Yesterday, the Labour Party essentially hammered the nails into New Labour’s coffin. After over a decade in power and Tony Blair’s record breaking three election victories, Labour ultimately failed to embrace modern, progressive politics and withdrew into its comfortable, leftish home.
The party had the existential choice between going backwards to the tribal, reactionary, ideologically indoctrinated pre- Blair era or forward to a progressive, centre-oriented post-Blair era.
It was a close race. But eventually their leftist hearts won over their struggling minds and the party resumed its tradition of choosing the wrong leader at the wrong time.
Many within Labour believe Ed Miliband, the state educated son of a Marxist, is a safe pair of hands. But ‘Red Ed’, so his new nickname, will quickly turn into an electoral liability rather than an asset.
He’s now widely perceived as the unions’ King. He won because four of the biggest unions, GMB, UCATT, Unison, and UNITE, gave him their strong support. His decision to make Diane Holland, Assistant General Secretary of the Unite Union, Labour’s new Treasurer and his firm Brownite credentials will hardly weaken that assumption.
What is striking however is that it his older brother, David, had the majority among Labour MPs. He also scored considerably higher in the constituency- by- constituency results. The majority of CLPs throughout Scotland, Wales, and England gave him their votes. Additionally, he won every constituency in London and the support of the non-trade union affiliated organisations, such as the Fabians.
This paradox shows not only that the party’s electoral system is ridiculously grotesque but also that Labour is out of touch with the common people.
Ed Miliband may perfectly appeal to Labour’s traditional voting base. The middle class, the centre, the group of those who so easily identified with the likes of Tony Blair however inhabit a very different set of social circumstances.
Elections are no longer won on the left or the right, but in the centre. David Cameron’s Conservative Party had to learn that bitter truth the hard way, after three disastrous election defeats.
After over a decade in power, Labour is now where it started its journey thirteen years ago. Tony Blair’s New Labour, the movement that made Labour electable again after eighteen years in opposition, was apparently no more than a passing phase. It was buried by a party that after all refused to modernise.
During his election campaign, Ed Miliband tried in an absurd and pathetic way to distance himself from Blairism and New Labour’s legacy, the most successful social political creation of peace time Europe.
Labour will pay a high price for its ignorance and ingratitude. One can only hope that the upcoming long and painful years in opposition will heal the party from its toxic Blair Displacement Syndrome.
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Related:
My fellow dear Blairites Martin and BS on Labour’s fateful decision.
I will crosspost this later, J. Well said. Glad you had a few minutes to alter the words on the tombstone.
Where do we send flowers?
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/ed-miliband-leader-of-labour-is-that-10-15-or-20-more-wilderness-years/
Flowers? To Connaught Square.
Yeah, and not roses. Perhaps I could find some wilted ones, though.
I feel another post coming up.
As I was arguing before, the pattern to watch will be the abandonment of the Brownites – I mean, Ed Milliband’s crew of any mention of the working class.
If they speak of ordinary families, they will mean the £30,000+ pa workers, whom we might categorise as the middle-middle class.
I hope you are wrong, but fear that you are right. However, it is perhaps too soon to judge. As TB makes clear in his book, he sometimes had to ‘trim’ to get to a position where he could exercise the power of decision; maybe that is what EM has done. But I would much have preferred DM, and I suspect so would the country; perhaps I am in straw clutching mode.
I am no longer in straw clutching mode after three disasterous years, Jim. They are hopeless.
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Julie, crossposted this now:
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/new-labour-in-a-museum-old-labour-in-the-wilderness/
And I AM cross, I can tell you.
I saw a friend this morning, who is a Tory, and he was jubilant over the new Labour leader. He also made the un-pc point that I have done in my proud un-PC way that Ed Mili’s speech impediment (and weak mouth) will not exactly help him cut a commanding figure on the international stage. And this friend also remarked that Tony Blair was brilliant in that arena, unmatched, which of course we all know.
