Whatever happened to...?

There was a time not that long ago when you knew it was a Labour MP speaking on TV because he wore a red tie. Tories sometimes wore a blue one and Liberals any colour they liked, but for Labour a red tie was mandatory.

This changed with New Labour. They no longer wanted to be reminded of the past, the history of the party. Red stood something. It was the colour of the worker's flag. It was the colour of the blood shed by generations of activists going back to the Chartist and before.

As the various Blairites and Brownites start to creep away from their previous positions I wonder if the red tie will make a comeback. We are now seeing them dump the 'New' and just calling themselves Labour and even the banned word socialism cropped up today, so maybe we will. (And yes Ken Livingstone, I noticed the yellow tie you have been wearing. A little bit of tradition please!)

It’s going to get worse! The Americanisation of British politics.

I’m not sure when it really started. Was it Maggie bringing in Saatchi & Saatchi for the 1979 election? Certainly by the time Blair was aping Clinton with sound bites, spin doctors and the 24 hour grin we were well on our way. Even Blair’s career path of university to law to politics was the standard American one. Now I have nothing against America, I worked for US marine companies for most of my working life. I am even a republican in the sense that I would rather not have a monarchy. But I do not envy the US political system. Now, like them, the difference between our two major parties can be hard to define.

Recently I have begun to feel we were out doing the Americans at their own game. It’s the increase of twenty-something potential and actual election candidates who have moved directly from university to a political career. This isn’t only happening with our own party, but also with the Tories and Liberals. Although I don’t always agree with him the Ken Livingstone interview on the Labourlist blog does highlight what’s going on. See two of his answers below.

Q. “Do you mean Old Labour with a capital O and a capital L or…”

KL. “Both! The main weakness of the so-called New Labour project was that it was too young and too graduate middle class. I was surprised how many old right-wingers who had spent their lives trying to stop me ended up supporting me because of how bad things had got.”

Q. “You know you can be young and graduate and working class and on the left of the party…”

KL. “I’m sure there is one somewhere. But in the run up to the 1998 Borough council elections in London, they introduced al these tests. Instead of being selected, you had to write statements of your values and management experience. But it wasn’t just the left wing that was stripped down by that; it was the working class people, black and white. I thought that was absolutely disgraceful. Blair and Brown between them took a functioning, broadly working class party, but one that was also strongly middle class, and reduced it to a shell. They closed down all the channels by which working class people could express themselves, through their unions and their local parties. If they hadn’t closed down the Labour party in that way, they might not have made the catastrophic mistake in carrying on Thatcher’s ban on council house building, And they’re now surprised that working class people are angry? What fuels the anger of those working class voters is that their kids have got nowhere to live.”

We haven’t really seen this since WW2. Before that there were rural seats that were passed down through aristocratic families, but by the 1945 election many of the new MPs had been in the forces before. Even those who wanted a political career like Churchill 40 years before that started with another job.

These new members of the political class are the evil spawn of Blair, Cameron and Clegg. Blair had a pretend job in law while attempting to get into parliament. Cameron didn’t even do this, going straight into the Conservative Research Department. Clegg looks like he saw the opportunity to enter UK politics via Europe.

But what do these and the new crop bring to the table; what experiences have they had which will help the country move forward? I try to see something positive in the youth of these people and New Labour’s parachuting in the likes of Georgia Gould, but it’s not working for me. Just look at the photos of the posters in the left column of Labourlist’s home page. It scares me that these are our next Labour Party representatives. (Apologies to those who don’t feel they fit my description.)

What the expense scandal should tell us is that we can’t afford to have this type of candidate. The political class must know that eventually the public will revolt and not just by not voting, or by voting BNP. Maybe a study of the French revolution will give them some warning. The people are very angry.

The Clown Wins

I just took down the Stop Boris graphic. Must admit I'm surprised that London voted how it did. I thought Ken could win in spite of Labour's problems. The outer suburbs seem to have put in a strong Boris vote so it might be a council tax vote also.

I suspect this is the end of any progressive London policies on public transport and pollution. Boris really is a throwback to a much earlier time. In a way it is before Thatcher, even back to before the Second World War when Old Etonians knew ruling Britain and much of the world was their job.

So well done Ken. Shame about this one. It might have been better to get expelled from the party again. If you had won I think we could have seen a bit more courage from the left of the party in pushing for changes in government policy.

London Mayor, You're Havin' A Laugh

It looks like Boris Johnson is being found out rather quickly. I don't think keeping him hidden away will fool the London voters. I suspect that David Cameron and the Tory leadership never thought Boris, or BoJo to his friends, would seriously challenge Ken Livingstone.

Now he is in with a chance Cameron has problems. Does he keep Boris quiet and hope to win on an anti-Ken vote, but then face a year or so of extreme embarrassment as Boris is allowed to speak again as London's Mayor? Or does he let him speak and lose London? Maggie lost London and disbanded Ken's GLC so maybe that's his answer.

More on Boris

It seems that my view of the Jeremy Paxman's BBC London Mayor's Election debate is a fairly widespread one regarding Boris shooting himself in the foot. Anyway with the election only a couple of weeks away I thought I had better put a link in to a pro-Ken blog on the sidebar or you could just click here.

Boris The Unthinkable

I just watched Jeremy Paxman and the three main candidates for the London Mayor's job debating on the BBC. I must admit a few months ago I thought it was a no contest which recent polls show isn't the case. Also I thought the Tories had put Boris up as a bit of a joke candidate, just like when it was going to be Jeffrey Archer.

That second bit hasn't changed - he is a clown. God help London if he wins. This would be our own version of George Bush. How could this man ever have run a magazine? I'm not sure what his connection is with London, but running the city isn't on.

