England went to the polls in local body elections today - and delivered a drubbing for Labour. Labour lost 250 council seats, and came third, being narrowly beaten by the Lib Dems - its worst local body result since 1982. Tony Blair has responded with a Cabinet bloodbath, sacking his incompetant Home Secretary and stripping his scandal-wracked Deputy Prime Minister of all portfolio responsibilities. Other heads rolled as well - Jack Straw being shuffled out of the Foreign Office to make way for a Blair loyalist less likely to be troublesome on Iran; Ruth Kelly being pushed out of education for failing to sell Blair's school "reforms". With the exception of Gordon Brown (Chancellor of the Exchequer and Blair's heir presumptive), the entire Cabinet has been sacked or shuffled. But in all of this, Tony has missed the true cause of the problem: himself. This poor electoral showing is not solely due to recent scandals and bad press (though they probably helped); it's a symptom of long-term dissatisfaction with Blair himself - with the war, with arrogance, spin, and corruption, with the direction he has taken his party in - a direction many traditional Labour voters disagree with violently.
This is not a problem that can be solved with a Cabinet reshuffle, unless the man at the head of the table is also dealt out of the deck. Unfortunately, Blair seems constitutionally incapable of admitting that. But if he can't or won't resign, then his own MPs are going to have to force him out - because the simple fact is that if he stays, they'll be de-elected.
I think they will lose without Tony also. Even a scandal ridden blair could still be hard to beat as far as I know they dont have a substitute.
ReplyDeletebesides this
http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php?id=news2005&ux_news[id]=camerondoublestandards&cHash=94556fb5bd
is the sign if a party on the fast track to an electoral hiding.
Well, I find it rather amusing that the British Labour Party is suddenly recovering it's ethical compass - the day after the "arrogance, spin and corruption" stops delivering electoral landslides. In this case, the rats are every bit as foul as the sinking ship.
ReplyDeleteCraig: the biggest argument in support of Blair was that, while being a fink, he won elections. If that goes,then people simply have no reason to support him. But yes, I'd much rather they'd dumped him long ago - but the important think is that this time they might finally be able to roll the fucker.
ReplyDeleteCan't be long before voters in NZ realize how much Labour is inovoled in the same practices are the Labour government the UK.
ReplyDeleteHaving lived in the UK for six years I suggest that the other reason Labour backbenchers are not keen to push Tony out is because they don't see Gordon (heir presumptive is a good phrase) as being any more electable. In putting Gordon off for so long Tony failed to create an alternative leader to follow him because to do so would expose the chasm between new and old Labour (like those that existed in the fourth Labour govt here)
ReplyDeleteI can't see how Brown is going to be that much different from Blair. He might be infinitesimally more left wing, but the whole dispute is mostly a personality thing. Brown isn't a believer in human rights and the rule of law any more than Blair is.
ReplyDeleteON Frederik's comment, I can fully understand why NZ political parties (pretend to) avoid involvement in local government.
It would be a lot better if local body candidates did make their party affiliations clear. I suspect somewhat fewer ACT members would get elected to council that way.
ReplyDelete