BROWN RALLIES THE TROOPS: “LABOUR STANDS FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW.”
It was a good speech. Given the gutter attacks and gossip about his health, and slanderous whispering about him being on anti-depressants, Gordon Brown came out fighting.
The best aspects were his defiant summary of what the last 12 years of Labour government have achieved, and his withering contempt for the Tory laissez faire economics. Sadly the section where he robustly defended Labour’s record is missing from the published version
For the left it is difficult to make a dispassionate assessment, because Blairism appeared as a fundamental assault on the collectivist aspirations of traditional labourism,;and also responded to the problems created by the weakening of bonds of social solidarity by Thatcherism by looking to authoritarian and communitarian measures that were often profoundly illiberal. It is therefore easy to be so horrified by that big picture that we overlook the number of tangible benefits for working people that Labour have brought in. The Tories don’t make that mistake - they have a clear agenda of returning not only to the ideology of Thatcher, but the relentless, regressive reality - the drive of government to consolidate wealth and power with the most privileged, and to disrupt and disperse any democratic and collective constraints on the power of capital.
Gordon Brown’s speech also lacked any grand narrative, other than a restatement of labourist values. That is not necessarily a bad thing, at this stage for Labour, as it allows Brown to offer something for every strand of opinion within the party. The speech contained a number of short, quotable soundbites, and individual policy announcements - some of which clearly designed to spike the Tories guns before the conference next week - like the announcement of no compulsory ID cards, stronger action on anti-social families.
Interestingly, there was a very good laying out of the core philosophical difference between the Tories and Labour, that the Tories are advocating savage cuts because they want to, and are prepared to further cut government revenue through abolishing inheritance tax, and canceling tax increases for the rich. In contrast Gordon Brown talked of increasing the highest rate of income tax still further, and committed to no cuts in front line services in health or education. It is possible that the Tories may be vulnerable on this issue, if the real impact of their policies on ordinary working people is exposed.
Gordon Brown also announced that the election would be fought on the principle of introducing the alternative vote system in the next parliament, should Labour win.
To a degree this was a speech to inspire the faithful - but that is also what they needed: some self-belief that the party is going to fight back, and not roll over as if defeat is inevitable. It was also a speech designed to pledge continuity with the last twelve years - which is necessary if Brown hopes to keep the whole party united coming up to the election.
Therein lies the danger. The New Labour strategy of triangulating around difficult issues and using spin to cover over the cracks simply will not work when the party is fighting for its life. Whereas the mission of New Labour was to win over the undecided Daily Mail readers of Nether Wallop; the task that faces Labour now is a battle on their own home soil. They are not trying to expand and win Cheltenham, Abingdon and Harrogate - they are fighting for their lives in Barnsley, the Rhonda and Dagenham.
Labour might still stop the Tories at next election - but only if they can convince traditional working class voters to come out and defend their jobs and communities, defend schemes like Sure-Start and the Working Tax Credit, and defend the NHS. It is a big ask, because Labour spin doctors have spent the last twelve years trying to persuade voters that they are hardly different from the Tories.
To turn it around, Labour needs to be a little less clever and, a little less concerned about swing voters and “Middle England”, and a lot more determined to appeal to traditional social-democratic aspirations of working class voters.
“A network of supervised homes for 16- and 17-year-old parents”.
If we set aside the invasion of Iraq, fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, spending billions on maintaining nuclear weapons, welfare reform, locking up and deporting asylum seekers etc, this has to be one of the most absurd ideas ever.
The 16 and 17 year old parents that I know could teach Labour politicians a thing or two about how to bring up children.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 29 September, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
It was an appalling speech by a right-wing idealogue
It was chockfull of the usual meaningless oratical rubbish (you know the sort of thing - if you see a hill, you walk up it. only Labour gets to the top quicker; or as the poet says, you are either right to wrong, well we’re right.)
But when he did get onto substance, the offering was caustic, as Eddie also noticed.
You’re 17 and you’ve got a kid. You live on your own in a HA flat and you have a job. Things ok? No, not with Labour, where they will now come to your front door and tell you that feckless wastrels like you no longer have the privilege of living on your own – 16 and 17 mothers will no longer be housed like this be put in some sort of monitored group housing(with compulsory chapel and needlework?)
The most surreal (and sick making) spectacle was Brown encouraging the conference to give themselves a standing ovation for, themselves, saving lives by supporting the NHS! And I doubt there was a nurse (although plenty of consultants) amongst them. .
