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The birds, the bees and the Tories

July 21, 2012 3:03 pm

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Tom Harris

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When I recently suggested on Twitter that in order to win the next election, Labour must appeal to voters who supported David Cameron’s Tories in 2010, I was deluged by comrades convulsed by what I actually think was genuine outrage, or at least indignation.

Now, being called a Blairite lickspittle doesn’t bother me in the slightest, in fact I consider it something of a badge of honour. But the fact is I’ve moved on from my misty-eyed devotion to our former Prime Minister and election-winning machine; there’s only one game in town these days if you’re a Labour politician, and that is putting all our effort into making sure Ed Miliband, the democratically-elected leader of our party, becomes Prime Minister at the next general election.

And because I’m fully committed to making that happen, I want to know what we’re going to offer those Tory voters to encourage them to come over to our side before polling day.

Yet if you read some of the musings of some on the British Left, you’d think that the idea of courting your opponents’ support is a purely Blairite strategy. We’re too pure in thought and deed these days to stoop to accepting the support of voters tainted by their past association with the Great Evil, apparently. One nationalist who claims to be a constituent of mine, expressed feigned astonishment at the very notion of trying to win the support of Tory voters, presumably seeing my Tweet as admission that Labour is, after all, a Tory Party by another name. I couldn’t even be bothered to respond by asking her whose voters her esteemed party leader, Alex Salmond, wooed in order to win the formerly safe Tory seat of Banff and Buchan in 1987.

The argument of some on the Left (some of them are even in the Labour Party! Sell-outs!) seems to be this: ignore the indisputable fact that every opposition leader in history who succeeded in reaching Number 10 – including Clem Attlee and Harold Wilson as well as Blair – had no choice but to target those who voted for the government last time round. However, next time round, for the first time ever, the election will be won by targeting non-voters, those “lost voters” who supported Labour in 1997 and who, since then, have stubbornly stayed at home on polling day, in protest at Blair’s arrogant and undemocratic insistence on implementing the manifesto on which he was elected, rather than establishing the full-throated socialist state for which the UK has never voted.

Because those who have, even on a single occasion, flirted with the Party Who Shall Not Be Named, are beyond the pale, it seems. Making a play for their support would taint us by association. Fortunately for the Tory Party, Margaret Thatcher had no such misgivings in her unashamed – and hugely successful – appeal to trade unionists, council house tenants and working class Labour voters in 1979 and beyond.

But merely to make the obvious and unavoidable point that Labour must win the support of Tory voters (and at Holyrood must win the support of nationalist voters) in order to win next time is to risk the condemnation of fellow party members. We don’t mind couching the argument in terms of a “two-party swing” – we’re used to that kind of language and we can pretend that the phrase doesn’t actually mean what it means. But just because Attlee and Wilson won votes from former Tory voters doesn’t mean we have to be honest about it and say it out loud, does it?

The “strategy” of targeting those who opted out of the democratic process ten years ago is so flawed that I cannot even write the word “strategy” without placing inverted commas around it, just to warn readers that I use it in a purely ironic sense. Because the defining characteristic of non-voters is this: they don’t vote (stop me if I’m going too fast here).

According to recent polls, there has already been a significant shift from the Tories directly to Labour. That’s a good thing, right? We’re not going to tell them, “What? You voted Tory in the past? Well, we’re not going to let you vote Labour, then – sod off!”

And it’s not an unintended consequence of Ed’s strategy – it’s the whole point. Those who voted for David Cameron in 2010 are not bad people. They had any number of reasons for making their decision about who to support, some reasonable, some not – just like the supporters of every other party, including our own. Voters are, on the whole, reasonable people who are open to persuasion. If we don’t persuade them of our case, they will not support us, which is what happened in 2010.

Come 2015 there will be a two-party swing, just as there has been at every election in our lifetimes. If that swing is three and a half per cent or more, we’ll equal or beat the Tory vote. If it’s less than three and a half, we won’t.

Now is not the time to try in vain to rewrite the political rules in order to preserve the purity of our socialist consciences. Now is the time to do what good oppositions do, and make a new appeal to the voters – particularly those voters who turned their backs on us two years ago and whose decision about who to support next time will decide the election.

That will be difficult for a lot of people in the party. Bo so what? When you lose as cataclysmically as we did in 2010, you’ve no right to expect the road back to government to be either easy or comfortable. In fact, if the road can be described as either, then you’re on the wrong one.

Tom Harris is MP for Glasgow South and a Shadow Defra Minister

Daniel Speight

Being lectured by Tom Harris is like being…
- derek
  
  Licked to death by an over zealous puppy!
  - treborc
    
    I had to check to see who had written it, “Comrade” he actually said Comrade.
    - derek
      
      Seems to me that Tom, with his “badge of honour” and coat of many colours is quiet prepared to say anything, so long as the party has at least 3.5% of tories voting for it. With all the problems of unemployment and the rest, Harris pops up with a cunning plan, lets go round again to being the soft tory blue party? what a loser!
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Well,
        
        it seems that his political career has been more successful than most. He gained a rise of 4% in 2010 in votes, which was against the trend.
        
        By what framework do you judge him to be a “loser”? Surely it will be objective against some measurable outcome, or does your view only have the intellectual capacity of a jeering crowd who drown truth with volume and unevidenced jeers?
      - derek
        
        He ran for the Scottish labour leadership and was placed last, I think he didn’t even accrue double figures in vote terms.
        
        I think Harris is a drowned out hack! why try and have a plan to gain tory support, why not have a plan to get more people involved in the democratic process by being something other than what we’ve had for the last 40 years?
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Gordon Brown increased his share of the vote by 6.4% in 2010. Just saying…
      - treborc
        
        Well Blue labour not sure, new labour 100%
- Wee Jimmy
  
  … a coffee enema by Anne Widdecombe!
jaime taurosangastre candelas

Voice of reason (and it’s not just tory 2010 voters, it’s Lib Dems as well)

There are those on LL who seem to reject any form of seeking to win back votes in favour of some ludicrous policies that take the party further away from any electorally significant amount of votes. Occasionally when out-argued they claim to not want to win with the support of centrist voters. To which all I can say is “you are heading into the wilderness and irrelevancy – if that is what you want for the Labour Party thank God those who actually run the Party have some brains, because you do not”.
- derek
  
  Why support the old tired ways? Thatcherism didn’t work, Blairism was just a continuation of failure. Why not try to have policies that can attract the non voters, their numbers will equate to far more than the 3.5% swing, tory to labour vote.
  
  Surely it isn’t wise nor brainy to keep on supporting the same old failed ways.
  
  It’s a bit like the kid how hates custard asking for second helpings.
  - jaime taurosangastre candelas
    
    Thatcherism did not work? Her Government dragged this country out of a backwater of low-skilled, poor and unproductive manufacturing. People have had adequate time since 1979 to get themselves out of the mindset of being a manual labourer being told what to do by some socialist union foreman.
    
    Most Labour tribalists - and you do appear to me to be one of them – seem to be stuck in 1978 and trying to go backwards. Everyone else in life realises that time’s arrow only runs in one direction.
    - derek
      
      Jeez! Jaime, stop shooting poison arrows through pigeon holes. Our manufacturing base isn’t healthy and hi-tech employment with decent earnings aren’t in abundance.
      
      Jaime your spearhead head of perceived time is somewhat reversed, I’m advocating a betterment. A time of engagement with our people where we advanced the idea of 8 hours works 8 hours leisure and 8 hours rest beyond those dark satanic days of cotton mills, better employment, better wages and better lifestyles for all.
      - David B
        
        Oh Derek, Thatcherism worked it brought proppertiry and self improvement to the majority. The unions off course hated it because it took away their power and allowed people to improve themselves. Remember manufacturing output was higher in real terms when she left Downing Street in 1990 that it was in 1979.
        
        Blairism never had a chance to work due his chancellor working against him and ensured his domestic policy failed which lead to forign policy failure. Manufacturing output fell in real terms between 1997 and 2010.
        
        We need to learn the lessen of the last 4 years. A country must be able to pay its way just like a company and a household. We need to go back to basics, work hard, save and understand ultimately those that lend money want it back in the end
      - derek
        
        Nonsense from 1979 to 1997 man hours, tonnage, and employment went down, fuel poverty, polltax, unemployment and child poverty all went up.
        Remember in 1997 people were still being paid as little as 70 pence per hour and you can’t seriously say that the right to buy was an improvement when millions can’t afford a home today, Think again! David B,
      - David B
        
        Derek, it’s a good story, shame about facts. Please
        see this link, it shows manufacturing output from 1948 to 2008 in real terms,
        
        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/22/manufacturing_figures/
        
        The real issues in the housing market started with the bubble blow by Gordon
        Brown, not by giving council tenants the right to buy their houses.
    - TomFairfax
      
      Hi Jaime,
      As all main parties seem to be thinking we need high skilled manufacturing as part of a balanced economy, probably best not to copy Maggie’s and Blair’s methods of trying to destroy it.
      
      However, the concept of strike ballots (good) shouldn’t be assumed to be the same thing as wilfully wrecking a whole sector of the economy.
      
      e.g. Matrix Churchill was successfully before the Tories interfered.
      Rolls-Royce still exists because a Tory government nationalised it to stop it going bust.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        Well it was Thatcher who destroyed manufacturing. To boost the manufacturing industry for growth and a more balanced economy, I would argue for an increase in the bank levy to pay for grants, loans and investment allowances to the manufacturing industry. Nationalisation, however, is certainly not the answer.
      - Graham Duke
        
        ’Well it was Thatcher who destroyed manufacturing’ Proof? Links?
        
