I just don't get the Labour party of today. In John McDonnell there is a totally respectable challenger to Gordon Brown. In response to the market led Thatcherite approach of Brown and Blair he wants a change of direction, one based on empowerment and democratisation of society. This seems totally reasonable to me. Yet it is unlikely he will get the necessary nominations from his Parliamentary Labour Party colleagues to force an election. You have to ask what's happened to the PLP. Stick a Labour MP on a soap box and you will undoubtedly be subjected to a tirade of anti - Thatcherism. Yet their own party are pursuing exactly the same agenda.
In conclusion 1, they are either so stupid they don't know what their own leaders are doing or 2, they are trying to pull the wool over everyones eyes.
Thatcher always said her proudest achievement was New Labour. Guardian columnists bizarrely like to claim that Blair's greatest achievement is Cameron's Tories. The Tories have just gone back to their traditional centre right ground, Blair and Brown have just nicked their spots.
It comes to something when Peter Hain is described as a 'libertarian socialist'. This is the man that presides as a Governor General over Wales and gerrymandered the electoral system in favour of his own party. He has voted for a disastrous war in Iraq and regressive policies such as the marketisation of public services.
What are Labour MPs scared of? Surely the membership of the Labour party should decide the next leader of the party
Political boffin, keen fisherman looking forward to retirement.
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3 comments:
Totally right Ted. I cant believe a socialist MP like John McDonnell could find it so hard to gather 44 nominations. The fact that a socialist in the Labour party finds it so hard to get support simply shows how far the Labour parliamentary group have gone to the right.
Whilst a socialist left winger fails to get any recognition more than 250 MP's have reportedly given their backing to a right wing chancellor whose record includes privitising the health service, post offices, voting for an illegal war in Iraq and the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Labour have had 10 years in power but have sold their soul to get it!
I agree, it is disgsuting that John McDonnell didn't get the nominations and has denied party membeers, like myself have been denied the right to choose the future path of the Labour Party, because of the hyprocricial PLP.
You got some MPs saying the oppose Post Office closure, like John McDonnell does, yet you end up with them voting from Brown and taking away my right as a Labour Party member to choose who leads the party.
THe worrying thing is that Michael Meacher supports would switch to Brown, rather then McDonnell, the left in the Labour Party is split
petty squabblings between the different factions, that exist from the days when people like John Cruddas would be seen as being on the right of the party, not the left, a united left would have stood a much stronger chance of getting onto the ballot paper, if Meacher voters didnt abandon McDonnell.
There is also the problem that the Labour Party is still wounded from the 1992 general election, it has never recovered from the defeat and 18 years in oppisition, and it is terrifed that even a slight shift to the left would lead to another 18 year of oppisition, which is not true.
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