbenchers.
But ministers rallied round, insisting Mr Brown was the right person to lead them to the next general election.
Earlier media reports suggested Labour were about to make a series of policy adjustments.
The so-called pay-as-you-throw scheme, which would be run by local councils, has already been scaled back and it was thought it would now be ditched altogether.
But Downing Street has insisted they are to press ahead with the trials.
Labour MP Joan Walley, a former environment spokesman, said she was worried the government was sending out the wrong signals.
I look to Nick P for some decisive,rebellious moves to get NuLabour back on the rails.A good start would be a vote of no confidence in Messrs Brown & Darling!
Re. 5, ‘Labour favours letting more kids go to university’. Yes, including ones who need remedial lessons in reading academic books and writing essays (in other words, the sort of people who shouldn’t be at university in the first place). What you really mean is ‘Labour is turning universities into glorified secondary schools’, with lectures being interrupted by anti-intellectual morons answering their mobile phones when they go off. And the anti-intellectual morons are only there in the first place because they’ve been compelled to do by attendance registers (introduced at my university in the early 90s, even before the 50% target).
In the meantime, the fees and top up fees required for this brave new world have had a real deterrent effect on mature students (not only, in my personale experience, those most interested in learning and the most hardworking students, but also those more likely to be from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds, thus defeating the government’s original agenda of social inclusivity).
I’m a Labour Party member, but the 50% target has been one of our biggest mistakes. Even before the credit crunch, there was as glut of graduates chasing a very small number of graduate jobs, so why not have more plumbers instead of graduates working in call-centres up to their ears in debt? Besides which, we may well need more plumbers, if so many Poles are going to go home.
5. Captain Geoffrey T Spaulding - “Labour favours building more social housing… “
Indeed? They may say that they “favour” it, but another political party is actually delivering it:
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2210568.0.sturgeon_unveils_25m_package_for_new_council_housing.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7355284.stm
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/This-Week/Speeches/futhousing
32 The national minimum wage being set at a low rate plus availability of labour from EU has a major downside for semi-skilled and part time workers in that employers use it as a standard pay rate with Gordon Brown stepping in with tax credits to make up the subsistence gap. It’s a trap its hard to get out of as the economic growth that Gordon boasts about was built on low cost imports, low cost labour and availability of credit - two of those three have largely disappeared with falling value of pound and credit crisis. The availability of skilled but cheap labour from Poland and the Baltics is also being affected by value of the pound - and Rumanian/Bulgarian labour hasn’t the same level of skills.
Increasing the level of the minimum wage to the levels that its sponsors believed necessary is probably not possible so the low paid will remain dependent on benefits to provide the consumers with continued lower cost goods & services.
28
A territory can be something cultural, something Appadurai called an ‘ethnoscape’.
Albania was not catholic; it was orthodox; hence it is not western European; it is part of the East. Part of Europe. But not anymore, as the chuches are being transformed into mosque. Now it Islamic, which is everything but European, in a cultural sense.
A territory is much more than a geographical location.
It is also cultural habits, a way of life.
10. David Roe - “The Granita-deal was the wrong way round. Labour’s place in history will suffer for it.”
It is not just “Labour’s place in history” which will suffer from it. The knowledge that your statement is undoubtedly true is probably a key factor contributing to the all too public breakdown in Gordon Brown’s mental health. What a fool he was. And still is.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3163808.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jun/06/labour.uk
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/gordon+brown+fit+for+office/509052
So, we all seen this then?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/andrew-gilligan-it-was-not-the-standard-wot-won-it-for-boris-821013.html
Gilligan on how and why The Guardian made a complete tit of itself and lost it for Ken.
These are dark days for Toynbee. She has BoJo swanning around “her” city and Labour have let a compete no hoper become PM. What to do? Will Ms. Toynbee be become part of the Brain Drain?
45. On the other hand, railways, which is what brought Albania into the discussion in the first place, are very much geographical rather than cultural and in that sense, Albania is wholly within Europe. In any case, there are many forms of Islam, just as there are many forms of Christianity - and the biggest differences lie not between the sects and factions, but between how ardently individuals follow them. Britain is nominally Christian, but how many people actually have ‘the faith’ as the overriding impetus to their life? Not many. Likewise, the indiginous muslim populations within Europe have not as a whole sought to live their lives by the Koran, even when they have had the chance to do so.
