Why am I not surprised that the link in the second paragraph leads to an article on HP?

Fact is, the genuinely good work that has happened on New Labour’s watch, such as the Human Rights Act, civil partnerships and peacebrokering in Northern Ireland, has been horribly offset by some of the worst authoritarian measures ever seen in the West in peacetime (42/90 days, ID cards/the NIR) and multiplied by some of the nastiest concessions to the free market that even Thatcher dared not bring in (student loans, the constant bullying of benefits claimants). This is intensely galling to those of us who would only vote Conservative if hell were to freeze over.

What seems to be happening here is that the left/right axis is pretty much dead; it is the authoritarian/libertarian (small “l” please) scale that I take much more notice of. That’s why I eventually gravitated towards the LibDems; some of their policies may be out of whack with mine but as a rule they’re much closer to me ideologically – and certainly in terms of civil liberties and constitutional reform – than either of the big two parties in England (had I lived in Scotland or Wales it’s not entirely impossible that I may have considered the SNP or Plaid Cymru). I’m fortunate in that I’m in a marginal seat where my party has a chance of winning, so at least I can vote positively in a General Election. Had I not been in that happy position, I certainly wouldn’t be voting Labour to keep the Tories out unless I took a long hard look at the Labour candidate’s stated positions on the issues that matter to me – and as things stand with the current set of incumbent Labour MPs there are no more than around fifty or sixty tops that I’d be happy to see re-elected. The Labour Party I once knew and loved is, to me, as dead as Aneurin Bevan and almost as unbackable as the Conservatives; more so on some issues. A plague on both their houses.

Please don’t use the Human Rights Act as a shining example of Labour’s past achievements. Important as human rights are, that Act has ended up protecting criminals more than it protects victims. Labour couldn’t give a damn about human rights, as their foreign policy has also clearly demonstrated beyond any doubt.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

I have been thinking about this a lot recently.

All the cabinet have been muttering about is reconnecting and relaunching Labour following its problems. And what do they do? They follow the same illiberal policies that have alienated their core political support and upset so much of the country.

In this mode, the government doesn’t have a chance. And to be honest, failure would be for their own good. This cabinet is fundamentally weak, rudderless, and without an ideological direction.

Brown is fooling himself that safety lies to the right of Cameron – on Home Affairs, when in fact the only support that could save his terminal administration is firmly in the liberal camp.

Brown’s biggest problem is his complete inability to connect and communicate. Does anyone really see Brown as a leader? Has he transformed himself from dour bean-counter to leader of men?

The truth is, Brown was never going to be modern political leader. The Blairites knew this. They feared his awkwardness and his lack of savvy.

I don’t think Brown’s a bad person. But he’s poorly advised and lacks some of the talents Blair has in spades.

Sunny,

You will be shocked, shocked I tell you! That I agree completely with your post..

It is because of that sort of barnstorming stuff that we should all see Mr Hundal as an English jewel. This is quality stuff,

So there, naysayers..

Letters From A Tory said:

“Please don’t use the Human Rights Act as a shining example of Labour’s past achievements. Important as human rights are, that Act has ended up protecting criminals more than it protects victims”

Such characteristic rightwing stupidity in two sentences.

The Human Rights Act ensured cases brought under the European Convention on Human Rights were held in Britain rather than Strasbourg. Individuals have been using the Convention to take the government to court for decades. Indeed the UK government was a regular attendee in the Strasbourg court.

It never ceases to amaze me how gullible rightwingers are to tabloid hysteria. It is here where the real signs of decades worth of educational underachievment are to be found. Forget innner city schools – evidence of dumbing down in Britain can be found daily on letters pages of the Mail or Express, or on right wing blogs.

You got much other than pointless daily express-esque rhetoric to back that accusation up, Letters From a Tory?

Important as human rights are, that Act has ended up protecting criminals more than it protects victims.

has someone been using the Daily Mail-omatic?

Expediency, not principles, is all that matters to the Labour Governments under Brown and Blair.

The answer is simple, make Sunny Hundal leader of the Labour party.

“Expediency, not principles, is all that matters to the Labour Governments under Brown and Blair.”

If you delete the words “Labour”, “under”, “Brown”, “and”, and “Blair”, then that sentence will be both equally true and less arbitrarily politically biased.

Sunny, I’m not 100% sure what you mean by “abandoning New Labour” but if you mean that Labour should stop attempting to outdo the Tories in what is traditional Tory political territory then I think you’re spot on.

