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Friday 8 November 2019

The death of Labour

I've known quite a few Labourites down the years. In South Yorkshire being Labour was as much a part of life as the Yorkshire main coal seam 1km under our feet. These were Ian Austins to a man, believers in hard work, social responsibility, a mixed economy, a strong defence and Trident. Amongst them were the last batch of national servicemen and those who wore the pair of the UN bronze and distinctive blue and yellow ribboned campaign medals of the Korean war. They tried hard, really hard, not to say 'love' 'dear' or 'pet' when asking young women for a cup of tea, knowing but not quite understanding that this now gave offence.

In London, I knew a far greater variety of Labourites. There were communities - Irish, Jewish - who traditionally looked to the party as a collective defence against the abuses and depredations of the tribal English. There were the Windrush generation of Commonwealth immigrants who joined them for much the same reasons. There were a great mass of Londoners, minor consumers of the Welfare State, who wanted decent homes at affordable rents in which to live on their wages as bus drivers or council clerks. For the most part they were Ian Austins, too. There were the actors, poets and artists from the French and the Colony Room. Soho's last lamplighter. Those employed in higher and further education, where labour allegiance was a sort of membership worn lightly in case they should want to 'go into politics' if they failed to get that departmental headship yet again.

Of course there were the nasty Labourites, too. The bullying and grasping TU officials (including one bane of my own managerial life; when he was exposed in the 'Sun' as a serial groper and sex abuser and sacked by his own union, which he took to a tribunal, my rejoicing was great). There were the nasty local councillors bent with greed or corrupt with petty power, drunks, bullies, haters and frauds. All those who used the party as a ladder to support their own foulness. But one meets such people everywhere.

All the above one could tag as 'mostly harmless'. Many will have voted 'Leave' in the referendum. Many will only now, in this election, come to realise that their party is dead, taken-over by a cynical and dangerous cabal of Marxist opportunists who care nothing for their wishes and beliefs, who will not reward their loyalty. Even the Noncefinder General, himself not an attractive human being, has jumped ship. The Jewish Chronicle screams warnings. John Woodcock, Tom Harris and Michael McCann, former Labour bigwigs, say don't vote for Corbyn.

Lay up those silk banners. The party is disbanded. Labour is dead.

23 comments:

Stephen J said...

You would not think it was dead if you watched any election commentary on the contraption in the corner. As fas I can tell, there is the main party, which is Labour now fully revamped since all those traitors have left and St. Jeremy is just waiting for his call to office.

I believe there are a couple of others, there could be a challenge from the revamped LibDems and since Boris was able to arrange a great new deal which no attention will be paid to until it is part of international treaty law. Then there the great freedom fight Scottish, and Welsh nationalists, who are campaigning for indyref 450.

Apart from that nothing.

You should be well pleased Raedwald, if you really think that Labour is dead, the Boris form of remaining will walk it.

Simon Fawthrop said...

The Noncefinder General's resignation is not all it seems (and haven't the gushing praised for him been nauseating?)

Harvey Proctor is standing in that seat and the word in political journalist circles, according to the Speccie Coffee House Shots podcast, is that he could be losing and that we were in for another Portillo moment. Its likely that the issue of his abuse of parliamentary privilege and ruining lives would follow him round and it would have been a national issue every day.

So it looks like the moral coward bailed rather than face the potential humiliation. If it looked like Labour was in for a massive wind and he'd hold his seat he'd have gone nowhere.

anon 2 said...

You, Radders? South Yorkshire coal seam? Nay, lad, it weren't meshured i' them kilo things then, waer it?

Ah well, A s'll allas remember t'sahnd o' them miners on't ro-ad i'their clogs when't shifts changed.

And yes - Labour it waer. 'Specially when Roy Mason carried t'biggest labour majority in't cuntri.

It war years, tho, afor ah lernt that our High School Physics mistress wa' one o't biggest commies in't area. Then I understood why she allas hated me!

JohnofEnfield said...