        What we need is more British Leylands – that went well.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        It was. The decline of manufacturing when she was Prime Minister and the unemployment that caused. Learn history.
      - treborc
        
        You need to make up your mind mate, your all over the place on this like most things you cannot make up your mind if your Labour or Liberal
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        I’m all over the place. I was born to a Labour family and I have never been in any other party other than the Labour Party. You are clearly deluded. You are a Commie who isn’t even in the party.
      - treborc
        
        And yet you ended up a liberal what a moron
      - Brumanuensis
        
        British Leyland’s biggest problem was their supply chain. The designs they came up with were often fairly innovative – see the Austin Metro and the Rover SD1. But parts were badly sourced – as was the case with the Triumph motorcycle co-op – and this diminished their appeal. Some working practices were also unhelpful.
      - JoeDM
        
        British Leyand was a disaster from the moment BMH and LMC merged following political pressure in 1968.
        
        At the time BMH was a complete basket case of a company. It was formed from the merger of BMC and Jaguar. BMC itself was formed from the merger of Morris and Austin. Morris owned the Wolesley, Riley, and MG companies.
        
        The BMH side of BL was a complete dogs dinner of a company with over 70 different sites. Almost all had their own separate work practices, pay and conditions. The product line was obsolete with many models competing against each other in the UK market. And the build quality was dreadful – remember the Austin Allegro being nicknamed the ‘All Aggro’.
        
        It is a classic case study in how industrial policy can result in an utter disaster.
        
        BMH / BMC should have been allowed to fail by itself and not taken the quite successful LMC with it.
        
        Wilson and Benn were utterly wrong headed in trying to rig the market with this political merger. As Digby Jones once said of industrial policy, you now have the British Leyland model – you feed a lot of taxpayers
        money in at the top and an Austin Allegro comes out at the bottom.
      - treborc
        
        Of all the people to quote from Digby Jones a deep seated socialist
      - JoeDM
        
        He has a history of being more sympathetic to Labour’s monopolistic state corporatism than market-based solutions.
      - treborc
        
        new labour
      - treborc
        
        Standing on the steps, she quoted St Francis of Assisi…
        
        “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error,
        may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where
        there is despair, may we bring hope.”
        
        What followed was 11 years in which she polarised the country. And 18 years after leaving office, that division remains.
        
        Here we look at her policies and how their legacy lives on in today’s Britain…
        
        THE BIG BANG
        The roots of today’s current financial chaos can be traced directly back
        to October 27, 1986, when the biggest revolution in the financial
        markets took place.
        
        Thatcher saw London being overtaken as the centre of world finance by
        New York and she decided that its problem was over-regulation. The
        
        Big Bang saw an overhaul of the system with a “light touch” approach
        
        to regulating banks and trading. Bonuses went through the roof as
        “greed is good” became the mantra and the markets became a casino.
        
        http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thatchers-legacy-from-the-poll-tax-to-privatisation-789747
        ****************************************
        
        THE PRIME Minister has repudiated the Eighties
        view that manufacturing industry is not economically essential, and
        criticised the economic inheritance left him by Margaret Thatcher.
        
        In an interview with the Independent, John Major said he
        ‘passionately believed’ Britain needed a bigger industrial base:
        ‘services aren’t enough.’
        Questioned on the Thatcherite orthodoxy that emphasised the service
        sector, he retorted: ‘I don’t agree with it. I didn’t agree with it in
        the Eighties. I was a minority view in the Eighties; I am not a minority
        view now and, anyway, I am in a better position to expound my views.’
        Asked what he was going to do to boost engineering, he replied: ‘I
        think you have to consider firstly the inheritance I had when I became
        Prime Minister: we had 15 per cent interest rates, inflation just under
        11 per cent; there was no certainty interest rates wouldn’t go up and no
        certainty that inflation wouldn’t go up.’
        
        Independent
        
        ****************************************
        
        In fairness to Thatcher.
        
        The importance of manufacturing to the economy declined more rapidly
        under Labour administrations since 1997 than it did during the Margaret
        Thatcher era, according to a Financial Times study.
        
        The big winners in the same period were bankers, estate agents and
        public sector workers, whose share of output increased under the Labour
        governments of Tony Blair, the former prime minister, and Gordon Brown,
        his successor. The findings about the state of the economy were
        uncovered during a study of data held by the Office for National
        Statistics.
        
        Manufacturing accounted for more than 20 per cent of the economy in
        1997, when Labour came to power critical of the country having too
        narrow an industrial base. But by 2007, that share had declined to 12.4
        per cent.
        
        Although the recession of the early 1980s dealt a permanent blow to
        the industrial heartlands, the relative devastation of manufacturing
        during the past 12 years has been almost three times faster.
        
        http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c257da6-dfab-11de-98ca-00144feab49a.html
        
        Socialism at it’s best
      - TomFairfax
        
        Strangely enough nationalising banks doesn’t seem to have been off the agenda. Just called something else.
        
        Whilst clearly the financial sector has benefited from preferential treatment for decades, it’s probably not a good idea to actively damage it as an alternative.
        
        By all means make bonuses relate to sound practice and actual robust, enduring, performance and make it financially beneficial to do this via taxation.
        
        I think you’ll find people in industry would just like joined up government, clear growth strategies, and some clear thinking from a crowd of Westminster jerks who never have any experience of delivering anything to cost, budget, and at the right time, consistently, for years on end.
        
        As an example, if Mrs May fouls up, she doesn’t lose her job, just the Ministerial perks. And then only if she can’t find another scapegoat for the Home Office’s inability to manage suppliers with any degree of competence. Anybody who reckons they take a suppliers statements at face value is in the wrong job, or shouldn’t outsource anything more critical than car park maintenance.
    - Nemesis
      
      Thatcher Successful?
      
      Rather than stimulating the economy through investment and tax cuts, the Blue Baroness tried to control everything through the amount of money in circulation. (Thanks to the late Doctor Milton Freidman.) Thatcher thought this would reduce inflation from its 1979 level of 10.3%. It didn’t. Inflation doubled within a year and only fell to present day levels of 2-3% in 1986.
      
      By the time this happened huge economic damage had been done. To get to such a low level, indirect taxes had been hiked (VAT rose from 8% to 15%), as had interest rates (topping 17%). Subsidies for industry were reduced. The result was a catastrophically massive rise in unemployment from 1.4m in 1979 to 3.5m by 1982, or one in eight people out of work. “I knew that when you change from one set of policies to another, the transition is very difficult,” Mrs Thatcher later reflected, “but benefits would come in the longer run.”
      
      Benefits did eventually come, but not for everyone. Long-term unemployment blighted an entire generation in Northern Ireland (where 20% of people were left out of work), Scotland and the NE and NW of England (16%). Supporters insisted work was there to be found; critics argued it was unreasonable to expect people to leave homes and families to take a job 100 miles away. If the argument sounds familiar it’s because we’re still engaged in it today under another Conservative regime. Over time a disunited kingdom emerged, as some parts of the country flourished while others faltered. Industry declined in the north; new sectors such as financial services boomed in the south.
      
      Mrs Thatcher then went further, advocating both economic and moral belligerence. According to Thatcher was “no such thing as society, there are individual men and women and there are families.” People should look to their own and not rely on the government for help. Sound familiar. No wonder because it’s the same thing Cameron was said while advocating stripping housing benefit from all of the under 25s a few weeks ago.
      
      Her perversity finally crystallised into her reinterpretation of Jesus parable about the Good Samaritan when she stated that the only reason the Good Samaritan did any good in the first place was “because he had money” to do so. Good without money was no good. Money was good because it enabled people to do good. Pity so few of the wealthy were born in Samaria as it turned out since most of the rich helped themselves unstintingly and others never. The prosperity Mrs Thatcher brought to Britain was selective, antagonistic and temporary. She did indeed leave Britain “very, very much better”, but only for some. She also left it in recession, with unemployment, inflation and interest rates rising.
      
      She bad for the country during her premiership and continues to be bad for the country today. The causes of the present slump – unrestricted credit, deregulation and too much financial speculation – all date back to the 1980s. No successive government dared reverse these decisions: a blessing to her legacy, but a curse we must now all share.
      
      What a bloody awful woman.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        Hello but she won three elections in a row. Electorally that is a success.
      - treborc
        
        Well you would being an ex liberal
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        I am not. You should stop lying, really.
      - treborc
        
        Then why did you call your self the ex Liberal , or are we just to forget that.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        I have never called myself an Ex Liberal.
      - treborc
        
        Ex lib dem , oh yes you did
      - Alan Giles
        
        Posts by this individual have appeared under three names:
        
        First “Ex Lib Dem”
        
        Then “The PurpleBooker” and for a couple of days week commencing 8.7.12 “Right Labour Toughie”. If you clicked on the avatar it was clear the same poster was at work, he or she frequently using abusive langauge calling people “Stalinist” or (top favourite “Respect supporter”).
        
        The bilious outpourings sound like those of a neurotic teenage schoolgirl. Interestingly none of the three names are gender specific.
      - treborc
        
        Not a girl, he is a bloke sadly he is without doubt a Liberal
      - john p Reid
        
        don’t worry about the plaid cymru supporter who said he’d vote tory in 2009 out of sheer spite hes made up I used to be a tory a few times and I haven’t either
      - treborc
        
        John mate your an idiot
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        You fucking hypocritical bastard.
      - Nemesis
        
        Are you mad?
        
