Bright's Blog

5 comments from readers

redharry
13 May 2008 at 15:03

'...the attempt to show that the results in the London mayoral election were some sort of victory for the Labour left because they weren't as bad as the rest of the country. '

No, but they were less of a defeat - and no thanks to you - so don't try to twist the facts to justify your smear campaign.

Martin Bright
13 May 2008 at 17:39

"Less of a defeat" -- that could be the motto of the left couldn't it? We could all march to our oblivion under that banner.

George Eaton
15 May 2008 at 12:46

"The anti-posh propaganda deployed in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election is pathetic"

Absolutely, this toff-bashing is astonishingly crude.

It's a shame that the party would have been deprieved of the public-school educated Clement Attlee by that standard.

Yet just as we judge Attlee and Tony Benn by their principles, not their class, so Edward Timpson should be attacked for his ideology ,not his background. Principled social democracy does seem an increasingly endagered species.

The greatest irony though, is that many of those campaigning in Crewe no doubt support the very Blairite policies (minimal taxation on the super-rich, tax breaks for private schools) that have further entrenched class division in British society.

redharry
15 May 2008 at 13:00

"Less of a defeat" -- that could be the motto of the left couldn't it?

Obviously you haven't ever fought a losing campaign where every seat saved makes victory next time easier. As a Labour activist for thirty years I am amazed at your complacent attitude to minimising losses. As if a small defeat was the same as a big one. I don't believe you have any experience of grass-roots politics at all if you think like that.

knave
16 May 2008 at 07:21

"A week is a long time in politics as our political editor discovered."

Soon to be editor. AHHHHHHHHHH

"I've been away on a press trip for the celebrations of 60th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel, or "naqba" (catastrophe) if you ask the Palestinians. It was fascinating and I'll be writing about it in the New Statesman this week."

Not a bad article

"I left just after the local election results were announced and returned to find the country apparently in an open state of revolt against the government and Gordon Brown. What baffles me is the inability of the Labour Party and the wider left to come up with a strategy to counter this. "

Why are you bovered martin according to the very Tory tory Fraser Hines, political editor of the spectator you agree on everything.

Also what do you believe in and feel the policies and direction should be

"The anti-posh propaganda deployed in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election is pathetic,"

I agree but isn't it the same as your mates attacks on Foots dress sense and prescotts working class background.

as is the attempt to show that the results in the London mayoral election were some sort of victory for the Labour left because they weren't as bad as the rest of the country.

No but it showed that Livingstone campaign was undermined by right wing journos such as yourself.

This is clutching at straws. The Labour-supporting left needs to start thinking seriously now about the future of progressive politics otherwise there may be no party to vote for after the next election.

Again martin what do yousuggest