ITT, Matt DC outlines the terminal decline of the Labour Party

But the more I think about it, the more I think we are witnessing the terminal decline of the Labour party, but that's another thread.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 12:40 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

bitter leadership contest, tony robinson emerges as winner

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/birmmail/jun2008/8/0/80EACA9D-9C91-ED71-4C8568FE15C1D134.jpg

The Forward March of Labour Halted?
Eric Hobsbawm
(This article was given as the 1978 Marx Memorial Lecture.)
It is my privilege to give the Marx Memorial
Lecture of 1978 and I want to use it to survey
some developments in the British working class
during the past 100 years. It is a long-established
habit, on these occasions, to take the texts of
Marx and Engels as our starting-point, but I shall
not do so for two reasons...

It's easy here where the right wing is all cunts and the left wing is reasonable. Your left-wingers are following all the crazy evangelical right-wingers into wars. Where does that leave you? Are the Lib Dems your last hope?

Until pretty recently people used to talk about the terminal decline of the Tories. Labour will lose the next general election and probably the one after it, but its decline is not terminal. The two party system is here to stay (unless proportional representation is ever brought in).

... But it would be a
mistake to think that this has made the working
class more homogeneous. On the contrary, it seems
to me that we now see a growing division of
workers into sections and groups, each pursuing
its own economic interests irrespective of the rest.
What is new here is that their ability to do so is
no longer related to traditional criteria such as
their technical qualifications and standing on, as
it were, the social ladder.

If it helps, it looked like the Liberal party (i.e. right wing cunt party) here was going into terminal decline, but that didn't happen either.

The Labour Party will survive.

in Shettleston.

I think they will be in a worse position in 2010 than the Tories were in 1997. The Tories had a safety net of absolute core constituencies that were relatively affluent even around 1992. That's not going to be the case this time round in core Labour seats, or even seats that have been Labour for 20+ years. New Labour has made a great public show of NOT focusing on these seats.

This is uncharted territory here really - there has never been a Labour government in power for this long and they have never had such sustained influence on the direction of the country. And yet things in a lot of what you would consider their core constituencies are still shit. You can see why people in, say, Blackburn, would have continued to vote Labour in 1979 and 1970, can the same really be said now? What, really, is to stop them going elsewhere? Glasgow East, for instance.

Also, Tory supporters, fundamentally, know what their party is for, even when the party pretends it isn't. Can the same really be said for Labour supporters?

What might save Labour is a lack of credible third party candidates in seats that will never under any circumstances vote Tory. That's certainly not going to be the case in Scotland and Wales though.

What, really, is to stop them going elsewhere?

Where are they going to go? In England, I mean.

BNP

Don't see that

That's the big question, I acknowledged it in my last paragraph. I'm certainly not suggesting the rise of a credible left-wing party. I just looked at Blackburn and apparently the council was Labour controlled from 1945 right up until 2007 when it fell into no overall control. I know local elections aren't that much of an indicator but that's still pretty big.

Is it possible to imagine core Labour seats where a big share of the Labour vote splinters between Respect/BNP/Tories/LibDems/not bothering to vote at all, with the result that the LibDems sneak in with a thin majority?

Maybe you are right. It may depend on voting turnout figures not falling

The problem for Labour comes not so much from losing its core voters to other parties, but losing them to apathy. The lower the turnout, the more they are affected comparative to smaller parties

Core voters are a red herring though

and theres the rub

He was a militant fish gutter' shop steward in the 80s, right?

xpost

Well the swing voters sure as hell won't be voting Labour this time.

(Of course, one of the things about all three parties seeking to prize people away from longstanding loyalties over the last, ooh, 25 years, is that you get a flaky electorate that could just as easily start to swing back to Labour pretty quickly, if the Tories are perceived to be doing a bad job by 2014 or therabouts).

(xxposts)

Held the country to ransom, provoked the Cod War etc (xp)

Things were much, much worse for Labour in the early eighties. The party effectively split, and was within a hair's breadth of coming third in the popular vote in the 1983 election. It could conceivably have been definitively sidelined by the SDP/Lib alliance, had that alliance been less dysfunctional. I don't think Labour's woes now really compare to the existential crisis back then.

the crisis is more existential, in a way, in that at least the labour party of 1983 had an identity. now it is living in -- hehe -- 'bad faith', n'est ce pas?

