Nervous? - 1 comment

I'm not really looking forward to these results. I won't make predictions, but I suspect Labour will achieve a fairly derisory vote. That's unfortunate for a lot of existing councillors, and for many candidates who might have felt they had a chance.

That said, I can't see the point of poring over the results - the damage has been done at a national level, and all activists' energies need to be devoted over the next couple of years to deciding what the Labour Party is going to be, giving the electorate some good reasons to vote Labour, and to extricate the Government from the ludicrous situation it has got itself into over (if you really do ask me) terror suspect detention limits, and ID cards, to name but two distractions.

I might take a more robust approach than some in the party, but if there is to be a 'relaunch', I certainly wouldn't focus on portraying Cameron as a 'shallow salesman', a Diana-ified front-man for the same old Tory defenders of privilege and wealth. People know this already, but that only gives Labour an opportunity to be taken, and a risk for the Tories, not a fatal flaw. There's no value to the Labour Government (not just the party) weakening the case through overuse. They need radical but well-thought out, robust policies that can withstand the scrutiny of intelligent people, and that give activists like us a fighting chance of defending them, especially given that the amount of flak coming from a mainstream media that has tired of us and which feels pro-Tory stories are what the public want.

Today and tomorrow could be bad, but ride them out with magnanimity. The current incarnation of the Labour Party* has two years to live, at the very most. It cannot survive in Opposition in its present form. Let's make the next one a better one, one worth electing.

(* I'm referring to the 'Official Line', or 'Party In Government', or 'Current World-view/Policies/Ministers combo', rather than the party structure/organisation. You know what I mean. )