To pretend that all muslims secretly wish to introduce an Iranian / Taliban-style theocracy at the first opportunity would be one of the biggest mistakes possible, and were enough people to believe it, could actively make that outcome more likely, as it would make muslims less likely to integrate and more likely to seek their own for their perceived protection, and to reinforce their identity as a means of self preservation.
“To pretend that all muslims secretly wish to introduce an Iranian / Taliban-style theocracy at the first opportunity would be one of the biggest mistakes possible, and were enough people to believe it, could actively make that outcome more likely, as it would make muslims less likely to integrate and more likely to seek their own for their perceived protection, and to reinforce their identity as a means of self preservation.”
I agree.
Islam is a doctrine, and moslems people can live without actualizing many of its theological and polical elements.
Islam shall not be confused with people; I agree.
As for Europe, it is indeed post-christian; yet christianism, as well as what Foucault modern disciplinary power, is now incorporated into the way of life; it has been interiorized the Europeans.
A commenter named “EvilTory” comments on Polly Toynbee’s post at Comment is Free:
- “Labour will be annihilated at the next election. It will lose votes and ’safe’ heartland seats to Plaid Cymru in Wales and to the SNP in Scotland. The libdems will take over previously safe labour seats in major Northern urban areas; the Tories will take not only the suburbs, the market towns and the rural seats, but will rip England’s cities free also. Brown will be very lucky if Labour retain a hundred seats next time round.”
Probably just wishful thinking on the part of Mr or Mrs “EvilTory”, but a highly entertaining seats prediction nonetheless
Does anyone know who “EvilTory” is? A bampot? An astroturfer? A Conservative Central Office staffer? Whatever, the chap has a wonderful turn of phrase, eg: “I find in myself something I didn’t know. I’m like Shylock. I want to see them suffer. I want my pound of flesh. I want to see Brown disintegrate and drag his party down into darkness with him.” Jolly good stuff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/06/labour.conservatives
I meant:
As for Europe, it is indeed post-christian; yet christianism, as well as what Foucault called modern “disciplinary power”, is now incorporated into the way of life; it has been interiorized by the indigenous Europeans.
MS has always maintained that GB is a vote loser. He cannot, and never will, win an election. Easy to say now—our host was making the point when GB was the great white hope of the labour party.
I’m not clever enough to be in and out of the market like MS. But his long-term feel is unerring. I’m very short of labour seats at the next GE. I will close that position if GB goes (unless MS advises otherwise). The labour party is not dead in the water, though it’ll probably lose the next GE.
But GB is unrescueable.
Malcolm @ 6 - a very good post. Down with petty tribalism!
Is anyone else still feeling exhausted after the ups and downs of the mayoral election?
I can barely bring myself to even consider staying up to trade the primaries tonight
38. Actually, Phillippe, wouldn’t Canada make an ideal member of the EU?
51 I have a close friend whose e-mail address used to have “Evil Tory” in it, so he may be the one posting on CIF.
Labour could adopt a core vote strategy to minimise its defeat, but the problem is, the components of their core vote want different things. Working class voters in South Wales are probably exercised about very different things to GMW voters in London. Appealing to one group may mean upsetting another.
Even in defeat, by contrast, the Conservative core vote was pretty cohesive, and not really divided within itself.
55
In a way, it seems indeed that the future of Europe belongs more in North American than on this geographical location that is becoming Eurabia…
[53] The Labour Party is dead in the water. Whilst I can’t - yet - see it dropping below 100 seats at the General Election, I do expect the polls over the next couple of months to show its support in the 23%-25% range (and for at least one poll to show the Tories on 50%). Health warning: I predicted Boris would win by 13% and the BNP to get 3 London Assembly seats, neither of which happened.
Back in the 1990s people were saying that Tony Blair was really a Tory - as Malcolm implied upthread - and this I think was no small factor in the scale of the 1997 and 2001 victories.
Of course Polly is right as fas as she goes. I’m prepared for her to be patient and cotton on, in due course, to the rest of my analysis that the Labour Party is an idea whose time has gone: that the “social justice” narrative which sustained it for a century no longer appeals and that every core vote it holds, whether non-white, public sector worker or council estate dweller in itself repels at least one other voter away from the Party.
At least this thread has confirmed another of my hobby-horses: that the larger Cameron’s majority the more the Euro-cancer will poison his government from the off. Indeed, I wonder if this issue isn’t the real reason he remains policy-lite: it’s hard to think of anything he could put into his manifesto on the subject that won’t hack off a few people who are currently planning to vote for him.
