No ! . . . You think? LOL

Ha ha.

Please let there be a general election in Autumn. I don’t want to have to wait one year before these fuckers sling their hook – none of the people likely to succeed Brown if he indeed does resign after June 4th can save Labour, and I don’t want a lame duck government for an entire year. Let’s just have the bloody Tories in, so they can get on with fucking things up more but maybe actually doing something, then we can work on what to do next. The present situation is untenable.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

Almost 57,000 sigs on that one…

I empathised strongly with Charlie Brooker’s piece today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/11/charlie-brooker-gordon-brown

It really is like watching a bear being poked with sticks.

And, despite all the terrible shite Brown has promulgated or been responsible for, there are some areas (international development being one) in which he’s been truly moral and decent.

But yes, this extraordinary rise in inequality does rather seem to put the tin hat on it.

Do we really want a general election?

Probably.

The Tories will win. At least then Labour can turn in on itself and decide who it wants to be. Claims that they’ll collapse are wrong. The Tories were on life-support for years. IDS, anyone? UKIP and the Lib Dems (in the South) picked at them, but they came back.

Likewise, in the States, the GOP will return sooner than people think.

The sad thing is, these parties no longer just die. They wail and they thrash, but they never expire. Labour faces a decade – or longer – in the wilderness.

Now, more than ever, is the time of the Lib Dems. The Lib/Left is grasping for their champion. Can they take the opportunity?

We have been here before though … to be fair Polly does advocate a consistent policy agenda (equality, PR) which I agree with. But I think these political intervention columns should do more to acknowledge (as today’s does a little bit) these previous changes of mind back and forward.

This week Miliband made winning look possible (August 08)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/02/davidmiliband.labourleadership

Unseat Gordon for Labour’s last chance (Sept 08)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/sep/06/gordonbrown.labour

Brown is proving a good man in a crash (Oct 08)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/11/gordonbrown-alistairdarling

The party of social justice has woken up (Nov 08)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/25/pre-budget-report-economy1

Leadership tiffs are for later (Feb 09)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/21/labour-leadership-budget-toynbee

The sad thing is, Polly – ever the matriarch of the Labour tribe – continues to look within the cabinet.

The Labour hierarchy is utterly and completely toxic.

I bet the next Labour Premier will have no cabinet experience whatsoever.

Bloody hell, never thought I’d see her write that! It’s over, Brown is dead man walking.

Aaron – the only people who have a chance of taking over as Labour leader will come from the Cabinet, but even if the field was opened wider, I can’t think of anyone who could take over and turn around the turgid mess that is the PLP. They’re going to have to spend a few generations filtering out the current batch of shitheads – and you’re right, whenever Labour next wins a general election it won’t be anyone associated with the current government.

I think the Lib Dems should already be ascendant given the gaping hole on the left of Labour. Sadly I’m not sure Nick Clegg is the person to take them to where they should be. The Greens, of course, are very small and will need a real leap in strategic evolution to become the standard bearer of the liberal-left: but the field is wide open.

Back in the real world, the ramblings of a notoriously inconsistent newspaper columnist don’t cause the fall of Prime Ministers.

However much some of you wished they did.

The reason these parties don’t die is because they maintain an ideological/geographical base that may wither and isn’t by itself enough to win a general election but can be counted upon to turn out to vote for them time and time again, until a time when a wider electoral coalition can be put together. The same cannot be said for the history of the Liberal Party for most of the 20th century: they lost their base and so they withered away.

It’s the same reason that, as you suggest, the GOP will come back, and probably find its way in time to give the Democrats a serious challenge during and towards the end of Obama’s second term.

Maybe not Tim, but it is a sign of how bad things have become when even Toynbee doesn’t want to spin them.

Do we really want a general election?

Absolutely, yes! Let’s just get on with it and put this all behind us.

Another thing, as to parties collapsing and just hanging on: our political system is inherently static in comparison to others like Italy, where parties die and merge every few years.

The Labour party can’t die, there’s already an astute young generation eyeing the future when they’re in charge coming up through the ranks. If you want to see future Ministers and a PM look amongst their number.

Haha, been there done that. They’re not the nicest bunch, most of the ones I’ve met and have heard. Still, I can’t say I’d want as a future PM someone who supports the current party in government in spite of all that it’s done, simply because it’s an easier route to power than by joining a smaller party that has less of a chance of getting power but hasn’t sold its soul out. That way lies madness, and a repetition of the current tossers in power.

Back in the real world, the ramblings of a notoriously inconsistent newspaper columnist don’t cause the fall of Prime Ministers.

To be honest Tim, she was among the biggest cheerleaders – so I don’t see who Brown has now to support him.

I sympathise with the view though. Last year I still bought the ‘unity’ argument. right now I see the Labour party heading for a massive wipeout if it remains led by Brown. I def don’t want to see a massive Tory majority at the next election.

She was just on Newsnight, lauding Alan Johnson’s “great backstory“.

God, I really hope she wasn’t referencing his orphanship. It’s all too vomitous to contemplate.

Polly has changed her tune a fair few times though hasn’t she? She was all for Gordon when he took on the mantle, then she wasn’t so sure, then he was a genius, then he was presiding over a disaster, then he was the saviour of the world, then a victim of circumstance, now he’s a busted flush… and in a month’s time? I won’t hold my breath.

Still, we live in hope!

True. And I said on my blog that we probably won’t be waiting too long for the call for unity. Lo and behold, it happened already tonight [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8044956.stm].

