Is the failure of New Labour tilting Britain to the Left or Right?

[...]

And is this a futile, stupid question or not?

I ask because I just watched Question Time on TV and Oliver Letwin and Robert Kilroy-Silk got, consistently, bigger applause than either Ed Balls or the Lib Dem dummy from an overwhelmingly left-leaning audience.

Which, you know, could just be post-Iraq & etc. anger directed at New Labour, but it's weirder and more profound than that, I think.

Because, for example, over Kyoto and the environment generally: NL has done more than any other Kyoto partners to reduce toxic emmisions. The international target was to cut down emmisions by 12%. The government didn't meet its target. That was the thrust of criticism hurled at Ed Balls. But the government set its target at a 20% reduction, higher than any other country. It managed 14%: not great, but higher than the international standard. What does it mean when environmentalists applaud Letwin on this issue, when both he and his party oppose any restrictions on industry to meet environmental targets?

What I'm asking, I suppose, is what is left, politically, after New Labour? Where, or to what, would the country turn?

And, even more broadly, explain to me why Blairism is Soft Fascism. I don't get that shit.

 

[gff]

what's wierd to me is how New Labour is like the nth "3rd Way" to be floated by left-of-center parties since the end of cold war. I mean, as I was taught, Social Democracy itself (as imagined by TH Marshall, i think it was?) was the o.g. 3rd way, meant to have the dynamism, growth, fluidity etc of capital while having strong govt pillars in place to safeguard people's rights to health, education, food, justice, etc. Capital without crisis, socialism without the gulag and crap architechture, you see. But then New Labour, DLC Democrats, etc are the "3rd Way" between that 3rd Way and a right wing that isn't the same but hasn't "moved" necessarily, "triangulating" against the right's fixed point... and how many times did that happen?

doesn't answer your q tho, sorry.

 

[jaybob]

I think the environmental point is emblematic of the problem with political/public discorse at the moment. People ignore the acheivements NL have secured - poverty reduction, Surestart, low unemployment, minimum wage etc - and use Iraq and alienation from Blair as a fit-all battering ram. I think political opinion has fracutred out of left/right distinctions. right now, it's just depressing, non-ideological point-scoring. Thus you get Letwin attacking NL's record on the environment and the Lib Dems saying Labour are too soft on crime. The other obvious factor is that NL have so successfully and agressively occupied the entire centrist ground that those attacking the govt are forced to occupy more stringent or radical sounding positions. There does seem to have been a bit of an upsurge in far Left and far Right support - hence vaguely resurgent Old Labours, more Socialist Workers on street and UKIP etc on the other side - but the majority seem so alienated that they're prepared to attack the government in any way they can, regardless of actual politics. The whole depressing Blunkett business is typical.

 

[grimly fiendish]

but the majority seem so alienated that they're prepared to attack the government in any way they can

what else can the government expect? even if blair had single-handedly found a cure for cancer, people would hate him, principally because on the issue of iraq - which, let's face it, is the one everyone's been talking about this year - he was a pious autodidact. politics = personality these days (ergo new labour = blair) but the PM himself is too haughty/superior to change.

what new labour have achieved is being overlooked because blair has become so smug and sanctimonious. when people are taking sides, half the time it's not even about left or right any more: it's simply about something that isn't blair.

 

[matt b]

And is this a futile, stupid question or not?

i think its the wrong question- new labour, as designed by blair et al has been a resounding success. its the rest of us who are fcuked

And, even more broadly, explain to me why Blairism is Soft Fascism. I don't get that shit.

as this article suggests, blair doesn't really like democracy and would prefer a more totalitarian system. however his recent pronouncements that "david blunkett will be cleared of any wrong doing" remind me more of stalin than hitler

 

[...]

Oops, I've just realised how boring this thread is going to be.

 

[matt b]

or maybe just a

futile, stupid

thread

 

[...]

Yes. I regret the whole thing. It all seemed rather important last night.

 

[...]

Look, I feel bad now. I didn't mean to sound derogative about your comments. It's my fault entirely. Look, jabob summed it up in one paragraph. Then I realised what a futile, stupid topic I'd introduced. Can we just forget the whole thing?

 

[luka]

classic craner collapse of self confidence

 

[droid]

lol. Chin up Craner.

 

[luka]

it was a good question (the answer, as it turned out, was both at once)

 

[sufi]

Labour Live is coming to a park near us, https://www.labour.live/
sounds likely to be shit and and a further humiliation for corbyn, probably will piss it down too, just to add to the shame

might jump the fence anyhow as it's just around the corner, though they will probably be dragging locals in off the streets to try and fill the place up

 

[...]

I was ahead of the times.

 

[luka]

you've got an instinct for political currents.

 

[...]

Reading that original post is like reading the words of a total stranger. I have no recollection of that person.

 

[luka]

you havent changed a bit.

 

[luka]

you were fully in this mode before brexit and trump. licking a finger and holding it up to the wind and getting it right.

 

[luka]

and you still delete most of the messages you post.

 

[...]

Those were the days when Robert Kilroy-Silk was UKIP leader.