        Are you seriously saying that the it’s OK to ruin the country and erase the lives and futures of millions of citizens in order to win an election? Thatcher won in 1979 after the “Winter of Discontent” with a majority of 43 seats. By the early 80s the Conservatives and their policies had become reviled and entirely unpopular and Thatcher ended up on the ropes by 1982 until the the Falklands Conflict came along which bizarrely saved her from becoming Britain’s first one-term woman Prime Minister, got the nation behind her and helped her to boost her majority in the Commons after the battle was won to 102 in 1983. To multitudes of floating voters at the time it literally seemed unpatriotic, even disrespectful to the servicemen that had recently died in the Falklands, to transfer their votes from the Party led by the Lady who had been so steadfast leadership-wise during the conflict to someone else and so a huge number voted Tory.
        
        Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock did all he could to help Lady Thatcher by their poor leadership and the Labour Party which itself did sterling work to help the Tories by tearing itself to pieces and, in 1981, actually splitting in two when 20 rebel Labour MPs founded the Social Democratic Party and quickly allied themselves with the Liberal Party and eventually merged with the older Party to form today’s Liberal Democrats.
        
        Thatcher was an extraordinarily lucky politician who always seemed to be saved from disaster by disaster, well, up until she pushed through the Community Charge (Poll Tax) which caused ructions and riots and didn’t have a war anywhere in the world to use as a diversion.
        
        Without the Fawklands Thatcher would have been defeated on 9 June 1983 and Neil Kinnock would have become Prime Minister – if only for one term – but at least the Labour Party might have been spared Thatcher’s spiritual son Tony Blair usurping the Party’s leadership and spawning a dynasty of corrupt and wretched descendants to live on after him like his ex-babysitter James Purnell, Liam Byrne, Tessa Jowell, Yvette Cooper etc., etc.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        What I said was that the woman was an electoral success she won three terms. That is a success whether you like it or not and yes even if it ruins the country.Firstly, you claim Neil Kinnock would have been Prime Minister in 1983 without the Falklands. That is not true. Labour was unelectable which had suffered the SDP split, Michael Foot was a poor leader and Tony Benn was a bastard in his challenge to Denis Healy and also you had the Trotyskist entryists who tried to take over the party. Also, Neil Kinnock was not leader it was still Foot. Labour’s manifesto was shockingly terrible. Had Denis Healy been elected leader in 1980 not Michael Foot, then Labour would have certainly won the 1983 election.
        Secondly, Blair was not Thatcher’s spiritual son and he did not usurp the leadership. He was democratically elected by the Labour Party and he won us three elections. By the way, Yvette Cooper is not a Blairite.
      - treborc
        
        You really are bonkers, of course Thatcher won that election because of the Falklands, the whole country was proud of the war, the battle call it what you like and she used the situation well.
        
        You love to state Labour was unelectable I bet you were not even born. Liberal
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        She was ahead of the polls before the Falklands War. It certainly helped her but she would have won anyway. You are the bonkers one. You think I am a Liberal and you have a politics that it is unelectable which is why no one in the Labour Party will listen to you or should listen to you.
      - treborc
        
        Why flag your own comment because you looked ridiculous.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        I didn’t. You are just lying again.
      - Nemesis
        
        What planet are you on? Do you just make stuff up and state it as if it is received reason?
        
        Here’s an article by Dominic Lawson you might care to read:
        
        http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-patriotism-is-why-thatchers-war-won-her-the-publics-backing-7609027.html
        
        Lawson is the son of Nigel Lawson, her Maggiesty’s sometime “Brilliant Chancellor”.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        She would have won in 1983 anyway. Did you read the 1983 Labour manifesto, or remembered Tony Benn’s deputy leadership or the SDP split. Falklands just gave her a landslide. SDP were ahead in the polls, Labour at times were third.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        No, she was behind in the polls before the Falklands war
      - john p Reid
        
        this is a myt t’s forgotten teh selling concil homeshelped her, the falklands jut gave her the landslide, also foot not kinncok was leader in 1983
      - john p Reid
        
        this is a myt t’s forgotten teh selling concil homeshelped her, the falklands jut gave her the landslide, also foot not kinncok was leader in 1983
      - treborc
        
        helppppppp
      - John Dore
        
        Who fecking cares about the old cow.
      - Redshift
        
        Is it? I mean there are people who’s deep-seated hatred for the Tories is a direct consequence of her time in power. The anti-Tory (more so than they are pro-Labour) nature of much our vote is because of the disdain she showed for them, their families and their communities.
        
        We very nearly fell into this trap with those that left us for the Lib Dems – only because of their gross betrayal did we get off the hook with it.
        
        If we want to be this ‘one-nation’ party, we have to understand that building an electable vote for one election isn’t job done if it harms your vote share for the next 50 years.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      And replaced it with low-skilled, poor and unproductive service-sector jobs.
      
      I have never understood the adulation Thatcher gets. She caused the early-80s recession by following a version of Monetarism that even Milton Friedman – according to David Smith, The Times economic correspondent – thought went too far. She then consistently failed to reduce unemployment below pre-1979 levels, before inaugurating the ‘Big Bang’ of City deregulation, indirectly contributing to the recent Global Financial Crisis, and then allowing Lawson to go mad – and be criticised by Nick Budgen, Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South-West and arch-Monetarist – and create the ‘Lawson Boom’ which predictably, like the ‘Barber Boom’ of 1972 and ‘Maudling’s Dash for Growth’ of 1963-64, petered out by 1989 and led to another recession. It also meant that inflation was as high in late 1990 as when she had come to power in 1979, with a mandate to tackle inflation. The Lawson Boom’s inflationary pay-off resulted in the UK joining the ERM, which led to Black Wednesday, thus destroying her successor’s economic credibility.
      
      The rich irony about the Lawson Boom is that Thatcher had praised Roy Jenkins, Chancellor between 1967 and 1970, for his tight fiscal policies and excoriated Barber, his Conservative successor, for squandering the gains made. She then went and made exactly the same mistake as Heath did in 1972.
      - https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard
        
        Next week: Was Alfred the Great a Good King?
        I cannot wait for the latest shocking revelations!
      - treborc
        
        Was he a Tory?
      - Brumanuensis
        
        He was overrated.
        
        But the historical record is less clear, so it’s harder to say for sure…
      - treborc
        
        Well of course he was a rotten cook, that’s for sure.
    - robertcp
      
      Jaime, you are clearly a right-wing liberal who is hostile to social democracy and the labour movement. Your comment about manual labourers is snobbish and patronising.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        Have you only just noticed?
      - robertcp
        
        No, but the comment about manual workers wound me up.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
      
      If you seriously think Thatcherism worked, come up to Liverpool. It does sum up why we shouldn’t listen to people with your outlook - Labour has to offer an alternative to the Coalition, one of whose parties you will be voting for.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        If you have a problem in Liverpool, I would not look to find fault in a political philosophy of over 30 years ago in which the majority of the country did immediately or soon benefit, but rather look more closely to identify why outdated attitudes may be dragging your great city back. Perhaps the thing Liverpool really needs is to be rid of the shackles of lumpen socialism.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        It was Thatcher’s policies which caused a great deal of problems for the city. In 1979, there were two Conservative MP’s in Liverpool, and some of the neighbouring areas such as Sefton and Wirral were safe Tory citadels.
        
        Now, the last Conservative councillor to be elected in the city, who lost his seat in 1998 , has defected to Labour. The formerly safe Crosby parliamentary seat, in the borough of Sefton, returned a full slate of Labour councillors this year. In both Sefton and Wirral, Labour took overall control. Knowsley has only Labour councillors. St. Helens’ returned a large Labour majority.
        
        I think that people living here are very aware of the politics they prefer and see Thatcherism as being ‘out of date’ – and to think you used to claim to be ‘left of centre’.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Liverpool is nothing special. It is a city like a dozen others in the country. What does set it apart is an institutional need to whine and wail and to somehow believe it is special, and that is a particular type of politics. You don’t get that from Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham, Aberdeen, Southampton, Leeds, Sheffield or anywhere comparable. All that achieves is to benchmark Liverpool as being full of moaning minnies, and the other cities getting on an making the best of the opportunities presented. Liverpool appears to be stuck in permanent whining and whinging mode.
        
        Liverpool lost more trade per year from 1945-1997 than it ever did in the Thatcher years (see Board of Trade figures). It would be helpful for Liverpool if it could get rid of the whining and miserabilist tendency, like most other places in Britain already have.
      - John Dore
        
        Jaime,
        
        Liverpool is a massive success, we need the people of Liverpool and Mike in particular to show the rest of the country the way.
        
        This is the indisputable truth that you cant see.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        I really don’t think you know very much about the city, Jaime – and your ignorance does rather show through
        
        Indeed, the city council has been a very good example of an authority working in partnership with the private sector. The city centre development has been acknowledged as a major success. Liverpool is vibrant and I think far more exciting place to be than the faceless suburbia of a London overspill town!
        
        What has been much more of a challenge is the retention of a stubbornly high level of structural unemployment, which does stem from the Thatcher era and their policies – they hugely exacerbated the situation. The loss of trade in the postwar era is largely linked to geography, but also Liverpool has never been much of a manufacturing centre, unlike, say, Birmingham or Manchester. The Thatcher approach did not work in Liverpool, the city realised it and so have never returned to voting Conservative. The particular problems now are the ‘outer estates’, but also the loss of public sector jobs which threaten the local economy still further
        
        I respect those people and their reality a good deal more than your patronising criticism from the comfort of full-employment Huntingdon.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        It is only necessary to look at the “attractiveness” of a city in terms of investment attracted. Liverpool considerably lags near neighbours such as Manchester and Birmingham.
        
