The problem for the Conservative Party is not that it won too few seats, but that it won too many.
Being out of office for a political party is an occupational hazard and in some respects one of those healthy burns that Nature uses to keep a forest growing. Had the Conservatives lost, they could have taken Theresa May out back with that 12-bore reserved for the purpose, and cleanly begun the task of replacing her with a new leader. Boris, encouraged by the thought of years jeering from the Opposition benches at the hapless Corbyn, would joyfully come off the bench, affording both the Tories and the General Public great entertainment without anyone having to risk giving him any actual responsibility.
Moreover, not being in government would be something of a gift right now. Tories on both the Remain & Leave sides could come together to make common cause in criticising whatever slim pickings a Labour government might be able to secure from the EU by way of Brexit settlement. All the problems that currently fall to them would be pushed off onto Labour.
Were Corbyn to underperform against the high standards that he has set himself (as he surely would) he would disappoint the hopes of his younger supporters who would - like every starry-eyed generation of dreamers before them - become cynical inactivists. As it is, they will continue to support Labour in opposition, building a head of steam for the moment when he gets his next chance.
Due to their inconvenient success, the Tories can obtain none of the benefits of second place. Since neither Boris (nor anyone else) wants to lead a minority government tasked with impossible and critical negotiations with the EU, it will be very difficult to replace Theresa May. They are saddled with a lame duck leader who got the job because no one wanted it and will now keep it for precisely the same reason. How long they can tolerate the sight of her limping on with shattered authority is very questionable: John Major pulled it off with some aplomb, but Theresa May is nothing like John Major.
Worse, Tory hands are completely tied: if they opt for a soft Brexit they will be pilloried by their own Eurosceptics & eventually face a General Election at which the votes of former UKIP voters will bleed away; if they opt for a hard Brexit they will be defeated by a grand coalition of the Remainers.
The Tories felt that another period of government would be their reward but it is becoming increasingly obvious that it is actually their punishment.
Showing posts with label Labour Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour Party. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
The Last Gasp
Compared with the EU Referendum the 2017 UK General Election has been conducted in a spirit of considerable decorum. But then, compared to the EU Referendum, The Jeremy Kyle Show is conducted in a spirit of considerable decorum.
The Conservatives had two ideas at the outset: Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted with the Brexit negotiations; and, Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted. (It's one idea really.) In terms of positive campaigning, we have Theresa May's proud adoption of the "bloody difficult woman" nickname (an equivocal compliment at best) and her eleventh hour promise to do away with some of those pesky human rights. Otherwise, the strategy was to keep reminding people that the "leader" of the Labour Party is someone that the Great British Public already dislikes. If Corbyn is unthinkable then May is inevitable.
More significantly, the attacks on Corbyn have largely been matters of fact & record. He's opposed to the use of nuclear weapons and would not authorise a retaliatory strike. He is a Republican sympathiser (both Irish and, for that matter, English) and does not condemn the IRA. He is anti-Israeli and more comfortable than is entirely proper in the company of some of Israel's extremist enemies. He is ideologically wedded to a significant expansion of government spending based on tax-raising calculations that are at best back-of-envelope guesstimates. While Boris Johnson certainly went too far in describing Corbyn as a "friend of Britain's enemies" who "opposed shoot-to-kill" you can say quite a lot against Corbyn without actually having to make stuff up.
Yet precisely because Corbyn is seemingly willing to stand by so many of his past statements, it makes it difficult to use other innuendoes against him. Corbyn is opposed to "shoot-to-kill" in the sense of state-authorised assassination, but he has been unambiguous in his approval of the use of lethal force against terrorists during an incident. He opposes Israel but condemns anti-Semitism: some regard that as an implausible distinction but he doesn't seem to be lying.
On the other hand, there is too much that we don't know about May. Her stated policies - taking apart human rights legislation, taking away free lunches in primary schools, charging directly for social care provision - are, frankly, the stuff of The Left's most paranoid nightmares, yet these are the very measures which the Conservatives hope will enthrall your vote. Not to mention the free vote that they are offering on fox hunting: Sordel doesn't have strong feelings about that one, but it's hardly the most pressing business to which Commons time might be devoted.
Looking at Theresa May it's difficult to argue with the feeling that she has run a "Hillary Clinton" campaign: assuming that she will be elected on the basis that she is clearly the lesser of two evils without offering any sort of social vision around which voters can rally. Public approval of Mrs. May was tepid at the outset: she will be breaking ice to swim in it now.
Whoever wins this week there are dark days ahead since neither Labour (consistently behind in the polls & with an ungovernable parliamentary party) nor the Conservatives (with a badly wounded leader & recovering from a nasty scare in terms of their poll decline) are in the best shape to govern Britain.
On balance, it seems that the most likely winner of this election will be the E.U.
The Conservatives had two ideas at the outset: Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted with the Brexit negotiations; and, Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted. (It's one idea really.) In terms of positive campaigning, we have Theresa May's proud adoption of the "bloody difficult woman" nickname (an equivocal compliment at best) and her eleventh hour promise to do away with some of those pesky human rights. Otherwise, the strategy was to keep reminding people that the "leader" of the Labour Party is someone that the Great British Public already dislikes. If Corbyn is unthinkable then May is inevitable.
More significantly, the attacks on Corbyn have largely been matters of fact & record. He's opposed to the use of nuclear weapons and would not authorise a retaliatory strike. He is a Republican sympathiser (both Irish and, for that matter, English) and does not condemn the IRA. He is anti-Israeli and more comfortable than is entirely proper in the company of some of Israel's extremist enemies. He is ideologically wedded to a significant expansion of government spending based on tax-raising calculations that are at best back-of-envelope guesstimates. While Boris Johnson certainly went too far in describing Corbyn as a "friend of Britain's enemies" who "opposed shoot-to-kill" you can say quite a lot against Corbyn without actually having to make stuff up.
