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[Suff]

Old Labour.

Even if it was by the back door....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013 ... im-howells

[Workingman]

Give me Old Labour any day.

I might never have voted for it, but at least I knew what it stood for.

This 'New' version is a mystery. It is a centrist party with no soul. Its selection process is not that much different from that of the Tories. It selects candidates it wants and if there is no local suitable it will parachute someone in.

Parties have to be funded by someone otherwise they would not exist, for Labour it is the Unions; for the Tories it is business and banks.

If Labour wants to survive it might have to listen to what the Unions want.

[cromwell]

Give me Old Labour any day.

Ditto.

This 'New' version is a mystery. It is a centrist party with no soul. Its selection process is not that much different from that of the Tories. It selects candidates it wants and if there is no local suitable it will parachute someone in.

Parties have to be funded by someone otherwise they would not exist, for Labour it is the Unions; for the Tories it is business and banks.

The penny seems to have dropped with the unions. They are being used to pay the bills whilst the middle class takeover of the party continues.
The parachuting has done it's job. The safest Labour seats are in working class "old" Labour territory; but the MP's appointed to these seats since Blair's gang took over Labour are almost exclusively a mixture of middle class, privately educated, Oxbridge graduate or London councillor / friends with Labour's high command.
Have a look at the Milibands, Mandelson, Balls, Cooper, Hilary Benn, Luciana Berger, Sarah Champion, Dan Jarvis and many more. All parachuted into the safest of safe seats, all there until they decide otherwise, not one of them working class.
In fact the Sarah Champion case is a good one. She was one of only two "permitted" candidates for Rotherham. The other was a woman called Sophy Gardner. Champion won, Gardner lost. But only temporarily, because she has now been selected as Labour candidate for Gloucester!
Labour the party for the working man? Like hell!

[KateLMead]

Newc labour hard labour...pity the hard labour doesn't apply to the cheats and opportunists in all parties. I see the father in law ofBalls got the contract to build a nuclear plant.. Money for the boys!!!!

[KateLMead]

Harriet Harmans spouse now an MP was a Big wig in the Trades Union .

[Suff]

Interestingly I don’t see what the huge issue is with New Labour. Labour was not working and not representative of the majority of the UK. Especially after the BB show gave away so much money to, essentially, make the unemployed middle class.

The only people who don’t seem to have twigged are the Workers and the Unions. My sympathy levels are, quite literally, underwhelming.

People wanted change. They got it. But they also have to recognise that in the working class heartland there are very few who fit the picture of the party that they seemed to want. Hence the parachutes.

If they don’t like it, pull the funding and back the communist party!!!! That’ll give them “loads” of influence. NOT.

Tories don’t have to change. Most Tory candidates who are parachuted in, stand for the same values as the voters they are asking for support. It’s not such a hard stretch to give a safe seat to a Tory which will give the party strong government.

For Labour it’s different. Most Labour voters recognise that they gravy train is gone and that it was the Unions themselves who destroyed it. The world moved on and the UK stood still for far too long, shooting itself in the foot whilst demanding ridiculous remuneration compared to the rest of the world.

Now Labour has had to reinvent itself and Labour voters are finding that, when they live in a middle class world, the differences between the parties are small.

My crocodile tears are flooding the building out.

On another note, Sarkozy was voted into France to make changes. Which he did. Then it all went to hell and he was summarily thrown out in a fit of pique. In his place they installed Hollande.

A traditional Socialist who they thought they knew and understood.

Today, one year on, Hollande is rapidly on his way to being the most hated French President ever.

Why?

Because the people thought they knew what they were getting. They had bought the story of “spend our way to glory” and they had believed the whole story of France having weathered the whole financial crisis much better than the UK.

The truth was that France was in a real mess. Was worse off than the UK financially, lying about it’s borrowing needs and trying to pass off vital measures to reduce the public debt as long term “reform” which was required for future fiscal health.

True to form, instead of calling Sarko on his mess, Hollande chose to continue the lie. France went form 75% of GDP in debt to 95% GDP in debt in 6 months, ran out of money and increased the deficit. All at a time when more money is being demanded for bailouts and Debtor nations are restructuring their debt instead of paying it back. Forcing France to keep borrowing to stay afloat.

The only good thing which can come from Miliband winning the next election is that he will be hated even more than Hollande when he falls flat on his face. I shall ensure I’m not impacted by the whole mess.

[cruiser2]

The only good thing which can come from Miliband winning the next election is that he will be hated even more than Hollande when he falls flat on his face. I shall ensure I’m not impacted by the whole mess.

Does that mean your will not be near the French President or Milliband.

[Suff]

No it means that my work and finances will be independent of either regime....

[cromwell]

Interestingly I don’t see what the huge issue is with New Labour.

Many, but the one that exercises me is the centralising and controlling nature of the beast. Candidates are approved not at a constituency level, but centrally. So the values of the chattering London middle classes are being imposed on local Labour parties all over the country. Democracy should mean someone from the local area being sent down to Westminster to represent local people.
This doesn't happen. Essentially the people of Wakefield do not have a representative in Westminster; the London Labour party has a representative in Wakefield. Big difference.
Had Sophy Gardener won the candidature for Rotherham, Rotherham would have been representated by a privately educated Cambridge graduate and company director, whose children are also privately educated.
This is not democratic representation, it is patronising elitism.

[Workingman]

I am with you, Cromwell.

Most of the electorate is tribal and will vote for a party rather than a candidate. This is a nationwide phenomenon and applies to all parties.

When the Tories parachute someone in they are at least of the same mind of its electorate and, therefore, not much of a problem. However, when Labour does it the parachutists are of the controlling centre and not of its natural electorate. The outcome of that is that Labour gets MPs who do not represent the electorate.

In my mind the Unions have a right, and possibly a duty, to use their financial muscle to prevent Labour from selecting its 'chosen ones' over local representatives.