        But, I do wish Liverpool every success. It is no part of me to wish failure upon the city.
      - derek
        
        Looks like someone is high on
        hypochondriac emotions.Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.The more to want to see all things in an ill manner then the more likely your condition will deteriorate.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Us in Birmingham rather take exception to being called ‘neighbours’ of Liverpool, Jaime! It would be a bit like calling the good folk of Huntingdon ‘neighbours’ of Norwich.
        
        Besides, Brum has terrible structural problems analaguous to Liverpool’s, particularly in unemployment. The vancancy rate in the area I live is above the national average and there’s an increasing sense of disrepair in some areas. Light industry is only kept going in fairly small-scale firms, like the iron-works just down the road from me. In the long run, without further support, they’ll struggle to survive.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Indeed, in 1959, a year when the Tories won a landslide nationally – although slipping back in the north-west – they won 6 out of Liverpool’s 9 seats.
Holby18

Of course you are right Tom. I have been a Labour Party supporter for 45 years and even stayed with them in the 1980′s when the Manifesto nearly gave me a heart attack. In recent years I have become an avid reader of political memoirs, diaries and academic books on politics. I could not bring myself to vote for Gordon Brown. I could not forgive him for his behaviour towards Tony Blair and I thought he was a dreadful PM. I agonised for months on whether to vote or not and in the end voted for David Cameron. I still admire DC and do not regret my vote. Once I reached this decision it will never be so hard again. I should also tell you that many of my friends did the same.

Do I return? I am not sure yet. I get quite angry about the party blocking everything and promising too much. I get fed up with people forgetting that we were in power for many years when they whinge about the government. I am angry when policies are blocked for political purposes when the good of the country at such a difficult time is paramount.. I get fed up with soundbites, class warfare (again in the newspapers today) and newly elected MPs patronising me. I did not want Ed Miliband to win the election and just as in Scotland the unions made the difference. Abhorrent to me. Many Shadow Cabinet Members I once respected have become rather shrill, and leave me cold. I do not like a couple of them and it goes without saying that they were closely associated with GB.

I do respect you. It is time that the party realised that tribal politics is on its way out. Policies therefore have to mean something to those of us who have always worked, believe in looking after those who are unable to look after themselves and loathe a huge State. We despair of policies which we cannot afford. People are not stupid and know that we have to reduce the deficit. Yet the party continues to oppose everything – obviously they love opposition. Everytime a specific group lobbies to change policy for their members the party are supporting them. A crude attempt to get votes which alienates people like me. I am also very concerned about some in the trade union movement who are seeking to have greater influence. The criticism of Progress made me very fearful together with many strategy documents leaked on the internet.

A few years to go before the next election. Minds are made up – it is the changing of them that is important. I just wish many of your colleagues knew this. You will ahve to keep writing such articles to remind me that there are people in the party I respect….
- Ana
  
  Unless you live in Witney, you did not vote for David Cameron. You did however get conned by the media who dictated the whole general election process and turned it into a presidential-style contest, making some people believe they were voting for the leader of the country, rather than their local MP.
  - Chilbaldi
    
    It’s a fact of life though isn’t it, that the General Election has effectively become a joint House of Commons/Presidency election.
    - http://twitter.com/ElliotBidgood Elliot Bidgood
      
      That’s always been true to a degree, in some ways the 2010 debates were just a long-overdue act of honesty with ourselves. Has anyone ever really believed that our elections were just 650 isolated sets of 70,000 voting entirely upon who their local candidates are, without even giving a second thought to who the national party leaders are, how the other 649 constituencies might vote or what the partisan composition of parliament would be when the dust settled?
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        Which is why we need party members to get over their privilege and accept primaries in parliamentary selections, Mayoral selections, PCC selections and leadership elections! No reason why not!
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Yes, let’s make ourselves completely irrelevant. Why bother with members anyway? We’re just a nuisance selecting bad canddiates, asking questions, demanding a say in the running of the Party. Much better we learn to be good little boys and girls and clap mindlessly along to whatever the glorious leader Miliband tells us to do.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        No, I am sorry but this is the problem with many party members. You seem to overvalue your membership and think it’s like a piece of gold. It isn’t. Only 1% of people are in parties. The Labour Party needs to reach out to more than its core vote rather than just having people who are pompous about being a Labour member. If there is no bigger turn off to politics, it’s politicians talking about politicians – so let us actually talk to people, engage them in our politics, start building stronger relationships with our communities and start involving them. Local party members can shortlist the top two before it gets put in a primary. I want Labour to win so let us stop navelgazing about how brilliant that CLP meeting was (when we all know it was as boring as f**k) and let us start actually involving people, and maybe we will actually have a better chance of winning.
      - treborc1
        
        Is this why you left the liberal party, it cannot be due to your core beliefs.
        
        Your not a socialist your not to the left.
        
        I’d like to know
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        You have issues, you RESPECT supporting, Bennite troll. I have never been a Liberal. Always Labour.
      - treborc
        
        Lucky we know different ex lib dem
      - treborc
        
        You can flag it all day Hooker your a liberal and you called your self one
      - Brumanuensis
        
        PurpleBooker, I have campaigned in general elections, by-elections and local elections, in the process talking to more ‘ordinary’ members of the public than I have kept count. I am perfectly familiar with what the public think of politicians and of politics. Aside from the fact that I’m not a politician – why did you think I was? – us Party members are the people who win elections. Posters and leaflets don’t do owt. It’s boots on the ground that win people over – because face it, would you rather speak to a canvasser or read one of dozens of more-or-less indistinguishable leaflets? Taking away the right of selection from members and giving it to ‘registered supporters’ makes membership meaningless. We choose the candidate. We fight for them. That’s the deal.
        
        And I’ve been to a maximum of 2 CLP meetings in my life.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        I have campaigned in elections across the country as well. 1% of the country are in political parties. It is nonsense for you to place such high regard on party membership. The party membership should be allowed to shortlist the candidates by narrowing it down to 3 or 4 candidates. Then it should be to a primary. If you think membership is all about selecting candidates then you are completely mistaken. Primaries will allow us to connect with people and open our doors, involving them in our debates as a party. Look at the French Socialists with their primaries or in America. Look at where the Tories have held primaries. Get over your fascination with your membership card for goodness sakes!
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Primaries in America have helped make America the big-money democracy it currently is. You are ignoring the fact that a decline in Party membership is a crisis for democracy, not some sort of neutral trend that we can afford to be indifferent to.
        
        I never wrote that selecting candidates was the be-all and end-all of membership. My point was that removing selection from us just indulges the elite opinoin that Party members are ‘weird’ and untrustworthy. We have been systematically treated with appalling disrespect, from selection stitch-ups, to the continual denigration – like with primaries – of our worth.
        
        Let me ask you this: if all that is required to participate in Labour is to be a ‘registered supporter’, what use is membership? What is the point of shelling out £40 a year and doing hours of unpaid volunteering if we’re just going to be treated as unimportant? I don’t mind widening public participation, but primaries destroy the fundamental covenant between leadership and membership. We select candidates, because we’re the guardians of the values of the Labour Party. We then try and persuade the public to back our candidate. That’s democracy. Why should I bother being a Labour Party member if I can acquire all the benefits of membership at no cost, by becoming a ‘registered supporter’? If you want Labour to become more representative, embark on a membership drive and do something about the ridiculously expensive membership fees (£40 is a stupid sum of money; the Tories do it for £25 I think). Stop bullying members by implying that they’re nothing more than an embarrassing nuisance who can’t be trusted to make good decisions. It’s patronising and wrong.
      - Alan Giles
        
        Sadly you will get no sense – let alone courtesy -out of the self-regarding PB – an ignorant pig and just about the worst advertisement for the Labour party.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        I am not bullying members. They are not members, they are bullying trolls from Militant! If you are a party member you can go conference, take part in debate, vote for the NEC and policy forum. The idea primaries make people think they are ‘weird’ is wrong. Trade union members who aren’t in the party can vote in party elections. It is telling you did not mention France or the effect that primaries have had in Tory seats. The decline of party membership and political engagement is a key reason why we need to reconnect with voters. Primaries in Mayoral contests, parliamentary selections and leadership elections is a way of doing that.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        It also means that candidates will have to go in and communicate with the people they serve rather than just try and appeal to party members which is all well and good but not enough. We have seen where good candidates have worked and engaged with their potential electorate, but we’ve also seen where it has failed.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      As Mrs Thatcher once said:
      
      ‘The facts! I have been elected to change the facts!’
      - derek
        
        I think Tom will be prancing up and down his hall- way with his badge of honour on his lapel and his hand-bag rapped round his right arm.
    - http://twitter.com/christof_ff christof_ff
      
      When MPs don’t think for themselves, nearly always voting with the leadership (a defining feature of New Labour), a general election is a de facto presidential election.
      If anything good has come out of the current administration, it’s their inability to always whip their MPs into line.
  - Holby18
    
    The leader of a political party matters. They represent the country (important to me) and best reflect the party they lead. You insult my intellect when you state I have been conned by the media. I may be of mature years but I am educated and quite able to distinguish fact from fiction. I was abroad when the debates took place and being a political nerd read all the manifesto’s. As to local MPs – I have never met mine as the days of canvassing have long gone in many areas of the country.
    - ThePurpleBooker
      