Perhaps the low spot was, apart from ludicrous hyperbole about Britain’s fighting forces being the best in the world (UK v Russia, Israel, India, never mind the USA. Who do you think would win? Even the ‘Taliban’ are beating them) was when he got the conference to get on its feet to give thanks to our armed forces for the fine job they do
And stood they did, nearly all of them, and clapped and clapped and clapped in support of the murderous imperialist troops occupying Afghanistan. Murderous war pigs the lot of them.
I’m glad to see some dissent still rests in some state bodies like the BBC where an editor there reminded me of newspaper compositors who used to arrange the opening letters in subsequent paragraphs of their paper to spell out some abuse for their bosses.
Because during Brown’s mention of the parliamentary expense scandal, who did our BBC editor find to put into shot, clapping away furiously like a stranded sea lion, but Keith Vaz himself.
Vaz, surely just a clever work by some performance artist recreating an unctuous advocate from some Dickens novel, beamed whilst his master prattled on about public service.
If Vaz really wanted to contribute to that, he would have himself melted down into thousands and thousands of tallow candles to light up the garrets in which Labour will be housing the scarlet 16 and 17 year old women.
Comment by Southpawpunch — 29 September, 2009 @ 5:01 pm
http://unisonactive.blogspot.com/2009/09/mandelson-and-madness-of-crowds.html
Comment by StopMandy — 29 September, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
Gordon Brown’s speech also lacked any grand narrative
No it did not
Browns grand narrative was typical of a right wing free market defender of the wealthy
We are not the Conservatives
We are British Unionists who say back the middle class and deserving poor against the undeserving poor and immigrants whilst keeping the system stable for the very wealthy who are our real masters..
We back the Imperail wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
We will also take on Iran
We will continue to privatise NHS and public services and bail out the wealthy
Labour will use anything and anbody to keep its snouts in the trough
Labours a Neo Liberal Privatising Party
You only had to listen to Jack Straw today talking about
SOCIAL WORKERS WHINGEING ABOUT POOR SINGLE MOTHERS WHILST THEIR NEIGHBOUGHS SUFFER
Mandelson,Blair, Murdoch,Brown
No more Blood,Votes or Money for Labour
Comment by ANiN — 29 September, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
Yet more new labour but there is goting to be some working class votes going for this .
It time for we on the left to get own act together and build a clear alternative, there is a lot of areas where we can won support on .
Comment by steelcityred — 29 September, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
Abandonment of the i.d. card project, a referendum on electoral reform, the end of hereditary principle in the house of lords, free personal care for the seriously incapacitated etc. - thats about as good as it is going to get. Of course, if the left got their act together (hopefully without too many references to Marx, Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev etc.) then things might possibly be different.
Comment by colin — 29 September, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
#6 Colin, the ID card project was dead in the water a long time ago. The cost (and therefore saving) and the extraordinary lost data scandals saw to that.
But they’ve got compulsory ID cards in for the people they wanted anyway.
They’ve had over a decade to deal with the House of Lords and it’s still here.
Ironically, indeed dialectically, the House of Lords has actually become the last hope to curb the most authoritarian of New Labour legislation.
If the Labour vision is “thats about as good as it is going to get” then it will be slaughtered come a general election.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 29 September, 2009 @ 6:50 pm
Dear God! Did he just promise another referendum? What happened to the one about Lisbon? Weasel words, hot air and a tissue of lies, Labour are heading for political oblivion for at least another generation.
Comment by QM — 29 September, 2009 @ 7:30 pm
Southpawpunch,
“It was chockfull of the usual meaningless oratical rubbish (you know the sort of thing - if you see a hill, you walk up it. only Labour gets to the top quicker…”
That’s one of the finest and most acidic yet informative lines I’ve ever read - worthy even of the great Gore Vidal. Thank you. I’m going to use it all the time, but I’ll reference you for copyright reasons.
Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 29 September, 2009 @ 7:55 pm
#1 “The 16 and 17 year old parents that I know could teach Labour politicians a thing or two about how to bring up children”.
Indeed they could Eddie, and what pissed me off was reading one of the fave words of NL and that is ‘responsibility’…. Yes, they have the audacity to come out with that and while we are on the subject of ‘responsibility’ who the hell got the economy into the crap in the first place so before Brown, Mandelson and Darling preach the virtues of ‘responsibility’ they need to take a hard look at their own hideous politics.