We never needed to convince people that we would be the toughest on crime, immigration or terrorism, just that we would take the issue seriously. I think that further triangulation is managing to upset much of the Labour party membership while not actually netting us any more votes.

I am sure most of the writers on this blog abandoned New Labour a long time ago, if indeed they were ever part of it, but discussions of this nature always come up against Tony Blair’s oft-quoted conundrum: “The choice is not between the Labour government we have and the Labour government of our dreams, but between the Labour government we have and a Conservative government.”

It therefore follows that the left cannot entirely abandon the Labour Party as a political vehicle unless and until we reach a point where it has actually moved to the right of the Conservatives or at least become ideologically indistinguishable from them.

In the latter scenario, there is, to my mind, at least an argument to be made that a Conservative government seeking to reach out to voters on the left would be more enlightened than a Labour one continually obsessed with pandering to voters on the right.

I am, however, not convinced we are there yet, and if anything, the recent drift in the Conservative Party has been away from the political cross-dressing that marked the early days of Cameron’s leadership and towards a more traditional tax-cutting., crime-bashing agenda.

It therefore follows that the left cannot entirely abandon the Labour Party as a political vehicle unless and until we reach a point where it has actually moved to the right of the Conservatives or at least become ideologically indistinguishable from them.

Paul, we were having this very discussion at the LC drinks on the eve of Boris’ drinking ban. I made that point too, to Gracchi, who disagreed with me.

But I think he has a point. The problem isn’t where Labour sits relative to the Tories. The problem is that New Labour doesn’t have any ideological direction. It doesn’t have any vision. There is no plan, just endless triangulation by the looks of it.

Now, I’d like to think I’m more realistic about what politicians can achieve than most. I’m not one of those far lefties who thinks that if the party doesn’t follow socialism tomorrow then its indistinguishable from the tories.

But the 42 days thing smacks me of precisely the problem – there’s no reason for it other than to try and outmaneuver the Tories. And if that is the basis of policy making then you might as well head home now.

Don’t we want Labour to at least find a base and try and build that? How else do you do it?

The choice at the next election is likley to be between a Conservative government and a coalition government. It is the reverse of reassuring that the the most likly role of the Labour government that we have (judging by its policies) in the next Parliament is as junior partner in a ConLab coalition.

I.e, for us a vote at the next election for the Labour government that we now have is likely to be a wasted vote. If we want a realignment of Westminster politics, is not the best tactic in constituencies with a New Labour MP to vote and compaign for the LibDems? And to do the same where LibDems are second to the Tories?

“If we want a realignment of Westminster politics, is not the best tactic in constituencies with a New Labour MP to vote and compaign for the LibDems? And to do the same where LibDems are second to the Tories?”

No – it’s best to campaign for whoever can beat the Tories in your constituency.

Labour are going to lose the next election, for sure. The only question is whether we end up a Tory absolute majority or some kind of coalition government.

A Tory absolute majority, despite the wishful thinking of many lefties, would do sod-all for political realignment; whereas a minority government of any kind might…

14. If that is the choice, then yes, I would choose a coalition government over a majority Conservative government and, if tactical voting for the Lib Dems would help bring that about, I would support that.

The problem is convincing large numbers of people to do the same, ie vote for no result. A hung Parliament would be regarded by most people as a negative rather than a positive outcome.

Paul, the thing is, as things currently stand, the options are hung parlt, tory small majority or tory landslide. That’s it.

And anything short of a Tory landslide is unlikely. A whole lot of former Labour voters are now Lib Dem voters—I voted Labour in 2001, I’m now a Lib Dem member, in Calder Valley where I’ve just moved to, the sitting Labour MP is standing down, but Labour is now polling in third place and we’ll be actively pushing the Lib Dem candidate as the “stop the Tories” option at the next GE.

“New” Labour is a spent force, and Labour MPs sold themselves down the river when they crowned Brown with no debate. He’s also bunkered up and shows complete unwillingness to make the change of direction he could have managed in the early days.

Labour needs to reinvent itself, and I can’t see it doing that except in opposition. The scary thing is, according to current polling and voting results, at the next GE they’ll be in third place in terms of seats as well. I don’t believe that’ll actually happen, but unless something changes it could.

