Everyone has an opinion, dead or alive, as long as they are members of Parliament or members of the House of Lords-exhumed to cast their opinions,hurl the goat entrails and pronounce the labour Party has no future!
The entertaining scenario,cast by so many commentators is that the party will prosper if as one called him Alan Johnston-'the postman over the water' takes control.
It would appear that the nation has fallen asleep in the tower,awaiting a peck on the cheek from the fragrant ex-postie and all round cheekie chappie and then the project will spring into life and the evil empire will be banished!
Hurrah !
Miliband is being traduced from all sides, from the right as the failed spawn of Satan, from the centre as the ineffectual 'Hampstead' intellectual and from the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party who are in mortal fear of losing their seats.
There is no doubt that Miliband has surrounded himself with a praetorian guard of time serving mediocrities , but truth to tell it would be hard to find anyone in the PLP who was not a time serving mediocrity, hand picked by the party machine to be as far from a socialist party as its possible to be without falling off the edge of even the social democratic spectrum.
The so called 'left leaning' press have been just as hostile.Leaving aside the traditional voices of modernity and moderation-The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent all of whom have been cheer leading for the postie with no ambition(gentle cough of derision) although fair play to The Observer they did at the end of their gloom lader leader call for Ed to be more radical (fat chance that!)
leading the charge however,in quite a disgraceful way what The New Statesman' and its editor Jason Cowley.
I've beena subscriber to the Ns for more years than I care to think about and there was a time about 15 years ago when it had a cutting edge and trenchant views.
However it has moved, once a Blair house journal(bad times) to critical of the Blair project(good times) to a wobbly Brownite phase to where it now sits.
Frankly its the official voice of the fucking Church of England.It appears to be more interested in saving souls for God than discussing anything that smacks of socialist debate.
And that suits the New Labour Party( mark 2) after all when you have no real alternative to austerity and the coalition brand of dumpling politics-better a leap of faith in unseen and unknown forces than an ideology that works in the interests of the peoople.
We are told that its all about image, that Miliband is a bit geeky, that Johnson is a reformed horny handed son of toil and the rest are ,well just the rest!
If you want to see how far the Labour Party has degenerated just look who the machine is touting to lead the Labour Party in Scotland-Jim Murphy, whose intellectual claim to fame and evidence that he can get down with the masses has written a book-on football!
150 years of socialist endevour in Scotland and the best they can come up with is a tosser who can write a book on football!.A tosser by the way who supports Trident,the Iraq war,further austerity,university tuition fees,even more austerity.He makes Blair look radical!
And if that list of disqualifications isn't enough he's not even a member of the Scottish Parliament-he sits in Westminster!
The mantra is that Ed lacks charisma, he has policies coming out of his ears but he lacks style on the doorstep.
That is utter tosh.
A bunch of sort of promises that appear to unravel hours after he makes them is not a coherent series of policies that will take this country forward.If you want to do a compare and contrast exercise look at the leadership the Nicola Sturgeon is giving to the SNP in SWcotland.In a few weeks that party has grown from about 25,000 to over 90,000.
Thats inspirational, thats energising people, that is creating a framework of social democratic policies that are transformational.
Whilst my homes for Miliband were never high (his late Father would have beebn a better leader) it does seem that he is being traduced not only by the traditional right wing forces, but by those in New Labour who want a scapegoat when it all falls apart next May.
In my view he has nothin to lose by re reading his Dad's writings and going for bust with a radical social democratic programme.
Anything is better than the current shambles.
No comments:
Post a Comment