Old Statist Labour has embarked on its death slide; without the gerrymandering and corruption they maintained in government and built into grossly skewed constituencies, without voting fraud and the peculation of tax funds on an epic scale by Labour politicians and officials, without the shameless jobbery that filled the quangos with Labour placemen the old Leviathan is on its last ride. In an act of assisted suicide they have elected an unreconstructed Marxist as Leader, retained a Statist redistributionist as Deputy and filled the vacuum of opposition with a jejune and adolescent series of posturings about as intellectually credible as the manifesto of the flat-earthers. The Coalition, it seems, holds the ideological high ground. Perhaps except for 'Jon' Cruddas. Regard the following quotes from a recent interview;
“The biggest calamity facing society is the relentless disintegration of the family and the profoundly dangerous consequential element of a lack of male role models”
“The Labour Party once had strong links with the Catholic Church, as the haven of migrants. Labour used to be civic and religious, now it’s secular and statist."
“Fraternity, duty, obligation, I like those things, and it’s clever for the Tories to do that"
“I like Phillip Blond. I like the idea of mutuals and the mixed economy. You have to re-capitalise the poor and create a just society. Labour has to be there. We’ve lost our language, we talk a lot about justice and fairness but we don’t talk about duty and family.”
“People get worried when they can’t get a house or a school and it becomes racialised, it’s very dangerous stuff. This [race] is what everyone is talking about. When your community changes around you, it’s very uncomfortable. I think Labour should conserve things – families, relationships, communities.”
"There is a crisis of social democracy in Europe; does Labour just become a residual metropolitan and public sector or does it speak a language that transcends the identity politics?"
Let's just hope that the self-deluding myopia at the heart of Labour freezes Cruddas out, because if there's anything that can save Labour it's thinking like this.