Anyone thinking of voting Labour should read this
Anyone who is still considering casting their vote for Labour should read this article in the Daily Mail by former lifelong Labour voter (and former editor of the Daily Mirror) Mike Molloy.
It's called "It would break my dad's heart but I'm voting Tory" and in the article Mike Molloy explains how he came to be completely disillusioned with the present Labour government.
This is not someone who was a fair-weather friend to the Labour party and has lightly changed his vote for the coming election. He writes
"I was brought up to believe the Labour Party was the best hope for ordinary people to make a better life.
The men I was taught to revere - Clem Attlee, Stafford Cripps, Ernie Bevin and Herbert Morrison - were people of the finest moral values who put their crusade for a fairer society before personal advancement."
But the article explains why he has come to the view that today's Labour government does not stand up for these values:
"Today, the hierarchy of New Labour has no such scruples; they shift and slide like desert sands depending on how the wind blows.
So I can only hope that my ancestors would understand when I vote Conservative at the next election. It was the hardest decision I have ever made.
Even though my disillusion began halfway through New Labour's second term, until recently I still could not think of myself as a Tory voter.
There was no instant conversion, just a gradual slide into complete despair at what has become of the Labour Party I love.
When New Labour came to power, I was confident they would change Britain for the better. Well, we all know how wrong I was."
The article concludes:
"The truth is that Old Labour principles of fairness and equality and support for the working classes seem to have evaporated under this Government.
Also, personal integrity among its senior politicians no longer seems to exist.
On the one hand, we have a former Labour leader in Tony Blair who disgracefully left politics as soon as he was out of favour, to make millions of pounds on the consultancy circuit as a result of his slavish devotion to George Bush and the war in Iraq.
On the other hand, we have Gordon Brown spending public money with the pathological calculation of the gambling addict who has bet everything on a last desperate attempt to win the coming election.
My decision to break with Labour would almost certainly break my father's heart.
But I hope he would understand - as all of us do - that the experiment with New Labour has ended in catastrophe and that this Government has wasted money like no other in history.
So I shall vote Conservative for the first time in my life.
And if David Cameron can lead a government that strips out the lies and slithery self-delusion that has characterised the performance of so many of New Labour's leading political figures of the past 13 years, then he might keep my vote."
It's called "It would break my dad's heart but I'm voting Tory" and in the article Mike Molloy explains how he came to be completely disillusioned with the present Labour government.
This is not someone who was a fair-weather friend to the Labour party and has lightly changed his vote for the coming election. He writes
"I was brought up to believe the Labour Party was the best hope for ordinary people to make a better life.
The men I was taught to revere - Clem Attlee, Stafford Cripps, Ernie Bevin and Herbert Morrison - were people of the finest moral values who put their crusade for a fairer society before personal advancement."
But the article explains why he has come to the view that today's Labour government does not stand up for these values:
"Today, the hierarchy of New Labour has no such scruples; they shift and slide like desert sands depending on how the wind blows.
So I can only hope that my ancestors would understand when I vote Conservative at the next election. It was the hardest decision I have ever made.
Even though my disillusion began halfway through New Labour's second term, until recently I still could not think of myself as a Tory voter.
There was no instant conversion, just a gradual slide into complete despair at what has become of the Labour Party I love.
When New Labour came to power, I was confident they would change Britain for the better. Well, we all know how wrong I was."
The article concludes:
"The truth is that Old Labour principles of fairness and equality and support for the working classes seem to have evaporated under this Government.
Also, personal integrity among its senior politicians no longer seems to exist.
On the one hand, we have a former Labour leader in Tony Blair who disgracefully left politics as soon as he was out of favour, to make millions of pounds on the consultancy circuit as a result of his slavish devotion to George Bush and the war in Iraq.
On the other hand, we have Gordon Brown spending public money with the pathological calculation of the gambling addict who has bet everything on a last desperate attempt to win the coming election.
My decision to break with Labour would almost certainly break my father's heart.
But I hope he would understand - as all of us do - that the experiment with New Labour has ended in catastrophe and that this Government has wasted money like no other in history.
So I shall vote Conservative for the first time in my life.
And if David Cameron can lead a government that strips out the lies and slithery self-delusion that has characterised the performance of so many of New Labour's leading political figures of the past 13 years, then he might keep my vote."
Comments
Planning to vote conservative is a bit odd though. The Liberals are currently to the left of the other two parties.
Anyone who doesn't like new Labour can still vote for Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party.
I bet that if Cameron had been PM for the last 13 years he too would have jumped on the shovel when George Bush said "Manure".
There's the problem with so called mainstream politics today - NO CHOICE !
Comrade Arthur, closed more Pits than Margaret Thatcher intended. Pits that were economical before the strike were closed because the safety technicians were forced out on strike. Water seeped into economic pits which ceased to be viable. The costs of restoring safety were so great there was no option but to close them down.
Additionally, the strike would have had legitimacy if there had been a secret ballot i.e. the Nottingham Miners would have come out and the strike would not have been split. The strike disintegrated into lawlessness, which was utterly unacceptable to decent people. Had the strike been conducted in a lawful manner more pits would have been saved. Miners would have had the moral high ground and negotiations would have been possible.
Arthur Scargill was ironically British industries worst enemy. He destroyed the very communities he purported to support.
I am lucky to be still breathing for pointing this out in the Student Union in 1984! This was a nasty time and I do not boast, only regret being right in issuing the warning.
I trace the rot to that moment , I am sure many people do
Toodles Chris
Iain Dale and myself called a no-confidence vote in Mark Seddon, later a member of the Labour NEC, as president of the local student union for using Union resources to support striking miners and giving untrue answers at the Student Council about it.
My council ward in Copeland includes the former site of the William Pit coal mine and there are many residents with strong views in each direction. I have met more than a few people in Copeland who think Mrs Thatcher was the best PM Britain ever had and Arthur Scargill was a disaster for the miners, but I have also met others who were equally convinced of the opposite view.