Yet precisely because Corbyn is seemingly willing to stand by so many of his past statements, it makes it difficult to use other innuendoes against him. Corbyn is opposed to "shoot-to-kill" in the sense of state-authorised assassination, but he has been unambiguous in his approval of the use of lethal force against terrorists during an incident. He opposes Israel but condemns anti-Semitism: some regard that as an implausible distinction but he doesn't seem to be lying.
On the other hand, there is too much that we don't know about May. Her stated policies - taking apart human rights legislation, taking away free lunches in primary schools, charging directly for social care provision - are, frankly, the stuff of The Left's most paranoid nightmares, yet these are the very measures which the Conservatives hope will enthrall your vote. Not to mention the free vote that they are offering on fox hunting: Sordel doesn't have strong feelings about that one, but it's hardly the most pressing business to which Commons time might be devoted.
Looking at Theresa May it's difficult to argue with the feeling that she has run a "Hillary Clinton" campaign: assuming that she will be elected on the basis that she is clearly the lesser of two evils without offering any sort of social vision around which voters can rally. Public approval of Mrs. May was tepid at the outset: she will be breaking ice to swim in it now.
Whoever wins this week there are dark days ahead since neither Labour (consistently behind in the polls & with an ungovernable parliamentary party) nor the Conservatives (with a badly wounded leader & recovering from a nasty scare in terms of their poll decline) are in the best shape to govern Britain.
On balance, it seems that the most likely winner of this election will be the E.U.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
The Blame Game
The Independent had some interesting results on public opinion regarding the party leaders. The idea was to compare how much of a net drag the leader's popularity was on the party. Theresa May scored a healthy +6%: of those who liked either her or her party, more liked her than liked her party. Jeremy Corbyn, in marked contrast, scored -24%: of those who liked him or his party, far more liked his party than liked him.
If you were planning the campaign for the Conservative Party, you would probably push May into the spotlight, and this is of course what the Conservatives have done. As campaign planner for the Labour Party you would probably bind & gag Corbyn and lock him in a broom cupboard, yet Labour has also pushed Corbyn into prominence: he, Diane Abbott & John McDonnell have become the three-faced goddess of the Labour campaign.
Partly this is probably recognition from the party leadership that if Corbyn doesn't speak for himself then none of the moderates are likely to speak on his behalf. But it also seems highly likely that the Parliamentary Labour Party - seeing inevitable & swift defeat racing towards them - is isolating Corbyn so that he can become the scapegoat of their collective failure.
Unfortunately for them, this may backfire.
Corbyn cannot win this election, but to a certain extent he doesn't need to. Since the election was announced, Labour has stubbornly risen in the polls from a low point of 24% (probably an outlier) to a high of 32%. Even allowing for errors and the fact that Labour historically performs better in polls than elections, that suggests a 5% rise against a very popular government during a period when most Labour MPs have either been sitting on their hands or publicly saying that Corbyn is poison on the doorstep.
Moreover, the visuals of the campaign are playing into Corbyn's hands. The Prime Minister, attempting to sit on her lead and disinclined to take any risks, has thus far underperformed to what in another election would be an alarming degree. So far, the stories about Theresa May have been about an unconvincing performance as human being on The One Show and an attempt to eat chips sponsored by Photoshop. Her disciplined focus on the phrase strong and stable (which will probably help to win her the election but does nothing to endear her to journalists) only reinforces an impression of tedious stolidity.
Corbyn, however, has made some running. Appearing to cheering crowds of the faithful, he has reinforced the impression that those who like him do so less grudgingly than May's supporters. The likelihood of a landslide against Labour is now all but discounted: Corbyn could come away with a win by showing a roughly equivalent performance to Ed Miliband, which is what current predictions suggest will happen.
After all, there is a lot in this election that is not Corbyn's fault. He cannot be held to account for the collapse of UKIP or the good will currently extended to Theresa May by those who backed Brexit. He's hardly responsible for the fact that the Liberal Democrats (last bastion of the self-proclaimed 48%) are languishing at a dismal 8% of the vote in current predictions. It's difficult to see what he could have done to strengthen Labour in Scotland, where the battle lines seem to have been drawn on The Union & the EU.
It's not entirely impossible that both of the antagonists in this gladiatorial competition will come away with a win.
And whom will Labour MPs (such that remain) blame then?
If you were planning the campaign for the Conservative Party, you would probably push May into the spotlight, and this is of course what the Conservatives have done. As campaign planner for the Labour Party you would probably bind & gag Corbyn and lock him in a broom cupboard, yet Labour has also pushed Corbyn into prominence: he, Diane Abbott & John McDonnell have become the three-faced goddess of the Labour campaign.
Partly this is probably recognition from the party leadership that if Corbyn doesn't speak for himself then none of the moderates are likely to speak on his behalf. But it also seems highly likely that the Parliamentary Labour Party - seeing inevitable & swift defeat racing towards them - is isolating Corbyn so that he can become the scapegoat of their collective failure.
Unfortunately for them, this may backfire.
Corbyn cannot win this election, but to a certain extent he doesn't need to. Since the election was announced, Labour has stubbornly risen in the polls from a low point of 24% (probably an outlier) to a high of 32%. Even allowing for errors and the fact that Labour historically performs better in polls than elections, that suggests a 5% rise against a very popular government during a period when most Labour MPs have either been sitting on their hands or publicly saying that Corbyn is poison on the doorstep.
Moreover, the visuals of the campaign are playing into Corbyn's hands. The Prime Minister, attempting to sit on her lead and disinclined to take any risks, has thus far underperformed to what in another election would be an alarming degree. So far, the stories about Theresa May have been about an unconvincing performance as human being on The One Show and an attempt to eat chips sponsored by Photoshop. Her disciplined focus on the phrase strong and stable (which will probably help to win her the election but does nothing to endear her to journalists) only reinforces an impression of tedious stolidity.