If GB remains in charge, I can see Labour heading for a 1997 style wipeout. The broad coalition they built in 97 is not only shot to pieces, they’ve now set about alienating their core voters too. And in devolution, one of their first priorities on taking office, they have massively advanced the Nationalist cause, ensuring a loss of seats in their old heartlands.
I can see Labour becoming a rump of a party representing the inner cities and the North East of England.
I can’t see them even getting to 200 seats on present form.
56.
Thanks Sean.
If Labour want to minimise their losses come the next UK GE 2010 then they should, they must, as you say adopt the classic “core vote strategy”. But I see no sign of that whatsoever. Gordon Brown, and the whole UK Cabinet and PLP, seem to have swallowed all their own (very fragrant) NuLab Propaganda - hook, line and sinker. Thus they will not adopt the “core vote strategy”, not least because they do not seem to have a scoobie who their core voters are, nor what they want. Instead they will keep the engines of their own little Titanic chugging along at “Full Steam Ahead” as the good ship Labour plunges to electoral depths exceeding the black abyss of the North Atlantic. How many decades was it before they located the rotten carcass of the old liner on the seabed?
Ms. Toynbee, for perhaps the first time ever, is spot on - at least in the basic thrust of her article.
Labour’s hopeless attempts to ‘relaunch’ itself, featuring further reannouncements of already discredited policies and meaningless, irrelevant gestures are a clear indication of this. The party is intellectually exhausted and hopelessly out of touch.
59 - I think that they may drop below 200 too, however I think that the really interesting fact of the local elections that need to be investigated more is the Lib Dems. A cursory glance suggests quite a good headline performance, but I have noticed that a few of their gains occurred where Labour vote dropped the Conservatives rose quite heavily and the Lib Dems stood still or dropped but left them ahead of the field. The London results point up the kind of squeeze that they will be under in the spotlight of a General Election. I think the Lib Dems are deluding themselves if they see much comfort in these elections other than in the headline figures. The Lib Dem performance is critical to both the performances of Labour and the Conservatives in the next GE.
the bin tax double or treble U-turn really sums these people up. if thats your best comeback after a massive electoral kicking then you have to laugh.
it will be a long 2 years for the public watching these idiots limp to a wipeout in 2010.
23 as regards the date of a General election. Labours best bet might be to go suddenly, wrongfooting the Tories, at some stage when the lead isn’t as great as it is now. and then cross fingers there wont be a bloodbath.
@64:
I think at this stage, it’s practically impossible to wrongfoot us.
We’re already on a war footing for 2009/2010, and we have the candidates, the activists and the money in place. We may not have published a manifesto, but you can be damn sure that Osborne knows what’s going to be in it.
Wrongfooting the Tories is no longer a practical option. The election that never was put paid to that little wheeze.
If Labour is indeed heading for extinction, as some here seem to think, does this not mean that C&N could turn very quickly into a straight choice - between Lib Dems and the Tories?
Martin @65 I never found out if uyou saw Boris’s speech, it was on the BBC website at the weekend..
56 - there is the other problem with the Labour ‘core vote’ strategy; it will need paying for. I can’t see Gordon upping the top rate of tax, for instance, so we’re looking at something along the lines of Polly’s/Frank Field’s suggestion of raiding pension contributions. If this (or something similar) happens, all the work that Smith, Brown & Blair did on their prawn cocktail offensives all those years ago will be comprehensively dismantled - Labour will have proved to the City that they can *never* be trusted with power. Right now there’s casual contempt: it *can* get worse than that.
@66:
I think most posters are viewing the extinction of the Labour Party as a long-term trend, rather than the result of a single night.
However, it is the Lib Dems who hold the *eventual* fate of Labour in their hands, not ours. We can finish them off electorally, only the Lib Dems can replace them as the official opposition, and mainstream party of the British left.
The question arises, of course, as to whether the Lib Dems have the fire and inclination to put that bolt through Labour’s twitching skull when the time comes. I doubt it.
66, I disagree that Labour is destined for extinction. Some said that about the Tories less than a year ago, or during IDS’ reign.
Labour’s going to get a huge kicking at the GE if things continue like this but they’ll need to replace Brown with a mediocrity or worse to keep sliding downwards.
@67:
I did indeed, MTF, thanks.
The “shredders” joke was very telling, since much talk of shredding machines had been rippling around the CCHQ celebratory pissup the night before.
Pity the BBC edited it, but I guess they got the thrust of Boris’s inauguration. It was a very impressive performance, substantial, but with enough of the old Boris flippancy to reassure.
