Labour Party Suits

[ItWillNeverWork]

As it stands, following thirteen years in office, the labour party looks likely to only spend one term in opposition. Who knows, perhaps that will result in a Greece type scenario whereby the nominally leftwing major party undermines its own electoral base by forcing severe austerity measures through. Perhaps it won't. It's a mystery.

Either way, the labour party is not going to be won over to social democracy. For a start, Michael Foot is dead and Tony Benn is old.

Austerity will be imposed as long as the credit-rating agencies are the ones calling the shots. The longer they call them the deeper the depression will get. It will take time, but sooner or later a challenge to the dominance of the city will have to be made. I don't expect this within five years. Ten, maybe.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

You know... You lot. The ever decreasing circle of people who believe the Labour party can be turned into a fantasy left reformist party with a Keynesian programme.

And your proposals are?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

And your proposals are?

If we start again from brass tacks - get out there and talk to people about what they think is worth saving from the burning wreckage of the post war settlement, and work with them to save that using grass roots action we might just about be able to save some bits of the status quo - and even get a few modest things that we've lost recently back.

Beyond that I don't know, and I don't pretend to know - there is no plausible radical vision out there with widespread support, and nothing on the horizon at the moment.

I do differ from many comrades in that I think the pace of collapse of our conditions can be slightly slower and bumpier under a Labour government, but only marginally.

And anyone who says the current Labour leadership are not representative of a significant tendency within the membership obviously never meets any of them, the two dominant competing tendencies at the moment are the broadly post Brownite Ed types and the openly Blairite David types, and if anything David Miliband is more popular with the activist base, certainly up here (admittedly in his home base area).

 

[Proper Tidy]

Austerity will be imposed as long as the credit-rating agencies are the ones calling the shots. The longer they call them the deeper the depression will get. It will take time, but sooner or later a challenge to the dominance of the city will have to be made. I don't expect this within five years. Ten, maybe.

I know austerity will be imposed. We all know that. It's happening.

What I said was that we are as yet unable to ascertain how this will impact upon labour's support base which, at present, is fairly solid.