Labour views of the Labour conference
On Political Betting this week Labour supporter Henry G Manson had some interesting comments on his party's conference. Some of them were as follows:
"This was a bad Labour Party conference. It was confusing, contradictory, let the government off the hook and needlessly created an array of hostages to fortune. It all the feel of an emergency party conference arranged with a fortnight’s notice – not a platform planned carefully to showcase an alternative government and Prime Minister.
"This week wasn’t just a car crash. It was a 30 car pile-up. I could write 10,000 on words on what went wrong. For now here’s my summary from a Labour perspective. We now have:
• A leader who certainly does not look like a Prime Minister. If a first impression wasn’t already formed by the voters then it has this week. If the speech was composed and delivered with the intention of demonstrating his weaknesses over his strengths then it succeeded. He’s a nice guy but he’s out of his depth and not up to the demands of Prime Minister. The public know it and now we do too.
• A party that is now passing verdict on everything and everyone. Journalists should under license, businesses are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and TV programmes such as Big Brother are irresponsible. Labour had previously been shedding its olds authoritarian impulses. They’re back in spectacular fashion with a childlike twist. The most depressed person right now must the be the party’s head of fundraising anticipating having to run a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ business test on any future corporate donors – should any come forward. This judgementalism will only make more opponents than allies.
• A pledge to ‘spend every pound wisely’ if elected. Possibly the most naïve hostage to fortune since I can’t remember when. Nobody goes into government with the intention of wasting money however but this is a preposterous guarantee. But within any organisation of any scale there is always some waste or some risks that don’t come off. Should Ed Miliband’s Labour somehow stumble into power then we’ve have given a field-day for the press and Taxpayer’s Alliance to identify waste on any scale and hold up Ed’s remarks against it.
• Policy chaos. Our position on university fees that they should be double what Labour pledged at the election a year ago – yet this stance is not even a policy commitment for the next general election. So we are in an imaginary world in which we outline what we would do if in power today which only makes sense in response to what the Tories have also done having also won too. This is not even plausible science fiction.
• Strategic knots. We repeatedly oppose ‘ideological cuts’ and highlight how they undermine society and slow down the economy. Yet Labour won’t yet pledge to reverse any of them. Every time Labour speaks out on a cut they will be asked, quite reasonably ‘would you reverse it?’ Our stance makes us appear impotent and insincere.
Well, however often I may disagree with Henry Manson on other things, after reading that article I will never accuse him of being blind to the faults of his own side or unwilling to be honest about them.
You can read his article on Political Betting in its' entirety here
But if you think Henry G Manson's view of Labour conference was pessimistic (from a Labour viewpoint) the comments from Dan Hodges at Labour Uncut here, in an article called "You need more than courage to win," made Henry look like a Panglossian Optimist. This is an extract from Dan's take on the Labour conference:
"We have to understand. We need to grasp what has just happened to the Labour party.
"Ed Miliband did not have a bad week. He had a grotesque, cataclysm of a week.
"When the Leader of the Opposition finds himself having to rebut charges he’s “weird” you know something is amiss. But if you spend the whole of your own conference rebutting you know the wheels are detaching. And by Thursday morning there were more wheels bouncing around Albert Dock than a formula one pit lane.
"Rebutting the idea the NEC was going to move to have Tony Blair indicted for war crimes. That the party intended to licence journalists and kick out onto the streets those it caught misbehaving. That Ed Miliband planned to march into the Big Brother house and evict the lot of them.
"And they were just the noises off. The fact Labour’s leader has no idea who his Scottish counterpart is was a mere footnote. The rapid unravelling of the tuition fees pledge a long forgotten irritant.
"Just to put things into context, here are the responses from three shadow cabinet members to Ed’s speech on Tuesday. “I don’t understand what he was doing”, said one. “I feel physically sick”, said another. “I’m in shock”, said a third.
"Those are members of a Labour shadow cabinet. Not minions of the Murdoch Empire, or Cameron cronies. Nor are they cartoon Blairites. They are serious politicians who want to see their party back in government. And they were, literally, in despair."