If it had an identity in 1983, it was a pretty schizophrenic one!

Isnt this about direction? Labour out of power and in disarray in 1983. Today Labour in power, and with factions yet to properly reveal themselves. Once Labour is out of power those cracks and splits will have the space to develop. Its more fair to compare Labour today with 1978, or Labour 83 with Labour 2012. The direction is what happens between now and 2012 for the Labour party. Perhaps things will get better for them, but the odds are not so good

You're right, the proper comparison is with the dying days of the Callaghan govt. I'd say the ideological distance between the two wings of the party are far less than they were back then, when the centre-right faction eventually broke off into a new party and the left flirted with the Militant tendency. I can't see the Labour party of today being torn apart on ideological grounds in the same way.

Well, at present they don't have an ideology that's significantly different from the Liberal Democrats or (the left wing of) the Tory Party anymore, so what's the point of them, beyond being the anti-Tory Party?

At the same time, because the ideological divide within the party is narrower, the 'why vote Labour when you can vote Tory?' argument is, I think, harder for them to argue convincingly, given their record in office. Or at least it will be until the Tories start pissing people off.

I wonder how long Cameron's honeymoon period will last, relative to Blair's, which seemingly went on forever.

(xpost Tom OTM)

No they won't tear themselves up on ideological grounds right now (especially with the selection process they have going on). However they are a party in power and in work, things have suited them very well so far. After the election they are going to have to decide what they are for. But they may well postpone asking this question for some time even after election loss. Even a few years into opposition find it more likely that schisms would be more around personality/presentation than anything else.

xpost
Everywhere in the western world in the past 20 years left-wing parties have moved closer to the right and the political spectrum has tightened. That hasn't led to the extinction of said parties.

Camerons honeymoon period will be shorter I would have thought as 2010 is closer to 1992 than 1997

People on the left of the party will call for a debate, even on the more moderate left (see every John Cruddas article in the New Statesman for ages) but if they elect Miliband, as seems likely, that won't happen. I don't see much ideological difference between Brown and the people working to unseat him, just panic.

are political parties really FOR anything concrete (other than winning) anymore? do they need to be? i'm most likely very very wrong but it seems to me that the old left-right model is largely anachronistic, very tricky to define and irrelevant to today's politics.

It also doesn't exist

The point is it did exist, and was a sight more effective than the bland mess we have now.

At the moment when it comes to the next election I'm very much in the "why bother?" camp - they're all useless, interchangeable and paralysed by fear of tabloid headline writers.

seems to me that the old left-right model is largely anachronistic, very tricky to define and irrelevant to today's politics

That's rather convenient for Capitalism isn't it?

Will there be years of 00s Tory-style leadership turmoil after Labour get unseated in the next election? Is there anyone around at the moment charismatic and popular enough to step into the gap and focus the party's recovery?

Yes. No.

Ken.

http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/O/oldinthewayf.jpg

Ken

Very risky. But could be interesting.

I'm more likely to be leading Labour in the 2016 election than Ken is. Unless you mean Ken C.

Now there's a thought...

no, Ken Bruce. truly in touch with the people.

Scots Mafia in operation again

It has to be Dean Gaffney. He's seen the highs and the lows, he understands where the man in the street is coming from, he'll be the firm and steadfast leader this BROKEN FERAL MADDY country needs.

Gaffney/Kemp 2010

But will anyone be able to hear their speeches?

Gaffney to take strong lead in dealing with the credit crunch:

"mumblemumblemumbleum fairmly mumblemumble yeah?"

Ross Kemp is about as Blairite as you can get, I think.

Kemp on the growing restlessness in Georgia:

"grmmnmmumbleermmmnble we nee' 'o talk."

David Cairns has a bit of Passantino in him.

Louis in Widdecombe/Howard moment

Mercifully not on YouTube

Would Brown be the first Prime Minister to have never faced an election?

I know that Wellington was PM for a few weeks whilst they were looking for Peel in Italy, way back.

it's weird that the press haven[t been able to deduce who these rebels want to replace brown. they must have *some* notion of where this ends. if they get their wish and there's a leadership contest, it's not like the contenders are going to be total unknowns and the rebels must have an opinion. but if they were all secret milibandites or what have you we'd know by now. silly people.