How Blair has failed
Melanie Phillips has (yet another) great article here titled The eclipse of opportunity - its a good read.
Its thesis is that social mobility has declined because of the current Labour government.
Personally I worry that Labour knows the game is up and they are now setting about wrecking the country as if they can't have it - nobody will. See the political indoctrination being announced today for our schools and the attempts to cripple the house of Lords and any future governments.
They sold their principles and they have failed.
The country needs a general election to clear this air of the stench of Labour failure.
5 comments:
And what do the Tories offer? As far as we can tell, more of the same, only with some green paint and a promise to scrap the pointless ID card scheme. A general election in the next year or two would be disasterous for the Tories as they'd have to cobble together a manifesto in a hurry or try running on the same rubbish they did last time. For all his shouting I suspect Cameron wants this Parliament to run it's full course, or at least most of the way.
Loz - your question is a good one.
Part of the problem is that the NuLabour project has taken politics to a state of always campaigning. (Who can forget Tony Blair saying the campaign for the next election starts today - the day after winning in 1997 ? ) The NuLabour project has always moved to close the distance with any Conservative policy (even after condemning it first ). In the political climate they have created it is not possible to be overly specific too far from an election. Unfortunately that's seen as just bad tactics.
However a number of people are worried that the parties aren't offering the people clear enough choices and appear to be just opinion poll driven, rather than providing leadership. Tim Montgomerie makes the point well here .. (The New [Been told to love Gordon]Times Online site doesn't seem to honour old links - I'm not sure how long the 18D link will work for either).
There is no good answer here - I'd prefer more leadership and less caution.
Of course even if a Conservative government had exactly the same policies as NuLabour they would still do better as they would be able to actually execute them well. Since:
1) They would broadly support many of them ( unlike Labour's self loathing MPs ).
2) They would see that due process and competent government were adhered to ( no sofa cabinet ).
3) No Tory Prime Minister would ever have failed to resign after WMD were failed to be found in Iraq - its take the self delusion and gutless self interest of a socialist to do that.
4) A Conservative government would not have spent two thirds of its time dismantling reforms only to bring them back again at the end. ( Trust schools, GP Fund holding, NHS internal market, Actually building roads etc etc ).
So we would have done better - for less tax take and waste, even on the same policies. Think of the improvement with the better policies we would also bring !
Your point seems to be that the Tories will do everything that new Labour will do just quicker. Comparing the dying years of the Blair government to the dying years of the Major government I'm not sure there's any proof one way or the other. Both parties seem to be fairly equal for zeal in the early years of power versus torpor later on. If Cameron gets in to power do you think the Eurosceptics won't make a comeback? Are the Conservatives hungry enough for power that like New Labour they will moderate themselves to remove the extreme right-wingers from having influence?
I think an election would be great. Politics is on the up in terms of people generally being interested and concernd.
Sadly Broon will never win an election and knows it.
Loz - my point is that even if the Conservatives did the same things as Labour they would do them far better. Labour's incompetence has , in part, its routes in the low quality of many of its people, the fact that those who are half way capable hate themselves as they ditched their principles for power, and the fact that they believe spinning and making press releases is the same thing as achieving something.
It could be that David Cameron is very Eurosceptic or not - we just don't know as he's playing a tactical game. Of course being Eurosceptic isn't the same as being right wing - as Neil Kinnock could have told you when he wanted to pull the UK out of the European Union ( before he and his wife drew large salaries from that organisation that is. )
I suspect the British people would go for a bit more leadership these days. They certainly will as the government finances deteriorate further and Broon's false public sector bubble bursts.
By the way the Conservative party is back in the black again today with the sale of its old offices - Labour are red and going deeper ( in hoc to the Unions - see this weeks Economist. )
Post a Comment