This article of mine appears in today's First Post.
Neil Clark: The portrayal of Ed Miliband as a leftie shows how far to the right Britain has travelled.
According to his critics, he's a dangerous left-wing radical who, if he ever became prime minister, would take Britain back to the Socialist 1970s.
According to his supporters, he's the man who will lead Labour away from Blairism and reconnect the party with its core supporters and traditional values.
Both his detractors and supporters are in agreement that Ed Miliband - who could well be Labour leader when the results of the party ballot are revealed this weekend - is the candidate for 'change'. Miliband himself has as his campaign slogan: 'Call for Change'.
But if we look beyond the rhetoric and the sound-bites, a very different picture emerges.
You can read the whole of the article here.
6 comments:
We have a similar problem in the United States. We went from a president like Harry Truman who fought for single-payer health care to Obama, who wouldn't even fight for a public option to compete with the dominant private health insurance companies. Truman lost the battle for single-payer but he laid the groundwork for Medicare to pass later on.
Even though Obama would have probably lost a campaign for single-payer, he could have used his office to try to reframe the debate on health care instead of letting right-wing mouthpieces like Glenn Beck dominate the debate, but instead he basically just sat there. Very disappointing.
I am quite tired of the "vote for us because the other guys are worse!" argument from fake left-wingers. By doing nothing for common people on economic issues, I imagine a lot of folks either stay home or vote for right-wing candidates for some non-economic reasons, like social issues, figuring that both sides are bad on economics, so you might as well vote on some other criteria where there might be a more significant difference.
'capitalism that works for people' is a reformism of sorts isn't it? That would do for starters. Not that I believe he means it. But I saw him on the tv labour leadership debate, and at least his stated priority was correct - to get this coalition out as soon as possible. Even 2 years of them and the damage might be irreparable. Thing is, of course, can we trust him ? Can we trust him 1. to do more than go through the motions of opposing the libcon genocide 2. can we trust him to do anything to repair the damage, if he becomes PM? Answer: of course we can't.
An astrologer would be as reliable as a manifesto for a prediction of what any politician these days will do once he's got the mugs to vote him onto the gravy train. But we can probably safely surmise from the fact that he finds unthinkable the repealing of Thatcher's anti-union laws (i.e. giving British workers the rights demanded by the ILO and even the EU), that he will always be conciliatory to elite-imposed consensus. If in 5 years there is no free healthcare, no social security, no minimum wage, no nothing... can we not imagine Ed finding it unthinkable to regress to the 'bad old days' of 2010. Plus (can I say this here), he's a zionist i.e. fascist. Ediband is a 'leftist' in the way that Blair and Clinton were leftists - 'nuff said
Both Diane Abbot and Ed Balls have the balls to agree (like Clegg used to) with every serious economist that these 'cuts' are not necessary. If the Labour Party can't back one of them, the Labour Party is a joke. But the unions are backing Ed Milliband, so that's it - the Labour party IS a joke (not funny though), and so are the trade unions - backing someone who opposes their basic rights?
So we're on our own - worse; we have to fight uphill against all the time-wasting MI5-run (probably) pseudo-Marxist sects that swarm round every attempt of the working class to organise, and fuck it up every time. 5 years of this lot and Britain will make King Lear look like a barrel of laughs.
sorry, that last one was me. I use that aka on another blog - forgot where I was.
'capitalism that works for people' is a reformism of sorts isn't it? That would do for starters. Not that I believe he means it. But I saw him on the tv labour leadership debate, and at least his stated priority was correct - to get this coalition out as soon as possible. Even 2 years of them and the damage might be irreparable. Thing is, of course, can we trust him ? Can we trust him 1. to do more than go through the motions of opposing the libcon genocide 2. can we trust him to do anything to repair the damage, if he becomes PM? Answer: of course we can't.
An astrologer would be as reliable as a manifesto for a prediction of what any politician these days will do once he's got the mugs to vote him onto the gravy train. But we can probably safely surmise from the fact that he finds unthinkable the repealing of Thatcher's anti-union laws (i.e. giving British workers the rights demanded by the ILO and even the EU), that he will always be conciliatory to elite-imposed consensus. If in 5 years there is no free healthcare, no social security, no minimum wage, no nothing... can we not imagine Ed finding it unthinkable to regress to the 'bad old days' of 2010. Plus (can I say this here), he's a zionist i.e. fascist. Ediband is a 'leftist' in the way that Blair and Clinton were leftists - 'nuff said
Both Diane Abbot and Ed Balls have the balls to agree (like Clegg used to) with every serious economist that these 'cuts' are not necessary. If the Labour Party can't back one of them, the Labour Party is a joke. But the unions are backing Ed Milliband, so that's it - the Labour party IS a joke (not funny though), and so are the trade unions - backing someone who opposes their basic rights?
So we're on our own - worse; we have to fight uphill against all the time-wasting MI5-run (probably) pseudo-Marxist sects that swarm round every attempt of the working class to organise, and fuck it up every time. 5 years of this lot and Britain will make King Lear look like a barrel of laughs.
'capitalism that works for people' is a reformism of sorts isn't it? That would do for starters. Not that I believe he means it. But I saw him on the tv labour leadership debate, and at least his stated priority was correct - to get this coalition out as soon as possible. Even 2 years of them and the damage might be irreparable. Thing is, of course, can we trust him ? Can we trust him 1. to do more than go through the motions of opposing the libcon genocide 2. can we trust him to do anything to repair the damage, if he becomes PM? Answer: of course we can't.
An astrologer would be as reliable as a manifesto for a prediction of what any politician these days will do once he's got the mugs to vote him onto the gravy train. But we can probably safely surmise from the fact that he finds unthinkable the repealing of Thatcher's anti-union laws (i.e. giving British workers the rights demanded by the ILO and even the EU), that he will always be conciliatory to elite-imposed consensus. If in 5 years there is no free healthcare, no social security, no minimum wage, no nothing... can we not imagine Ed finding it unthinkable to regress to the 'bad old days' of 2010. Plus (can I say this here), he's a zionist i.e. fascist. Ediband is a 'leftist' in the way that Blair and Clinton were leftists - 'nuff said
Both Diane Abbot and Ed Balls have the balls to agree (like Clegg used to) with every serious economist that these 'cuts' are not necessary. If the Labour Party can't back one of them, the Labour Party is a joke. But the unions are backing Ed Milliband, so that's it - the Labour party IS a joke (not funny though), and so are the trade unions - backing someone who opposes their basic rights?
So we're on our own - worse; we have to fight uphill against all the time-wasting MI5-run (probably) pseudo-Marxist sects that swarm round every attempt of the working class to organise, and fuck it up every time. 5 years of this lot and Britain will make King Lear look like a barrel of laughs.
Ed Miliband is certainly to the left of the average UK population, although clearly the likes of IDS and Howard were to their right. I would also caution about saying the European right is somehow left-wing with the likes of Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi and Reinfeldt.
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