not so fast

While I appreciate that a lot of good lefties have been backing off from the Lib Dems in a righteous huff for perfectly valid reasons, I think they’ve been a little too quick to return to Labour. After all, this is still the party of Phil Woolas. 

We have the government we have, doing the things it is doing. But a lot of the reasons why people couldn’t stomach Labour are still there and they still matter.

Comments

[chris y]

But a lot of the reasons why people couldn’t stomach Labour are still there and they still matter.

True. So where do you go instead?

[Cian]

I don't buy this argument. If he was a Tory, would anyone even notice? In the Labour party he's a revolting outlier. In the Tories not so much. And there's your distinction. Well one of them (the total destruction of public services being another one).

[jamie]

"If he was a Tory, would anyone even notice?"

He's probably been noticed less than Hollobone or Mercer, apart from Joanna Lumley handing him his head on that occasion: he's also merely the mos revolting of a similar tendency (also including Frank Field, Hazel Blears etc)who are still very much around.

I don't think the Labour plans for public services - controlled demolition rather than airburst nuke - are sufficiently different to the Tories simply to make it worth forgetting all about Woolas and his ilk.

We're three months into this government, and people who couldn't abide the way Labour were going seem to have just flocked back without extracting any price at all, which apart from anything else is a pretty good way of preserving the Woolas tendency.

[Cian]

I'm not forgetting them, I'm simply pointing out that in theory (given its membership, and the fact that Woolas is on the far right fringes of the party) the Labour party is reformable. In contrast our current Lords and Masters are on the left wing of the Tories, which seems to mean a radical libertarian agenda. So that's the best we can hope for from them, and Cameron is fairly vulnerable to his right, so there's far worse waiting in the wings.

[Alex]

Yes, the alternative to the shiny-faced libertarians in the Tories is the florid, hairy authoritarians. Would you like a bucket of shit or a bucket of shit?

I'm quite surprised Field hasn't formally come out and crossed the floor yet.

[Cian]

Well no. The shiny faced libertarians are the best that the Tories have to offer, whereas the hairy authoritarians are the worst that Labour have to offer. The Cthulu monsters are still waiting in the wings of the Tories, and they're pretty powerful still.

[Alex]

I meant the florid, hairy Tory authoritarians.

[Cian]

oh sorry, my mistake.