Btw, he did hand me this musicians’ gag:
‘Just as well there isn’t a third Miliband brother, called Glenn – or it’d be the Glenn Miliband.’
It’s funnier in words. Honest.
Thanks for the cross-post, B.
Will link to it later. Off to office now. Have to help organising the Ambassador’s visit!
I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll take this historic moment as an opportune time to stop blogging?
Question to Which the Answer is No.
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Great post, Julie. Thank you. I agree with almost every word and will recommend this post on my blog…where I’ve posted a few thoughts of my own:
http://martininthemargins.blogspot.com/2010/09/its-ed-by-whisker.html
Thanks a lot for the mention, Martin.
Just read your post. Love it.
We Blairites have to stick together in those hard times!
If you dont like it, you could just do us all a favour and leave…
I’ve never been an -ite of any sort. I find the argument in the article a little strange. We shouldn’t personalise politics or make cults of personality, as we work best when we work together.
I’d argue that the creation of “New Labour” was more a nod to the upper, capitalist class than “the middle class” – who like those less fortunate depend on an earned income. “New Labour” was a non-aggression pact that the banking crisis dissolved. It’s not as if David disagreed with this – he stated through-out his campaign the need for private sector reform and an active industrial policy. His advocacy of a British Investment Bank was startling – a policy ditched in the early 90s by our party, but something desperately needed to ensure finance for SMEs.
Btw: the treasurer’s role was elected, not selected by the leader. The electoral college is skewed towards MPs who have more power per vote than a great many individual members or affiliates. David could just as easily won by virtue of affiliate votes, so let’s not turn brother against brother.
Diana Holland was NOT appointed by Ed Miliband. She was elected by the electoral college.
The same system delivered a 50 per cent union support for Tony Blair in 1994 so I daresay it was OK then. …thank God, as Neil Kinnock, said “we have our Party back.”
If it is not to your taste, go and join the Blairites like John Hutton at the Tory Conference
I don’t have to join the Blairites anymore. I am one, an ultra, for years which means I am supporting Labour’s – like it or not – most successful PM ever. Good luck with Ed Miliband. Labour will be back where it was before Blair: in opposition for a very long time!
@ susan press
NK – “our party back”
Would that be the former party leader Kinnock? The one who FAILED to ‘lead’ his party to victory in 1992? In common with Brown in 2010 and the other unelected leader/PM – Callaghan, in 1979?
http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/why-ed-ms-pm-ambitions-are-all-but-impossible-part-2-it-took-33-years-to-find-a-blair/
As opposed to Tony Blair – the MOST SUCCESSFUL LABOUR LEADER & PM EVER.
I hope you’re young, Susan. You may have many years to wait to see Labour return to power, if history is anything to go by. There have only been FOUR Labour leaders EVER who led your party to Number 10, and the average gap between each one was 24 years. The longest gap being between Wilson and Blair – at 33 years.
Food for thought? It should be.
‘Got our party back’!!! Hah. A hollow victory for Neil Kinnock, I think. Neil, who cheered for and hugged Tony with “well done, kid” in 1997, then hoped quietly for Brown to replace him pre 2007, then cheered again when Little Ed ended his Blairite brother’s hopes.
What judgement! And, btw, on a personal level, I very much like NK. A good man and great company.
Pity about his lack of political nous.
I’m not being entirely frivolous. Remarks like:
Labour will pay a high price for its ignorance and ingratitude. One can only hope that the upcoming long and painful years in opposition will heal the party from its toxic Blair Displacement Syndrome.
Pretty clearly suggest your fondness for Blair far outweighs your fondness for, or concern with, the Labour Party. Why continue to blog about politics when your obly topic of interest seems to be defending a man who left the stage three years ago?
It seems to me that ‘ultra’s’ like yourself must choose to do one of two things. Either (a) engage with the party as it now is, offering constructive advice- Ed has much to learn from Blair, not least on presentation. Or, for the good of the party – and i suspect your own sanity – keep quiet. To simply keep playing out this apparent crush on the last Labour leader but one seems masochistic, petty and bizarre.
