I Just Don’t Agree
September 12th, 2009 | 
Author: 
I may just be getting more deluded but I find myself increasingly at odds with the average journalist writing on most subjects. Sure there are times but infrequently, when someone just writes simple common sense stuff such as Matthew Parris in today’s Times, “This stupid child protection law will turn us into outlaws” : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6831413.ece
But the following two examples which are more connected with each other and Matthew Parris’s piece, I have reservations with.
Christina Patterson
A slightly odd article and I am not too sure what her point actually is: “Never mind the economy, this is the biggest challenge that faces us. Politics won’t solve it, but politics could make a difference. It’s unlikely, however, that the people to do this are the ones who call something “broken” when actually it’s just rather selfish.”
Read it for yourself, the link is above but to me she seems to lack a clarity of vision and is writing from a very closed and narrow view of recent history.
My Comment: That it is but not as stated…
Of course society has changed and along with it, all the attitudes at every level but that is inevitable and mainly driven by economic circumstances. Where Cruddas was totally wrong but then too are the Labour Party generally, was to talk about a “working class way of life…”, it is romantic self delusion.
I was born and bought up working class where the Grammar School was the route to a better life. I can think of many families where there was a very grim determination that their children would never have to work manually or menially as they did, they would have a better life… But in this, these working class families were not that different to the muddle classes of today and were just more subtle in using their elbows, as required.
There are many old school Tories who think that bringing back Grammar Schools would improve education but they miss the essential point of what made them work up until the 60-70s, an escape route from one class in society to another and parental support. Society has changed, the class issue is far less important but parental support is still crucial today and always will be, successful schools will have lots of it, failing schools, none of it.
We have had 12 years of the most intellectually lightweight Government this Country has ever seen who when they are kicked out of Office will leave behind them not just a bankrupt Country but one where society is probably more divided than at any time for 100 years. They have managed a stream of pointless and useless legislation that increasingly interferes in peoples lives at the most intimate level just because as Legislators they lacked the wit or imagination to think things through properly.
What is mainly wrong with the Labour Party is that it has not a clue as to what it should stand for in the 21st Century, most of its thinking harks back to a romantic ideal that long since ceased to exist 40-50 years ago, time they moved on.
A Challenge
Having posted that, someone quite gently challenged me on whether Labour would leave a more divided society than the Tories did during Thatcher’s years. Truth to tell not a bad point and worthy of some thought and a reply.
“Yes know where you are coming from on this if what you have in mind Maggie, Miners, Print Unions etc. Yes those were rough times but, following on from the 3 day week under Heath and the Winter of Discontent, the majority of society, whatever their political affiliations, felt that the power of the Unions just had to be broken.
There is a likely similar consensus today with regard to Public Spending and what we should expect any Government to do so that as with Thatcher over the Unions, Cameron will enjoy widespread if often tacit support for cutting the Public sector.
Perhaps I expressed myself poorly but the divisions that Labour have opened up, in my opinion concern sectional interests where legislation has been directed to buying off every special interest group they can think of so that legislation has replaced common sense and the often misquoted “no such thing as society” attributed to Thatcher, has come to pass under Labour.
As for a vision of a better tomorrow, the JFK “Ask not what America can do for you, ask what can you do for America”, I don’t know that the conditions are right for that yet but am sure that the day will come when a politician can speak of the “sunlit uplands” once again. “
Andrew Grice
Wrote an amusing article entitled “What’s Labour got to lose by axeing Brown?” I supposed with the Party Conference season shortly upon us and Gordon Brown’s rather poor start to the return to work period, it was obvious topic but I would suggest, hardly worth bothering with.
My Comment: Yes but…
Whilst interesting, there is one fatal flaw which is that the Blair-Brown conflict didn’t allow for the career development of “up and coming” Labour politicians, the choice was you belonged to one camp or the other. The consequences of all this is very simple and all you need do is look at the make up of the current Cabinet where not a single “potential Leader” sits. I’m sure that I’m not the only one to find David Miliband an embarrassment as our Foreign Secretary.
The position of the Labour Party is rather like that of the Military and losing a fast jet in action or accidentally. The plane may have cost £50 million, that is unfortunate but the most valuable thing is the pilot who has taken 5 years or more to train, you cannot “buy back” those 5 years, you can buy another plane.
There is a whole missing generation of Labour front bencher s and its going to take at least a decade to even start to making that up. Challenging Brown for the Leadership is unlikely and besides which, virtually a third of existing Labour MPs have already said they are standing down at the next election so there’s not going to be much traction there.
The best course of action for the Labour Party is to accept their defeat and realise that an early election will suit their survival better than going full term when they will lose even more seats. In order to force Brown into going early, the Labour Party would need to threaten him with a no-confidence vote otherwise, he certainly won’t go quietly !
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