ThunderDragon Blog

Brilliant post from Norfolk Blogger on “New” Labour’s switch back to Real Labour:

Yesterday parts of the country had power cuts, fuel prices are rocketing and industrial action is now common place in the public sector and also in the wider community (as can be seen from the fuel protests yesterday).

So here we are again, 30 years later, looking like we are going to have the same old same old from Labour. I knew they’d eventually revert to type.

Proof that Labour doesn’t work.

Great spot by Nich. Unfortunately I’m too young to have recalled it from last time.

What is a vulture?

Vultures are scavenging birds, feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals

Converted to focus on the political arena:

Vultures are ex-ministers, who make a living feeding mostly on the carcasses of ex- (or nearly ex-) Prime Ministers.

But Tony McNulty says:

The vultures should clear off because there is no corpse around.

Then why are there vultures? Because they can smell dead meat. They can sense the dead and the near-dead. And they see it in Gordon Brown. They can smell that he is bleeding profusely from a deep wound inflcited on him by the electorate at the polls.

They are hovering over Brown in the sky, circling and curcling, waiting for the right moment to sweep in and add another minor wound to the multitude that he is already weakened by*.

The vultures will continue to circle until either their prey resigns and they get the chance to feast or it recovers enough for their efforts to be entirely ineffectual. However, neither of these appear imminent. Though with the man talked up as the heir-apparent pointedly refusing to rule out standing for the job, pressure will just continue to increase - unless Labour’s standing in the polls does.

As Matt Wardman points out, Brown’s position is “unassailable“. (Ahem.)

* I could list them here, but I have better things to do that write them all down, and I’m sure you have better things to do than to read such a long list.

David Cameron says that Labour have “abandoned” the principles of “New Labour” and have instead returned to the “Denis Healey era” of emergency budget and “class war campaigns”.

That they are going back to a class war footing certainly is true, as evidenced by the Crewe and Nantwich by-election campaign that Labour have been waging.

It is also news to me - and probably to most Labour ministers - that there are were New Labour principles at all!

Yeah, right. Somehow, I don’t think so. Frank Field’s attack on Gordon Brown is devastating:

The awful fact that is coming across is that he seems so unhappy in himself. And I think everybody in the country who has ever watched a news clip of the Prime Minister realises that, and it’s a mega problem for him and the government…

That is clearly part of the tragedy on a personal level, as well as on a party, government and country level, that someone whose real aim in life was to be Prime Minister now has the task and seems to be so lacking in enjoyment in trying to try it out.

But Brown isn’t going anywhere. There is no chance of him ever resigning without being forced to since he simply could never bring hismelf to give up the position he fought for so long to get. And there is absolutely no chance of the Labour Party as a whole growing balls and forcing him out.

After all, after saying that Brown was the only person with the skills to be the party leader and Prime Minister just a few months ago, to then force him out and replace him with someone who they considered just a few months ago to be of a lower class would show an utter lack of intelligence and consistency - and immediately cast doubts over the new leader’s ability to govern Britain.

Since Field’s outspoken attack on Brown, ministers - including Brown’s acolyte, Balls - have been sent out to attack Field in return. It appears that they have had at least some effect, sicne Field has now apologised for allowing his campaign over the scrapping of the 10p tax rate to “become personal”. But why should he, when it certainly is a personal issue to all those millions who have been financially punished by Labour!

Brown will certainly still be leader of the Labour Party at the next election - but not for long afterwards, even if by some miracle he manages to scrape a majority.

John Prescott is emerging as the diplomat of New Labour. Certainly not something one would have expected. In his memoirs, he says that he hosted “hundreds” of reconcilitaory meetings and phone calls between Blair and Brown in order to prevent the breakout of outright hostility between the two most powerful men in the Cabinet.

Eventually, however, even the paragon of patience that is John Prescott lost his cool with the pair of them and threw a gauntlet down in front of both of them:

He urged Blair to sack Brown as Chancellor.

And told Brown to resign and fight a leadership campaign from the backbenches.

But, of course, neither happened - because at heart both Blair and Brown are cowards. Blair wouldn’t dare sack, or even move Brown sideways. And Brown wouldn’t dare risk his six-figure salary and perks for the chance to take Blair on in a leadership battle.

They should have listened to Preza. For the good of the country, one of these things should have happened if Prescott’s tale of life at the top of Labour government is anywhere near correct. As New Lbour was always about power rather than principles, that was never gonna happen.

Draw your own conclusions:

The Co-operative Group is bidding to build an eco-town called Pennbury on land it owns between Stoughton and Great Glen in Leicester.

However, objectors are circulating literature pointing out that Labour received £500,000 from the group in 2005/06 and has a £13.5 million overdraft with the Co-operative Bank, an offshoot of the group.

The Co-operative Party, which supports the Co-op Group’s activities, sponsors 22 Labour MPs, including Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary. Mr Balls is married to Yvette Cooper, who announced the eco-town project to find 15 sites for environmentally friendly towns last year when she was Housing Minister.

Phil Hope, the minister for the East Midlands – which includes Pennbury – is also sponsored by the Co-operative Party. (The Telegraph)

It seems that Labour are pro-referendums and direct democracy when they think that it will give them the answer they want, yet not when they think we’ll give them an answer that they don’t want. Whilst you can easily demonstrate that any political party has done this over time, for one party to do this within a couple of months shows contempt for the electorate of this country.

Either they do or do not believe in referendums and direct democracy. Wendy Alexander’s argument for a referendum in Scotland is that:

It’s time for them to put up or shut up… If [the SNP are] convinced [they've] got a majority, we shouldn’t leave it to the fag end of a parliament to get around to testing public opinion.

This can just as easily be applied to Gordon Brown’s government in Downing Street. If they’re so convinced that they are right and that the people support them, they should hold or referendum. Put up or shut up, as Wendy says.

Not to mention Labour’s lack of internal referendums on leadership…

Ken Livingstone has called Kate Hoey “a sort of semi-detached member” of the Labour Party after she has announced that she will work as an advisor to Boris Johnson on sport and the 2012 Olympics should he be elected on Thursday.

Oh, the irony of Ken - the man who originally stood and was elected for London Mayor as an independent, against the official Labour candidate, and only brought back in because Labour wanted a winner - of referring to anyone else as “semi-detached” from the Labour Party!

Oh, the irony! You really couldn’t make it up.

A unique blog post title for this blog. And one which will almost certainly never be reproduced.

Pretty much the only two good laws that have been passed by Labour in the last decade are in the news today.

First of all, the news that 24-hour drinking will stay. 24-hour drinking is just a good thing. All the complaints about it are exactly the same that existed beforehand. 24-hour drinking has just meant fewer fights in city centres due to different places closing at different times, and less of a need to drink lots of alcohol quickly in order to get drunk before time is called. It is just a good thing.

Secondly, the creation of legally recognised civil partnerships for gay couples, allowing Tory frontbencher Alan Duncan to be betrothed. Congratulations to him and his partner! Hopefully he won’t be the last Conservative MP [or MP of any party] to take advantage of this opportunity to have their relationship legally recognised.

So Labour have passed two good laws. What a legacy for more than a decade of government!

They wanted one a while ago. Now they may well have one, with the nationalisation of Northern Rock.

But this Clause 4 is the other kind of “moment”. The death knell for any claims they may have of economic competence. A Clause 4 in reverse.

They are in fact now changing the Clause 4 back to the old one, in practice if not in words.

From the meaningless:

Back to the unworkable: