Despite the extremely unusual unanimous vote of last year's Labour Party Conference to renationalise both the railways and the Royal Mail, some kind of alternative compromise had to be cobbled together at the more recent National Policy Forum.
A compromise with whom, exactly?
That constitutionally questionable body is one of the stranger leftovers from the Blair years. It is a kind of national blathering shop for curiously selected persons who are starstruck at being in the same room as the Shadow Minister for Pig's Bladders.
That Minister is young enough to be the grandson of half of the other people present, is old enough to be the mother of the other half, and is of indeterminate sex (and class, which is scarcely more common in Britain than being of indeterminate sex). All in all, very much like Blair in his, her or its pomp.
The National Policy Forum's total domination by Blair's remaining cultists has now deprived Labour of a policy which the country desperately needs, which the Party-in-Conference unanimously supports, and which is also backed by 70 per cent of voters, including the majority of those who choose the Conservatives, and even the majority of those who choose UKIP.
There is a lot of sentimentalisation of the pre-1994 Labour Party. I myself have indulged in such rose-tinted thinking. I do not deny that party's many achievements. I rejoice in them. But nor do I deny its many failures and failings.
One of the worst of the latter was the absence of a strong enough left flank; indeed, Labour's was far weaker than the Communist Party's. Another was the absence of any right flank whatever.
One of the worst of the latter was the absence of a strong enough left flank; indeed, Labour's was far weaker than the Communist Party's. Another was the absence of any right flank whatever.
Few positions were too left-wing for membership, or even for low and middle-level office, in Old Labour. But no position, simply none, was too right-wing for office at even the very highest levels of that party.
That second has not changed one iota.
N**l Fl***ng.
ReplyDeleteQuite.
DeleteTo be fair, he is the most right-wing member of the Labour Party whom I have ever met.
That would be a mere curiosity, were it not for the fact that he was the Director of Labour North.
Oh, well. At least, despite being a Politics graduate who has never worked outside politics, he will never be an MP. The proudest achievement of my life.