Good points by Mat….i was a member of Labour in 97 and a bit again until 01 and the Iraq fiasco, am now a member of the Lib Dems. I guess tomorrow we get to see what Labour MP’s really care about…their own hides and that of their party of their principles….

If things do not improve for Labour there is a real chance that they don’t even have the mantle of opposition to look forward too….it is my feeling that if things carry on this way then you will see alot of blue, chunks of yellow and not alot of red on the next electoral map of Britian and if that is the case then there will be a significant realignment on the British left….

Labour has taken it’s core vote for granted for far too long and now it is reaping the whirlwind. If 42 days go it will be a sickening spectacle of a so-called ‘progressive’ government launching a wide-scale assualt on civil liberties….in answer to the question you pose at the end, put simply there is no way short of giving Labour a bloody nose…how long now have the Grassroots Alliance dominated the members section NEC elections and how much have they acheived in that time in terms of concretely shifting Labour Party policy?? Not allot is the answer….

The problem is that New Labour doesn’t have any ideological direction

Wasn’t Liberal Conspiracy created to form alliances between left-wing single-issue groups (as I believe a previous post stated)?

That suggests that it also lacks an “ideological direction”.

The point is that this is not a deficiency peculiar to New Labour: it has been typical of the left since the loss of faith in socialism.

Yes it is time to walk away.

I tried to explore the balance of interest between Plan A (one more heave for the Left inside New Labour) and Plan B (the construction of a wide coalition of red-greens and liberals) in my blog posting yesterday – http://asithappens.tppr.info/journal/2008/6/9/political-chaos-and-liberal-democrat-failure-to-seize-the-mo.html

Plan B seemed to face almost insurmountable difficulties – not least the squaring of a completely clueless Liberal Democrat Party, the dim sectarianism of the Hard Left, the self interest of the trades unions and the fact that New Labour not merely holds the debts but the assets of the centre-left such as they are.

However, Cruddas and Trickett proved themselves today to be utter ‘men of straw’. They have pulled the rug from under Compass. Neal and Gavin did not deserve that treatment – certainly not the youngsters. Assuming we have not been misinformed, they have behaved in a politically craven way, in hock to the patronage system on which they both depend.

The best way forward is to move out and move out fast and decisively. If you cannot even rely on the one politician who claimed to speak for the centre-left, no doubt now seeing what good could be done for democratic socialism and the nation as Cabinet Minister for Drought, Sports Fields and Harbours, then you can rely on no-one.

Get out, organise, recreate a new and popular libertarian left-wing movement that could include everyone from John McDonnell to Mr. Cheeky Girl …

Darrell is certainly right on the Grassroots Alliance – sadly (and I speak as one of its creators), it has degenerated to being little more than a fig leaf. Its members have allowed themselves to be brow-beaten over the state of party administration and finances and now may be at personal risk.

Oh, and ‘ad’, you may have lost faith in socialism, I never did – I just wanted it democratised and linked to liberty and representative government.

Finally, has New Labour moved to the Right of the Tory Party? Well, in some ways, it definitely it has – but, worse, it has created a right wing populist-authoritarian ‘norm’ which means that the Tories can safely play at being more left wing than the Labour Movement when it suits them. Even Nick Clegg is drifting into the same territory.

Until we face the fact that every British professional politician is dancing around the same bit of the field – the bit that Aznar and Berlusconi and Sarkozy and Merkel like to dance in – then there is no hope of a centre-left Britain. We have to face facts and re-build a majority for the libertarian Left – and the first step is to stop believing in this solidarity crap and move on.

Tim Pendry, your comment speaks to the core of what is wrong with Labour and the partisanship they indulge in.

How much blousey anger and frustration can fit into the handcuffs of your ideological loyalty? – I think you are striving to liberate yourself from your own dogma!

Sometimes party politics isn’t the way to go because it means concentrating on the big ticket issues and general trends which are all too distant and unconnected from your real life.

A favorite means of mine in intervening in politics is by registering voters and providing simple information about their right to vote and their options, such as the location of their polling station, postal options, how elections impact on executive control of taxation and services etc. This is something which has a practical impact and something which local councils miserably fail to do.

We have targetted one specific council ward every year for the past few years. Last year we forced the council to go out and knock on doors by shaming them in the local press (they subsequently allocated £18,000/year from their democratic services budget, but have consistently failed to increase registrations by one-tenth as much as our group – that money would help our beer budget, I can tell you!).