It should have been so easy for the two other candidates to attack Ken Livingstone on his record as he is the incumbent but instead neither could really get to him on anything including crime and the bendy busses. I think the reason is Ken is a good city administrator and fairly non-corrupt compared to most politicians.

The Liberal's Brain Paddick came across as bit too much of 'a plague on both your houses'. He will suffer I suspect with voters of my age group. Those who would vote for a policeman won't vote for a gay, and those who would vote for a gay won't vote for a policeman.

Is it too late to get rid of Brown?

If only the Labour Party could hold a leadership election now, I think they might even find the fifty or so MPs needed and brave enough to put up a candidate against Brown. If it were allowed maybe they could find a safe seat for Ken Livingstone so he could contest. Diane Abbott, weren't you going to pack it in this time anyway?

I'm not saying Ken could win but keeping Brown is flirting with a disaster. He looks like a man on the verge of a breakdown. This New Labour experiment has run its course and it's time for a rethink.

What Ken would bring to the game is the ability to delegate to good people which Brown doesn't seem to have.

More on Ken Livingstone

I have in the past admitted to being quite fond of the Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. If the Labour Party had not been taken over by Thacherites we might have had him as a prime minister. That's if the rest of the UK would put up with a Londoner of course.


The last few days his tour of India has been getting some exposure on the BBC World Service TV news. I take it he was visiting Amritsar at one point as he was wearing a head covering scarf to go into a Sikh temple. Together with the red dot head on his forward and the sly grin of man who will not take the press too seriously, it made me laugh.

Ken has, without Blair style charisma and without party support when he first stood for the job, built a considerable political machine in London. I know most of the London Labour Party and many of the ex-GLC insiders were behind him, but what we have now is probably the closest London has ever been to the old New York Tammany Hall Democrat machine, even more so than Morrison's LCC.

In my mind this isn't a bad thing. His success is based on having enough support from the various minorities to have a majority come election time. Hopefully he will have a large Sikh vote now;-) If he were twenty years younger the party would have had a replacement for Gordon Brown if he loses the next election.

Gordon Brown - A Labour Disaster?

I wonder if some of the MPs that supported Gordon Brown are having second thoughts. I am beginning to suspect he is leading the party to an electoral disaster. My hope was his ability to talk 'Labour' might actually be based on some sort of ideology or set of principles. More an more it looks like neither, just Blair without the charisma.

I think you must have one or the other to win an election. Be known as a man with principles which lets you get away without the charisma, like Ken Livingstone, or no principles but lots charisma like Blair.

Brown is just coming across as a bully and I don't think that will work. I do hope the UK doesn't end up with a Cameron old Etonian government because of this.

October's almost finished

Not had a great month so I will be glad to see the back of it. Just one more day to go. Still we have seen Gordon Brown in his true colours which definitely don't have much red in them. How could so many Labour MPs not at least put up some token resistance to him in the leadership elections. They can't all be after jobs, can they?

I have now seen The Londoner newspaper. For a freebie from Ken Livingstone it is a very well done tabloid. Must have been the only way he figured he could get good press. I suspect the press barons will never forgive him and one step out of line will be all it needs, but let's hope Ken stays on the straight and narrow as Boris as mayor is just too awful to imagine.

What We Really Want From Our Police

The police, or more specific the London Met. was what got me started on the army piece yesterday. I had been thinking about how Ken Livingstone will jump in with uncritical support for senior officers in the force when they are in trouble. I would like to sort out what qualities Ken, and we, would hope for in a police force.

In the sixties it was so much easier. We thought the police were an instrument of the authorities and we would be better off getting rid of them. Not that Ken was ever part of the "Kill the Bill" extreme as far as I know. Mind you there was some truth in the left's views. Certain police stations did have large numbers of BNP or National Front members and synthesizers in them. Rumours always had Bexleyheath as one of these. Also both the Met and the City of London police were riddled with corruption down to the point where robberies were being organized by the police.

Of course very few societies, and I guess no large ones, could exist without policing. In a city like London we would have vigilantes if there was no police. So what are the ideal qualities for the police force?

The easy answer is that the force should represent the views and cultural make-up of the population it polices. A cynic would suggest that usually they represent the views and cultural make-up of the authority that pays their wages and controls their promotions. To me the answer is that we need to individual policemen to be liberal with a small "l". An ability to see more than one side to a problem as opposed to a "string them up" attitude.

With the best and brightest of the young officers now being put on a fast-track promotion ladder is this what we get? Has Ken got it right? I suspect that attitudes more than racial make-up of the force is more important. Having said that, it certainly doesn't hurt having more black and asian faces on the force.

A Short Sunday Walk

The weekends I can get quicker access to the klong by going through the school playground. I don't like doing this in the week as I'm sure the teachers have enough problems keeping the kids attention. I had to make a delivery this morning and wasn't going to take a walk but changed my mind and took a short 45 minute break.

There is a large footbridge by the school's back entrance and I crossed the klong there and turned right. The photo above shows the view south from the footbridge. I walked through the community on the left bank to the road bridge you can just make out in the distance. From there I came back down through the housing estate roads. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. If I took it today you would see almost every house had there washing out to dry. Sundays must be washing days I guess.

Today's thought is Peter Mandelson, not a very pleasant one either. I have the 2001 Herbert Morrison biography by Donoughue and Jones with Mandelson's forward. He tries to link himself, Blair and New Labour with his grandfather Morrison. Yes, Morrison was on the right of the party but he still thought of himself as a socialist. He had a very working class upbringing and really not much in common with the Mandelsons and Blairs.

If you want to compare Morrison with a present politician look no further than Ken Livingstone. Both have the ability to organize, administer and delegate. Both have had the chance to run London. It is a shame that Ken never had a cabinet job, but lucky for London.