Spot on. The Labour Party lost its soul when Smith died. New Labour disconnected it from its roots. Ed handed it over to the militants. It is now a Grievance Party full of people doing Identity Politics on a grand scale. They populate every position of power in the Labour movement merely for its own sake. The candidates are not an attractive bunch. They will not navigate the BREXIT rapids at all well because now is not the time for “studied ambiguity”. We the people are desperate to leave. So Potemkin Labour will fail to gain power on 13 December. Magic Grandpa will then be forced out & then one of the even more unattractive apparatchiks hanging around will take power.Labour’s death spiral will then enter its terminal phase. The very concept of staying in the EU is dead. Who could possibly consider “closer & closer union” with these people? All Boris has to do is survive. The Grievance Party will crumble before our eyes.

Raedwald said...

anon 7.27 - superb!

I can never forget our ex-NCB engineer lecturer at Doncaster. Teaching us for the first time he said

"My name is Gerald Allas. Some people call me all-arse. I don't mind that. It takes a big 'ammer to drive a big nail"

DeeDee99 said...

Labour isn't dead; it's metamorphised. When compared to the original incarnation it is unrecognisable and its new form will repulse some people. But it will attract others and is still a threat.

FPTP will keep it alive for this election and will give the new incarnation, post Corbyn, an opportunity to gather strength. Whether it succeeds will largely depend on the CON Party, which seems to be more scared of the BP than Labour.

JPM said...

If you believe in the emancipation of ordinary employed people, whether labourers or doctors, and you share the values of decent, civic, enlightened society, internationalism, legal equality and so on, then Labour is absolutely for you.

If you are filled with hatred for our fellow Europeans here, contributing to the advancement of our country, and for similar classes of people on the other hand, then sod off to the brexit party/Tories, whoever you are.

Mark said...

Ah the troll awakes!

Poisonedchalice said...

I have to admit (with a heavy heart) that I am more fearful for this nation than at any time in my past, and I am now 63. Radders, I wish I had your optimism but I don't. This GE is a massive gamble that could backfire on this nation with dreadful consequences. There is still plenty of time for Boris to cock it up and plenty of time for the MSM to indoctrinate.

You see, there are plenty of stupid (but educationally qualified) people who effuse a dangerous misplaced optimism and a Labour led Britain; and lets be clear, it isn't "Magic Grandpa" that is the real problem. The real problem is that dangerous b@stard ideologue called McDonnell. He cannot even hide the hatred etched into his face for anything or anyone who disagrees with him.

I'm sat here wondering what discussions are being held in boardrooms up and down the land, but especially in the south east and London. The large red "eject now!" button in the centre of the table, with the FDs hand hovering just above it in readiness for the announcement of a Labour government. Vodafone bailing to Luxembourg, HSBC bailing to Singapore, Airbus bailing to France, BMW back to Germany, Nissan into eastern EU and the list goes on and on. The USA will completely blank us on security and likely the EU and NATO will as well.

One final depressing point, the snowflakes and millennials that gleefully want Labour don't understand the basic point that today's borrowing equals future taxation and the burden will fall upon them during their working lifetimes (assuming they still have a job!) and their children and grandchildren.

Its Boris or Armageddon and I sincerely hope that Farage understands that and chooses not to split the vote.

Mr Ecks said...



Full of shite as ever Cheesy.

ZaNu is a Party of hate and lies. The last to accept the NHS it now claims to have invented--because it didn't want anything that might undermine their bullshit "revooluuution"'

Socialism--stripped of the sanctimonious garbage that sustains it--has murdered 150 million people and ruined entire nations.

It is NO surprise to find traitor scum like you endorsing its evil and larding on the sanctimony you Cheesed-up bastard.

Stephen J said...

Presumably JPM, an enlightened society is where a bunch of thieving bastards licences itself ever increasing opportunities to devalue the nation and all who sail in her?

That is not exclusive to Labour though, you can get that with the illiberal ant-democracts and the tories too.

As for the hatred, that might well be exclusively remainers like you, they hate their own homeland and think that the solution is to hand everything over to the unseen hand of whoever controls most stuff... People like Soros.