Mandy’s recent article in the Guardian (“Gordon Brown is rightly focused on the recession, not his cleaner”) was a precursor to that show of unity (I think this very same call was given by Prescott around the time of the last euro elections). It of course will be jolly interesting to see who will speak out and who will stay loyal (Mandy loyal, Balls speak out, Darling loyal, Harman speak out etc).

The shift to the left should certainly happen before election time, and those calls for an early election should not be such party poopers and seek leadership change.

How does Alan Johnson do his make-up?

Alan Johnson’s “back story”? Oh come on. Like that is going to count for anything. So what if he was a postman, the bugger has supported selling off the post office and everything else Labour has done. He didn’t speak out once. And the public are supposed to let Labour back in because it’s led by someone who didn’t go to Eton? Fuck that.

Sunder – good call, though you might have missed out her brief political flirtation with Harman. The pro-Milliband piece is priceless for the way in which she thought one newspaper article was going to change everytthing so completely when the content could just as easily have been written by Hazel Blears.

Toynbee has finally realised she’s run out of excuses, but still keeps trying to put her trust in the next shiny new prince. There ought to have been a leadership contest in 2007, and the idea that the party will now rally round Johnson is highly unlikely – there will be blood if Brown goes as the factions will start fighting immediately afterwards.

10. rayyan. You are correct , the large number of middle class left wingers workig for the government will carry on voting for labour plus unskilled and semi-sklled unions.

Mandy’s recent article in the Guardian (”Gordon Brown is rightly focused on the recession, not his cleaner”) was a precursor to that show of unity

To be honest Carl, I interpreted that article as a sign of trying to deflect attention, until of course Cameron said sorry and then Brown was forced to follow suit. I have no idea who is doing Downing Street strategy right now but it surely is terrible.

Replace Gordon with Alan, and David with Boris – Johnson v. Johnson! The baby-shampoo election

Seriously though. Once Labour are out of power, all bets are off as to what shape the party will take. It’s possible it will implode. But many people have a strong attachment to Labour that is not blind tribalism, but because of the history of the party and where it came from – the political expression of the labour movement.

New Labour was always a small, factional clique within the party. Losing a general election will destroy their whole raison d’etre – their trump card was always that they might be sell-outs, but at least they were good at winning and keeping power. If they can’t even do that, there will be reason to retain them.

In the best scenario for Labour, there would be an understanding that those who sat by and allowed Blair and Brown to besmirch the values of the party, even if they were not in cabinet, cannot be allowed to take over the reins. The problem with a candidate like Alan Johnston, despite the fact he comes across well, is that he is totally compromised by his role in the government.

I suspect that meaningful renewal for Labour, by which I mean a reinvention of the way the party operates and communicates, its policy platforms, and the make-up of the (shadow) cabinet, will take, if it happens at all, two terms in opposition. After Brown, it’s likely they will pick a “safe pair of hands” like Johnson; and while this may save them a few seats, it won’t be (or be seen to be) the definitive shift that the party needs.

Rayyan,

I said the next Labour Premier. Not leader…

Well of course Brown is finished.

To some of us it was obvious that he was finished before he started.

But since Polly is always wrong about everything, he clearly won’t be finished until next year.

Aaron – I know. I was making a point about your comment on Toynbee looking towards the Cabinet for the next Labour leader, which is the only place she and other Labourites can look. And the next Labour PM, well, that’s going to be quite some time off – and like I said further up, having met many current young & student Labourites, I wouldn’t want any of them to take over. Their judgement that it is worth supporting the party that has been such a disaster in government because it is a quicker route to power than supporting a smaller party that hasn’t sold out its soul, is in itself a reason to fear them ever getting into government.

Polly has been all over the place in the past six weeks, writhing like a bowl of worms feeding on ecstasy tablets.

I can’t wait for Miliband vs Miliband for the next Labour leadership, how can anybody take seriously the spectre of two members of the same dynasty competing for the same job?

my recollection is that Toynbee has been calling for Brown to go for quite some time now

Brown was always overrated. Brown allowed a credit bubble to occur; Blair lacked the brains and backbone to challenge him. Field could have improved our welfare system but Brown would not allow it. The failure of the Conservatives ( like Labour in the early 80s) failed to oppose Brown effectively and thus gave him an air of brilliance. Our education system in many inner city areas is abysmal; Abbot sends her son to the City of London School( not a comp in Hackney), Blairs to London Oratory and Harman to London Oratory and St Olavs in Orpington. Harman represents Peckham but does not send her children to Peckham Academy. Johnson as leader, Field at WPP and Adonis at education, Blears at the Home Office ,Darling as Chancellor could stop the Conservatives winning by a landslide. If Labour can keep the defeat to 30-40 seats, they could win the election after next.

Field as immigration minister?

32. WPP has massive expeniture , £102B/yr. We have allowed a large welfare dependent unskilled uneducated class to develop over the last 65 years . With the tax rates we have and and the fact that if if an uneducated unskilled person has 3 or more children, then it is not worth working , especially if they do some cash in hand jobs. Pensions ned to be reformed . Only Field can do the job.

I can’t wait for Miliband vs Miliband for the next Labour leadership, how can anybody take seriously the spectre of two members of the same dynasty competing for the same job?

Well that depends… are they the best [two] people for the job*?

*I think not, but lets not let dynastical issues cloud judgement. It’s irrelevant, IMHO.