A little sexist, Bob —
“To simply keep playing out this apparent crush on the last Labour leader but one seems masochistic, petty and bizarre.”
Might it be that Julie happens to be a female who happens to believe that Blair was the best? Is she not permitted to say so in case such as you assume she is nothing more than in love? And so you attempt to belittle her political opinion.
It’s actually more than a little sexist. Oddly enough people who take your position even accuse John Rentoul of being “in love”. You’re all seriously compromised in your so-called arguments.
For instance – not one of you has engaged in the argument that I am making that history shows that Labour is SELDOM the party of government. Why, you might try to reply, why do you think it took 30 years to find a Labour winner (Blair) after Wilson was first elected?
Perhaps something to do with your party’s normal positioning? Far too far to the Left?
Until Blair, that is.
Now, do I have a crush too, because I point out the truth? Am I too being masochistic, petty and bizarre?
Dear KTBPM,
I was thinking of you as well as Julie, which i hope undermines the sexism point slightly. (Besides, how do i know Julie even is a woman, or you a man? Many people on the internet aren’t who tgey say they are).
I’m not saying defending Blair or mourning his downfall is wrong, and many serious bloggers share that position. What I find so bizarre is that Julie appears to have *nothing* else to say. I’m arguing for sucking it up and moving on.
Three years after Blair’s resignation, you still run a blog called ‘Keep Tony Blair For PM.’ Doesn’t that strike you as weird, and a little unhealthy?
OK, Bob – yes there is a point about my blog with its title being a little unhealthy. I agree – sort of. Let me try and address this.
I started the blog in September 2006 when the cabal within his party decided we the British people shouldn’t have him as our PM any more. Apart from finding that undemocratic although permissable (it wasn’t a bloody coup) I had come to admire Blair even though I had not been a Labour voter. In particular, despite press opinion and a kind of general consensus against, I had come round to the conclusion that he was right over Iraq. And yet that, it was said, was why he was being “pushed out” (words he uses himself in his memoirs).
Since there did not seem to be any site with the option of KEEPING him I set one up. Several times as it became clear that the supporting element could not compete with the antis, and especially after he’d gone, I was ready to stop the whole thing. But since I was the only blog doing this kind of recording, to just go and away and accept what happened, knowing that New Labour was likely to be destroyed without his presence – somehow it seemed negligent to me. So, the narrative continues. Perhaps it’s a self-indulgence now – a kind of online “I told you so”. But maybe the death throes of a whole political party should be recorded in this way. Anyway, that’s the history of my blog. But I do agree it is at times a little unhealthy, and may even be described, fairly in many ways, as an obsession. I used to make money on the internet. In recent years I only make waves, and most of them not as powerful as they could or perhaps should be.
I also think that those of us who think positively about an individual or a movement should be seen and read on the internet. It is far too easily a place for nothing but criticism. I think that is a pity, and in no REAL way mirrors real people’s opinions.
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Well Keep, I certainly share your sense of the general tone of things on the internet, though my original rather snarky comment might say otherwise. At least your blog does what it says on the tin, as they say. Julie’s is intended, it seems, as a blog about politics from a Labour perspective. And I honestly think the best thing for those who are enraged about Blair’s going to do right now isn’t to continue expressing rage, but to contribute constructively to the policy debate, etc. Or, to shut up.
That’s if you care about the Labour party. I do get the impression that Julie doesn’t, really; care about the party as much as she does TB’s reputation. I think that’s a shame; she’s young, as you pointed out earlier, and there’s an exciting debate going on in the party to be involved in if she cares to.
Bob,
Just to get things straight, I am not a Labour blogger neither a Labour member.
I supported TB’s progressive, centrist approach and especially his foreign policy after 9/11.
But since he left, the party completely lost it. Brown’s premiership was an effing disaster and he should have never been Prime Minister.
