No change, no chance for Labour

Austin Barry

Kubler-Ross Stages of Dying: Stage 5 - Acceptance.

Farewell Labour. Take with you into oblivion the thought that you've ruined the country.

Tiberius

Perhaps someone should tell Nick that Gordon never was under threat. His roots in No.10 go way, way down...

Chris Rose

Brown has spent his political life avoiding any election he might lose. If it dawns on him, as surely soon it must, that he will not win the next election, I cannot believe he will carry on as Prime Minister in the face of certain defeat. It is simply not in his character. Something will trigger his resignation.

What might that Something be? Ill health? 'Promotion' to chairman of the World Bank? Goodness knows what it might be, but I think he'll go.

Verity

"... it is almost inconceivable that Labour could win the next election with him in charge."

No. They won't "win" in the conventional sense of the word. But the Tories, led by a frightfully jolly, rather patronising man who appears to be of no fixed principled abode, could lose it. Because no one knows what he stands for; but all the signals are, he is not opposed to the toxin that runs through European polical veins: socialism.

Hereford

” The truth is that Labour simply lacks the ruthlessness that a party that aspires to be the natural party of government needs."

On the contrary it is the very ruthlessness of the Labour party's MP's that is in force here.

They are ruthless in their desire to remain, at all costs to their party, their constituents and their country, at the trough of privilege which is the job of a so called Honourable Member of Parliament.

An example superbly set for them by their leader.

Before The Beginning of Time - The Movie!

How about a little ruthlessness on this blog? How is it that Biased-bbc.blogspot.com gets comments up within 10 seconds of one hitting Send, (they moderate retroactively) and The Spectator, with, presumably, paid techies, gets things up in a dizzying four to five hours after hitting Send?

mac

@ BTBoT-TM: Just one duty techie with other things to do, perhaps? Frustrating, I agree.

C Powell

Have a look at the comments in response to a feeble article from James Purnell in today's Guardian. The hatred of Labour - and what it has done to the country - is palpable. If that's translated into votes, Labour will lose.

But the really interesting question is whether the Tories are listening to the reasons WHY people hate Labour and what this means for the policies they need to adopt, not to win, but to govern successfully.

(Incidentally, I can't believe the Spectator has fingered Purnell as a future Labour leader; if his article in today's Grauniad represents his thoughts he has an IQ barely above my shoe size.)

DSR

Verity

I guess you're the kind of person who, having received wise and careful counsel from a doctor, proclaims it as irrelevant or useless - because you don't agree with it. Then you vilify the doctor for giving you no counsel at all.

DC may not be as right-wing as you and others wish him to be but he doesn't seem to me to be a vacuous socialist.

Robert Williams

Chris Rose, I have seen that argument put before, perhaps by you, & You have a very good point. Brown would be unable to face the media on a Friday morning following a (heavy) general election defeat.

Verity

DSR writes, puzzlingly: "I guess you're the kind of person who, having received wise and careful counsel from a doctor, proclaims it as irrelevant or useless - because you don't agree with it."

And I would guess that you are one bizarre thinker.

I can't even detect your jumping off point to this inexplicable statement and I won't try.

Who is the 'doctor' supposed to be? David Cameron? Offering wise and careful counsel? I am absolutely baffled as to where your jumping off point is for this leap into lunacy.

I don't think Cameron's a vicious socialist, like Jack Straw, Tony Blair and the coven in the Cabinet - although I do sense that he is a not very nice person. But I do think he is a socialist in mufti driven by the ambition of getting his feet under the top table in Brussels for life.

And I go to a doctor for a diagnosis, not "wise and careful counsel". Dear God!

Rex Burr

I am not an apologist for New Labour or for Gordon Brown. The former is guilty of misrepresentation and the latter of incompetence.
It is natural to blame whoever is in power for our present parlous economic situation, but to attribute the problems to socialism is disingenuous.
Neither Blair nor Brown can be accused of strident socialism of the type that would seriously affect our economy.
They have followed what seem to me to be Tory policies. They didn’t nationalised anything or turn the unions loose. Many very wealthy people have become much more wealthy. The government only recently stepped in to pull the capitalists nuts out of the fire when it all went wrong.
The problems were triggered in the USA and I have not heard of George Bush being criticised for his left wing policies.
What we have is the result of unfettered capitalism.
If property prices rise such that 20-30% of the population cannot afford a house, so what. Those who pull the levers can make enough money out of the rest of the population
The dramatic rise in the price of food and fuel are just the healthy response of a market system to opportunity.
If Globalisation is part of the problem then that is not an instrument of socialism. The project was embraced by the Tories and mainly serves to provide global companies with the opportunity to make cheap and sell expensive. Good business.
I have lived in the UK long enough to not remember a golden age under either Labour or Tory governments and I am too old to expect that to change in my lifetime.
Too many espouse ideologies and not solutions.

Nicholas

Rex. Absolute tosh. Socialism is exactly the problem, whether the "pure" type you espouse or the bastardised tripe of Blair, Brown & Co.

You are not the only one with long age, memories and opinions. I'd rather have a Tory government anyday than the crass socialist crew who have hi-jacked the country off and on for going on 60 years.

Verity

No, Rex Burr, who writes: "What we have is the result of unfettered capitalism."

No. Unfettered socialism. Drain the rich and hose it onto the feckless, the extremely lazy unemployed and those employed in socialist pretend jobs, like outreach coordinators, real nappy instructors and, I'm sure, "community organisers" in exchange for their votes. Oh, and several million "immigrants" who serve no purpose other than to destabilise our ancient society. Oh, and sprayed, too, onto 1100 well-staffed, well-housed quangoes at the same time. And SpAds.

Brita

Rex Burr: Since when did Communists/Marxists not do capitalism and globalisation?
Ever see their Bank in Hong Kong-even before independence? I say one of their hallmarks is the ability to use the ideas and systems of other people - to the advantage of Marxist ideology.

"I have lived in the UK long enough to not remember a golden age under either Labour or Tory governments..."
Personally, I'm not looking at any "golden age". I'm looking at a 1500 year path in which ordinary people made sacrifices and worked in order to obtain freedoms and rights; and at the establishment of systems for keeping and increasing those rights in ways that suited our country and our people. Others on this website have pointed out that successive governments since some euro treaty in the 1950's have participated in deconstructing all that and in turning us over to the euros.

Deconstruction? Well, for me that's the very model of the 2-year-old who breaks your most precious possession and then says: "You can mend it, or get a new one!" You can't. Marxists'll force a new one on you though - willy nilly.

"Too many espouse ideologies and not solutions." Exactly - they've had a long run. Can you help us find some solutions?

Fergus Pickering

Solutions? That's the root of it. People looking for solutions. Tories don't look for solutions because they know there are none. What we are looking for are ameliorations. It's like that fatuous drive to 'abolish poverty'. And why not abolish stupidity, greed and our human nature while you are about it?