Corbyn, however, has made some running. Appearing to cheering crowds of the faithful, he has reinforced the impression that those who like him do so less grudgingly than May's supporters. The likelihood of a landslide against Labour is now all but discounted: Corbyn could come away with a win by showing a roughly equivalent performance to Ed Miliband, which is what current predictions suggest will happen.
After all, there is a lot in this election that is not Corbyn's fault. He cannot be held to account for the collapse of UKIP or the good will currently extended to Theresa May by those who backed Brexit. He's hardly responsible for the fact that the Liberal Democrats (last bastion of the self-proclaimed 48%) are languishing at a dismal 8% of the vote in current predictions. It's difficult to see what he could have done to strengthen Labour in Scotland, where the battle lines seem to have been drawn on The Union & the EU.
It's not entirely impossible that both of the antagonists in this gladiatorial competition will come away with a win.
And whom will Labour MPs (such that remain) blame then?
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Ghosts of the Barely Civil Undead
If the media consensus is to be believed the UK currently finds itself in middle of an election campaign that has been greeted with public apathy. Presumably, voters are bored for the same reason that shooting fish in a barrel never caught on as a spectator sport: rather than sportingly let her opponents get a head start in the renewed race for number ten, Theresa May called the election when she already had a considerable poll lead.
Unfortunately, bored journalists looking to make a story out of nothing have two sources of potential headlines close at hand: Tony Blair & George Osborne.
Blair's so-called return to politics is, of course, nothing of the sort. He has been a constant feature of the political landscape for the last year: he campaigned against both the Brexit side of referendum & Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour with all the determination of a man who has been on the wrong side of public opinion before and will be damned if he doesn't place himself on the wrong side of it again. Blair is not so much back as ever with us like the poor, and that era of foreign wars of which he was a principal architect.
Osborne, on the other hand, has been licking his wounds since last July. He is a man with a very particular claim to fame, having lead a campaign that failed to secure a Remain vote in the referendum despite having all three governing parties (&, for that matter, the SNP) on his side. As if that failure was not feather enough in his cap he is then reputed to have attempted to have May removed from her post at the Home Office as punishment for her failure to support his campaign more full-throatedly, laying the ground for a splendid reversal of fortunes of the sort more usually found in Game of Thrones.
Last September, it was reported that Osborne was attempting to cast himself as "the Tory opposition to Hard Brexit" and "revealed" that he was "considering a return to front line politics". All very "Tony Blair", who has been threatening something similar in an attempt to hold the media spotlight.
Now, however, Osborne has availed himself of a pulpit somewhat different from the anonymity of the back benches, as he has become the editor of the London Evening Standard, a paper that was described at one point as "a mouthpiece of the Conservative Party" but which has now recovered some measure of independence by trashing May's campaign (by no means unfairly) for its reliance on sloganeering above policy detail.
So here we have two senior politicians - both, in some measure, great successes & stupefying failures - who have decided to bring the force of their debatable insight to bear upon the leaders of their respective parties. Blair is trying to work up some enthusiasm for tactical voting & a progressive alliance; Osborne is sniping at the woman who sacked him, arguably in the hope that he can speed the Wheel of Fortune's inevitable turn towards the moment when he can inherit the party to which he is currently showing disputable loyalty.
Yet neither of these men wishes to serve. They airily speak of returning to politics, but not the politics of constituency surgeries, just the politics of enjoying an unelected vantage point for commentary. They are perfect representatives of the political class that played duck & cover when the EU referendum backfired: the class of which Boris and Cameron are also such perfect examples. They know all about cars just as long as they are kicking someone else's tyres.
And when it comes to unelected vantage points for commentary, the line forms behind Sordel.
Unfortunately, bored journalists looking to make a story out of nothing have two sources of potential headlines close at hand: Tony Blair & George Osborne.
Blair's so-called return to politics is, of course, nothing of the sort. He has been a constant feature of the political landscape for the last year: he campaigned against both the Brexit side of referendum & Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour with all the determination of a man who has been on the wrong side of public opinion before and will be damned if he doesn't place himself on the wrong side of it again. Blair is not so much back as ever with us like the poor, and that era of foreign wars of which he was a principal architect.
Osborne, on the other hand, has been licking his wounds since last July. He is a man with a very particular claim to fame, having lead a campaign that failed to secure a Remain vote in the referendum despite having all three governing parties (&, for that matter, the SNP) on his side. As if that failure was not feather enough in his cap he is then reputed to have attempted to have May removed from her post at the Home Office as punishment for her failure to support his campaign more full-throatedly, laying the ground for a splendid reversal of fortunes of the sort more usually found in Game of Thrones.
Last September, it was reported that Osborne was attempting to cast himself as "the Tory opposition to Hard Brexit" and "revealed" that he was "considering a return to front line politics". All very "Tony Blair", who has been threatening something similar in an attempt to hold the media spotlight.
Now, however, Osborne has availed himself of a pulpit somewhat different from the anonymity of the back benches, as he has become the editor of the London Evening Standard, a paper that was described at one point as "a mouthpiece of the Conservative Party" but which has now recovered some measure of independence by trashing May's campaign (by no means unfairly) for its reliance on sloganeering above policy detail.
So here we have two senior politicians - both, in some measure, great successes & stupefying failures - who have decided to bring the force of their debatable insight to bear upon the leaders of their respective parties. Blair is trying to work up some enthusiasm for tactical voting & a progressive alliance; Osborne is sniping at the woman who sacked him, arguably in the hope that he can speed the Wheel of Fortune's inevitable turn towards the moment when he can inherit the party to which he is currently showing disputable loyalty.
Yet neither of these men wishes to serve. They airily speak of returning to politics, but not the politics of constituency surgeries, just the politics of enjoying an unelected vantage point for commentary. They are perfect representatives of the political class that played duck & cover when the EU referendum backfired: the class of which Boris and Cameron are also such perfect examples. They know all about cars just as long as they are kicking someone else's tyres.
