Look What They've Done to my Song
"well it's the only thing I could do half right and it's turning out all wrong"
"well it's the only thing I could do half right and it's turning out all wrong"
So Brown's days are officially numbered and the Tories are attempting to prove their not a "Little England" Party. Brown and Robinson are not really that different from one another, they both worked feverishly to help their respective parties gain power and their former bosses achieve astounding successes. All the while they were biding their time and wishing it was them in the lime light. The lesson that Glasgow East teaches us all is that one should be careful what they wish for, just in case they get it. Robinson, still has his head above water and right now seems to be doing quite well holding SF's head just below the surface. But I would refrain from celebrating the ability to stop SF's northern march just yet. The upcoming by-election in Fermanagh is unlikely to reflect well on either the UUP or the DUP as the initial candidate for co-option was deselected and replaced by Arlene Foster who resigned as a councillor to devote more time to Stormont. The likely result will be another SF councillor (where are FF when you need them?). And while this is already a weighted nationalist council it just goes to show that SF may not be making great strategic and policy advances but they are capable of still gaining on the ground. But I'm straying from my intended track before I've even got started.
I would put the UUP/Tory talks in the same category as the FF/SDLP talks. Though it does give me a sense of satisfaction to see some of my previous mutterings justified, but it was not then nor is it now a substantive effort at merging. One must remember that the Conservatives have been running candidates in local elections for awhile now and have managed to to just about break the 1% mark. As Bertie waved the green flag as the sharks closed in, so too is Cameron running to the edges of the empire in order to fend off the what he may feel is his last obstacle to power. Which is the idea that the Tories are English nationalists in disguise which is why Cameron made the trip to Glasgow East to reassure Tories who might be concerned about going soft after they went limp wristed on national security over 42 days detention. And a third place showing was a splendid little victory over the Lib Dems. Labour might want to savior coming in ahead of the Tories now, for I doubt they'll be able to say that come the next general election.
If the UUP were serious about merging they would have to square a few circles first and answer a couple of questions. First and foremost is the obvious question, which is what is the difference between the two right now? Other than the fact that the UUP are opposed British law being extended to NI. Secondly, “the creation of a new political and electoral force in Northern Ireland” would be coming from where? Much like FF, the Tories would have to be content with the current pool of recruits and a little more cameo time from the big leagues. I'm sure the SDLP could tell them how effective it is to have the leaders from real political parties coming around at election time to say how great [insert candidate name] is. Because it has worked wonder for the stoops, right?.
Lacking any real hope for a new dawn some UUPers have grabbed on to this life line in the hopes of being pulled out of the current mess they find themselves. Chekov on Three Thousand Versts states that,
The Conservative Party has moved to address social and welfare issues in a fashion which has found it much more firmly in the centre ground. In contrast, the Labour Party has assumed the mantle of Thatcherite economics and its policies on privatisation and social issues are often arguably to the right of the Tories. Certainly in debates about civil liberties, individual freedoms and the encroachment of government into the realm of the private individual, the Conservative Party are currently advancing more liberal arguments than Labour.
I had noted that the Conservatives have had their electoral clothes stolen by New Labor so they did the only thing they reasonably could and have gone to the left and called it the centre. Cameron's opposition to things like 42 day detention wasn't based on prinicple of liberty, but the principle that whatever the government does, the oppposition should find a way to criticize or oppose it. Something which Enda has yet to learn to do convincingly. Personally I don't feel that this moderation will last once they enter office. Though I don't see Cameron as a modern day closeted Thatcher, he just doesn't have the balls she did. No, Cameron is Blair's opposite and will have his day just as New Labour did. But don't look to the new Purple politician to uphold any particular principle other than an affinity for power. The UUP would be wise to ensure that this closer relationship does something other than lose them an MP and allow Alliance to move on up to the junior leagues.
6 comments:
I profoundly disagree (as you would expect) with the notion that the Cameroonie social agenda is more firmly in the centre ground.
Or that, in contrast, In contrast, the Labour Party has assumed the mantle of Thatcherite economics and its policies on privatisation and social issues are often arguably to the right of the Tories.
Let's take one specific instance: education.
In May 2007 the Tory education spokesman, "Two Brains" Willetts, announced that the Party was now opposed to binary selection (academic school/shitsville) at the grand old age of eleven years of age. The backwoodsmen went ape: Willetts was locked up in a darkened room, in a strait-jacket, with a gag down his throat.
