New Labour's Ed Balls - Thatcher's Greatest Legacy
If you needed confirmation that New Labour is well and truly back in vogue, then look no further than the statement from Ed Balls today. He has confirmed that a Labour administration would not reverse any public sector pay freezes planned by the Tories. This of course is after the Labour leadership refused to back the public sector unions in their fight to defend their pensions; even being critical of the strike action.
This of course will play well with the voters who deserted Labour in the last election and swapped to the Tories and will also please the many New Labourites within his party; people who loathe the trade unions but love their money. As a public sector worker and steward in one of Labour's affiliated friends, I am struggling to see what argument my union leader can use to defend his current support for Labour.
Of course, any normal organisations who were so comprehensively stabbed in the back by politicians who they supported so staunchly, would question any future support and consider pulling their funding. Yet, this of course will not happen in this case. UNISON, UNITE & the GMB will continue to walk like lemmings across the cliff, because many of their leaders are incapable of putting their members before their party.
I look forward to listening to Labour's excuses in Wales for this treachery, but don't hold your breath for any open criticism-just a few nauseating comments about how different 'Welsh Labour' are. I see no Labour MPs in Wales making any protests. Hypocrites.
A very sensible interview which shows the difference between a real politician who knows that one day he will have to take decisions in the real world and those who know that they will always be in opposition and therefore have the luxury of living in a fantasy world.
ReplyDeleteAbout time Labourites in Wales who are disgusted at New Labour made a decision - play the pink Tory or make a real break with neo-liberal unionist politics.
ReplyDeleteJeff. Get elected on the back of opposing the cuts, then turning turtle and supporting the cuts. To Call Ed Balls a real politician in such circumstances is with respect, an insult to real politicians everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWould the 'real' Labour party please stand up?
Labour will never follow a radical programme. They expelled many good socialists in the time of Neil Kinnock. Whilst there are a number of good socialists in the Labour Party still, people like Dennis Skinner, the Labour Party leadership succeeded in their right-wing entryism when they took over and got rid of Clause Four of their constitution. We should remember that the Labour Party was set up as the political wing of the Trade Union movement and was originally a broad church, including the Cooperative Movement, the ILP (Independent Labour Party) and people like James Keir Hardie and Nye Bevan.
ReplyDeleteAs noted above, these imposters still take the unions money but will stab them in the back at the drop a hat
No one in the Labour Party at a UK level 'got elected 'by opposing the cuts. At the last election Labour stood on Darling's last budget which envisaged halving the debt in the life time of the next Parliament. I happen to believe that Darling went too far as far as capital cuts were concerned. But it is now clear from comments from some of Darling's fromer advisors that the capital cuts were not thrown in to make the books balance and reduce the size of the revenue cuts. The OBR report and the Chancellor's statement now makes it clear that the cuts will have to continue into the first two years of the next Parliament. That is ,of course, assumingno further economic shocks ad no collapse of the eurozone. Both of which are big ifs. All Labour is saying is that employment comes before pay rises. The simple fact is that the credit crunch has changed western capitalism forever. For right wing politicians who believe in the small state this is not a problem. For those on the democratic left ,on the other hand, it represents a major challenge. Balls and others are at last facing up to that challenge. Plaid politicians have the luxury of knowing they will never have to face the difficult decisions that being in government entails. Instead of criticing the Labour Party perhaps Plaid should be spending sometime looking at what might happen if as a consequence of events in Scotlad we have devo max all round. A situation which Gerry Holtham has argued could cause major problems for Wales.
ReplyDeleteJeff.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to the 'too hard, too fast' mantra? This was actually a reasonable position and looking at statments coming from many in the Eurozone, cutting spending without any capital investment has been a huge mistake. Forgive me, but I do not remember any Labour MPs in Wales raising concerns when their colleagues in the Senedd played the 'standing up to Tory cuts' line to get elected. With this in mind, what would happen if say the London coalition collapsed, there was an election and Labour got in. You would then have a situation where Labour in Wales would be standing up for Wales against the savage cuts from......Labour?
As far as Scotland goes, it appears that the new coalition is the Tories, Libs and Labour against the SNP, including blocking the Devo max option that the SNP proposed. If of course there was fair funding and this was something that Labour had supported before losing the last election, then maybe Wales would be in a better financial position. I believe that this is something Gerry Holtham is quite clear on.
On another issue, I welcome Paul Murphy's comments in the press today. At long last, someone in Labour is prepared to recognise the unfairness created by devolution in terms of the English regions. I have personally always been a supporter of a federal England.
Jeff Jones:
ReplyDelete"..if as a consequence of events in Scotlad we have devo max all round. A situation which Gerry Holtham has argued could cause major problems for Wales."
That would be nothing like the problems it would cause for the Tories and Labour alike. Why do you think its anathema to the Tories and to your own leaders?
Devo Max equates to a federal UK.
Such a federation would require a constitutional revolution in order to entrench the federal parliaments from attempts to undermine their powers by Westminster. That is, a written constitution.
It would sweep away the corrupt and undemocratic political and electoral system which has kept the political elite in your own party and the Tories in power alterately for the best part of a century. Federalism would destroy that cosy system overnight.