And when it comes to unelected vantage points for commentary, the line forms behind Sordel.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Lore Of The Excluded Centre
People have a tendency to put cast their ultimata by using that very useful small word: or. "Back me or sack me." "Put up or shut up." "Go big or go home." But The Labour Party currently has got itself into a position where ors no longer seem to count for anything.
Things began badly when the Parliamentary Labour Party discovered that it wouldn't back Jeremy Corbyn and couldn't sack him either. Let's be clear: if Corbyn was on fire and the greater proportion of his MPs had uncomfortably full bladders then they would burst before they assuaged the least part of his discomfort. Backing Corbyn was out of the question, but the manoeuvres to remove him backfired almost beyond belief. Corbyn now has a tame Shadow Cabinet and a renewed mandate; his opponents have given up their cabinet positions (with such dubious eminence as these conferred upon them) and been forced to slink to the back benches where - due to the paucity of MPs willing to sit any closer to their leader than absolutely necessary - they are presumably packed like a small wardrobe towards the end of a particularly populous game of Sardines.
Next, they decided that they wouldn't shut up, but weren't going to put up either. None of Corbyn's most vocal detractors actually stood against him in the leadership election with the consequence that the job of running against him fell to a man more anonymous than his surname; a man, in fact, whose only discernible political achievement had been to trip the hapless Angela Eagle as she stretched out for the prize. The Labour Big Beasts hung back, hoping to dine on another's kill, and all that is left for them now is dispute the pickings of Owen Smith's lean & hungry carcass.
Now it is left for them to go big or go home. But going big is going to be difficult: a vote of No Confidence is difficult to top, and the near unanimity with which the Parliamentary Labour Party attempted to remove Corbyn looks considerably more fragile today.
And, given the difficult conversations that they face with their constituency party members, Labour MPs can't go home.
So it comes down to that most famous of literary disjunctions: "To be or not to be." True, collective self-destruction seems to be option for which Labour MPs have boundless appetite, but this seems to be a case where even making their quietus with a bare bodkin can hardly spare them a proud man's contumely.
Things began badly when the Parliamentary Labour Party discovered that it wouldn't back Jeremy Corbyn and couldn't sack him either. Let's be clear: if Corbyn was on fire and the greater proportion of his MPs had uncomfortably full bladders then they would burst before they assuaged the least part of his discomfort. Backing Corbyn was out of the question, but the manoeuvres to remove him backfired almost beyond belief. Corbyn now has a tame Shadow Cabinet and a renewed mandate; his opponents have given up their cabinet positions (with such dubious eminence as these conferred upon them) and been forced to slink to the back benches where - due to the paucity of MPs willing to sit any closer to their leader than absolutely necessary - they are presumably packed like a small wardrobe towards the end of a particularly populous game of Sardines.
Next, they decided that they wouldn't shut up, but weren't going to put up either. None of Corbyn's most vocal detractors actually stood against him in the leadership election with the consequence that the job of running against him fell to a man more anonymous than his surname; a man, in fact, whose only discernible political achievement had been to trip the hapless Angela Eagle as she stretched out for the prize. The Labour Big Beasts hung back, hoping to dine on another's kill, and all that is left for them now is dispute the pickings of Owen Smith's lean & hungry carcass.
Now it is left for them to go big or go home. But going big is going to be difficult: a vote of No Confidence is difficult to top, and the near unanimity with which the Parliamentary Labour Party attempted to remove Corbyn looks considerably more fragile today.
And, given the difficult conversations that they face with their constituency party members, Labour MPs can't go home.
So it comes down to that most famous of literary disjunctions: "To be or not to be." True, collective self-destruction seems to be option for which Labour MPs have boundless appetite, but this seems to be a case where even making their quietus with a bare bodkin can hardly spare them a proud man's contumely.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Owen Goal
If we believe the polls (which, of course, we shouldn't) Owen Smith is all-in & drawing dead in his bid to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Smith has hitherto not troubled these (or any other) pages, but has nonetheless been anointed as the brightest & best that the Parliamentary Labour Party has to offer which, unfortunately, is not hard to believe. In an article based on interviews with constituency party members The Guardian sheepishly revealed that no one really had a word to say about Smith whose main drawback is also his key virtue: anonymity. The assumption by Labour MPs, for better or worse, is that the least known of them is probably also the one least hated by Labour's members.
Although Smith is regarded as "soft Left" however, there is nothing soft about the approach that he is taking as his campaign ratchets up. And this is a problem.
His lines of attack are familiar: surrounding himself with women, he has branded himself as the sexual equality candidate while female Labour MPs have pushed the narrative that Corbyn is not doing enough to quell the abuse that his less evolved supporters are flinging at them. Surely the next step will be for Smith to reveal Jewish endorsements while saying that Corbyn has failed to confront the anti-Semitism of the Left. He will pose with British soldiers while saying that Corbyn is weak on security. He will appear at Battersea Dogs' Home to criticise Corbyn's lack of a full-voiced opposition to mistreatment of animals.
And the problem in all this is not for Corbyn but for the very people who want to unseat him, because Smith is effectively re-running the tactics of the failed Remain campaign: relentlessly attacking the very voters whom you expect to deliver your victory.
Brexit voters were treated as credulous & racist. This is the strategy used during the EU referendum campaign, and in that context it is worth remembering that MP Jo Cox was actually murdered: powerful proof that at least some Brexit adherents seemed to be exactly what the Remainers were claiming.
Yet an event that might have been expected to swing the entire course of the Referendum, in the end, did not turn the tide, and possibly for the same reason that Smith's strategy is doomed. People's attitudes had been hardened by weeks of abuse, to the point at which they were no longer willing to give any credence at all to the people who were trying to persuade them.
Right now there is no accusation that could be flung at Jeremy Corbyn that people are likely to believe: especially if they continue along the same lines as today's tale of a Watergate-style office break-in. It looks at first appearance like a stunt at best and a blatant smear at worst.