As has been said many times, Brown’s mistake in the Autumn was not letting election fever continue. His catastrophic mistake was not actually calling the election.
I am not one who thinks Labour’s position is as dire as less than 200 seats…there is still a strong core in many cities and the North who will never vote for that ‘gas bag toff’ Cameron.
Complacency must not be allowed to creep into CCHQ and it is important that a more coherent agenda and vision continues to develop…there must be an attck on the grossly engorged state and Labour’ ‘tax and waste’ profligacy which are the only truly notable ‘achievements’ of NuLabour.
Final Zogby Primary Trackers for Indiana and North Carolina :
Indiana -
Clinton 43% .. Obama 45%
North Carolina -
Clinton 37% .. Obama 51%
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1499
[2] I have just come back from Tirana- and frankly just because c.65% of the population is nominally Moslem does not make it Tehran.
In fact there are actually more practising Christians in Albania and in any event it is about a secular place as you could find. I get a bit tired of this cheap and casual bigotry.
Albania is still dealing with the horrors of the Hoxha regime, but it has been the fastest growing economy in Europe over several years. It is still poor, messy and difficult, but it is recognisably a European society- and perhaps you might like to read a few Ismail Kadare novels before trotting out such nonsense. I recommend Palace of Dreams which is a great combination of Orwell and Thomas Mann- there is a very good French translation. Kadare won the first Man Booker international prize, and is consistently in the running for a Nobel Prize…
68. animal - “Right now there’s casual contempt: it *can* get worse than that.”
Agreed. It is always a mistake to think that ‘things can only go up from here’ (or indeed vice versa). Labour must face the truth: unless something radical happens, things could get an awful lot worse for them. Tee hee.
62 Yes, James, I wish someone would do some sensible non-partisan analysis of the Lib Dem performance last week. To me, it showed a number of contrasting patterns, and I cannot make out which is the more dominant. There were a number of places where the Lib Dems made small increases in seats, and others where they became the largest party almost by default (e.g. Derby and Exeter.) However, where there were losses, they were sometimes quite large (Norwich, for example.)
To what extent were the Lib Dems standing still whilst the other parties (where the Lib Dems were the main opponents) declined, or is it a lot more complicated than that?
75 - Stuart - to be honest, I think *not* being radical will result in the slight, attritional worsening that most of us expect as we head towards 2010. But something radical could just as easily destroy Labour as lay the foundation for future recovery. It’s a higher risk strategy than some commentators seem to recognise.
But does anyone other than Polly take Toynbee seriously?
She’s very much the journalists version of Tony Benn,good for a laugh but nothing serious.
How can any champagne socialist be taken seriously?
4, 38, 45, 50, 52, 57 - Philippe Magnan
Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with the original post about Polly Toynbee but Europe is defined geographically not culturally. Albania is a European country and Tower Hamlets a European borough. Citing Foucault doesn’t change that.
New Labour are already history voted into 3rd place behind the LibDems. Soon they will be 4th behind the BNP. Polly’s upset as who will she write about - Tories? Not likely.
@66
The most interesting question is how resilient will Labour be? The identical comments were being written about the Conservatives chances of being replaced by the LDs until very recently
Short term Labour will of course suffer. But if they are going to recover we should probably start to see the ‘green shoots’ appearing 3-4 years into a Conservative majority Government. The interesting question, particularly for the LDs is where that recovery will happen.
In the SW where it is more likely to be at the expense of the LDs, who are entrenched as the left of centre opposition to the Conservatives?
In the ‘old’ Labour heartlands, again at the expense of the Lds who are building themselves as the alternative centre/right to the Labour?
Or will the LDs remain broadly immune as Labour rebuild against the Conservatives in the ’soon to be’ Conservative gained marginals.
Or will the Labour core vote slowly disintegrates as activists/ cllrs fail to come through - leaving the LDs to stake a claim as the main left of centre vote receptacle? That didn’t happen with the Conservatives - I don’t know enough about local Labour organisations to comment on whether they have the capacity to rebuild in the many constituencies/councils where they are now extinct.
62, 76 - Anyone got a nice Excel Spreadsheet with Thursdays results on it (Excluding London would be fine). Cheers - might not have time to do any sensible analysis on it, but will attempt to give it a go.
@78:
She cares about poverty more deeply than almost anybody else in Fleet Street seems to care to. This is admirable. Unfortunately, her misdirected loyalty to Brown and his ilk means that she’s incapable of a rational analysis of what really needs to be done.
