Preparing for Opposition - 3 comments

It's very strange to read things like this: "The strange death of Labour Britain", full of statements like:

[...] To which one dissident mordantly replies: "there is no element of risk to keeping Gordon, the outcome is certain. It is disaster".

Who are these people? An MBE for the first political journalist who, the day before their retirement, scans and uploads their little black book, naming every source, dissident, 'still ambitious cabinet minister', 'One Labour MP', and so on.

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The idea that the Labour Government believes itself to be already defeated is a bizarre one: if MPs and Cabinet Ministers don't believe they can challenge Cameron and the Tories, they had better believe that Labour activists and supporters are more confident.

The key thing, though, is that within two years an Election Manifesto needs to be drawn up, in which the political side of the Labour movement makes its case to the electorate. While there might still be those who believe Labour can 'flop' over the line in 2009/10 on their current record, that's hardly an edifying prospect at the best of times, and offers nothing for the 5 years of opposition if Labour do lose. Governments have to be truly appalling for Oppositions to be able to play on their prior record (e.g. Labour, 1979-1981?): a fresh slate is usually required. And given the muddle the Government currently seems to be in, now seems to be the ideal time to wipe that slate, write that document, and then relaunch. There's no shame in that. It would also focus media interest.

It won't be easy. When you have factions that take the view: "You were wrong, therefore we must have been right" (not A therefore Q), the process of coming to terms with what went wrong, what was learned, what can be changed, etc. is undermined by those who believe the solution is to reject policies utterly, in favour of their black-for-white opposites. It requires people with open minds. Surely better, also, that the ideological debate happens now, so at least something decent can be produced in time for the next General Election, than we have a fruitless appeal to 'loyalty' that forces us to take the 'one last flop' approach, and renders a Labour opposition irrelevant up until the next mid-term.

Remembrance of policies past - 7 comments

Reading Paul Anderson's wonderful collection of George Orwell's writings for Tribune - surely essential reading for political bloggers - and the comments here, got me thinking once more about a venerable Labour Party policy, namely nationalisation of the land.

It's mentioned in Election Manifestos as early as 1900, and as late as 1964 (in a fairly vague kind of way), before disappearing in 1966. The policy has similarly failed to make the cut in the New Labour years. Here's what we used to say, back in 1918:

The Labour Party means to introduce large schemes of land reorganisation, and it is fully aware that this can only be done in the teeth of the most powerful vested interests. land nationalisation is a vital necessity; the land is the people's and must be developed so as to afford a high standard of life to a growing rural population not be subsidies or tariffs, but by scientific methods, and the freeing of the soil from landlordism and reaction.

Reading the whole thing is definitely worth five minutes of your time - and in 1945:

Labour believes in land nationalisation and will work towards it, but as a first step the State and the local authorities must have wider and speedier powers to acquire land for public purposes wherever the public interest so requires. In this regard and for the purposes of controlling land use under town and country planning, we will provide for fair compensation; but we will also provide for a revenue for public funds from "betterment".

So I'm interested to know:

1. Whether there's still any enthusiasm for a policy like this.
2. Whether support is any greater on the far-left than on the (Labour) right.
3. What your views are - wherever you are on the political compass.