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18 September 2008

Leader’s speeches they won’t be making

Bring your cooks and your personal trainers, your butlers and your heiresses. Because new Labour is

By Kevin Maguire

Tony Blair

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted we must be new, newer, newest Labour.

The government is Tony Blair, Tony Blair is the government.

Brave, courageous, bold, fresh, change, prominent, reform, daring, progressive, market, fearless, distinct, Blairite, me.

I believe in war, war on terror, war on poverty, war on things.

The scars on my bank balance confront the forces of capitalism and will tame feral beasts.

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THANK YOU

I thank my predecessors, including myself, and I think you guys agree I did a pretty terrific job all the way to my irreducible core.

Cherie didn’t run off with the man next door but I’ll still miss him.

It was hard to let go and expensive to come back. You are my future now – make the most of it.

Shaun Woodward

Today I send this message to Conservatives everywhere: come and join me.

Bring your cooks and your personal trainers, your butlers and your heiresses. Because new Labour is the natural party of ambition, the welcoming home of the driven and those with big homes and long drives.

And I say this to Conservative MPs who weigh up their career prospects: a red box in the hand is worth a ministerial limo in the garage.

To cross the floor is to swap parties not politics, so hop on the bandwagon.

The big tent of Tony Blair and bivouac of Gordon Brown will be a marquee during my reign.

Nothing is too good for the workers – if only they adored foie gras.

And Jamie Oliver can sort that.

Alan Milburn

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Told ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha You ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I’d ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Get ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha The ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Job ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha One ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Day

Jon Cruddas

Neoliberal new Labour’s shattered, exhausted, totally knackered.

Things can only get worser unless we find a new political paradigm.

It’s time to take on the new Conservatives by addressing the problems facing post-new Labour social democracy.

Because the turbulence of global capitalism has created an individualised society without a lasting coalition for transformational change.

We need an analysis of value theory, the sphere of production and contemporary approaches to the reorganisation of workplace relations.

I eschew the jargon of my endogenous predecessor to embrace modernity and a culture of relevance for workers today.

Arise, ye members from your slumber.

Christine Russell

Well, who’d have thought it? Certainly not me.

I fancied my chances of winning the Lottery – and I don’t buy a ticket – but I never dreamed I’d be your great leader.

It’s just goes to show what a marvellous country of opportunity we live in.

My number has come up, so can yours.

Sarah Palin’s taught me a lot, though we don’t shoot moose in Chester, just Welshmen loitering within the city walls.

Britain’s yearning for change, so who better than an MP with a low national profile.

I’ve watched the DVD box set of The Amazing Mrs Pritchard and purple’s my favourite colour.

It’s a great honour. Indeed, I’m speechless . . .

Harriet Harman

Now sisters, please settle down and we’ll get on with the middle-class war.

The future’s female and we need a new equality agenda so middle-class women enjoy a fair deal in life denied by the Prime Misogynists who went before, particularly Thatcher.

For too long, men like Maggie had it their own way, but I give you this commitment: I shall retain three chaps in my Labour government in the interests of gender balance.

I yearn for a feminine future when a middle-class woman can walk the streets of south London without a flak jacket and police guard.

Will all of you who have brought babies into the hall to watch this historic moment please hand them back to your husbands or partners.

David Miliband

The world isn’t a very scary place.

The world is a very, very scary place.

Now look, I know what I’m talking about.

I went to Georgia for an hour and had to hide how I’d learned Russkiy on the flight out.

I know it’s hard for ordinary people to get their heads around it, unlike me.

Yet that’s nothing to be ashamed of because I realise not everybody can be as clever as me. Not even Ed.

The vision I’m prepared to share with you is an ambitious plan to give ordinary people the intelligence to do Sudoku. You know, the difficult one in the Times which takes three minutes?

There was no leadership bid in the Guardian, as Chancellor Alan Milburn will tell you later in the week.

The geek did inherit the Premiership. Up the Gooners!

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