One consequence of this was to increase turnout by 8% in our target ward this year which was partially responsible for removing an inactive and disagreeable councillor (but don’t let my opinion get in the way of things). Although we generally manage to provoke a similar increase this was only the second time we’ve been involved in a swing seat.

Our non-partisan neighbourhood effort is small but provides us with huge satisfaction and some real rewards – from this May we now have a new councillor who at least turns up to planning meetings!

There are millions of ways of getting involved to some positive effect, even if it is in tiny ways – so really it’s more important to ask what you can do, not what ‘they’ seem to want to do.

Set an example, don’t follow others!

Of course New Labour should be abandoned, as I’ve argued before here and elsewhere. There is no mechanism via which a libertarian left could take the reins in the party, and shackling ourselves to it on the basis of that hoary old maxim “but the Tories would be even worse” would just be compounding the problem by becoming complicit in it.

Thomas –

I am afraid that some of us have a ‘hinterland’ and do not want to spend our lives engaged in constant small-scale local activism or (at the other extreme) attending mass rallies directed at the conduct of foreign countries.

This myth of ‘think global, act local’ will never appeal to more than a minority of political nerds (like us perhaps) and the only way of harnessing the general opinion of the population (who spend most of their time earning the funds to maintain their families and then try to relieve the stress with some well-earned leisure) is through political parties offering candidates for a representative democracy.

Anything else is utter nonsense whose most malign result would be rule by committees of people of limited intellect , no sense of humour and with strong bladders. It would be like being ruled by the Bloomsbury set.

I have some sympathy for your point of view – in our area of town, we have useless Councillors and serious local problems but our assessment (in a place where 44 of 48 Councillors belong to one party) was that the effort in changing one Councillor was never going to be a best use of time (though we may change our opinion in 2010). We use a form of periodic co-ordinated attack on the bureaucrats and by-pass the political process because it is impotent. Like you, we achieve results but the truth is that results are limited because funds are slashed and 44 out of 48 would not and now could not increase taxes (which few of us would want because the funds would simply be wasted).

The constitutional fish is rotting from the head down and what time and resources are available should be directed at creating a system that would reduce your need to work so hard at reforms that should be self-evident if we were not ruled by idiots and time-servers.

So, please don’t preach at me – I’ve been at the political coal face and seen precisely what you can and cannot do at the local level (and at the global level), and, while some change can be effected at both (you have clearly done a great job in your territory) , the heart of the problem lies in the failure of will and structure within the classic nation-state (thanks, in part, to the malign theorising of the Gramsci mob in the 1980s).

Capture, democratise, decentralise and liberalise the State, keep it strong and the rest will follow – so long as the principle of representation is maintained.

The Guardian appears to have changed its online story to remove the references to C and T. on 42 days, as of at least three hours ago. What the hell is going on? I am writing direct to Neal Lawson today and hope that we will see a clarification of its ‘leaders” position within the next few hours! I believe other readers should press this matter vigorously and demand a Compass statement at the earliest opportunity

Tim,

you assume some of the rest of us have no hinterland…

You also assume to neglect and underplay the political role involved in all organisations other than those with electoral platforms, which is naive or manipulative, to say the least.

Finally you also conflate the experience of being at the ‘coalface’ and your founding of the Grassroots Alliance with the real prospects of growing a political base from the bottom up, most local level. I’ll take this as an expression of your frustration with your age and the limitations this places on the duration of your personal career and therefore also on the timescale of your personal political perspective (but this isn’t personal – it’s something we all suffer, even when we’re aware of it).

I enjoy what I do because I have seen results which please me and I know that real power is the ability to influence, not the holding of office. I neither need nor wholly desire the glory and burden of executive power, because there are plenty of roles which are equally valuable and important. Or maybe I just prefer the shadows.

I thnk I agree with you on your analysis of the weaknesses in our political leadership and the flawed basis of national constitution, but I think I disagree somewhat with the lack of imagination exhibited in your conclusions (just as I’m concerned by your admiration for Neal Lawson).

However I’m mildly impressed that you bothered to read and respond directly and so fully to a comment which was only meant as a minor example for the purpose of demonstration rather than as a description of manifest policy.

Thomas -

There is really no need to get personal And the GA is not the only coal face I have been at, though I do not need to defend itself – it is just the only one that most are aware of and it was a very long time ago. Let’s forget it as ancient history, shall we?

