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Written by Austin Mitchell
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06 July 2006 |
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What on earth is Gordon doing? Does he have a check list of Blairite policies so that one by one he can tick them off: nuclear power? Right on. Polaris missile renewal? Yes Sir. Public service reform? More please. Iraq? Kill on. Ninety day detention? Why not more. The only box left unticked so far is ID Cards and the £19 billion bill for them.
Why does he have to do it? The pundits say it`s to pre-empt an opponent from the right. Yet each box ticked pisses off the solid middle and reduces the benefits of change. Why bother to change leaders for more of the same?
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Tony’s policy is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. His view is that he stitched together a middle-class and mainly southern vote with Labour’s traditional vote. So he fears that the middle-class, with the Mail the Telgraph and the Sun yapping at their heels, will go back to the Tory Party. His conclusion is that Labour has to have ever more conservative policies to keep them.
Robin Cook’s view was that Britain has an altruistic radical majority for change but this is now split between Libs and Lab. Our job, therefore, is to win them back. For that we need radical policies and Proportional Representation.
Take your pick. I think the Cook view is correct. That means we need Proportional Representation which is not only the answer to our present discontents (eg. impotent local government and the Party dictatorship) but also to pepare the nation for 2009: a hung parliament and a Liberal contingent strong enough to demand PR as the condition for any arrangement. Labour needs to be educated not to say “No” in the way the Tories have rushed to do.
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Can someone tell me why we’re in Afghanistan. What has it to do with us? We have no clear purpose. The war is unwinnable. Everyone else who`s occupied it (including us) has been ignonimously defeated. There’s no gain from winning. They don`t want us. Yet the UK has a bigger commitment than anyone else and most of the others have gone to cushy corners to hide. Why are we there?
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I`ve signed the “Better Off Out” statement on the EU. It will produce a hostile reaction from the Whips - who’re now asking for the power to suspend anyone they don`t like for any reason they find convenient.
Yet it`s no more than a statemenet of the obvious. We would be better off out of the increasing and unfair financial drain, the excessive regulation which is a huge burden on costs, the negation of our interests in ending the CAP, and the constant meddling interference that the EU represents. Withdrawal isn`t a salient issue at the moment but it`s still true that we would be better off out.
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Now for the dog days. MPs tired and anxious to get away. Governemnt running on empty. Parliament winding down. Time to pack up and go away. Fortunately, they`ve screwed up the Companies Bill so it won`t come back until October. |
