Labour: the new Lib Dems?
by Max Wind-Cowie
Martin Bright wrote an excellent blog for the Spectator last week in which he claimed that, to all intents and purposes, Labour is now Britain’s ‘third party’. His case, damningly put, was that ‘Labour just does not matter all that much. Having its ideas filched is the best it can hope for, at least for the time being.’ I think he’s more right than he knows, Labour aren’t simply becoming the third party they’re directly morphing into the Liberal Democrats.
Let’s look at the evidence. For years it was a running, Westminster-bubble joke that the Lib Dems were Britain’s biggest think tank. The premise being that every so often the yellows would come out with an idea whose time had come and that – like the work of all good think-tanks – would be immediately pilfered by one of the grown-up parties. Devolution, school reform, reform to the House of Lords, the pupil premium, restoring public health responsibilities to Local Authorities – whatever on might think of these policies on their own, they were dreamt up by Liberals and quickly snatched by Labour, Conservatives or both.
And so, with the much-heard whine from Miliband supporters that his clothes are being stolen by Cameron and Clegg on press regulation, lobbying, responsible capitalism etc. we see Labour stepping into Liberal Democrat shoes. Yes, the Coalition parties have nicked lots of the rhetoric and some of the (saner) policy – but they can get away with it. Why? Because as with the pre-2010 Lib Dems, Ed Miliband doesn’t just have the diamonds that have emerged from his party’s thinking space, he has the dreck too. So while Dave and Nick can pick and choose from Ed’s wardrobe – taking only those pieces that are fashionable and that fit – he is still burdened with a load of tat from the 80s that’s coming apart at the seams. For every pay-ratio transparency measure there’s an opposition to the benefits cap.
What Labour do about this, I don’t know. Short of silencing a whole wing of their party they appear doomed to Lib Demery for sometime. But Labour supporters cheering a rare victory for Ed Miliband at PMQs today should be wary of too much triumphalism. Vince Cable used to regularly rip Brown to pieces in his brief stint as leader of Britain’s third party – didn’t do him, or them, any good in the end.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man"s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
Reality
Third party? Did the British people vote the Tories a majority in the last election? According to my Wikipedia the 2010 election result was:
Tory seats won 306
Labour seats won 258
Lib Dem seats won 57
Now correct me if I am wrong but the third party here is surely not
Labour? Is Mr Wind-Cowie attempting to re-write history? And if so what is he scared of?
My Wikipedia says at the last election:
Tory votes were 10,703,654
Labour votes 8,606,517
Lib Dem votes 6,836,248
Another rewriting of history by the ever scrupulously accurate and unbigoted Mr Wind-Cowie? And what if we add the labour votes to the Lib Dem votes. I make it over 15 million. Who is the third party now?
More importantly what is new in the thinking of Mr Wind-Cowies Conservatives? Same old greed and class obsessions. Same old
attempt to break up the NHS. Same old attacks upon the poor and the disabled (even disabled children now). Same old jealousy about too many going to universities. Same old destruction of the British economy. Same old high unemployment. Same old no jobs for our young. Same old hatred of things Europe. Same old pettiness and selfishness. Add in now the destruction of our libraries and social facilities. Add in the reduction in our protective police force and military. This is the new thinking in the current Tory Party?
So far all we observe is the old Tory class hatred rewrapped in meaningless platitudes; like The Big (rewrite that as the Small) Society. And to cap it all Cowie quotes the Spectator a Tory pamphlet as if it has status with anybody but the bigoted right wing. Sorry Max a terribly weak and silly argument. And only 2 out of ten for attempting to rewrite history that fools no one other you of course.
Max Wind-Cowie
Thanks Dave, it's true that the LibDems are in Government but they also lost seats at the last election and neither Vince nor Nick's successful performances (at PMQs and in the debates) were enough on their own to tempt voters into boosting their Parliamentary performance. John and 'Reality' - the point is not that Labour are the third party in terms of seats or votes, but that they are behaving in a manner that resembles the LibDems. Floating policies somewhat incoherently - the best of which are lifted, the worst of which drag Labour's polling downward. Thanks for the scoring 'Reality', it's a shame I managed only 20%. At least when my teachers and lecturers used to judge my efforts they had the confidence to do so under their actual name :)
Reality
Thanks Max for your appreciation of my scoring. But refusing / or more likely unable to answer the criticism does not really deserve an increase in your marks. Better luck next time. But less bigotry yes? You claim to be a think-tanker not a political apologist.
Dave
Good piece, but 'didn't do them any good'? Well, it helped to gain the the Lib Dems nearly a million more votes in 2010 than they received 5 years previously, and only our rigged voting system preventing them getting the number of seats they deserved. But Labour - unlike the Lib Dems 2 years ago - won't have to form a coalition with the Tories, who've strangled the life of the Liberals, if they do well in 2015.