every smith
  • MS: Max Smith's blog
  • History to the Defeated
  • every smith: independent creative consultants
  • Words: Max - a brief bio
  • Sites to see

Leamington Letters #118: "Depart, I say, and let us have done with you."

21/11/2016

12 Comments

 
Picture
According to The Sunday Times Tony Blair is planning a return to power, a move which will be doubtless greeted with rejoicing in some parts of the Labour Party and in the Portland PR consultancy.
 
Personally, I hope that his efforts are rewarded with the same result as that achieved by Nicolas Sarkozy who managed to scrape third place in a three horse race in his party’s primaries.
 
But Blair has higher ambitions. As well as his regular conversations with Peter Mandelson and an alleged search for Westminster premises to accommodate 130 staff – hasn’t he got enough property already? - he’s also been talking to the egregious George Osborne, whom the ‘lightweight’ Theresa May quickly discarded after her ‘election’ as Tory leader. Significantly, he has recruited Jim Murphy, the man who presided over the total collapse of Labour in Scotland.
 
What, I wonder, does this presage for politics in this country? Is there a ‘vacuum at the heart of the body politic’ that must be filled by the likes of Blair, Osborne and Murphy?
 
It seems to me that they were instrumental in creating the vacuum. Peter Hain records a conversation with Mandelson in the early days of New Labour in which he (Mandelson) states that “we don’t need to worry about the working class – they have nowhere else to go”.
 
They sure as hell did.
 
They did in the States, too. And I fear that their European counterparts will also embrace the similar rhetoric of the hard right parties in France and Italy, Austria and Germany.
 
Throughout the world, the neoliberal consensus has disintegrated. The centre cannot hold. What it does is move to the right, distorting the traditional alignments to the extent that the Corbyn-McDonnell economic policy (which is actually significantly to the right of the old SDP) can be termed by the mainstream media as ‘ultra-left’.
 
As a member of the Labour Party, I am not allowed to call anyone in the party a ‘Blairite’. People have been expelled for this heinous breach of the rules. And bizarrely, the ban applies even to Blair himself.
 
So I’m not clear what this new grouping of the ancien regime, if it materializes, should be termed. I am assuming that it will be a separate party – there is little chance of Blair winning an internal leadership election or even being selected as a candidate within Labour. We’ve seen how New Labour operated and the damage that it caused to the Labour movement, leaving behind – and losing the votes of - millions of traditional supporters. Those of us who remain and the thousands of new members will not accept it.
 
But the Liberal Democrats might. And Hilary Benn and Tom Watson and Angela Eagle and Owen Smith might.
 
There have been rumours since Corbyn’s second election that the Blai – sorry, the Labour right-wingers - have plans for a new party. Such a move has been mooted too many times to be mere speculation.
 
I would not be averse to this. They would receive the backing of the majority of the mainstream media, of course, just as did the SDP Gang of Four. They would probably receive massive financial support from the hedge funds and the City.
 
But the neoliberals are well past their sell-by date and winning genuine popular support in the country as well as within the enclosed world of the Westminster bubble is not the same as briefing and plotting against your party leader.
 
'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you."

Today from the everysmith vaults: Something of a concentration on the finer points of Bob at the de Montford Hall, Leicester in 1966, a show I attended but had not heard since the recent Live Recordings. Also and primarily, Captain Beefheart, especially the Hoboism bootleg and, having just discovered some long lost cousins, Big Eyed Beans from Venus. Oh my oh my!
 
12 Comments
RichardL
21/11/2016 12:27:05

Yes. You - we - keep talking about the last throw of the ancien regime, but I think this must surely be it. To drag back Blair from his money-making is desperation. For the first time in a generation, there is real impetus in a progressive strategy and the sooner they go their own way (whatever that is) the better.

Reply
Andy
21/11/2016 14:52:34

There is more to this than meets the eye. I don't think he will do it - not enough money in it - but I do think it's part of the right's strategy, and this brings Blair on board. Which, in their ignorance, they think is a good thing!

But. Blair has said that he is labour. And as you correctly point out, whatever it is these guys want will not be achieved through Labour.

My guess is it's a flyer, to see what the response is. We must make sure our response is heard: a resounding NO.

Reply
Jamie
21/11/2016 15:20:50

the Dead's response: 'He's gone, gone and nothing's gonna bring him back'. At least, not if I have anything to do with it.

Reply
Allan
21/11/2016 15:51:36

We're at a crossroads, aren't we? Remember the rest of your Yeats quote? The centre cannot hold / mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. I think he was right - we are moving into an era of anarchy, when there will be no order, no respect, no time for those who are left behind and no thought for the future. The bastards have won.

Reply
Martin
21/11/2016 16:14:38

Quoting Cromwell? You Sidney Sussex people stick together.

Reply
Max
21/11/2016 17:19:35

We do. Ollie and I only 300 years apart - but same room!

Reply
Alex
21/11/2016 17:17:53

Self-referring. Self-centred. Self-aggrandisement. Self-love.

Reply
Alex
22/11/2016 08:44:48

Oh yeh, and self-serving!

Reply
John
22/11/2016 07:40:34

And you didn't mention Iraq.

Reply
(notthat) Bob
22/11/2016 10:51:17

I've read this twice now, and it is still not making sense. What has happened to the concept of Labour being a broad church? There is already too much division and the return of a proven leader will enable us to present a positive image to the electorate. I don't dispute Corbyn's integrity, but there is no point in a political party if it has no realistic chance of power. Iraq was a mistake, but it's gone. The crises now are more fundamental.

Reply
CJ
22/11/2016 15:29:34

Bob 66? Just too much . Even for me. But the Captain? Just can't get enough.

Reply
Andy
1/12/2016 18:50:37

It worked! He's said there is no chance of entering politics again!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Baseball
    Books
    Film
    Food + Drink
    French Letters
    Leamington Letters
    Media
    Music
    People
    Personal
    Politics
    Sport