The way many within Labour tried to airbrush Blair’s achievements was grotesque, pathetic and ridiculous.
I was arguing for the last three years that the party needs to recover and make a reasonable decision in respect to its new leader. The opposite happened.
The truth is, the majority of Labour members never accepted TB’s reforms and the need for change.
A friend of mine summarised it quite well the other day:
I think that the big reason why Blair was able to help achieve those three victories was that he understood the basic conservatism of the British people. I don’t think that conservatism is necessarily good or bad but rather that it is the bedrock of most people’s world views.
In understanding the basic desires and needs of the British people (home, education, safety and civic values), he was able to produce a far more radical agenda than the radical socialists ever thought possible.
The great mistake people like Ed Milliband make is that they assume that the British people either already share their own aspirations or that they will if just phrased right or repeated long enough. This is a great error if I am right about the essential conservatism of the British people.
What do people want in life? Not THE PEOPLE but individuals and families? They want work, family life and education for their children. They want the police to protect their lives and property and they want to have pride in their nation and in their locality.
The metropolitan classes who read the Guardian do not understand this and never will; indeed they hold the ordinary person in secret contempt. Radical agendas must first appear conservative if they are to succeed! And if a party wishes to win an election, it must present a prospect that safeguards the familiar and protects the future.
This is why I am worried about the next General Election. The Labour Party is in danger of being ruled by theoreticians again or poll-obsesed bandwagoneers.
How much would you bet me that in a year’s time, Ed Milliband will have to have surgery on his knees to fix damage from jumping on and off too many bandwagons?
But Julie, there are not just individuals and families in Britain – there are those whose life is sustained mainly through their labour and those whose life is sustained mainly through their ownership of capital.
It isn’t ideas that shape our country, but interests. TB for all his achievements has forgotten the conflict between the needs of the many ordinary people and the wealthy, unelected few whose decisions affect our lives and whom we cannot throw out of power in elections.
Julie, thanks for your patient response to my snarking.
But I think you’re missing my point. You may well be right in everything you say about Blair – you’re certainly right about much of it. Time will tell if you’re right about Ed Miliband.
My point is this: given this state of affairs, what are those who feel like you to do? It seems to me that you’ve been blogging what is, essentially, a lost cause – - Tony Blair’s reputation – for several years now. (I don’t mean it’s a lost cause because he’s such a sellout/war criminal/whatever but because the loud minority who think he’s these things aren’t going to change their minds now).
This just seems a really depressing and sorry, yes, weird thing for a young smart person to be doing with their time. And, to be honest, counterproductive. How does it help Labour to write sentences like “Labour will pay for its ignorance and ingratitude?” Read that back – does that really read like someone who approved of Blair’s strategy, or someone with a bit more o an emotional attachment?
It’s time to move on. You say you’re not a Labour blogger – fair enough, you could write a more general blog about political issues, urging the kind of foreign policy you want to see, the kind of domestic policy you want to see. What you have now (with the exception of one quite interesting post on Northern Ireland I found) is a blog that purports to be a general interest blog but is actually just a fan club for a prime minister from the last decade.
I’m just saying: it’s time to move on.
Hi Julie. Just sent you a friend request on Facebook (recently joined) but it wouldn’t let me add a message so couldn’t explain how you know me – i.e. as Martin In The Margins. Am selectively revealing my true identity to make it possible to network with people on FB. Hope you’ll accept!
What bizarre collection of hero worshippers!
There is no such thing as the “centre ground”. Labour under Blair wasn’t centrist; it was as economically right wing as Thatcher’s Conservatives
Blair didn’t win in 97, Labour did. And without Labour Blair would just have been a middle ranking one nation Conservative.
Labour lost the most support in the general election among lower middle and working class people. Most of this support drained away between 97 and 2005 when Blair was in charge. Support for Labour remained high amongst the wealthy. Conclude from that what you will (after you’ve taken your designer sycophant’s sunglasses off!)
I love ad hominems. Always a strong indication for the opponent’s lack of argument.