“But anybody who was politically aware in the 1980s knows full well what a Tory administration means for the poor, the sick, children in the state education system, patients in NHS hospitals, organised workers and benefit claimants. Surely any other government – any other government whatsoever – has to be better than that?”

It all depends on perspective, better is a relative term. Is locking up people for illiberal amounts of time, asking people to spy on their neighbors, having the police harass photographers under terrorism law better than having more people in the dole queue?

The reality is that if our perception of better is just shuffling around a shit sandwich until it looks pretty then we’re going to be doomed to having bad breath for some years to come.

Almost any sacrifice might just be worth it, if it keeps the Old Etonians out.

Quite right. Arriviste little nouveaus. Much better to stick to Old Westminsters. Not only is Westminster more elitist than Eton, but it’s at least 400 years older as well.

I have to take issue with the implication that during the 80s the Conservative party deliberately overlooked the poor, the sick, etc.

I live in the South Wales valleys and I remember how tough it was during the early 80s. But even so, I try to be open-minded about the hand of cards the Conservatives had to play during that time.

Much of the left wing seem to blame the Conservatives for all of the UK’s ills, conveniently forgetting the serious mess the public finances were in by 1980, and the fact that Britain was more or less broke.

During their 18 years of power, it wasn’t until around 1993 that the economy had stabilised enough to allow the Conservatives a plan for public service investment.

Whether anyone on the left likes it or not, when Labour came to power in 1997 the public finances were in excellent order and the economy was booming.The conditions were excellent for a government coming to power wanting to make a huge difference to public services in this country.

Yes, the public services were badly in need of improvement 1997. Everyone accepts that. But I think it is intellectually trite for anyone to suggest that the huge investments made over the last 12 years couldn’t or wouldn’t have been made by a Conservative government.

I tend to believe that instead of throwing money at poor management, the Conservative party would have spent the money far more wisely. But that is a matter of opinion.

Labour have had their chance. Through triangluation, heavy handed management and daft ‘third-way’ solutions they blew their opportunity to be either doggedly left-wing or to be conservatively prudent. I think the public would have preferred them to be one or the other, to have pinned their colours to a mast (a la Thatcher) and stuck to it.

I understand the frustrations of Labour followers about what could’ve been and their concerns about what a Conservative government will do coming to power in 2010 faced with even worse public finances than they faced in 1979. But that is tough luck. Like I said, Labour had their chance. I’m afraid that history will show that they blew it.

The only upside being that the Labour party can happily and shamelessly blame all the economic crises and unpopularities we will now face over the next five years on the Conservatives. But crass, shameless and short-termist politicking is about all this ideoligically moribund Labour hierachy is good at.

Further illustrating the tenuous nature of Lib Dem claim to any kind of centre-left standing is Clegg’s admission that he is minded to form a coalition with whichever party emerges the strongest after the 2010 poll. In context, those remarks could only have meant he would rather strike a deal with Cameron than a deal with whoever is Labour’s caretaker leader at this point.

Clegg’s admission has the possible merit of clarity, given that the ‘who would you work with?’ question is the lazy one asked of the LibDems/Liberals at every election. It would mean that the largest party would be invited to form a government and either run as a minority administration or seek partners (which could, alternatively, mean the Tories/DUP). I reminded of Genscher’s FDP in the former West Germany, which dumped the coalition with the SPD in favour of Kohl’s CDU/CSU, ensuring that the Social Democrats didn’t see power for nearly two decades. There’s no reason to suggest Clegg couldn’t/wouldn’t do something similar with the Tories, if the price was right.

PS: regarding ‘Anti-Toryism is a particularly compelling shotgun to have held to one’s head’ – it’s been the same shotgun for ages, as anybody who’s read Polly Toynbee could tell you. I suspect it doesn’t work with ‘swing’ voters.

At the next election I will be choosing between three different types of Conservatism.

Where have the left gone?

Where have the left gone?

It ended in the 1980s when it was deemed unnecessary and unworkable.

“The historic significance of Labourism rests in its partial expression of a clear desire for an independent working class voice in electoral politics in the opening decades of the twentieth century.”

Personally I am rather disturbed by the idea of a Party that sees itself representing only one section of the electorate. At least the Tories have never tried to promote themselves as the party of the middle classes.

At least the Tories have never tried to promote themselves as the party of the middle classes.