It may well be impossible for Smith to engage with the Labour rank & file but for sure he will not do it by pursuing his current path.
Although Smith is regarded as "soft Left" however, there is nothing soft about the approach that he is taking as his campaign ratchets up. And this is a problem.
His lines of attack are familiar: surrounding himself with women, he has branded himself as the sexual equality candidate while female Labour MPs have pushed the narrative that Corbyn is not doing enough to quell the abuse that his less evolved supporters are flinging at them. Surely the next step will be for Smith to reveal Jewish endorsements while saying that Corbyn has failed to confront the anti-Semitism of the Left. He will pose with British soldiers while saying that Corbyn is weak on security. He will appear at Battersea Dogs' Home to criticise Corbyn's lack of a full-voiced opposition to mistreatment of animals.
And the problem in all this is not for Corbyn but for the very people who want to unseat him, because Smith is effectively re-running the tactics of the failed Remain campaign: relentlessly attacking the very voters whom you expect to deliver your victory.
Brexit voters were treated as credulous & racist. This is the strategy used during the EU referendum campaign, and in that context it is worth remembering that MP Jo Cox was actually murdered: powerful proof that at least some Brexit adherents seemed to be exactly what the Remainers were claiming.
Yet an event that might have been expected to swing the entire course of the Referendum, in the end, did not turn the tide, and possibly for the same reason that Smith's strategy is doomed. People's attitudes had been hardened by weeks of abuse, to the point at which they were no longer willing to give any credence at all to the people who were trying to persuade them.
Right now there is no accusation that could be flung at Jeremy Corbyn that people are likely to believe: especially if they continue along the same lines as today's tale of a Watergate-style office break-in. It looks at first appearance like a stunt at best and a blatant smear at worst.
It may well be impossible for Smith to engage with the Labour rank & file but for sure he will not do it by pursuing his current path.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
A Laboured Analogy
The Parliamentary Labour Party makes for a lousy boyfriend.
For a start, he always expects you to pay for his round, and he's always playing Lord Bountiful: treating everyone who comes into the pub, whispering to you that all this "networking" is really going to pay off down the line. Though whether it will be paying off for the both of you, or just for him, is a bit difficult to tell.
Then, he always seems to be gossiping about you with his friends. He tells them that you're a bit dumb, and boring, and whiny ... even that you're a bit anti-Semitic, which he seems to think makes him look enlightened & tolerant in mixed company.
Worst of all, he's always making a spectacle of himself chasing after other women. Every few years you'll find him making a play for some stray piece of skirt, even though he knows full well that she prefers the posh boy with the nice car from up the street. He'll put on his best suit, which doesn't even fit him, take her up West and, from what you've heard, make out that you and he broke up years ago.
Of course, once she's dumped him (like she always does) he's back, telling you that he should have listened to you more and say if you let him back then it'll all be different this time. He'll even go to the restaurant you choose before the pub on Friday night. Except, when you do choose, he sits there sulking through the starter and then says that he'd be eating his favourite bhuna by now if he'd made the choice for you.
Then he says that no real girlfriend would have made him eat this filthy Greek muck in the first place: you only do it to annoy him and if he wanted to eat goats cheese he'd have been a goat. And he's had it with you and your fucking stupid ideas of where to eat and you'd better get your coat you dumb bitch because he's off for a bhuna and if you don't like it you can lump it, see?
And when you tell him that you haven't even had your moussaka yet and you were looking forward to it he tells you: "Look, the moussaka's off, no moussaka, this restaurant's a bust. All of my friends keep telling me: there is no fucking moussaka, okay? I'm not sitting here to find out whether some fucking moussaka that doesn't even exist warps into existence and appears on a plate in front of you, because I'm pretty sure that if I get to the pub by nine tonight then that girl from up the road is going to be there, gagging for it."
But this time you tell him: no, she's not gagging for it because she's going steady with that other guy, and the other guy says he's keeping her until 2020 so you can whistle for your bhuna, Parliamentary Labour Party.
And he just looks at you. That look. That look that says "if I have to eat Greek salad one more time and look at your stupid face I'll kill myself".
So that night you throw a brick through his window, obviously.
For a start, he always expects you to pay for his round, and he's always playing Lord Bountiful: treating everyone who comes into the pub, whispering to you that all this "networking" is really going to pay off down the line. Though whether it will be paying off for the both of you, or just for him, is a bit difficult to tell.
Then, he always seems to be gossiping about you with his friends. He tells them that you're a bit dumb, and boring, and whiny ... even that you're a bit anti-Semitic, which he seems to think makes him look enlightened & tolerant in mixed company.
Worst of all, he's always making a spectacle of himself chasing after other women. Every few years you'll find him making a play for some stray piece of skirt, even though he knows full well that she prefers the posh boy with the nice car from up the street. He'll put on his best suit, which doesn't even fit him, take her up West and, from what you've heard, make out that you and he broke up years ago.
Of course, once she's dumped him (like she always does) he's back, telling you that he should have listened to you more and say if you let him back then it'll all be different this time. He'll even go to the restaurant you choose before the pub on Friday night. Except, when you do choose, he sits there sulking through the starter and then says that he'd be eating his favourite bhuna by now if he'd made the choice for you.
Then he says that no real girlfriend would have made him eat this filthy Greek muck in the first place: you only do it to annoy him and if he wanted to eat goats cheese he'd have been a goat. And he's had it with you and your fucking stupid ideas of where to eat and you'd better get your coat you dumb bitch because he's off for a bhuna and if you don't like it you can lump it, see?
And when you tell him that you haven't even had your moussaka yet and you were looking forward to it he tells you: "Look, the moussaka's off, no moussaka, this restaurant's a bust. All of my friends keep telling me: there is no fucking moussaka, okay? I'm not sitting here to find out whether some fucking moussaka that doesn't even exist warps into existence and appears on a plate in front of you, because I'm pretty sure that if I get to the pub by nine tonight then that girl from up the road is going to be there, gagging for it."