      I think you are right. A key reason why I am backing primaries in Labour elections. That would force candidates to actually go out and campaign in their communities. It is ashame that there are some naysayers on the left of the party who are too tribal that they think that being part of the 1% of people in membership means they are so fantastic and should continue with remote debates which exclude the public. Not good.
      Regarding party leadership, who do you trust? A man who is out-of-touch, indecisive and weak. A man who has made nearly 40 U-Turns in Government, who has failed economic policy which he still sticking by and whose MPs are losing confidence in him. Or a man who has shown strong statesmanlike leadership over issues like RBS bonuses and phone hacking, who has the support of his party, who has been able to challenge factions of his party who just want to create trouble and who has been leading the political debate for eg. responsible capitalism.
- Brumanuensis
  
  You wouldn’t happen to post as ‘Jane’ on LabourUncut would you? It all sounds very familiar. And very unconvincing.
- ThePurpleBooker
  
  Interesting post. You say minds are made up. Well I know that it is the Tories who are ones who will have to go round changing minds alot more than we do and the way they are going about it, they will be even more unsuccessful. Everyone knows we need to reduce the deficit and the party does not oppose that. We are committed to halving the deficit in four years, we have set out were we would cut for example: £2bn in education, £5bn in Defence, some cuts in welfare, £1bn in the Home Office, £6bn in Transport, £3bn from axing the Health and Social Care Act. We would have kept the 50p rate and the bonus tax for example. Some in the party want us to abolish DCLG and devolve its powers to councils. There is also a strong influential body of opinion calling for us to introduce legislation to control deficits to make saving surpluses illegal which I fully back. Many fo us want to see the Office for Budget Responsibility have tougher powers on fiscal rules which is what the party is looking into. Stephen Twigg has said we would have to make spending cuts, possibly on pensioner benefits and pension tax relief, in order to fund our childcare reforms. Ed Balls has made it clear we cannot promise to reverse the cuts and he would keep the public sector pay freezes (though ensure that the low paid get a living wage). So Labour is willing to cut the deficit and would make tough decisions on spending. But spending cuts can only work with growth and you cannot get the deficit down without growth. No matter how much you admire Cameron, it is an unarguable truth that is economic policy has completely failed and has made things worse with higher borrowing with £160 borrowed more than planned, higher inflation, a double-dip recession, highest levels of unemployment in almost 20 years and Britain losing its AAA rating which could lead to interest rates rising soon. That is a catastrophic record in two and a half years which shows that on economic judgement over the scale and pace of deficit reduction, Labour was right which is why we as a party are ahead on economic competence by around 10% whereas a few months back we were more than 20% behind. We are not promising too much because it we were, we would be promising no cuts, no tax rises and loads to spend – but Labour accepts that is not on the menu and priorities matter.
  Your critique of the ‘big state’ is correct but to be honest with you, it is Labour which has held a strong decentralist tradition not the Tories. The party was born from the trade unions, Co-ops, associations, friendly society, church groups, Fabians, radical liberals, feminists from all across the country in order to challenge power in both the state and the market. I’d argue that at times Labour has lost sight of that. I know Ed Miliband agrees with me on that too. That is why Labour has now earnt its right to be heard and people are turning to Labour. As much as you admire Cameron, can you really have confidence in a man who has conducted around 40 U-Turns whilst being in office, who takes from pensioners and families to pay for a tax cut for the rich few (at a time of austerity) and a man who bullies his own MPs. One Tory MP once told me about their hatred for Cameron and feels that with his continued leadership, the Tories will not win – which is why he is talking to his colleagues about unseating him using the rules of 1922 Committee. That is just one example. As for the unions, Ed Miliband has 150% backed Progress and has denounced irresponsible strikes. One whip, Phil Wilson, opened the door to relaxing our relationship with the unions. Ed Balls has rightly decided to stick to fiscal credibility and economic policy on cuts, rather than give in to the likes of Len McCluskey (who is not a member of the Labour Party). Stephen Twigg and Jim Murphy have stuck by our new policy on ‘service schools’, which was promoted by the great Red Tory Phillip Blond, but has been attacked the NUT. Gordon Brown did very good things as Chancellor even though he was terrible towards Tony Blair at times – but when they worked together they were amazing. My view is that Gordon Brown should have listened to James Purnell in 2009. That was a view shared by Tom Harris and so did others in the current Opposition frontbench. Now, we have a situation where Yvette Cooper, associated to GB, was being deputized by Fiona Mactaggart in the Shadow Equalities Office - a woman like James Purnell, Jane Kennedy and Tom Harris called for Gordon Brown to go. We have now got Blue Labour and the Purple Book with people from all sides of the party enjoying new and refreshing debate in order to move the party forward. Unlike in the 1980s, we are united and we have a future. I’d urge you to just consider that all of that….
  - treborc
    
    We are united and we have a future, famous words were they used by Kinnock before he lost.
    
    labour is not United it’s not all in it together, hence on here they have to chase swing voters, and if labour loses the next election we will see how united they are . the battle ground of Progress and labour will be messy.
    
    Of course labour cannot lose the next election so lets go home and get ready to govern.
    - ThePurpleBooker
      
      We lost because we lacked proper direction in terms of policy and Kinnock was not leadership material. At that time we had just been recovering from the damage that you lot in Militant did to the party. When you say ‘lets go home’ what you mean is ‘you go home’. You and Alan Giles are not Labour and do not share our principles in the Labour Party. You are just obsessive trolls and freaks of nature.
      - Alan Giles
        
        “freaks of nature”¬?
        
        If you want to be abusive post under your real name, you ignorant little twerp.
        
        Any more of your an lily livered insults and I will be making a formal complaint to the administrators.
        
        To think a once great party has has been bought down to rely on the support of your kind.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        You aren’t even in the party. You are ignorant, wrong about everything. I have torn apart your weak argument and criticism and now you are just embarassed. Your mad.
      - Alan Giles
        
        You have a mouth as big and dirty as a sewer.
        
        You come out with monstrous personal abuse and you haven’t even got the guts to put your name to it.
        
        With sick deluded people like you in the party I am glad I am now an ex-member. When I see your cowardly abuse I am ashamed that we have creatures like you slithering about in it.
        
        Are you a genuine natural pig or do you take evening classes in it?
      - treborc
        
        Liberals for you
  - Alan Giles
    
    ”
    I know Ed Miliband agrees with me on that too. …….One Tory MP once told me about their hatred for Cameron and feels that with his continued leadership, the Tories will not win – which is why he is talking to his colleagues about unseating him using the rules of 1922 Committee”.
    
    This sounds rather fanciful – you “know” EM agrees with you, and you are privy to the thoughts of a Tory MP and his plans.?
    
    As for the unions, Ed Miliband has 150% backed Progress and has denounced irresponsible strikes. One whip, Phil Wilson, opened the door to relaxing our relationship with the unions.”
    
    I don’t know where you will get money from then – unless Sainsbury is a personal friend and your great intellect can make him cough up the shortfall.
    
    When you are not abusing other posters, hiding behind one of your screen-names, using poor grammar and vulgar turns of speech (“keep chatting cr*p”) fantasizing about them being “Stalinists”, convinced everyone who disagrees with you is a “Respect supporter”, using swear words about Tony Benn and others, you seem to inhabit a strange fantasy world.
    
    If you know so many “important” people what a pity you don’t get some advice from them about how to conduct yourself and stop the piggish ignorance.
    - ThePurpleBooker
      
      I was in the nearest pub, The Red Lion, after a Young Fabians event. Many MPs goes there in the night. I bumped into one renowed rebel Tory MP. I was already debating with some Tories from an Adam Smith Institute event and they approached him which is why I asked him about the whole issue regarding Cameron’s leadership. On the Phil Wilson point, he wrote a pamphlet about it calling for Labour to relax its relations with the trade unions – that is a fact.
      Lastly, Ed Miliband has always made statements backing Progress over GMB and Aslef’s ridiculous and unpopular attempts to ban them from the party.
      I think it is best you shut up before you keep on embarassing yourself. Not good for you.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
  
  Why did you vote Labour for so many years if you claim to hold the views you do? The Labour party pre-Blair supported the ideas you now claim to dislike.
  
  I think you are just an example of someone who has turned to the right as you get older – it does happen with some people
  - treborc1
    
    I think some people see a life time in Labour as starting in 1997, before that it was not really labour it was socialist
    - jaime taurosangastre candelas
      
      There are many who would argue that Smith, Callaghan and Wilson were not really socialist either, so putting back the “socialist” credentials of Labour back into the 1960s. Foot probably was, but luckily no one ever thought he could be a prime minister.
      
      If you take a long view in history, socialism is a completely failed experiment, and thankfully it appears that it will never threaten a democratic country again.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        By ‘socialist’ you appear to mean ‘marxist’, which has never had a great deal of influence upon the Labour party
        
        The social democratic or democratic socialist approach has always been quite separate in terms of its historical and philosophical roots
        
        Marx was good an analysing what was wrong – and his analysis still stands up. But far less useful in terms of either suggesting a way forward or forecasting the way change would happen
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        No,
        
        you are trying to take my words and make your own argument. If you can read back, you will see that I was replying to a comment in which “socialist” was mentioned. I then continue that logical theme, and talk about “socialism”.
        
        When I say “socialism”, I mean “socialism”. What you may read into that plain text is up to you, but don’t try to twist my words.
        
        What the modern Labour Party means by “socialism” (or the mealy-mouthed diluted versions of “democratic socialism” or even “social democrats” is a matter of spin. Thankfully, the more intelligent party leaders, not just in Labour but across Europe seem to be running very fast indeed away from any tainting of real life experience with such failed notions. Even Hollande in the last three weeks is distancing himself from his election pledges.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        ‘Socialism’ covers a wide range of different ideas – of course, you may still be a follower of Fukumura version 1, which argued that Western liberal capitalism and right-wing ideas had triumphed and would be universally dominant. He has since reviewed his stance.
        
