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Can Labour be saved? Yes but not easily. Salvation depends on two things which New Labour abolished: listening and changing.
Listening died when the Party was restructured and run top down not bottom up. Unions were elbowed into a sound proof room where they could be ignored. Money, £15 million of it, came from millionaires to free Tony from dependence on them. Party members drifted away because they were ignored. Councillors, the backbone of the Party, were decimated. Our roots in society were cut so we could float free.
We had the truth in our own heads. That was fed to the people by spin and marketing. So why bother to listen? Gordon is constitutionally incapable of listening. He won`t discuss ideas. He steamrollers over discussion. He won`t meet people who want to argue. Letters posing problems aren`t answered but passed to subordinates who don`t understand the issue. So it`s not until the country kicks us in the cods that we begin to realise we`re under a deaf sentence.
Change was also ruled out. We thought we`d changed enough by junking social democracy and regulation and handing power to markets. That wasted years for seed corn guzzling, asset inflation, and debt accumulation.
Now we`re in a different ball game with a recession which hits us harder than other countries because of our gambler`s progress and our failure to invest and restructure in the way Germany has.
Tough times demand new policies. They mean lower interest rates but we`ve given control to the Bank of England which will keep them much too high.
They demand a revival of manufacturing and production so we can pay our way in the world. But we`ve given power to Finance and the City.
They demand Keynesian policies of borrowing to spend but we`ve tied ourselves up with daft “golden rules” which will now strangle us.
They require equality of sacrifice but we`ve imposed all the inflationary costs on our people while the rich grow richer. Finance prospers and high earners get better and better off. We proclaimed that as wisdom.
They demand that we pay our way in the world but we`re still guzzling imports and investment but we`ve not made it. They demand a big house building programme to solve the housing problem and stimulate the economy. That won`t happen because we won`t finance councils to build again.
The rebalancing of the economy won`t be easy. But we can rally the nation behind it if we tell them the truth, make an honest admission that the policies appropriate to the golden weather are no longer appropriate and say it will be done fairly with the greatest sacrifice coming from those who`ve benefited so richly from the good years.
My vote will go to anyone who understands what`s happening and says all that. So far I don`t hear any of it from anyone, though Gordon has the experience and the strength to do it if he understands the problems and grabs the need for change and reconstruction.
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Note to the trade unions. Now you`re our only source of money you`ve got us on a short leash. Use that power to make Labour Labour again!
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After the shock of Crewe, we took refuge in a part of Wales I can`t even pronounce and went to the Hay on Wye book festival. Highlights:-
Stiglitz telling us the Iraq War cost the US three trillion dollars and the UK £22 billion. Must ask the Comptroller & Auditor General to give us the direct and indirect costs. I`ll bet they`re higher. Think what we could have done here with that money.
Duchess of Devonshire, at ninety asked what she would have liked to do if she wasn`t a Duchess, said “Live abroad”. She and 200,000 others a year.
Hordes of Guardian readers dressed like campers tramping through the mud and the rain but always forming orderly queues, being polite to each other, and protective of Cherie Blair.
Gore Vidal being well interviewed by Adam Boulton but trotting out the old one liners which I was too deaf to hear.
A party attended by Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, Jimmy Carter and David Miliband. The first three were charming, open to all and talked interestingly to everyone. Our Boy Wonder ignored this humble backbencher, was too important to fraternise with the plebs, talked only to the great and left early to commune with the media. The only group ministers talk to.
The English colonisation of this part of Wales by a Pom power elite escaping to weekend cottages. Labour lords, Terry Burns, Lord Bingham. I`d drop more names but I don`t want to make them subject to Welsh Nat. house burnings.
Depressing seaside resorts like Aberystwyth filled by shuffling Welsh crowds in plastic macs, queuing for restaurants and fish and chip shops.
The duelling of everything. Not just “Slow” but “Araf”. Not just “Police” but “Hedlu”. Or something.
The real niceness of everyone we met. All were helpful and we never got thumped or given any home truths about Labour, MPs, Gordon Brown or my own eccentric decision to wear pink Wellingtons and a yellow Sou`Wester marked “Eat Grimsby Fish”.
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My majority in Grimsby is almost exactly the same as Gwyneth Dunwoody`s was in Crewe so I`m scared. When people turn against a government these days they turn big. They didn`t turn much in 1964, rather more in 1970 and 1974, a lot more in 1979, then massively in 1997. The best we can hope for if we recover now is a hung parliament and a downward slide from there. If we don`t recover then disaster lies ahead. Support returns to a government between by-elections and a general but the movement is 3-4% not a total reversal.
I won a by-election by 560 in 1977 at the depths of Labour`s unpopularity. But the difference between that and Crewe was that Grimsby had benefited from Labour`s fair share of sacrifice by incomes policy which helped a low pay area. Now there`s no fair sacrifice policy. The main impact of the recession falls on the people, the low paid and those unprotected by social security benefits. All face the main uncertainties and fears while the well off continue to do well.
Why don`t we levy the the utilities, the oil companies, the Fat Cats and big bonuses instead of the people.
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It`s fair to make gas guzzlers pay more vehicle excise duty when purchased new but not fair to levy it retrospectively on those who already have them and can`t afford to get rid. It`s daft to increase fuel duty when fuel prices are so high. Wait until they come down. Lord make us protect the environment. But not now!
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