But this time you tell him: no, she's not gagging for it because she's going steady with that other guy, and the other guy says he's keeping her until 2020 so you can whistle for your bhuna, Parliamentary Labour Party.
And he just looks at you. That look. That look that says "if I have to eat Greek salad one more time and look at your stupid face I'll kill myself".
So that night you throw a brick through his window, obviously.
Monday, June 27, 2016
Go To Your Happy Place
At a time when Plan B is desperately needed - when UK MPs are required to process the narrow but unambiguous rejection of their advice and get on with the job that they were elected to do - those who have found it easiest to adjust are the ones who are just pushing Plan A. The SNP (led by the person who is currently probably today the UK's most popular politician on any side: pocket dynamo Nicola Sturgeon) thinks that Scottish Independence may be the answer. Sinn Féin feels that Irish Independence may do the trick. Conservative MPs are getting down to the serious business of trying to stop Boris Johnson getting to Number 10. And Labour MPs are trying to remove Jeremy Corbyn.
Removing Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, not so much the Plan A of Labour MPs as the One Plan To Rule Them All. Since this mild-mannered and rather bland specimen of Far Left extremism was foisted on them by the contemptible rank & file they have been waiting on the steps of the capitol with a murderous gleam in their collective eye hoping to catch sight of him cycling by, but have been repeatedly cheated of their prey. They were already to pounce after the Oldham West & Royton by-election last year (which confounded their hopes by resulting in a ringing Labour victory) and almost did so at the time of the underwhelming council election results in May. Had he delivered in terms of the election failure that all Labour MPs so clearly covet, he would have been gone by now.
Under the circumstances, the Parliamentary Labour Party has picked now as its time to strike (if strike be quite the word for the centrist wing of the party with its inherent mistrust of unions). Seemingly, the EU referendum result is to be laid at his door due to the tepidity with which he campaigned for a Remain victory.
Well, that's the ostensible reason at least.
Setting aside for now the question about whether changing the leader is wise at such a time of convulsion, what is the benefit to the party to remove anyone, let alone the leader, on the basis of a lack of Euro-enthusiasm? Broadly there are two options: Brexit or a rejection of the Brexit vote by the political elites. If the political elites refuse to enact Brexit (which may still happen) then it doesn't really matter where people were on the referendum. On the other hand, if Brexit is going to be enacted then it will require Brexiters, Bremainers and everyone between those two camps to come to the aid of the country.
Labour can turn itself into the perfect pro-Bremain party, but that transformation will be too late to be anything but position the party on the other side of the question from the majority view of its voters, and any leader palatable to the PLP will almost certainly be someone whose wisdom on the question has just been rejected by the electorate.
Of course, Labour MPs are not thinking straight at all. They know that Cameron is going, that a general election may be years closer at hand than expected and that the bloody business of decapitation needs to be done now. In response to the crisis, they have gone to their happy place not by means of calm meditation & positive visualisation but with a massive intracardiac injection of whatever high-potency variant of cocaine fuels them. They think that - like Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction - all they will do is thrash around the floor for a second and sit bolt upright with everything alright again.
Except - like Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction - what they think is cocaine may be a fatal overdose of something else.
Removing Jeremy Corbyn is, of course, not so much the Plan A of Labour MPs as the One Plan To Rule Them All. Since this mild-mannered and rather bland specimen of Far Left extremism was foisted on them by the contemptible rank & file they have been waiting on the steps of the capitol with a murderous gleam in their collective eye hoping to catch sight of him cycling by, but have been repeatedly cheated of their prey. They were already to pounce after the Oldham West & Royton by-election last year (which confounded their hopes by resulting in a ringing Labour victory) and almost did so at the time of the underwhelming council election results in May. Had he delivered in terms of the election failure that all Labour MPs so clearly covet, he would have been gone by now.
Well, that's the ostensible reason at least.
Setting aside for now the question about whether changing the leader is wise at such a time of convulsion, what is the benefit to the party to remove anyone, let alone the leader, on the basis of a lack of Euro-enthusiasm? Broadly there are two options: Brexit or a rejection of the Brexit vote by the political elites. If the political elites refuse to enact Brexit (which may still happen) then it doesn't really matter where people were on the referendum. On the other hand, if Brexit is going to be enacted then it will require Brexiters, Bremainers and everyone between those two camps to come to the aid of the country.
Labour can turn itself into the perfect pro-Bremain party, but that transformation will be too late to be anything but position the party on the other side of the question from the majority view of its voters, and any leader palatable to the PLP will almost certainly be someone whose wisdom on the question has just been rejected by the electorate.
Of course, Labour MPs are not thinking straight at all. They know that Cameron is going, that a general election may be years closer at hand than expected and that the bloody business of decapitation needs to be done now. In response to the crisis, they have gone to their happy place not by means of calm meditation & positive visualisation but with a massive intracardiac injection of whatever high-potency variant of cocaine fuels them. They think that - like Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction - all they will do is thrash around the floor for a second and sit bolt upright with everything alright again.
Except - like Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction - what they think is cocaine may be a fatal overdose of something else.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
The Little Train That Couldn't
If you believe the mythology of these things, Neil Kinnock sunk Labour's chances of victory in the 1992 General Election at a rally in Sheffield where he uttered the deathless soundbite "We're alright!" The rally - which fittingly took place on April Fool's Day - is notable as being just about the last time in British political history that a politician ever made the mistake of showing spontaneous feeling at a conference podium. But the sentiment was at least positive.
Two days out from the EU Referendum, Sordel is ready to capitulate to the prevailing logic. Cameron has me convinced. The Department of Trade & Industry can't negotiate trade agreements. Countries investing in Britain are not after anything that we have to trade; they are primarily interested in our access to the Continental marketplace. Membership of NATO and the United Nations counts for nothing, and if you're pining for The Commonwealth, pine on Grandad. Britain cannot make it on its own, and certainly not with any of the likely potential pilots at the helm.