        ‘Socialism’ in terms of marxism, in particular the Stalinist interpretation, is certainly dead, but then, that never had anything to do with the democratic socialism of the labour party, past or present.
        
        As to the future, the clear failure of the neo-liberal approach will certainly require an alternative – what I can’t understand is why you are so clearly strongly committed to that approach, but still want to describe yourself as left of centre? You seem to hope that there will be no choice at all in terms of parties to vote for – but that has in itself led to the often heard cry that ‘there isn’t any difference between the parties – they’re all the same’
        
        At least the next election should have two clear alternatives, although the current third party option appears unlikely to have very much traction. UKIP may well draw off a large number of Tory malcontents.
      - treborc1
        
        And yet you claim to work for a socialist ideology the NHS, I use to think Guy was the person from Tory Central sent out onto left wings site, obviously Guy was just a Tory, your the person from Tory central why you even bother taking to Trots and commies I’ve no idea, one thing is for sure you do not work to hard during the day or nights.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        Treborc you are Plaid Cymru and Tory voting troll. Go back to ConservativeHome.
      - treborc
        
        well if I was which I’m not, it would be a left leaning party, not liberal.
        
        But never mind hooker you will learn
DaveCitizen

“I want to know what we’re going to offer those Tory voters to encourage them to come over to our side”

Tom – I don’t mind if we offer something to attract people who went for Cameron & co before but only if it is done within the context of a clear framework of policies in the areas that really matter like substantially reversing extreme inequality.

If Labour offer some bland package calculated to deliver them power at the cost of meaningful change then what’s the point – that’s not voting Labour, that’s voting for a different set of career politicians to perpetuate a failing elitist society.
aracataca

This is a straw man Tom. Is anyone saying we don’t need to win over Tory voters? The question is how(?).
- robertcp
  
  I agree. He did not say anything about how he would win over Tory voters but just waffled on stating the totally obvious.
  - treborc1
    
    It’s not Tory voters is it, your not going to get Tories by just pretending to skirt around the edges of Tory-ism, Labour needs those swing voters who will go between Labour and the Tories if the Policies suit them.
    
    To get the Tories onside you would need to be New Labour and any gains you might make would end up being lost by Labour people leaving.
    
    I can also see a lot of Liberals leaving if Labour is not careful and slide to far to the ride.
    - robertcp
      
      I do not think that it is that bleak. We are only talking about getting the votes of a small proportion of Tory voters, not all of them.
TomFairfax

Tom,
Clearly we need to appeal to voters who voted another way previously, but take a look ot the share of the vote in May 2010. The Tories did about the same under Michael Howard as they did under Dave Cameron.

I’m not sure how much of a statement of the obvious this is, but given a minority voted for the Tories, maybe we should be trying to get more of the majority who didn’t back them to vote Labour next time.

After all, the easier task is surely to appeal to the >60% who didn’t vote Conservative instead of chasing some of the <40% which is effectively the Tory core vote and wouldn't vote Labour even if we ran with a photocopy of the Tory one as our manifesto.

Unfortunately I think you need to go back to the drawing board.

You may well lose your seat if you can't combat the clearly socialist SNP. It would be nice if it stays the case that only Tory MPs are rarer than Giant Pandas in the north of Britain.
Stephen

Have just spoken to a Sun reading Tory football mate of mind who heard Ed Miliband on Test Match Special at lunchtime and thought he spoke a lot of sense .Be interested to hear what he said …
- treborc
  
  Not a lot really, nothing about policy a lot about what the Tories were getting wrong, but not a single thing about what labour would do, keeping his powder dry
Brumanuensis

When pursuing Conservative votes, let’s think of one figure: 5%.

That’s the approximate difference between the Conservative vote in 2010 and 2001. There is a lump of 30% Tory support that will not budge, no matter what we do. That 5% of malleable Conservative voters is what we should be aiming at.
- http://twitter.com/ElliotBidgood Elliot Bidgood
  
  Agreed, but I don’t think anyone’s suggesting any different. A Labour manifesto can never be Tory enough to get any of that 30%, nor would any of us want it to be, but a bit of moderation here and there can bring enough of that 5% back into our camp to win outright.
  - derek
    
    Err! like, wasn’t there some talk on another thread that you couldn’t have slipped a fag- paper between the Darling plan or the conservative plan.Ain’t Byrne and IDS one of the same kind of mind on welfare reform.
Amber Star

Tom, thanks to Lord Ashcroft, we now know that the Tory core vote is around 23%. Apparently they’ve ‘lost’ 13% of their 2010 vote already but picked up 7% (Ashcroft calls them joiners) mainly from LibDems & new voters. I’d venture to suggest that their LibDem ‘joiners’ contain a fair few Tories who voted tactically for LibDems in Lab/Lib constituencies.

The 13% they’ve lost are split fairly equally between UKIP, LibDem & Labour.

I doubt that a ‘Blairite’ platform would appeal to the ones who’ve gone to UKIP. The majority of those voters appear to be anti-Europe, anti-immigration, social conservatives. And I do hope you’re not suggesting a Glasmanesque style Family, Faith & Flag campaign!

But the 2/3rds of that 13% who’ve switched to LibDem & Labour do indeed need careful consideration. That’s a nice 7 or 8% which Labour needs to attract/ hold; the 7% joiners probably split about 50/50 between people who’d never vote Labour & people who’d consider voting for us.

So, overall that’s a healthy 10% of actual voters who turn out which is up for grabs. Approx. 1/3rd are currently choosing Labour but we haven’t entirely secured their support. The other 7% are potentials who we’d like to appeal to – but not at the expense of our current support…

Because the poll which Ashcroft has analysed in great detail from a Tory perspective had Labour on 40% v Tory at 31%. So Labour already has +11% with whom we need to reassure & secure.
ThePurpleBooker

I am sorry but I have to say that there are some seriously stupid people trolling this site. They want a Tory government because their politics is just Opposition and unelectability, rather than governing in the best interests of the people. Tom Harris has brilliantly hit the nail on the head and I cannot put it better myself. One militant tweeted to me that the reason why Labour lost the last election was because it was not leftwing enough. I said to him, “so you think people voted Tory because Labour was not leftwing enough.” He avoided the question and rightly (but irrelevantly) said that the Tories did not win the last election. I reminded him that though they did not win, they got a plurality and they are in Government and we will need their votes as well as the bulk of the Lib Dem vote to get a majority. So I asked him again, “do you think people voted Tory because they felt that Labour was not leftwing enough”. He said, “Yes”! I could not believe anyone could be so stupid. So I asked him, “you think people voted Tory because they felt Labour was too rightwing?” He replied: Yes. You have to wonder how these people actually get through life which logic as terrible as that. You also get these people who claim that the centre ground is some airy-fairy land which is whatever and wherever you want it to be. Well it’s not. Then there was some other Militant saying Labour won majorities in the 1960s with strong leftwing manifestos. I reminded her that in the 1960s, homosexuality was illegal, capital punishment still existed, there was no Equal Pay and there was full employment. This is the thing about these people: some live in the past and others live in a fantasy land. Labour maximised its support in Tory areas this May, we need to continue by snatching the bulk of the Liberal Democrat vote as well as winning over Tory voters we lost in 2010 and 2005.
- treborc
  
  Come on I would not say your stupid, a ex liberal yes.
  - ThePurpleBooker
    
    I am not an ex Liberal. Where do you get these fantasies from?
    - treborc
      
      Your old name ex lib would be a a easy guess
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        That was not my old name. You are a deluded, lying Communist.
      - ThePurpleBooker
        
        It wasn’t.
timsharp1

Thanks Tom I enjoyed reading this. I’m someone who did not vote in 2010, I did not want to vote Labour and I couldn’t bring myself to vote Conservative so I went on holiday instead and watched the hung parliament that I expected unfold from the comfort of a Montreal hotel. In any case I believe Labour is turning a corner and I would like to support Labour and have rejoined the party. Apart from Labour I am on the board of Republic (a cross-party group) which campaigns for a genuinely democratic constitution.