By the autumn, a grand policy document, "Green Paper no. 1", was issued. Lots of coloured photos, in which the wrinkled brow of Cameron was inevitably prominent. Decent guy Michael Gove (Oxford, leader-writer for the London Times) was drafted in to "spellotape" (a Harry Potter reference) over the Willetts-inspired cracks.
Result: a 50+page thesis on "education" policy managing not to use the words "selection" or "eleven plus" or "grammar schools".
Two months later, a Tory Council, next door county to Cameron's constituency, announced it intended to open a new grammar (i.e. selective at 11 yrs) school. Yes, folks, selection is safe with the Tories: after all, it's not their kids who have to go elsewhere.
In case anyone missed the significance of that, a "selected" student is funded significantly more -- say 30% -- than the alternative, but only 20% are "selected". Think (says he, having seen Laurence Fishburne as Thurgood last Saturday) "separate but equal". Meanwhile, Labour (opposing selection) has increased education expenditure from the Tory legacy of £29B in 1997 to a committed £74B in 2010. Hardly surprisingly, much of that expenditure is going to deprived areas that happen to vote Labour (to the shock-horror of the Tory Daily Telegraph).
Now, of course, the Tory reactionaries are loudly quibbling that the investment in education is ineffective. That, immediately, reminds me of the Guinness executive who was taxed with the sum of the firm's advertising. He cheerfully admitted that half of that cost was wasted: the problem was nobody knew which half.
In broad-brush terms, has Labour made small, stumbling steps to reverse the worst excesses of Tory privatisation (as with the outrageously-prodigal, over-complex and murderous rail privatisation of John Major)? You betcha. Is the problem that Labour is afraid to frighten the horses? You betcha. Are the spread-betters backing the Tories, knowing they will privatise more (e.g. health and social pensions)? Again, you betcha. Why is the Tory Press so hysterically hostile to Brown? Is it because he's a Rightist? As the kids say: "I don't think so."
We could play the same game with other areas of Tory "policy". I will, if pressed, but prefer not to dirty my hands with "dog-whistle politics".
Chekov is an Ulster Unionist, admittedly a liberal one (i.e. not on cuddling terms with Genghiz Khan). His "Three Thousand Versts" is fun, and readable, but should be approached with heavy-duty rubber protection and a critical mind.
We've been dodging this one for awhile now.
[editorial footnote: it took me an hour to find the post for the second link]
I don't tink that the entire time in office for New Labour has been about trying to undo the work of the conservatives. To do so would be a disservice to Labour and a way for them to weasel out of of accepting responsibility for their actions. I have no doubt that there are policy differences between the two. The Thatcherite comment was inflammatory but what can I say? When blogging I feel very little need to refrain.
Looking back on that second link I think that I could write little now that is not covered more eloquently there. I suppose though, I should clarify it slightly. I do not nessecarily mean center in the traditional sense of mdoeration, but more of a populist stance. Though their stance on the 42 day detention was more moderate.
Both Blair and Cameron have moved their parties firmly into purple politics territory. Clinton did the same with the Democrats. And while two out of the three like to point about they revived the fortunes of their parties I would point to the ruin they left in their wake. I have been harping on this for quite some time now and will continue to do so until I see a change coming. I do not see it, so I continue to harp.
As you yourself noted in your post,
"The big electoral tent that New Labour built may have collapsed, but many of its intellectual pillars are still standing. Indeed, the revival of the Conservatives under David Cameron arguably represents the project's final triumph"
Two things, first is that in order to make that electoral tent so large Labour threw out principles and substance. Secondly, Labour is crowing about creating a system in which opposing parties are simply "clones" of one another. The whole same shit, different pile line comes to mind when I read about things like that.
Three Thousand Versts is an interesting blog and I definitely take it with a grain of salt, but after spending so long in greener pastures I thought I would at least check out how the other half live.
[Heavy regretful sigh...]
The one thing of which I am certain is that all of us, no matter where we stand in the political spectrum, desire an administration which is more akin to our personal ideology. That means that each and every one of us is doomed to disappointment in our political masters. As we usually are with our chosen sports team.
One of my recent blog entries was based around a family joke: a coffee mug identifying me as another "bleeding-heart liberal", and proudly so. True, very true. Those are the politics I learned at a formative age.
Hence, about the only serious book I brought back on my recent East Coast trip was Mackenzie and Weisbrot's The Liberal Hour. I'm still digesting it. Ambitious title, borrowed, of course, from 1960 and J.K.Galbraith.
The parallels are uncomfortable.
