Yes, that's true. One of my mates recently stood as Labour candidate in a no-hoper London ward and did quite well, so he may well be in a Labour stronghold soon. He doesn't necessarily agree with all labour policies but then political dogma is in a constant state of flux by it's very nature so there never will be any human being who agrees with every policy - not while people have minds of their own, anyway, assuming mass hypnosis doesn't become quite a successful electoral tool...

LabourList. I think it was a YouGov poll of members.

 

Most members aren't enthusiastic enough to go out and promote Labour, full stop - that's always been the case, even in the 80s and the 90s. The key thing is that someone isn't going to stop just because they 'somewhat agree' with a policy, and even those who strongly disagree aren't giving up, because they realise there's more to a Labour government than one policy they don't like.

 

Right, so even Labour's "policy chief" is deadset against it, and you seriously think the average member is going to swallow their principles and promote it?

 

(Not that Jon Cruddas can really talk, since his substance-free waffle is almost as disastrous for Labour as Balls, Reeves and the Progressites nasty Tory-lite policies.)

Yes, that's true. One of my mates recently stood as Labour candidate in a no-hoper London ward and did quite well, so he may well be in a Labour stronghold soon. He doesn't necessarily agree with all labour policies but then political dogma is in a constant state of flux by it's very nature so there never will be any human being who agrees with every policy - not while people have minds of their own, anyway, assuming mass hypnosis doesn't become quite a successful electoral tool...

 

That's certainly true, but when virtually EVERY policy a party comes out with is something you disagree with, it becomes different. My friend who goes to my local Labour branch meetings (I stopped going last year and probably will let my membership lapse) says that, while people are for now still turning up to meetings and aren't giving up completely yet, most people are frequently complaining about how pathetically timid the party's leadership is and are unlikely to want to majorly disrupt their lives to canvass for the party next year if the policies aren't going to be ones they agree with. It really can't be understated how much the average Labour member's morale has dropped off over the last few years.

Edited June 30, 201411 yr by Danny

It takes quite a degree of anti-intellectualism to describe Cruddas as 'substance-free'.

It takes quite a degree of anti-intellectualism to describe Cruddas as 'substance-free'.

 

He's typical of the pseudo-intellectual thinktank morons that constitute the so-called "progressives" in this country these days. They know deep down how little substance their ideas have, so they try to cover it up by coming up with lots of clever-sounding words and ramblings to try and cover up how little they've really got to say. He's written God knows how many wordy essays over the past few years, yet it all seems to boil down to are the groundbreaking, revolutionary ideas of "people should be more involved in politics!" and "England rules!".

I find it strange you hate him. On the face of it you'd agree with him on quite a lot.

 

Are we heading for a political tipping point? Across mainland Europe, the centre appears to be emptying, as parties of both the ultra-right and far-left prosper. Some think the British picture is reminiscent of the dread days of the early 1980s: authorities readying for a summer of riots, predictions of unemployment topping three million, and worries about strikes. June may yet witness a watershed moment for the political class, with a breakthrough for the British National party in European elections. On top of the recession, 2009's big story looks like being a crisis of political representation.

 

Within Westminster a rather timid critique of the government has emerged, often from former ministers. Its essentials are now almost a cliche: a lack of narrative, too much "initiativitis", and a stalling of momentum as the "Brown Bounce" of 2008 falls away. All these points have something to them, yet they fail to capture the magnitude of the squalls ripping through our economy, and the damage to our society brought on by the collapse of the 30-year dominance of market fundamentalism.

 

Among the commentariat and in the blogosphere talk of this crisis of neoliberalism is becoming rather hackneyed. But it reflects something real, and increasingly urgent: a deluge of work for local charities, advocacy groups and representatives, appalling housing cases with no hope of resolution, job losses, and people struggling daily to pay the bills. And palpable fear about what lies ahead.

 

New Labour has had increasingly little to say about these struggles. Indeed, by 2001 its policies were based essentially on a mythical middle England, drawn up by pollsters and located somewhere in the south-east, with affluence taken for granted. In this model, politics always had to be individualised. A leading cabinet member claimed that Labour's essential message was to help voters "earn and own". People were seen as being fixated only on themselves, with no wish to think in terms of collective experience. Aspiration was about buying more things rather than wanting to build the "good society".