To me there is very little point in there being a Labour party if it isn’t to be electable given the electorate presented to it. Labour should be the natural party of government and it should produce policies and governments that are in the best interests of the majority of the population. By majority I mean people who go to work, try to raise children, want a good standard of living. I think majority opinion also accomodates help for vulnerable people but does not accomodate benefits systems that discourage people from working. I agree with you that the majority of people do not want to be led into a worker’s paradise by the chosen few. I

t seems to me that Labour was richly rewarded in 1997 not because it was the only alternative to a poor Conservative administration but because Tony Blair genuinely tuned in to what the voting population wanted from the Labour party. I also believe that Gordon Brown was a good Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Had the Conservatives really done a good job in convincing people that they could govern in the interests of the majority of the population I believe they would have won the election.
Dave Postles

Here’s an anecdote. I am acquainted with people who voted Tory in 2010 in the expectation that the Tories would reduce taxation. The situation is now clear: either you subscribe to ideological outsourcing with the intention of reducing taxation (even if it achieves that notion) or you proclaim the integrity of strategic and some other public services for which taxation is necessary and cannot be avoided. Some attitudes will have changed as the consequences have become visible (and risible). It’s no longer 1997 or 2010 – reconsider the agendum, please.
Trudge74

Seems to me part of the problem is down to some sloppy logic. When referring to Tory voters do we mean Tories who vote, clearly trying to be attractive such people is to be avoided and pointless since they already have a party to represent them. If however we actually mean people have voted Tory for a whole number of complex reasons then yes many of these voters may have worked on non ideological criteria or some single issues which have changed. Clearly trying to convince some of these people that labour would represent them makes some kind of sense.
timsharp1

I think that it is essential to this discussion to make a distinction betweeen public opinion and media opinion. Most elections are won by a sensitivity to the former and we should remember apropos the latter that the right wing press did not deliver on a majority conservative administration. Talking to the people that you want to vote for you cannot fail – one reason why Ed Milliband was right to go to Durham last week and we all should have plenty of opportunity to see him in the next twenty four months. He has made some excellent interventions with Cameron at PM’s question time.
robertcp

It is obvious that Labour needs to win over Tory voters. However, Ed Miliband should also avoid alienating Labour supporters like Blair did after 2001. So far, Miliband seems to be getting the balance right.
Daniel Speight

If you were Ed Miliband and suddenly found Tom Harris standing very closely behind you, would you -

a. Welcome him with open arms and kiss him on both cheeks?

b. Ask security to pat him down to look for sharp objects?
- treborc
  
  Ask the police for a stab proof vest.
franwhi

”We’re too pure in thought and deed these days…” What are you having a laugh Tom ?
Ideologically even the Great Evil Tories are purer than Labour because at least voters know what they’re getting with the Bullingdon Boys. As for engagement to win or win back disaffected voters do you really want democratic reform that widens participation because evidence from the AV referendum indicates otherwise. Your arguments here are synthetic but I’m sure you know that. Post again when you have a plan of action that goes beyond waiting for the pendulum to swing back to Labour. Eh and how much are we paying you whilst you wait ?
Hugh

Those five million lost voters are a tricky bunch, aren’t they? The thinking seems to go: Tony came to power in 1997 with 13,518,167 votes, but after Iraq and apparently then realising the man who won his first election promising to stick to Tory spending plans wasn’t a socialist, only 9.5 million voted for him in 2005; next election, after another million presumably concluded Gordon Brown was even less of a socialist, another million deserted him.

That seems a bit of a strange analysis, but odder still is that a majority of those 5 million seem to have supported John Major in 1992, when he got 14 miillion votes . Oh, and before that in 1987 and 1983, they largely supported Maggie – in the latter case evidentally concluding that Thatcher better reflected their desire for “real Labour” policies than Michael Foot, who got only 8,456,934 votes.
- WD-40
  
  Interesting analysis. How would you explain this then:
  
  http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-05-20/poll-miliband-more-popular-than-cameron/
  
  Do you reckon Miliband is beginning to do better than Cameron because he’s more Tory-like or because Cameron is more Labour-like?
  - derek
    
    That’s an interesting take and one that does resonate.At times you’d think that Byrne was arguing for larger cuts to the welfare system.Harris certainly wanted the Purnell agenda endorsed in Scotland.Yeah! in many ways labour seem to be on a course to be to the right of the tories.Ain’t it just laughable when a labour leader can’t attend a miners gala without there being massive inquest as to why he was there.
  - Hugh
    
    If you’re asking me to explain Miliband’s surging popularity – with fully 26 per cent thinking he’s doing a good job, against Cameron’s abysmal, er, 26% thinking he’s doing a good job – you’ve got me. However, I think one would be hard pushed to put it down to Britain’s millions of non-voting socialists returning to support Labour. It seems a tad more likely that the Conservative base is a bit fed up with Cameron over various issues and the public generally are unimpressed with the budget and the fact the economy isn’t recovering.
https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

David Cameron seems to think that most English people want the following:
1. A green agenda following climate change AGW predictions.
2. The NHS and government support for poor nations.
3. A House of Lords democratically chosen from party lists.
4. A strongly supported EU as it moves through a difficult period of its inception.
5. A very, very little done about the deficit and Welfare reform and Schools with a lot of fuss.

This is in no way what I read on the Tory blogs (OK you know who I am and where I live……)

There, I read:
1. The EU.
2. Deficit reduction and debt reduction. Unease about inflation and QE.
3. Armed service restructuring but not decimation.
4. Welfare reform.
5. Tax reduction and reform.
6. Regulation reduction once the EU can be pushed out of the way.
7. School reform, but this is vague and not really targeted – yet.

I say this, not to start an argument, but just so you know what is going on and to save you getting your little red hands dirty!
Alan Giles

If you remember, during one of his more fey moments Blair described his brand of politics as “political cross-dressing”, and to prove this was no idle boast we had Reid and Blunkett, not forgetting Straw, at the Home Office being more Tory than the Tories. At Health we had Milburn and Hewitt driving forward the marketisation/competition routine.

Not to be outdone Brown appointed Purnell to DWP and let him institute the “reforms” of a Tory multimillionaire.

Despite all that appeasement, Labour now finds itself in opposition – where it will remain until people like Mr Harris and one or two “Labour” writers and posters on LL wake up to the fact that trying to be like a light blue version of the Tories is an idea that has been gtried for the best part of 20 years, and failed.
- John Dore
  
  Yes we must ape the political success that was Foot and Kinnock, the electorate is crying out for it.
  - Alan Giles
    
    As irrelevant a comment as ever – still I know you always feel you have to respond to anything I write. I know it gives you pleasure so who am I to deny you your obsession.
    
    The point is in going too far to the right Blair and Brown lost a lot of support from it’s core vote and wasn’t able to hold on to formerly disillusioned Tory voters – in 1997, 2001 and rather less in 2005 Conservative voters had largely given up on their own party, and they were able to connect with Blair’s right-wing leadership.
    
    Still you will no doubt be delighted to learn that Euan Blair, Blair’s eldest son has been reported as wishing to become a “Labour”(?) M.P. – the young man who thought Bill Clinton was “too left wing” when he was an intern a few years ago.
    
    No doubt he will be found a nice safe seat – let’s just hope he doesn’t spoil it by “celebrating” in a Leicester Square gutter.
    - John Dore
      
      tweet tweet.
      - Alan Giles
        
        …and there his pathetic message ends.
      - John Dore
        
        Suck yourself!
      - treborc
        
        Snore bore
    - ThePurpleBooker
      
      Alan Giles wrong as ever. Euan Blair never said that about Bill Clinton – a convenient lie. On the topic of health reforms, there has been a relationship with private providers for years in the NHS since Nye Bevan. What we did in office, was use private providers to cut waiting lists and waiting times and boost service provision. That is not privatization that is putting your principles before the interests of Militants. If you are an old lady who is waiting for an eye operation, do you let her go blind because of your ideological tradition or do you bring in a provider to help her. Foundation hospitals was an example of democracy in our NHS, and I believe like most thinking people we need that. It was the founding principles of the Rochdale Pioneers, one of my party’s founders, inserted into the NHS, my party’s most precious achievement. My problem is that the leadership forgot to tell the party membership that these were reforms that came from the old Labour traditions from the co-ops, mutuals and associations. Labour presided over record investment in the NHS, highest satisfaction rate in our NHS, new hospitals and massive successes with waiting lists at record low and more treatment something the Tories want to destroy. I thought if you were a true Labour man you’d be proud of that. That is not privatization at all.
      You say Straw, Blunkett and Reid were more Tory than the Tories. Rubbish. You are completely stupid and out of touch. The centre ground has and will always been tough on crime. We need to be. Introducing ASBOs empowered many communities to live a life free from low-level crime and antisocial behaviour. Invetsment in our police was good. Labour reduced crime by 40% and crime still fell during the recession. The Tories have always been weak on crime, crime doubled under their watch from 1979 to 1997 and they have made massive cuts to the police. So again you are wrong on that.
      You say that my good mate, Purnell, was a Tory. Wrong. He introduced reforms which were able to help mums not have to pay for their National Insurance, he also brought in valuable pension reforms and protections for the disabled. It is ashame he could not be more radical and bring in the Universal Credit. Tom Harris is saying Labour needs to win elections, and that will mean persuading Tory voters. What is so wrong about that?
      Alan, you are a stupid old man who belongs in Respect. You are a sexist, anti-Semitic, racist, discriminative old fool who is wrong on every subject. Worst still you are an unpleasant man who hates this party, hates what it stands for and we would be better off without you. If you leave and join Respect, the quality of Labour will go up massively and the quality of Respect will go down massively. So shut up and please do it.
  - christof_ff
    
    It’s good to take on board lessons from history, but to take one strand of a story and elevate it to gospel is silly.
    Yes, Foot and Kinnock lost elections, but policy is only a small part of that, there were lots of other factors at play – the Falklands had a huge impact, plus the once-dominant print media and the economic fallout from the 70s oil-crisis.
MikeC

I think people on the left and on the right of the Labour Party often confuse ‘winning Tory voters’ with ‘going more Tory to court Tory voters’. But that’s false. Rather, we need to recognise that the principles that motivate individuals to vote Conservative aren’t matched by Tory Party policies or ethics- the conservatism, attachment to traditional institutions and the family etc., that often motivates Tory voters, I think, is best served by democratic socialism in that it can protect communities and cherished institutions from being undermined by the capitalist market.

We can court Tory voters without compromising our principles.
Redshift

There is a difference between trying to win over people who voted against us in 2010 and specifically going out of our way to court ‘Tory voters’.

We need is credible and electable Labour Party, but that doesn’t mean mindlessly triangulating with the Tories over a load of issues that will in fact undermine our ability to criticise them. For example, on the central point of economic policy, there would be a lack of credibility (rightly or wrongly) in going ‘no cuts’ – beyond that however there is lots to play with and Ed Balls’ criticism of government cuts choking off recovery by stifling demand and therefore growth has been totally vindicated. If we had followed the Blairite wings of the party’s advice we’d have more or less adopted the Tory strategy for deficit reduction – thank god we didn’t!

