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January 13th - Brown Blair meeting |
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 January 2005 |
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Thursday, 13 January
Unable to get into Monday`s Great Party Meeting. I arrived late. It was packed. “Where were you when history was made, daddy?” “Locked out. With a lot of press people”. Blair gives the feel of a weary man on his last lap, trotting out the inevitable answers and tricky deceits, but in mechanical fashion with no feeling his heart is in it. He wants a third victory on a meritocratic, not an egalitarian platform. After that it`s in the lap of the gods.
If Tony is going after the election he`d have to talk just as he is on seeing it through to the end, Gordon may not be Chancellor, etc. Then he won`t be questioned on what`s really going to happen.
Gordon`s body language is brooding. The PLP is getting panic stricken, though it`s taken eight years to assert itself. Even now it`s being played with. In fact the Blair Brown battles won`t damage our prospects and the differences are personal: both the same on New Labour, private finance, refusal to go for growth, and under-taxing. Neither wants the real open debate the Party needs. A Brown presidency could be much the same but better in touch with the Party and making Labour noises, not fawning on the rich and big business.
This is Tony`s last attempt to cram us into the New Labour mould. His launch of the Pre-Pre-Pre Manifesto makes him his own Secretary of State for Line Drawing and Spin. We`re still running against the last Tory Government, not as a Labour Party.
Time to write my own Manifesto... |
