Labour politician who gets it

[BBKing]

You probably owe it to yourself to read this article, from one of the few members of the Labour Party with any credibility these days:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ur-jon-cruddas

Intelligent, knows where he's coming from, not afraid to throw punches. If Labour is to go anywhere it needs to stop listening to idiots and start listening to its own roots.

New Labour has had increasingly little to say about these struggles. Indeed, by 2001 its policies were based essentially on a mythical middle England, drawn up by pollsters and located somewhere in the south-east, with affluence taken for granted. In this model, politics always had to be individualised. A leading cabinet member claimed that Labour's essential message was to help voters "earn and own". People were seen as being fixated only on themselves, with no wish to think in terms of collective experience. Aspiration was about buying more things rather than wanting to build the "good society".

Pretty much gets to the heart of the soulless, pandering, directionless nature of New Labour that drove me up the wall several years ago. I live in a community, not a moated castle. I want to be part of a healthy society, not a focus group.

[Osem]

He seems to be saying we need a NEW New Labour. I seem to recall having heard that sort of thing before from Bliar and his cronies, normally just before and after elections.....

I've heard Cruddas a fair bit on the radio and if he's the best they have I don't see much changing.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Osem

He seems to be saying we need a NEW New Labour.

Isn't that the tories

[Russ]

Originally Posted by BBKing

I live in a community, not a moated castle. I want to be part of a healthy society, not a focus group.

But at which point do you stop being 'self-orientated' and become 'selfish'? I make no bones about the fact that I will put my family before my community and I would not begrudge anyone else with the same ideas. That's not to say I'd do anything to the detriment of my community but in my life, my family comes first.

[nomadking]

PR ends up with no real government or a government which nobody actually voted for. The LibDems would always side with Labour, so that would mean a perpetual Labour dictatorship with the LibDems having more influence than the electorate wanted.

Actually PR in the longer term encourages people to form a greater number of parties with narrower interests, rather than the current 'broad church' approach which forces us to vote for one of a very few large parties, all of whom have policies we would rather they didn't have.

Coalition negotiations are then much more complex affairs as it is often necessary for three or more parties to come to some sort of agreement for a Government to be formed. Or else, one party forms a minority administration and is then effectively held in check by Parliament because they can't simply ram a legislative programme through without any proper scrutiny or debate.

Scotland provides a good example of this. There are five parties in the Parliament at the moment, plus one independent MSP: SNP, Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green and Margo Macdonald. There would have been six, had the SSP not decided to implode, indulge in a good old fashioned leftie schism and split its own fragile vote in two.

We currently have a minority SNP Government in power, without any coalition partners, but they don't control the Parliament which effectively means that all the parties have a say in what goes on.