All her talk of ‘relative poverty’ is unreconstructed socialist widdle.
@79:
Might I suggest that the big problem with your semantic discussion is that we don’t have one clear, unambiguous, widely-accepted definition of what Europe is?
Agree on the definition first. There’s little point arguing about what meets the definition, if you’re arguing from different ones.
Cicero @ 74.Good man and well said.Like yourself,I too get tired of casual bigotry and especially so when it is tossed in as FACT.
I prefer casual bigots to the bigots who seek to ‘inform’ everyone else.
[80] Are you a BNP supporter? If not, why promote them?
76 - Haven’t had a chance to look thoroughly myself yet, but I think the best it can be described as is ‘patchy’. Yes the Lib Dem’s had their headline gains, but most if not all were in areas that they were already dominant. Hull, St Albans, Burnley etc were all areas that were extremely Lib Dem to start with. I think the London result shows the kind of squeeze a GE would put on them and one would be concerned that their South London enclave would be under pressure and that Hornsey & Wood Green would probably be a Labour gain at the next election.
re 2. According to the tourist literature I picked up in Jersey the other day, Jersey in “neither in the Uk nor Europe”, which struck me as rather extraordinary.
@88:
If they’re using “Europe” as a shorthand for “EU Member”, it’s completely true.
87 - The south west results look bad for a number of lib dem mps in the area
89. If they’re using “Europe” as a shorthand for “EU Member”, they’re as blinkered as Polly Toynbee. Is Switzerland in Europe?
Monday Superdelegate Totals - Obama 7 .. Clinton 0
Three each from Marlyand and Illinois and one from Olklahoma. Hillary’s SD lead now dowm in the mid teens.
So Polly Toynbee wants Brown to do what Blair did in ‘94 and Cameron in 2005. Isn’t that a bit hard when Gordon’s been around for 11 years? Is he really going to admit he was wrong on a whole host of policy areas?
With oil prices hitting another high today I wonder about the chances of another fuel protest this summer? People I speak to are being seriously affected by the huge increases in petrol and heating oil and with budgets being squeezed by higher taxation there must come a breaking point. With the angry mood in the country towards the government that already exists a summer of discontent must be a real possibility.
@91:
Category error.
Europe can, and does mean many different things at different times. The use of ‘Europe’ to mean ‘EU’ is so well established in everyday usage that complaining about it now is at best churlish, at worst pissing in the wind.
87 well, up to a point, James. I don’t think that active Lib Dems would have regarded Burnley as a natural centre of strength even five years ago. Or Hull, Derby or Exeter, come to that.
92. DemConWatch has it at 17.5…
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/
36. “People respected Thatcher (often even while hating her) because she knew what she was trying to do and knew how she was going to get there. There is no equivalent thrust to Brown’s government, and consequently, no equivalent respect. It might just be worth creating a few enemies if it means creating a few supporters.”
I agree, from a different political viewpoint I think you are absolutely right.
42. What a snob you are. All Labour wishes to do is to allow those kids who are qualified and who wish to go to university to do so, while the Tories want to stop them. Every projection of the labour market by every economist shows that unskilled jobs are disappearing and graduate-level jobs are increasing. So it makes economic sense too.
98. No all, tories want if for people who are able to, to go. Not for anyone who has a passing interest to saddle the system with their presence. Half my course at uni never even bothered turning up most of the time, yet they got the same financial help as the rest of us.
96 - No but going into these elections they were strong in certain of those areas so we would need to look at what was happening in the wards that were up in those areas to see the full picture.
Union spends $1.1M in Indiana on TV ads in last five days for Obama :
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/union-works-to-back-obama-in-indiana/
95 - I disagree. To me, it is simply a childish mistake. Just because many people talk of refuting when they mean rebutting doesn’t mean that it is any more accurate than it was before.
DC about to start his monthly press conference on SKY. I wonder how hard he will stick the boot in?
97: Politico are saying 12.
http://www.politico.com/superdelegates/
I think the difference is that DemConWatch are very strict about having a decent source. For example, they’re still waiting for confirmation for two of the Illinois add-ons.
95. Using ‘Europe’ as shorthand for the EU when the context is clear is one thing, but conflating the two entirely can lead to the kind of stupid remark quoted above from La Toynbee.
99. Of course, in the good old days all undergraduates worked jolly hard and nobody was lazy.
104 Edmund. The Illinois add ons were officially confirmed at a party meeting yesterday.
@102:
Except you know it’s *not* a mistake. When people use Europe as a shorthand for the EU, it’s not a slip of the tongue, it’s deliberate. Why pretend these people are making a mistake when you and they both know it’s not?