Here's what Mackenzie and Weisbrot say about LBJ and Vietnam (pages 333-4):
By 1968 the war was killing Americans at record rates, and it was eating into the country's financial resources at an intolerable pace. It was an even-heavier anchor on Lyndon Johnson's job-approval ratings, and it gnawed at his moods and his relations in Washington and the press. But it was also eroding the nation's trust in its government. Johnson's hyperbole had infected his pronouncements on the war as it had his promises about curing poverty, ending racism, fixing the cities, and educating the country's children. There emerged what the press started to call a "credibility gap".
Now that, writ much smaller, with forty years' passage of time, could be equally relevant to Blair.
Blair, as LBJ was, is a decent social liberal. Every social policy was well-intentioned. Unfortunately, government insisted on identifying measurable "targets". When each of those targets proved too ambitious, or down-right misguided, it was another "breach of trust" for the critics to pick on.
And, of course, there is the "war" (and, if this is a war, then Vietnam was a titanic conflagration on a wholly-different scale).
.......
I can only hope for two realistic, tangible outcomes.
One that we continue to debate these issues, for in that lies the determination of our individual personal integrities.
The other is that I live long enough to see the Blair legacy evaluated and re-evaluated in wider perspectives: I suspect history may not be quite so cruel to his (and Brown's) reputation as is the current mood.
The alternative to my dewy-eyed and easily-mocked lingering faith in Labour?
Any incoming Tory administration has just the one route to an identity, peace with its internal critics and a credible ideology: by reverting to its partisan gut-feelings and rabid Thatcherism. All the rest is Cameroonie window-dressing.
Here is where we differ. You are unabashedly, a Labour man. I on the other hand am a union man. And a militant one at that. That is it for me. My family, my friends, my union, my wife. Beyond that the world can go to hell (which it is doing at an incredible rate). I am an ideological minority inside an ideological minority.
I would not mock you in your faith in Labour and hope that my comments are not taken as such. I would not propose to change you. I simply get the impression that you do not swallow/condone hook, line and sinker everything the party espouses/does. Maybe that's why I occasionally prod you a bit.
I do not give my loyalty to any political party and have sent Obamites running from my doorstep (though fair play to them they have been the only ones to knock). In that sense I do not feel the need to hold my nose and support the lesser of two evils. And yes I realize that this is sniping from the sidelines, but I don't like the game and don't intend to play.
I doubt I would have supported the Democrats of yesterday but they are coming to hold their convention in a non-union event center, stifled any hopes for a reasonable chance of protesting (a fenced in parking lot), and their local candidates have been extremely apathetic in their response to anti-labor issues that will come up this November. I do not think that this would have stood for a moment in the Democrats of even 25 years ago, but they are coming none the less to promise a new dawn for America. You will excuse me if I hit the snooze button to miss such an event. I have no doubt that this colors my blogging of things such as the Labour party.
And I hope that I'm not overstepping my bounds, but if I may ask you a question. Do you feel that New Labour is still the same party that Nye Bevin belonged to? Or if your uncle would have felt that New Labour represented him? And not in the sense that, "well better than the Tories" but if you stepped back and really looked at it, would they, could they say, "New Labour is right for me"?
Of course "New Labour" of Blair and Brown is not the Labour of Aneurin Bevan, Ian Mikardo, the young Michael Foot and the 1940s. But neither is Britain, and nor was the conservative majority wing of the Labour Party even then. Which is why all three of them, and many other good socialists fell foul of the leadership.
My active paid-up membership of the Party came to a juddering end in the early '80s. I became disaffected because of (a) the ineffectual Parliamentary opposition to Thatcherism and (b) the intolerance and opportunism of the entryist Trots.
What motivates me still are the need to protect what we have achieved (the health, social welfare and education systems that derive from the Attlee years), to redress the continuing economic inequalities in our society, to address the unfinished business of taming raw capitalism and "empowering" the citizenry. And, if that includes the abolition of monarchy and devolving power, so much the better. None of that will come with the Cameroonies.
There's as much gut-ideology in song as there is in any party manifesto. So the likes of Phil Coulter's ballad of Derry comes close to headlining what's left of any idealism, and (with Luke Kelly's great voice) dampens my eye:
Now the music's gone but they carry on,
For their spirit's been bruised, never broken.
They will not forget; but their hearts are set
On tomorrow, and peace once again.
For what's done is done and what's won is won,
And what's lost is lost and gone forever.
I can only pray for a bright, brand new day
In the town I loved so well.
Agree with you on the last point at least and acknowledge the rest as too true. Myself, I've always favored the Strawbs
Oh you don't get me I'm part of the union
You don't get me I'm part of the union
You don't get me I'm part of the union
Till the day I die, till the day I die
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