I suspect the Tories would prefer Scotland went its own way rather than face the political disaster Devo Max would wreak on them.
They would fare better in the remaining rump than Labour, which would lose its Scottish MPs. The Tories would dominate Westminster until the political lanscape eventually adjusted to accommodate.
What would happen to Wales in that scenario - Labour's last bastion?
Carwyn Jones seems to be reading the writing on the wall already..his loyalty to England's Labour leaders would be strained to breaking point I suspect.
I gather that you agree with Holtham that Wales would likely gain a federal parliament with the same powers as Scotland and England - everything short of defence and foreign policy?
That would of course entail balancing the budget - I agree it would difficult in the short term. It would involve vetoing England's predeliction for expensive foreign conflicts and large defence projects such as the renewal of Trident and gigantic aircraft carriers, armies with more generals than regiments, admirals than ships. The Scots would be allies on that score.
Wales would have to raise revenues from its natural resources, water and wind, which it exported across the border etc.
That scenario is really a non-starter. Devo Max = Federalism = eventual Independence. I think the Tories would prefer to take the easy route - call Salmond's bluff, win or lose. Labour loses both ways. Tough life isn't it?
For those who want my views on devolution here we go. I've always believed that the unwritten UK constitution needs to become a written one. For that to happen you need to set up an independent commission to produce such a a constitution. This constitution would then be approved/amended by a constituent assembly elected for that purpose. My preferred option has always been a federal state similar to the West German state created by the Allies after the Second World War. The regional governments would have the same powers as the Lander. This would obviously lead to regional government in England. As for Wales I've always argued privately that there should be at least two regional assemblies. A Labour MP once told me that the only other person who supported this idea was Neil Kinnock! The mistake that Labour made in my opinion was to create the Welsh Office in the 1960s and then base devolution on nationalism allbeit with a small n. You can't,however, unpick history and we are where we are which in many ways is a mess. Federation despite the arguments of David Melding and co is a non starter in my opinion. What could happen in the aftermath of the Scottish referendum which I don't believe that the SNP will win is a commitment by possibly two of the main UK parties to some form of devo max for all the devolved adminstrations and a solution to the 'West Lothian ' question after the next UK election in 2015. As for the Labour party I've always believed that it could be the biggest loser from devolution because there has never been any real debate within the party on the possible consequences of the policy that it embarked on as a knee jerk reaction to Thatcher
ReplyDeleteJeff
ReplyDeleteI think you're right when you say that the devolution package which Labour devised was a knee jerk reaction, I'd go further by saying that it was hatched on the back of a fag packet - ill-conceived and lop-sided - but then England and the UK evolved like that in a haphazard way, which explains why nothing works well, and mostly things work very badly.
I'm glad you agree with the notion of a written constitution - a necessity if the UK's corrupt and undemocratic political system is to be reformed.
Sadly, I don't see it happening in England ever, short of a revolution. The vested interests just won't allow it. The Scots and the Welsh can have it by a simple Yes vote in a referendum.
As I said, it's basically why the three unionist parties are so opposed to allow the Scots devo max (or independence lite) - not because it's a bad idea, but because of the consequences for the rest of the UK, particularly Westminster and Whitehall.
It would entail a federal solution, with a written constitution to entrench the parliaments - the end of the two party system, FPTP, the Lords, patronage, privileged extended monarchy etc. The Tories and the political elite could never stomach their prized English constitutional and political heritage and guaranteed spells in power destroyed.
I doubt whether any of the three unionist parties gives a toss about Wales, other than Labour, and then only because it would lose some seats at Westminster, making its task of getting a majority there impossible.
As for Kinnock's silly ideas - splitting Wales into two or more regions, just like bits of England, simply to suit the Labour's party's self-serving ends - enough said!
His reforms of the Labour party led to Blair and Brown, the sons of Thatcher, to the casino economy of the City, the debt and mess we’re in today. He did Wales no favours.
I see that Paul Murphy thinks there's merit in the idea of regional assemblies - that should be proof enough that it's a pretty daft one.
Taking a longer view of history, I'm afraid that unionists have to accept that Britishness has been on the wane since 1945 - the period 1914-45 was an interlude - prior to that the national movements were making progress, with demands for Home Rule for Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They came close to being fulfilled - and of course Ireland successfully exited. Whatever Ireland's current problems are, it would never countenance a return to the status quo ante.
The growth of national sentiment was interrupted by the wars, but since then it has continued unabated. Like Canute, the unionists can't stop it. They have no answer to it.
Britain, the UK, call it what you like, is in the process of disintegration - it is falling apart. Now the English, reactionary as ever, are taking up the call. They’re more for breaking up the UK than are the Scots. Bravo!
However the Scots vote in 2014, it won't mean the end of the process. If they stay, it will only be for a time – they’ll get fiscal autonomy one way or the other. If they go, eventually Wales will follow as neither Labour nor Plaid supporters will tolerate perpetual London Tory rule.
Northern Ireland's demography will ensure within a generation or two that it will unify with the 26 counties.
National sentiment is a powerful thing. Seven hundred years after the conquest and all that has followed has failed to destroy it in Wales. Like it or not, we have to go with the flow. The days of the UK are numbered, and with it the Labour party.