Nor have I had nor expected a political career. I have never sought elected office nor to earn my living from politics. My frustration is not about my lost generation but what I see as the betrayal (especially today) of the twenty-somethings who deserved much more from Cruddas et al.

But you have also misunderstood. I merely say that social change requires legislation and legislation requires political organisation and political organisation requires parties with electoral platforms. I do not diminish other forms of political organisation by any means. I just think that you need a political organisation that mediates between the community and the state and our current crop are inadequate.

If such a new operation were formed, I would not seek to be on its committees or seek office within it or through it – I just want it to exist, that is all. I am fed up of being represented by second-raters. I really don’t want to do any politics at all, to be honest! In a well-run society, I would not need to do much.

And, anyway, where did you get this idea that I admired Neal Lawson? I respect him but I respect John McDonnell and Vincent Cable. I admire my wife, not political activists. I thought he did an excellent job creating a vehicle for possible transformation within the Labour Party (I still do) and I wish him well. Unfortunately, my cold-hearted analysis suggests that, because the machinery of the Party is tainted, anything it touches is tainted, and, so, he and Compass become tainted.

Until this week, I worked to direct anyone who was a dissident towards Compass and upset some on the Left in doing so. I might continue to do so. But I am personally angry and disappointed, not at the fact of compromise or even betrayal (these are what happen in politics) but that it should come so soon from those Compass supported and on such an important issue. Compass is not guilty of anything other than being screwed over. It can take it on the chin and try to move forward but I do not have to. I have a right to express the anger that many others feel at this placement of partisan advantage against the interests of people and country.

My problem with Compass is not that it is bad but that it is doomed to failure because it is working in a bad system, both within the Party and within the nation. It won’t attack the system. All it wants to do is work it better. But I still wish it well. I still hope I am proved wrong. I still think engagement with it is the most rational option at his time if you are not committed LRC or come to the conclusion that Sunny is working towards and I have reached. I still hope it and LRC will eventually combine and prove me wrong. But I also think that allowing professional politicians to pee on you like that from a great height without hitting back more forcefully is not helping anyone, certainly not Compass.

And, because of all this, personally I agree with Sunny’s somewhat self-torturing implicit suggestion that both parties are now equally awful and that existential self respect demands that at some point some of us must just walk away if we think the Compassites just can’t hack it when they face their first challenge from the ‘machine’. The centre-left is heading for electoral and moral meltdown and we need something better than this.

Tim, you raise a number of interesting points which I’d like to delve deeper into, so I hope you return here more regularly.

I think we agree on a number of issues, though we begin from different starting points, which is why we reach slightly different conclusions.

I too am fed up with our collective failure to reach the heights of our potential in many areas, but I think it is overly harsh to say that we are represented by second-raters, as it also ignores our role in electing them.

To be honest I agree that politics can be over-burdensome while we fail ourselves, but I see that as the combined result of our lack of engagement with the repressive nature of an entrenched establishment – a well-run society would be the result of everybody doing something.

I suspect therefore this is a consequence of your harbouring a ‘them and us’ conception of politics, whereas I see the world in terms of ‘I, thou and thee’ – the two aren’t so far apart, but it makes all the difference.

Thanks, I will stay in touch but I also hope that I am straight enough not to stick with fixed positions but to change opinion as the facts change. For example, I was justifiably harsh on Compass as it conducted itself in the run-up to the events of this week but it would be unjustifiably harsh if I assumed that it was a busted flush in the future. It is not.

For example, I do not know how today’s Equality Conference went because I decided not to attend, but I get the impression already that Compass has learned a powerful lesson.

It strikes me that matters could go either way – a revolution inside New Labour or the Left forced to face the fact of the post-1996 Party’s essentially reactionary nature and so be obliged finally to move on.

From this perspective, while I may have already decided to move on personally, people like me (and perhaps Sunny) should stand to one side and let Compass try its ‘one more heave’. If it succeeds, we can be pleased (in good faith) and perhaps accept some of the compromises it makes as necessary because of the outcome.

But if it fails, then there will be those outside of the Party who will have done some work on the infrastructure for something new, while the disillusioned block that emerges from failure, instead of becoming depressed and inactive, will be stronger for having fought the good fight inside the Party. When and if it moves, it will not be a rump but something larger and more significant with a significant union and Parliamentary presence. Think 1931 leading to 1945.