It all boils down to the word ‘Europe’ being overloaded with a heap of cultural, religious, geographical and political meanings, and none of them being quite in agreement with the other.
It is of no great concern that you don’t like the use of Europe to mean EU, as its meaning is established, widely-understood, intentional and unlikely to go away.
100 I agree. Which is why some objective analysis would be beneficial, because there are too many cross-currents to identify a clear direction.
@105:
Indeed. But in the case of the Jersey line, “neither in the UK nor Europe”, I suggest the context is entirely clear.
74. Cicero. I’d like to support your viewpoint with the following information. I’m from Italo-Albanian stock in southern Italy - I speak a version of Albanian and have talked to many Albanians both in Italy and UK. Most Albanians speak Italian because during their Communist years they were all tuned into Italian TV (God help them!) and their main ambition (irrespective of religion) is to be like the Italians they have admired for so long on their TV screens.
Phillipe is so witty with his subtle ironies that we really shouldn’t take offence.
107 Further. There’s a block of 6 of the remaining 9 uncommitted NC SD’s waiting to endorse Obama after the primary. It appears Obama has held them back to gather further SD momentum after the result.
106. Never said they did, but at least you had to work hard to get in. Two of my mates got in with terrible grades because the uni’s had to let them in, then they spent three years smoking weed and drinking cheap lager. I don’t think they bothered working for 5 years, a levels and uni passed them by like inconveniences.
108 - we shall need to differ, since to me it is an elementary mistake, and I cannot for the life of me why anyone would use one concept to define another. Please note that I am not anti-EU (far from it), but regard the muddling of definitions as unhelpful and sloppy. They lead to precisely the type of thought confusion that JohnLoony highlighted in his original post. Just because loose thinking is common does not mean that we should accept it.
98 total nonsense as ever. John Major came up with the stupid 50% target not the Labour party.
The current tory policy is not to have a limit but to allow all students able to take advantage of the benefits of academic higher education to do so and improve the skills base through vocational routes to HE;
45 - you really are thick as two short planks aren’t you. Less of the xenophobia, please. It’s boring.
107: Right - and the DemConWatch site still says:
“- Added IL add-on Richard Daley (IL)# for Obama. 2 other IL add-ons will be added when we get a valid source.”
Not sure whether or not the Politico numbers include DemConWatch’s “Pelosi Club” people who have said they’ll back whoever wins most pledged delegates: + 6 for Obama, -1 for Clinton. If not, that narrows the gap to 4…
@114:
Sloppy, it may be, that doesn’t make it wrong. It’s not as if it’s the first time that humanity has used one word to embrace multiple related, or frequently unrelated concepts, now is it?
English is an ambiguous language. When somebody uses ‘Europe’, one has to deduce from the context. Where one can’t deduce from the context, one has a /de facto/ ambiguity and seek clarification from the ambiguator.
98 A fatuous post from Captain Geoffrey T Spinning.
Richard (Original) was entirely correct in his assessment at 42.
No wonder the Labour party is doomed when self-acknowledged Labour party members like Richard (Original) make sensible & correct points — only to be slapped down by the Geoffrey T. Spinners as “snobs”.
I went on the LabourHome website last night and scrolled through comments from Labour activists about why they did so badly in the local elections. The most commonly cited reason was the 10p tax debacle. Immigration was the third most common reason. And the second? The smoking ban.
Activist after activist complained how their working men’s club, British Legion, local pub etc. had lost customers and now was the point of closure. they felt the heart was being ripped out of their community. They complained that Labour had lost touch with the ordinary working class Labour voter.
It is not so much Polly Tonynbee becoming disillusioned with the Labour Party but traditional core Labour votes becoming fed up by the Labour Party being influenced by the likes of Polly Toynbee.
As Anthony King pointed out on election night, the drop in the Labour vote was higher in the Labour heartland than the national average.
66. The Tories are trying to make C&N about Brown, not Gwyneth.
Why should they give you headline billing? You will have to achieve that on your own.
“For me, Europe is of Roman, Greek, Judeo-Christian Heritage, and since the birth of the modern state, it is capitalist.”
Israel is a European country then. Greek from 350BC to 100BC; Roman from 100BC to 700AD; Christian from 300AD to 700AD, Jewish from 1000BC till 100AD and from 1900AD to present.
@120:
Poor Polly. Sh