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So is New Labour dead or not?
- Posted by Paul Evans
- 28 November 2008
When is a party dead? Paul Evans brings us the best of the politics blogs from domestic politics through to the outrage this week in Mumbai
Nusferatu: A Party Undead
This week Lord Mandelson declared Cameron’s claims of New Labour’s demise to be premature.
Andy Newman on Socialist Unity considered what defined the New labour project, and concluded that it: “…was built on two foundations: one was a commitment to neo-liberalism; the other was the belief that electoral success could come through winning over swing voters in marginal seats by triangulating around the Daily Mail driven socially conservative agenda”.
In a detailed look at the failings of the party’s economic agenda, he argued that it was “corrosive because it de-legitimised the whole idea of state intervention in the economy”.
Over at Spiked, the ever confrontational online heir to Living Marxism, deputy editor Rob Lyons observed that “The suggestion that New Labour is dead is somewhat ironic since the party is itself merely the zombie left behind after the demise of ‘Old Labour’.” But Heresiarch argued that Old Labour has never truly left us, suggesting rather that we have been collectively duped:
“Tony Blair looked and sounded like a right-winger when he was actually a statist authoritarian. Gordon Brown looked - and so was accounted - cautious and trustworthy. As a spectacle of legerdemain, New Labour was unprecedented,” he wrote.
Elsewhere, Tory MP David Jones blogged that behaviour in the chamber gave the lie to Mandelson’s claim – while right-winger Shane Greer enjoyed an unseemly chuckle at the disappearance of the New Labour domain.
What have we learned this week?
That it’s not always funny when Tory MPs get arrested. Damien Green has been nicked for allegedly receiving leaked Home Office documents.
Within in minutes, Conservative Home was speculating and Labour Home was gloating. Perhaps if we had greater transparency and decent responses to difficult parliamentary questions, such leaks would be unnecessary?
Around the World
As India wrestled with terrorist outrages on an unprecedented scale, Seriously Sandeep was irked by what he perceived as the appeasement and concern for the perpetrators by fellow bloggers. Aditya Kumar confessed “I am terrified. Petrified,” while Anuradha Bakshi (perhaps the sort of commentator Sandeep was needling at) asked:
“…who are the real culprits: the predators lurking with their indoctrination spiel or a fractured society where dreams of some can never be fulfilled, where hate and animosity are easily ignited and stoked?”
It transpires that Tory MEPs were also among those caught up in the chaos.
Videos of the Week
It’s easy to forget that Robert Kilroy-Silk is still, in theory at least, representing our nation in the European Parliament - he hasn’t spoken in a debate for more than three years. But if you do want to see his powers of rhetoric at work, here he is having a row with TV ghost Timmy Mallett. Online supporter cottz2008 cheered him, writing:
“cum on kilroy u to win it i can rember wen u came to ilkeston to try n be a mp well cum on win it for us”.
But now he has been chucked out of this telly competition, and it’s hard for all of us.
Quote of the Week
“It depends, I suppose, what you imagine New Labour was. If you mean the media-manipulating, bullying, authoritarian bulldozer, then it is still very much alive, and probably worse than ever.
No punches pulled, on Heresy Corner.
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