So, on balance, having reflected at length, only the most disillusioned (like me) should move on. Anyone with an ounce of faith in the current structure of organised labour should stay and fight within Compass or the LRC and do their utmost both to unite these elements with the unions and the progressive PLP and (in my opinion) to continue the Compass strategy of building links with green and other movements outside.

In preparation for the possibility of a final collapse, such a movement should also build links with left-liberals and radical democrats but this may be a bridge too far for some Labour people at this stage. This is what I would want to do outside the Party.

I make no apologies for my harsh judgement of our political class. I believe that they have failed in their responsibilities and that we do the people no service in continuing to make excuses. It is not a partisan point, the whole class has failed us.

Your strictures on my attitude are fair enough. I do see a dichotomy between ruled and rulers which gives me an anarchist or ‘perpetual revolutionary’ streak which is a personality flaw – but since I shall never hold power, I would not worry about that too much

I’m not even going to bother answering those apparently on the left who are strenuously defending this stupid piece of legislation

And this from a man who wrote an article bemoaning the lack of debate on the Left! Delicious!

Did you even read Brownie’s article? I suggest you didn’t. He certainly isn’t “strenuously defending” 42 days. In fact, he’s pointing out that a lot of the arguments presented against it are guff – that opponents have missed the target on this one and let their side down.

It’s deeply ironic that by not reading his post and in writing of how you can’t be bothered to answer proponents of 42 days you make his point so brilliantly.

Or perhaps you were just joking when you wrote “strenuously defending” – a bit like when you accused Andrew Anthony of being pro- Iraq War?

Excellent discussion bloggers. What saddens me most of all is that Brown and the rest just can’t seem to see what they’re doing.

Brown gets in after his long weight and most of us think good, perhaps we’ll lean a little to the left, get a grip on our national problems after years of T.B.’s globe trotting. Brown handles the flooding emergency well and up in the poll rating he goes, then dithers over calling an election and looks incompetent. Doesn’t reduce our troops in Iraq as promised, carries on with the madness and expence of ID cards even though the less complicated health service new system is so far a multi million pound cock up. Then we have the 10% tax business which he must have known about a year before as Chancellor, followed by the un-asked for, unneccesary, 42 days detention for legally innocent suspects. The stupidity gets worse when he chooses to announce an increase in troop levels in that other disaster, Afhganistan, on the very day of Bush’s visit so making it look as if he is another US poodle (which he probably is!).

All the above and more are squandered opportunites to advance his position in the eyes of the electorate…… perhaps he really is stupid. As for me, I live in a safe Lib-Dem constituency so at least I’m saved from having to choose between voting for an idiot or not voting at all. (I couldn’t possibly vote Tory)

I agree: it is time to abandon New Labour, certainly for anyone who’d describe themselves as liberal, or indeed socialist. Voting for them in an attempt to keep the Tories out is futile tribalism, since they stand for – at best – exactly the same principles and policies.

About the only people I meet now who advocate voting Labour do so on the grounds of class solidarity (we can’t let the toffs in!), which is really just boneheaded when the Labour leadership are doing things like dropping the 10% tax rate and suggesting that the solution to the social housing shortage is to kick out the lazy chav types who won’t get a job.

They are equally as economically right wing as the Tories; in fact possibly more so. The idea of literally any project of any size being carried out purely by the public sector has become unacceptable heresy – and no, it’s not “triangulation” to stay elected and enact limited socialist policies, it’s their real genuine belief. The opinion polls are hostile to privatisation and PFI. These guys are not just not socialists, they are actively anti-socialist, and the remaining socialists within the Labour Party are nowhere near the leadership.

They are equally socially right wing as the Tories on just about everything bar abortion; whoever thought we’d see a Labour government disown multiculturalism and join in pushing the tabloid narrative on Muslim immigrants?

To top it all, they are far more authoritarian than the Tories, or indeed any mainstream political party in Europe; we have 42 days detention, vast surveillance powers with barely any oversight (even for middle-ranking local council officials), and peaceful protesters being harrassed and catalogued using anti-terrorist legislation and SOCPA.

So will I be voting Labour at the next election? Of course not, I’ll be voting Lib Dem or maybe Green depending on the candidate. I would even tactically vote Tory to keep Labour out, if necessary. Yes, the Tories are equally idiotic economically and socially, but they’re at least less dangerous to fundamental liberties and freedom of speech.

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