NL are languishing in the sewer where they belong, they are morally, politically and financially bankrupt.
Comment by HarpyMarx — 30 September, 2009 @ 12:50 am
Tawfiq, thanks, that is going (soon) in the credits list on my website (where I have also made my first post in a long time - http://southpawpunch.blogspot.com/2009/09/labourconservatives-main-course.html
It will go alongside others, that may be slightly more, er, nuanced, from other members of this blog about my site, such as “sexist ultra-left brand of boy wankery!” from Socialist Unity’s very own Louise Whittle, or “situationist art work parodying the left” from Andy Newman.
And, Colin and others, on stating that ID cards will not be compulsory for a while -you introduce ID cards (over Tory opposition) and then backtrack, just temporarily - and that’s moving Left. Hmmm.
Comment by Southpawpunch — 30 September, 2009 @ 1:29 am
Have to agree with Eddie the thing that stood out for me was this “promise” that 16 & 17 year old parents (not just single ones but couples as helpfully explained later by the other Milliband) will have to live in supervised foyers where they will be taught how to be responsible parents. What exactly is the difference between this and the workhouse? It has to be one of the most right wing moralistic and draconian proposals I have ever heard.
New Labour having been slvaes to the market are now doing Thatcher’s job of returning us to Victorian values where the feckless and sexually active poor are locked away until they learn how to be “responsible” citizens.
Comment by Bill Scott — 30 September, 2009 @ 9:48 am
Newman, you’re pathetic. Just join the Labour Party and get it over with. Then leave the fight for socialism to the rest of us while you suck up to the union bureaucrats and unspeakable opportunists like Cruddas.
Comment by Doug — 30 September, 2009 @ 11:46 am
With all due respect to every one, it was a bloody good speech as far as I was concerned. The policy, whilst not fleshy, was deffinately a shift back to the populist style of Blairism. It could potentially be enough to save Labour 40 or 50 seats which could result in a hung Parliament where civic nationalists and two or three progressives from other parties (Respect and the Greens) could prop up a Labour minority-Government.
Brown needs to start heading towards electoral reform early, I think this should move to the top of the agenda. It could help Labour hold on to some very crucial seats in the Midlands where the Lib Dems will paint themselves as the progressive choice against Conservatism.
Comment by Luke — 30 September, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
Some real grey-haired oldies here remember when people joined Labour out of conviction.
I was one myself once but I never made it to the quarter-deck of a Russian billionaire’s yacht.
FOOTNOTE:
Who is ’southpawpunch’ one wonders. Let him/her write a column regularly!
Comment by Jerboa — 30 September, 2009 @ 3:30 pm
How can any of you defend this speech?
It was a neoliberal sham of a speech.
Who has gained from Neoliberal Labour’s time in power?
The BNP,Blair,Brown and the Bankers….
If yopu want a real,genuine socialist,progressive party please,,,stop looking at these Tory boys.
Let them die off;the big three will not deliver anything other than Neoliberal sham.
Comment by bob hope — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:27 am
“The Report” on BBC4 just finished (Thurs 8th October 8 pm)
Unfortunately not on Listen Again, but it was essential listening!
Basically Simon Cox of the Beeb was inciting the bosses to take on the RMT
The gist being that Bob Crow and the union were TOO successful at defending members conditions and increasing their pay!!
2 ballots/week 40K a year, 35 hour week, 8 weeks holiday etc…
The union was “a bit like something out of ‘Life on Mars’” and “dominated by radical elements such as Socialist Action” ( err, what???)
Crow was a self admitted Socialist and Communist, but not a member of any party.
“You don’t have to be a Virgin to go to the Virgin Islands”
Boris Johnson and the Tories are discussing plans to curb them with “No strike” legislation. But as Bob Crow retorted, “What will they do if all the members walk out, put them in Wembley stadium?”
Don’t give them ideas!
Most interesting bit was at the end when the RMT sponsored MP John McDonell discussed the TU coordinating group set up by RMT and including FBU, Lorry Drivers, POA, PCS. It’s set to grow to 12 unions and in discussions around a new “Son of No2EU” type party.
VERY significant that a Labour MP is discussing this favourably on the radio!!!
Comment by prianikoff — 8 October, 2009 @ 8:54 pm