Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Rupa Huq - the tory | |
Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
Date/Time: | 21/07/15 22:25:00 |
In my view the Tories won a majority - just - because they fought a more intelligent campaign than Labour. They set the agenda and Labour followed it, badly. Ed Miliband tried to straddle two horses at once, and they ran off in opposite directions. Under the spotlight he looked like a rabbit caught in the glare of the headlights and in trying too hard to be everything to everyone he ended up being very little to very few. I do not buy the notion that Miliband and Labour were rejected because they were "too left wing". The SNP attacked Labour from the left and all but cleaned up north of the border. Yes Scotland is different in some respects and there were particular wounds which remained open from the referendum, but it is worth reminding ourselves that the SNP landslide followed a campaign which centred on an anti-austerity, anti-capitalist message rather than on independence. If anything Scottish voters dragged the SNP further to the left than it had been at the beginning. The surprise and bewilderment that has been expressed over the way in which people have taken to Jeremy Corbyn - outside of the Labour Party as well as within - is the reaction of a self-interested establishment and media which has learned to believe its own propaganda. The "loony left" tag which it has in the past managed to attach to such essentially egocentric characters as Arthur Scargill, Ken Livingstone and George Galloway does not hang easily upon a modest man like Corbyn, who speaks with humility and courtesy, and without rancour. When people are allowed to hear his case, clear and reasoned, it begins to make some sense. Some of those who have defended Rupa Huq's actions on this thread are themselves self-declared Conservatives. I point this out not because I think it disqualifies them from having or expressing an opinion, but to demonstrate an obvious truism - that the Labour leadership is in danger of trying too hard to impress the wrong people. The notion that the British people are inspired by a politics which demonises the poor and wishes to see the rug pulled away from under the feet of the homeless, the disabled and those in need of a helping hand is at best untested. Inasfar as such sentiment does exist it is largely the product of a right-wing press using all the power at its disposal to shepherd public opinion behind its own interests and agenda. If the "opposition" feels it can only win by playing the same tune and pandering to the same constituency then it is reasonable to ask what point there is to its very existence. |