 

Scotland and Wales may have been implicitly set apart from all that, but England is also very different from such an individualist caricature, and it always has been. Julian Baggini, in his book A Journey into the English Mind, identified a postcode in Rotherham as the typical centre of the country in terms of how we live and think. His exploration of the philosophy of England beautifully defines the conservative, community-orientated outlook of the mainstream, Protestant centre of the country with its rich sense of tolerance and fairness. Labour misread this communitarian disposition - grounded in a deep and still dominant working-class culture - for a shrill politics of individual consumerism. We assumed people would only respond to a sour, illiberal politics about consuming more, rather than a deeper ethic of fraternity and what we aspire to be as a nation. And we feared its nationalism. But public responses to a range of bellwether issues - the abolition of the 10p tax rate, the excesses of bonus culture, the privatisation of the Royal Mail - reveal a different middle England.

 

Labour lost the language of generosity, kindness and community as it lost the tempo of the country. England's abiding culture was never socialist, but as we misunderstood its essential ethic of solidarity we lost our ability to build a politics beyond the market - to mould a radical hope for the country.

 

Working-class culture tolerated Labour as long as it promised economic uplift. Sixty quarters of growth helped disguise our cultural distance from the country. The material class politics that we never confronted - around housing, employment insecurity and pensions - was submerged by the housing bubble. Now these tensions are being racialised as recession, employment standards and demographic change collide. The popular terms of debate around immigration capture a profound sense of unfairness felt by thousands, many of whom are on a journey towards a very different communitarian politics, built round a nationalistic nostalgia transposed into a modern tribal identity - essentially a class politics of the far right.

 

The Labour party is therefore at a critical moment. Already in government hardline market fundamentalists are regrouping, arguing for further dismantling of the state, more privatisation and suspending any equality agenda to placate business. On the left, a movement to leave Labour and form a new workers' party is stirring. What both sides share is a desire to polarise debate. But now is the time to build a different Labour party, to develop a new kind of economy and determine the just distribution of power and resources, in which government and the people work together toward a vision of the Good Society. Specific policies for fair taxation, employment security and job generation, the environment, enduring devolution in public services and housing are all available - if we have the will to reach for them.

 

We also have to face the crisis of political representation - especially among working-class voters. That means instituting a system of fair voting that can rewind the way Britain's political parties have sought to camp out in that mythical middle England. A grown-up Labour party needs to embrace proportional representation - not as a preserve of the liberal metropolitan intelligentsia, but as a core mechanism with which to combat a sense of working-class alienation.

 

Above all, the party needs a new language about our purpose. So try this, from 1995: "A nation for all the people, built by the people, where old divisions are cast out. A new spirit in the nation based on working together, unity, solidarity, partnership. That is the patriotism of the future. Where your child in distress is my child, your parent ill and in pain is my parent, your friend unemployed or homeless is my friend, your neighbour my neighbour. That is the true patriotism of a nation." That was Tony Blair, who had it - but lost it. Now, before it's too late, we need to rediscover that kind of Labour politics. And, not that I want to scare the horses, we might even call it a New Socialism.

 

(Not to mention that every political writer ever sounds reductive if you boil them down as uncharitably as you did there!)

I find it strange you hate him. On the face of it you'd agree with him on quite a lot.

(Not to mention that every political writer ever sounds reductive if you boil them down as uncharitably as you did there!)

 

I do agree with most of that article, but, it seems like it was written quite a few years ago? It seems like he's changed since then, as he now writes articles such as "Tax and spend? We won't be doing that anymore".

Edited June 30, 201411 yr by Danny

As a graduate student I adopted a staunch anti-establishment inverted snobbery, I just got so annoyed at middle-upper class theorising what the Working Man thought or felt. Many of them had no idea of life outside their well-off parents "daddies got a jaguar" types. When I saw a party that was created to look after the needs of the less well-off promptly jumping into bed with the same people the Conservatives had been sucking-up to, shall we say I just saw Tory 2: the sequel when Blair was elected.

 

It's not difficult to find out what the working man thinks. You don't need intellectual analyses, you don't need career-politcians who've never worked in tescos or on a production-line preaching what they think said working man wants: all you need is to go out and talk to people. People don't vote for charts and statistics and intellectual bullsh*t pepped with soundbites and condescending media-speak, they vote based on what they see around them. That's all.

 

Personally, I'd force all party leaders to spend a week on a supermarket till, shifting boxes, inputting data onto Council financial systems, emptying bins, answering calls on a helpdesk to give them a dose of reality. In short, I was anti-bullsh*t at 19 and I still am, I can spot it a mile off. Ed, bless him, despite a few decent recent policy announcements that are a shift in the right direction, was never going to inspire anyone. I thought that when he was elected and I've seen nothing to make me alter that view since...

 

Sorry!