My word. Let's hope our conference next week is more successful.
"This was a bad Labour Party conference. It was confusing, contradictory, let the government off the hook and needlessly created an array of hostages to fortune. It all the feel of an emergency party conference arranged with a fortnight’s notice – not a platform planned carefully to showcase an alternative government and Prime Minister.
"This week wasn’t just a car crash. It was a 30 car pile-up. I could write 10,000 on words on what went wrong. For now here’s my summary from a Labour perspective. We now have:
• A leader who certainly does not look like a Prime Minister. If a first impression wasn’t already formed by the voters then it has this week. If the speech was composed and delivered with the intention of demonstrating his weaknesses over his strengths then it succeeded. He’s a nice guy but he’s out of his depth and not up to the demands of Prime Minister. The public know it and now we do too.
• A party that is now passing verdict on everything and everyone. Journalists should under license, businesses are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and TV programmes such as Big Brother are irresponsible. Labour had previously been shedding its olds authoritarian impulses. They’re back in spectacular fashion with a childlike twist. The most depressed person right now must the be the party’s head of fundraising anticipating having to run a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ business test on any future corporate donors – should any come forward. This judgementalism will only make more opponents than allies.
• A pledge to ‘spend every pound wisely’ if elected. Possibly the most naïve hostage to fortune since I can’t remember when. Nobody goes into government with the intention of wasting money however but this is a preposterous guarantee. But within any organisation of any scale there is always some waste or some risks that don’t come off. Should Ed Miliband’s Labour somehow stumble into power then we’ve have given a field-day for the press and Taxpayer’s Alliance to identify waste on any scale and hold up Ed’s remarks against it.
• Policy chaos. Our position on university fees that they should be double what Labour pledged at the election a year ago – yet this stance is not even a policy commitment for the next general election. So we are in an imaginary world in which we outline what we would do if in power today which only makes sense in response to what the Tories have also done having also won too. This is not even plausible science fiction.
• Strategic knots. We repeatedly oppose ‘ideological cuts’ and highlight how they undermine society and slow down the economy. Yet Labour won’t yet pledge to reverse any of them. Every time Labour speaks out on a cut they will be asked, quite reasonably ‘would you reverse it?’ Our stance makes us appear impotent and insincere.
Well, however often I may disagree with Henry Manson on other things, after reading that article I will never accuse him of being blind to the faults of his own side or unwilling to be honest about them.
You can read his article on Political Betting in its' entirety here
But if you think Henry G Manson's view of Labour conference was pessimistic (from a Labour viewpoint) the comments from Dan Hodges at Labour Uncut here, in an article called "You need more than courage to win," made Henry look like a Panglossian Optimist. This is an extract from Dan's take on the Labour conference:
"We have to understand. We need to grasp what has just happened to the Labour party.
"Ed Miliband did not have a bad week. He had a grotesque, cataclysm of a week.
"When the Leader of the Opposition finds himself having to rebut charges he’s “weird” you know something is amiss. But if you spend the whole of your own conference rebutting you know the wheels are detaching. And by Thursday morning there were more wheels bouncing around Albert Dock than a formula one pit lane.
"Rebutting the idea the NEC was going to move to have Tony Blair indicted for war crimes. That the party intended to licence journalists and kick out onto the streets those it caught misbehaving. That Ed Miliband planned to march into the Big Brother house and evict the lot of them.
"And they were just the noises off. The fact Labour’s leader has no idea who his Scottish counterpart is was a mere footnote. The rapid unravelling of the tuition fees pledge a long forgotten irritant.
"Just to put things into context, here are the responses from three shadow cabinet members to Ed’s speech on Tuesday. “I don’t understand what he was doing”, said one. “I feel physically sick”, said another. “I’m in shock”, said a third.
"Those are members of a Labour shadow cabinet. Not minions of the Murdoch Empire, or Cameron cronies. Nor are they cartoon Blairites. They are serious politicians who want to see their party back in government. And they were, literally, in despair."
My word. Let's hope our conference next week is more successful.
Comments