We don’t need to compromise our values with ever-rightward-shifting stances in order to win over 2010 Tory voters. We’ll win people back by proving we’re the people who will stand up for people like them. Bizarrely, people who may well be to the left of our official position on issues like clamping down on the excesses of our banking system.
Conrad

I don’t see what is so laughable about attracting non-voters if your so open to Tory voters, sure they don’t vote right now but that’s not some permanent thing, the vast majority don’t do it for some high strung principles but a sense of abandonment from major political party’s, and if we can reconcile former Tories as your suggesting, then i am sure we can heal the bridge with former voters, aside from anything this country really depends on more people becoming actively democratic.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

I think the Tories have a base vote of round about 30%. Its unlikely that they will drop much below that because of the number of people who support their policies.

I also think that their vote is holding up quite well for that reason.

There will be more mileage in trying to win back those who stopped voting than those who effectively sympathise with another party . Any conversion is welcome, but a strategy focused on those who voted Tory last time doesn’t make a lot of sense
- Hugh
  
  Can I ask when they stopped voting, and what evidence there is that they are disproportionately left wing? Also, if the Conservative base is 30% – say a little under 10 million votes, what happened to the 4 million extra who voted for John Major in 1992?
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
    
    Hugh ; the Tory base is 30% – in other words, those who are likely to vote Tory no matter what. That doesn’t mean that either the Tories or Labour couldn’t get a lot more – Labour’s base isn’t much below 30% either, probably about 28%.
    
    Evidence – look at turnout, whose votes dropped, where votes increased. It actually isn’t that hard to work out that people who have drifted away from voting during the time of a Labour government are most likely to be Labour. The 2001 and 2005 elections saw low turnouts in general, with a mild Tory revival last time.
    
    The Tories’ problem is that they couldn’t even get a majority in 2010 and haven’t had one for 20 years
    - Hugh
      
      “look at turnout, whose votes dropped, where votes increased”
      
      1992: Tories 14,093,007 Labour 11,560,484
      1997: Tories 9,600,943; Labour 13,518,167
      
      So, the theory is that neither Foot, Kinnock, nor Brown were sufficiently left wing enough to energise enough of that 5 million Labour “lost vote” to an extent that commanded a majority, but Blair, curiously, was – three times. Meanwhile, taking the same theory for the Tories, Hague, Duncan Smith and Michael Howard were all insufficiently right-wing to even win as the largest party; Cameron was. It appears very odd to suppose that the most fickle of Labour’s supporters – ie those that only occasionally turnout to vote for you – are the most left wing. In fact, when have they ever voted, except in 1997? Is there a chance of a list of elections when they felt sufficiently enthusiastic to turn up?
      
      The Labour left’s problem would seem to be that it hasn’t won a majority for about 40 years.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        Sigh … no, each election is different, and has very different circumstances. Turnout in 2001 and 2005 was very depressed, largely because the Tory vote stayed at home. However, the Labour vote continued to decline over those years.
        
        Now, you can convince yourself that the reason those voters stopped turning out is because they wanted Labour to be more right wing, and really wanted to vote Tory. But they didn’t. The Tories were in a prime position last time to pick up disillusioned Labour votes but they largely managed to mobilise their own supporters who hadn’t bothered to vote in the previous elections
        
        Labour canvassers can all tell of many in the last election who would usually vote Labour but failed to do so on the day. And I don’t think it has anything to do with being left or right wing, more that those voters didn’t trust Labour any longer – its also a case of the electoral cycle and the inevitability of a change of government
        
        For the next election, the memories of the past Labour government won’t have gone away, and there will still be some of the electorate unwilling to vote for us. There will also be people who believe that what the Coalition is doing is right. I wouldn’t expect Labour to be able to gain a great deal of additional votes from either of those groups
        
        The main two sources of votes, then, are likely to be former LibDems, who voted tactically last time, or intended to vote against the Conservatives. And people who didn’t vote last time, but who may be attracted by a Labour party who recognise they made mistakes in areas such as regulating the banks, and intervening in foreign escapades outside our direct influence.
        The next election is likely to be close, but clearly there will be some issues which divide the parties, and given that it will be viewed as 2 against 1 in terms of recent experience, we do need to have some clear areas of difference.
        
        Few people ever switch directly from Tory to Labour or vice versa, even in these more fluid times
John Dore

Tom,

We are in a real pickle, the left are on the march and I think there is sod all the moderates can do. Progress have already had to eat humble pie and its only going to get worse. The unions have a clear strategy to exert far more influence and that includes screw the swing voters. With the uptick in militancy all the Tories have to do is link Labour to this and we have difficult problems.

When Dave Quayle who is chair of Unite’s national political committee is on the record saying “We want a firmly class-based and left-wing general election campaign in 2015. We’ve got to say that Labour is the party of and for workers, not for neo-liberals, bankers, and the free market. That might alienate some people, but that’s tough.” That makes me shudder given they are our biggest donors and have a strategy to place 5000 activists in the party.

Source: http://labour-uncut.co.uk
- Alan Giles
  
  Labour Uncut is hardly the most unbiased of sources – Hatwell and Hodges, like some LL scribblers, see Reds under the bed all the time, like a load of frightend old women in the America of the 1950s who were taken in by Joe McCarthy’s witchhunt.
  
  The truth is the current Labour party is very unlikely to lurch to the left – it is an indication of just how far to the right the party went between 1994-2010 that there are even a few “Labour” supporters who believe all the “Red Ed” nonsense
John Dore

Tom,

The unions are on the March, Unite have policy of creating 5,000 activists to ensure they seriously shape policy. Progress is being marginalised. A one dimensional party will not be elected.

Blair is being welcomed by Ed because of the pressure from the Unions, the threat of industrial action shows their strength of feeling. It will present the Tories with an open goal if they can link Labour to militancy.

Atul Hatwal is doing a great job of exposing the conspiracy that is threatening to revert the party to an unelectable relic of the early 80′s.

Whenever I raise this on LL generally it gets edited out, at a guess the money that Unite donate to LL doesn’t impact the editorial stance or moderation policy.
- Alan Giles
  
  When Hatwal isn’t dreaming up conspiracy theories or trying to find dark motives for everyone he disapproves of, together with his chum Hodges they run a P.R. company.
  
  Take a look at the home page and it rather suggests their Boys Own Paper fantasy world:
  
  http://www.5cmpr.co.uk/who.htm
  - John Dore
    
    Your opinion means nothing you biased old blinkered man.
    - Mike Homfray
      
      It’s a damned sight more meaningful than anything Labour Unhinged has to say!
    - Alan Giles
      
      A company which promotes itself with the quasi war scenario of gunfire and wearing gas masks, whose newest testimonial on it’s website is 6 years old and comes from the MOTHER of one of the companies two owners?
      
      The usual ageist insult from Dore – let’s hope you never get flatuence because you will probably blow your brains out (and thinking about it perhaps that is why Hodges and Hatwal are wearing gas masks – they are concerned about killing each other)
      
      Pity you don’t go permanently to Labour Uncut which seems more down to your level.
John Dore

Gordon Bennett, Mark have I touched a nerve? OUCH. Sure a Labour blog isn’t censored when raising a genuine concern?
Redangelas

If former Tory voters vote Labour at the next elections it will be because they have experienced the consequences of voting ConDem and now DO NOT WANT TORY POLICIES. Labour voters who have sat on their hands over the last ten years also DO NOT WANT TORY POLICIES. Liberal Democrats DO NOT WANT TORY POLICIES either.

Sorry if I’m shouting, but the only way to lose the next election is to lurch to the “middle” instead of the left. I was canvassing in the 1997 election and was told repeatedly on the doorstep that the speaker was a Tory who was voting Labour “this time”. That was because they wanted Tony Blair’s mix of Tory economics and Labour social welfare. Since then a lot of changes have happened. When PFI contracts were drawn up in the NHS, Trade Unionists and left-wingers had grave misgivings about them, but almost everyone else favoured them. Now NHS Trusts are going bankrupt and most people realise that many PFI agreements were bad deals for the NHS and the General Public. De-regulation of the banks and being “intensley relaxed” about the super-rich are also much less popular with the electorate, who can now see, and do not like, the consequences . The prosperity of the Blair years – at the time a huge success – and much of the reason he was re-elected is now tainted by the perception (especially amongst Tories) that it was all done with borrowed money, which we now have to repay.

Neither Tony Blair in person, nor Blairism as a philosophy can repeat the success it had in 1997. These days times are hard and getting harder. A party which stands for making sure that wealth is shared more fairly, and pledges to take direct action to create jobs and prosperity, rather than relying on “market forces” stands a chance at the next election. A party which stands for nothing in particular and offers the same old austerity “lite”, is offering the electorate economic stagnation, and will not appeal to any class of voters.
John Dore

Tom,
The unions are on the March, Unite have policy of creating 5,000 activists to ensure they seriously shape policy. Progress is being marginalised. A one dimensional party will not be elected.
Blair is being welcomed by Ed because of the pressure from the Unions, the threat of industrial action shows their strength of feeling. It will present the Tories with an open goal if they can link Labour to militancy.
Atul Hatwal is doing a great job of exposing the conspiracy that is threatening to revert the party to an unelectable relic of the early 80′s.
Whenever I raise this on LL generally it gets edited out, at a guess the money that Unite donate to LL doesn’t impact the editorial stance or moderation policy.

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