And this isn't sarcasm.
There is, admittedly, a positive argument for remaining in the EU. We're better inside helping shape the decisions than outside suffering the consequences of them. This affords the UK to effect genuine global change through multilateral action with European partners irrespective of their frankly waning power and relevance. None of that is wrong; people join exclusive clubs for a reason and they don't give up membership on a whim or without qualms.
But the positive logic is as nothing compared with the negative logic of staying in Europe. The UK didn't need an EU to shape international affairs in the past, but then it had leaders who would not have dreamed of devoting months of their time fighting a completely unnecessary referendum on the basis of the UK's fundamental weakness.
This is not party political sniping: Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems (whatever happened to them?) are as one on this point. It can't be done, and - if it could - we can't do it.
Maybe some other UK with some other leader. Not this one. Not with Cameron, or Corbyn, or (let me check my notes) Tim Farron. Not with Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage or Michael Gove either, lest you think that Sordel dreams of princes across the sea.
If you can't trust your politicians, Brexit is too big a risk to take, which is why I cannot vote for it.
Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Slogan, and the slogan for these times is this: "We're All Wrong."
Two days out from the EU Referendum, Sordel is ready to capitulate to the prevailing logic. Cameron has me convinced. The Department of Trade & Industry can't negotiate trade agreements. Countries investing in Britain are not after anything that we have to trade; they are primarily interested in our access to the Continental marketplace. Membership of NATO and the United Nations counts for nothing, and if you're pining for The Commonwealth, pine on Grandad. Britain cannot make it on its own, and certainly not with any of the likely potential pilots at the helm.
And this isn't sarcasm.
There is, admittedly, a positive argument for remaining in the EU. We're better inside helping shape the decisions than outside suffering the consequences of them. This affords the UK to effect genuine global change through multilateral action with European partners irrespective of their frankly waning power and relevance. None of that is wrong; people join exclusive clubs for a reason and they don't give up membership on a whim or without qualms.
But the positive logic is as nothing compared with the negative logic of staying in Europe. The UK didn't need an EU to shape international affairs in the past, but then it had leaders who would not have dreamed of devoting months of their time fighting a completely unnecessary referendum on the basis of the UK's fundamental weakness.
This is not party political sniping: Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems (whatever happened to them?) are as one on this point. It can't be done, and - if it could - we can't do it.
Maybe some other UK with some other leader. Not this one. Not with Cameron, or Corbyn, or (let me check my notes) Tim Farron. Not with Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage or Michael Gove either, lest you think that Sordel dreams of princes across the sea.
If you can't trust your politicians, Brexit is too big a risk to take, which is why I cannot vote for it.
Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Slogan, and the slogan for these times is this: "We're All Wrong."
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Alas Woolas
Generally speaking, a party in opposition has little opportunity to demonstrate its suicidal lack of political judgement.
Even, however, where little opportunity exists, Labour MPs will heed its gentle knock, which is perhaps why they are lining up to voice their support for disgraced former ballot-swindler Phil Woolas.
Phil, who has only appeared in these pages or the public imagination once previously - whilst being verbally spanked to universal delight and approbation by renowned Gurkhaphile Joanna Lumley - has again been the victim of public matriarchal chastisement. This time it was at the gloved hand of Harriet Harman, who told the Resident Intellectual that while a judicial review might reinstate the mendacious Phil, it could not exonerate him of the accusation that he knowingly lied in order to win an election, and he would therefore not be reinstated as a Labour MP under any circumstances.
By any sane standard, this should have seen an end to the story, but seemingly not so, and for reasons that may point to a deeper schism in Labour ranks.
Harman, bug-eyed sophomore grandee of the Labour rump, has also become its Cassandra: universally vilified despite doing the obviously right thing. Having presided over a leadership election process that delivered the "wrong" Miliband as leader, she was marked for death when the loser, David, visibly reproached her for applauding his brother at the Labour Party Conference.
If Harman, however, is regarded as an Ediband loyalist, then her antagonist is a doyenne of the Daviband insurgency. When Daviband needed someone to run his sleazy leadership campaign, he turned to Phil, who proceeded to bring to national politics the approach that had worked so well at Oldham East and Saddleworth. Although the wholly negative campaign, which depicted Ediband as a raving Marxist, has Phil's grubby fingerprints all over it, he actually nominated Diane Abbott, in what he termed "an act of pluralism" (a.k.a. "an attempt to dilute the left-wing vote").
The man whom the rest of us regard as a festering canker on British politics is, to the Davibandians, a poster-boy for political effectiveness.
Of course, this cheers Sordel as a rotting pear does the fruitfly. What could be better for the cynical onlooker than the hyenas of Millbank angrily contesting the last bone of political power?
It is worth acknowledging, however, that for Elwyn Watkins, the Liberal Democrat candidate mercilessly defamed by Woolas, the smear campaign was perhaps less entertaining. A sober account of the judgement in the Saddleworth News reminds us that the thrust of the lies was to imply that Watkins was pro-Islamist in a constituency with racial tensions, which goes rather beyond the rough-and-tumble of regular politics.
There is only one group of people in the world who will question the severity of Phil's punishment, and they all take tea with David Miliband.
Even, however, where little opportunity exists, Labour MPs will heed its gentle knock, which is perhaps why they are lining up to voice their support for disgraced former ballot-swindler Phil Woolas.
Phil, who has only appeared in these pages or the public imagination once previously - whilst being verbally spanked to universal delight and approbation by renowned Gurkhaphile Joanna Lumley - has again been the victim of public matriarchal chastisement. This time it was at the gloved hand of Harriet Harman, who told the Resident Intellectual that while a judicial review might reinstate the mendacious Phil, it could not exonerate him of the accusation that he knowingly lied in order to win an election, and he would therefore not be reinstated as a Labour MP under any circumstances.
