John McDonnell | ukwatch.net

The end of New Labour

JamieSW — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:15:17 +0000

I knew it was going to be rough last night but not even the deepest pessimist in me thought it would be on this scale. Whoever thought that in our most solid heartlands like Northumberland, Hartlepool, Blaenau Gwent, Wolverhampton and Merthyr Tydfil Labour councillor after Labour councillor would lose their seats.

Simply expressing disappointment and blaming the world economy makes Gordon Brown appear to be in denial about how serious the political situation is for the government. The new PR team in Number 10 can't spin its way out of this electoral disaster. The announcement today that in response to Labour's worst local council results in 40 years the prime minister is to re-launch a draft Queen's speech borders on the delusional.

It's not just the recent debacle over the 10p tax rate, the reality is that on the doorstep in increasing numbers people just don't believe Labour is on their side any more. The 10p issue was important because it symbolised the unfairness of our taxation system which Gordon Brown as both chancellor and prime minister has failed to address. Increasing the tax burden on the poorest whilst non-doms and company directors pay less tax than their cleaners grates against our supporters' sense of fairness.

New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of the coalition we need to win and retain power. The teachers and civil servants strike was an indication of the depth of anger about the pay cut strategy being imposed by the government. When 15,000 aggrieved police officers march through London and prison officers defy the law and come out on strike, the message of public sector workers discontent was loud and clear.

It is the same frustration felt by pensioners forced onto means tested benefits, students saddled with debt by loans and tuition fees, and families trapped on housing waiting lists for years because councils are not allowed to build the homes anymore.

In this climate of discontent and disillusionment Labour's core vote is crumbling and the era of New Labour is coming to an end. The question that has still to be decided is whether the party is able to jettison New Labour and its outworn ideological baggage before the electorate does at the next election.

New Labour's credibility was entirely based on its claim to electoral appeal. But now that voters are deserting us in their droves it has nothing to offer but electoral defeat. If we are unable to radically change direction and start to address our supporters' key concerns, the party's future is bleak. Our activist base is demoralised and disintegrating and we no longer have the foot-soldiers on the streets in many parts of the country to get our vote out. You only survive as a governing party in these circumstances as long as the opposition remains in disarray but as soon as that changes you're in trouble.

It's no use Gordon Brown saying that he's going to listen and then carry on as if nothing had changed. We've got to demonstrate that we are back on people's side once again. People just want fairness; fair pay, rights for workers, decent pensions, a fair and progressive taxation policy, access to secure and affordable housing, free good quality education and we need the government to start attacking poverty rather than the poor. Actually, all we need is a real Labour government.

Business, As Usual

Tim Holmes — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 09:34:08 +0000

Under the strapline "Our conference can provide an exciting place to do business", there was a revealing pie chart in the Labour party's conference guide that gave a breakdown of who now attends the annual gathering.

It is: 10% elected representatives, 20% media, 30% Labour party delegates and visitors, and - top of the list - 40% from the commercial and corporate sector.

So when Gordon Brown and his ministers received their standing ovations, the largest group clapping was the companies looking forward to doing business with this government.

Now that biblical references are de rigueur in the party, it seemed to many that the moneylenders really had taken over the temple.

The rule changes bounced through the conference this week removing the right of Labour members to determine the party's policies at the conference mean the event is now little more than a trade fair and media platform for speeches from the leader and ministers.

And it takes a remarkable feat of ingratiating contortion to consider Gordon Brown's first leader's speech as setting "a new tone" and offering "the possibility of a different kind of Labour government", as Jon Cruddas and others have claimed.

While warm words of praise were bestowed on the NHS and public servants, outside in the real world we learned that in order to save the budgets of some primary care trusts, Bupa was to vet whether patients should or should not receive the treatment recommended by their consultants. Bupa will be paid from the savings made by preventing operations.

Similarly, at an almost surreal fringe meeting at the conference, we heard from the government's adviser on welfare reform, the obviously suitably qualified venture capitalist David Freud, that a similar principle was to be applied to getting people off benefit and into work. While 40,000 jobs are to be cut at the Department for Work and Pensions, private sector companies are to be given the role of forcing the long-term unemployed into work. The firms will make their profits from the benefits saved.

Meanwhile, despite the declaration of a new social housing programme, behind the scenes immense pressure was being applied to delegates to ensure that what was possibly the last resolution ever to be debated at a Labour party conference actually reversed existing conference policy, which calls for councils to be treated fairly in the distribution of resources for building houses.

On the morning we hear of the children of eastern European migrants being racially abused on our streets, how does Gordon Brown's slogan of "British jobs for British workers" sit with those urging "a more positive message on migration"?

Playing tactical games over the timing of the election also reflects an approach to politics where policies are too often determined for party advantage, and even the stability of the government is risked for the same reason.

Caution suggests current poll leads result more from a combined sense of relief at Blair going and the rejection of an incompetent, passé alternative than they do from a belief in the government being committed to real change. John Major and 1992 come to mind.

The scenes of Buddhist monks in Burma losing their lives in a struggle for democracy are a stark reminder that democratic politics should be about more than developing subtler forms of spin and party game-playing.