Or to quote Verbal Kint: ‘The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was persuading the world he didn’t exist’.

What Lee Griffin said above.

But anybody who was politically aware in the 1980s knows full well what a Tory administration means for the poor, the sick, children in the state education system, patients in NHS hospitals, organised workers and benefit claimants. Surely any other government – any other government whatsoever – has to be better than that?

The state of the governments finances means that all that will come again, whoever is in power.

Trying to ignore reality will not make it go away: it will simply make for a more dramatic and painful impact when it hits us.

On the subject of what Lee Griffin said above, while no-one is denying the anti-civil liberties credentials of this current shower of idiots, it’s worth pointing out that quite a lot of their measures are simply building on what Thatcher did, and a lot of the arrests made these days stem directly from Thatcher’s laws. Not to say that the Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, SOCP and other acts don’t have their place; but if we’re about to welcome the Thatcher fan club into Number 10, it’s worth saying that their view on civil liberties is unlikely to be better, whatever Henry Porter thinks.

I think Martin Coxall is confusing his ego with ‘the left’.

further to ad #10, while the Tories are very silly to be worrying about the UK govt credit rating and insisting the only answer is sharp cuts in expenditure etc., the left will be equally silly if they think we can escape cuts just by hiking taxation. Today’s Martin Wolf column is on this subject and worth reading, as ever.

He ends by saying the chancellor has “shied away from exploring the full implications and, still more, the nature of the choices the country faces. This is the debate the UK must have. It must start from a realisation: the country is poorer than was thought. So how should these losses be shared in ways that minimise both the harm done to vulnerable people now and to the country’s economic prospects for the longer term?”

I wish I had a better idea of what the left wing answers to these questions are – I mean both that I don’t know what the answers are, nor do I know what answers the Labour Party has. What would a “reinvented” Labour Party say? If the Labour Party was a real socialist party, or social democratic party, or whatever would please the readers of this blog, aside from easy answers like ID Cards, Trident etc. how would it respond this situation?

1 Labour was set up to represent trades unions, not the same thing as the working class. Women, for example were mostly excluded.
2 Nick Clegg said he would rather talk 1st to the party with the most votes, that doesnt imply not ever talking to Labour.
3 The main Libdem demands are likely to be fair taxes, developing the green economy, civil rights & constitutional reform. Whats right wing about any of them?

Nick Clegg did not say that he would form a coalition with anyone, as is quite clear from the BBC link in John Harris’ article.

Who knows what the Lib Dems will do after the election? Last time around they announced a major policy review the day after the election. Thus effectively abrogating their entire manifesto within 24 hours.

It’s hardly as though they could claim that this was a result of their disappointment about not winning the election – even their giddiest activists held up as their highest ambition, the possibility of getting close enough to the Tories to form “the de facto opposition”.

I like the Lib Dems but principles are not something a third party can afford if they ever want to be more than Vince Cable’s backing group.

A decade in opposition would allow Labour to reinvent itself, especially after the likely departure of the Blairites.

I simply cannot understand anyone saying this. All it says is that the Labour party is more important than fighting poverty, preserving the NHS or supporting communities.

To me, the next election will be about protecting the NHS. Read between the lines of Cameron’s health policy, and you can see a massive re-organization (do we need yet another re-organisation?) that will break apart the NHS and pave the way to a pay-as-you-go system that is being proposed by Hannan.

A decade of Cameron will irreversibly change this country. If your heart’s desire occurs and Labour does not get back into power until 2020, there will be no state left, just a series of multinational service companies.

Indeed, after one term of Cameron I doubt if Labour could ever be re-elected because he intends to gerrymander the system to prevent a labour majority ever happening again (100 MPs will go under his plan, and that will make this country permanently a Tory country). Further, as Cameron shrinks the state, the need for representation in parliament will shrink since the people with the real control will be the shareholders of the service companies. The electorate are not stupid, they already recognise that they have little importance when it comes to running the country, but Cameron’s reforms will make the electorate effectively redundant, and the electorate will know this and will stop voting. The militant, reinvented Labour party that you are suggesting will simply be seen as ranters on the sidelines.

There is no upside in a defeat at the next election. Your pathetic jibes against the Blairites could easily come from a CCHQ General Election 200710 strategy document. No one in the Labour party should consider a defeat at the next election as having any silver lining. Quite the opposite, a defeat at the next election will spell the end of social democracy in this country.