By any sane standard, this should have seen an end to the story, but seemingly not so, and for reasons that may point to a deeper schism in Labour ranks.
Harman, bug-eyed sophomore grandee of the Labour rump, has also become its Cassandra: universally vilified despite doing the obviously right thing. Having presided over a leadership election process that delivered the "wrong" Miliband as leader, she was marked for death when the loser, David, visibly reproached her for applauding his brother at the Labour Party Conference.
If Harman, however, is regarded as an Ediband loyalist, then her antagonist is a doyenne of the Daviband insurgency. When Daviband needed someone to run his sleazy leadership campaign, he turned to Phil, who proceeded to bring to national politics the approach that had worked so well at Oldham East and Saddleworth. Although the wholly negative campaign, which depicted Ediband as a raving Marxist, has Phil's grubby fingerprints all over it, he actually nominated Diane Abbott, in what he termed "an act of pluralism" (a.k.a. "an attempt to dilute the left-wing vote").
The man whom the rest of us regard as a festering canker on British politics is, to the Davibandians, a poster-boy for political effectiveness.
Of course, this cheers Sordel as a rotting pear does the fruitfly. What could be better for the cynical onlooker than the hyenas of Millbank angrily contesting the last bone of political power?
It is worth acknowledging, however, that for Elwyn Watkins, the Liberal Democrat candidate mercilessly defamed by Woolas, the smear campaign was perhaps less entertaining. A sober account of the judgement in the Saddleworth News reminds us that the thrust of the lies was to imply that Watkins was pro-Islamist in a constituency with racial tensions, which goes rather beyond the rough-and-tumble of regular politics.
There is only one group of people in the world who will question the severity of Phil's punishment, and they all take tea with David Miliband.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
After You, Cecil
Other than encouraging the media to discover the word psychodrama and turn it into the new vuvuzela, the catastrophe that befell David Miliband is most notable for bringing to further light a distressing new phenomenon in British Politics: Buggins's Turn.
It began with Mrs. Brown's Little Boy who (for those who cannot remember a time when he was anything other than an object of hissing and derision) was pictured as a sad-faced child looking on in a bereft manner while that nasty Tony boy from next door hogged the Nintendo and crowed about his High Score. "Let Gordy have a turn," encouraged the Great British Public from the doorway while greasing up a cake tin in preparation for High Tea.
Well, the position of Prime Minister is not like your fifteen minutes of fame ... not everyone gets a go.
David Miliband (latest example of the Pod People generation into which our current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were hatched in a damp basement some years ago) seems to have thought that letting the sour Scot have a few more moments steering Mario repeatedly off the high cliff and into the rapacious man-eating vegetation below was somehow "the decent thing to do". I suppose with his foot almost upon the stirrup of power, David felt that exquisite pleasure that can be derived from patient expectation.
Quite possibly David was an able Foreign Secretary, although that would be difficult to establish during an era when international detente is actually being conducted by the Ministry of Defence. Like the hare, however, he rather overestimated his supposed lead in this particular race and was to be found napping as his steady reptilian sibling crawled past him and across the Finishing Line.
So now Labour MPs are affronted. Clutching small pieces of coloured paper with numbers written on them and shaking their fists like shoppers at a cheese counter, they turn their fury upon the vuvuzela Ed Miliband.
(The word vuvuzela in my last sentence can (and will) be replaced by ruthless if you are a BBC Political Correspondent.)
Amusing though it was to see David pipped at, and to, the post, for sheer callousness Ed falls well short of the standards of Stalin and Hitler. Unless he actually hangs his brother from a meat hook (something that he might be well-advised to consider) I think that his victory only qualifies for the description "business as usual".
Still, the whole sorry mess has made work for lip-readers who assure us that the comment passed by bad-loser David to Harriet Harman was: "Why are you clapping? You voted for it."
Rarely has the word it been more readily replacable by the word me.
It began with Mrs. Brown's Little Boy who (for those who cannot remember a time when he was anything other than an object of hissing and derision) was pictured as a sad-faced child looking on in a bereft manner while that nasty Tony boy from next door hogged the Nintendo and crowed about his High Score. "Let Gordy have a turn," encouraged the Great British Public from the doorway while greasing up a cake tin in preparation for High Tea.
Well, the position of Prime Minister is not like your fifteen minutes of fame ... not everyone gets a go.
David Miliband (latest example of the Pod People generation into which our current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were hatched in a damp basement some years ago) seems to have thought that letting the sour Scot have a few more moments steering Mario repeatedly off the high cliff and into the rapacious man-eating vegetation below was somehow "the decent thing to do". I suppose with his foot almost upon the stirrup of power, David felt that exquisite pleasure that can be derived from patient expectation.
Quite possibly David was an able Foreign Secretary, although that would be difficult to establish during an era when international detente is actually being conducted by the Ministry of Defence. Like the hare, however, he rather overestimated his supposed lead in this particular race and was to be found napping as his steady reptilian sibling crawled past him and across the Finishing Line.
So now Labour MPs are affronted. Clutching small pieces of coloured paper with numbers written on them and shaking their fists like shoppers at a cheese counter, they turn their fury upon the vuvuzela Ed Miliband.
(The word vuvuzela in my last sentence can (and will) be replaced by ruthless if you are a BBC Political Correspondent.)
Amusing though it was to see David pipped at, and to, the post, for sheer callousness Ed falls well short of the standards of Stalin and Hitler. Unless he actually hangs his brother from a meat hook (something that he might be well-advised to consider) I think that his victory only qualifies for the description "business as usual".
Still, the whole sorry mess has made work for lip-readers who assure us that the comment passed by bad-loser David to Harriet Harman was: "Why are you clapping? You voted for it."
Rarely has the word it been more readily replacable by the word me.
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