No JPM, the Brexit Party do not like the powers that be in Brussels, and are doing their best to undermine it and its hateful creed, that all plebs are sheeple and need to be kept down and labelled as "consumers".

In short JPM and his braindead ilk, would rather be told what to do by sad old, mostly drunk fascistic dictators.

Thud said...

JPM, you could at least try, now you are just taking the piss.

DiscoveredJoys said...

@JPM

If you believe in the emancipation of ordinary employed people, whether labourers or doctors, and you share the values of decent, civic, enlightened society, internationalism, legal equality and so on, then Labour is absolutely for you.

Old Labour was for you... but the point of the article is that Old Labour is dead (apart from a number of zombie old school MPs) and Metro Labour has risen from the ashes. The ashes being composed of the remains of support for the Working Man, support for the Ambitious Woman, the Gays, the Jews, the Irish, and the Blacks. All of whom were 'oppressed' in the eyes of Old Labour but who have now been cast aside by Metro Labour for new classes of victims.

Interestingly you could make the argument that 'Old Labour' was against the idea of the EC/EU, but it is only Metro Labour that has been won over by the lure of ever closer union. Old Labour and Remain don't fit comfortably together - Old Labour supported Internationalism, but not Empire. You need to distinguish which Labour you are talking about.

Span Ows said...

Labour died in 1997. Blair was a more of a Conservative than Cameron and May. Blair said he would finish the Conservative Party in Britain and he did (although they kept the name); he also finished "old Labour". The LIBLABCON parties are within a cigarette paper on each other on most things. It's shit.

Poisoned chalice makes a very valid point ablut McDonnell (sinister doesn't cover it) and about the flight of business. Will this election finlly break the 'red-rosette on a donkey' syndrome? I actually think it will.

John Brown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wg said...

Of course, JPM does his best to antagonise - and fails hugely. We've all been playing this game for a long time.

When I began my apprenticeship I was placed under the wings of people who had returned from a very horrible war.
One individual had been captured by the Germans and spent his time in a POW camp, alongside Polish prisoners who were subject
to appalling atrocities.
The resulting feeling of admiration and respect for the Polish people was something that he passed on to young people like myself.
Those same feelings of admiration were felt for the people of Greece, the Netherlands etc. - and indeed, other European nations that fell to tyranny - fascist and communist alike.

Myself and my peers travelled to Europe to work - the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet scenario - and most of us have never been against FOM, but that doesn't give our EU corporate masters the right to exploit that situation and abuse the welfare system and democracy that most of us have fought for.

If you want a technocratic government, with no democratic mandate or empathy for the little guy at street level, or a global order run by NGOs, think tanks, and lobby groups - then the so-described 'liberal, progressive left' is for you.

You can shove your New World Order - I quite like my national democracy (flawed as it is) and I quite like my fellow Europeans as they are, and the not the homogenous grey sludge that people like you would like to turn them into.

Dave_G said...


The similarities between parties and their policies makes this statement (Raed):

Many will only now, in this election, come to realise that their party is dead, taken-over by a cynical and dangerous cabal of xxxxxxxx opportunists who care nothing for their wishes and beliefs

quite appropriate but only when you replace the xxxxxxx with the bogey man of choice - invariably some form of Globalist. It applies equally well to the Tories and the bold part in particular.

"Boris or Armageddon"? I choose Armageddon then. The real choice is Globalists or Globalists (people who take no regard of the electorate be they LibLabCon or whatever. Only by collapsing the entire system can we start to even TRY to create a new one.

My vote will, therefore, be to destroy the system, not a particular Party.... unless that Parties policy happens to be 'destroy the system'.

Isn't that what TBP are about?


Dave_G said...


....oh, and this shite about anti-Semitism etc. Total and utter media-created bollocks.

It's like the supposed 'xenophobia' we're all supposed to suffer, the 'massive increase in Islamophobia' we're all supposed to be involved in.

Fuck right off with the fabricated distractions. I've seen/heard of none other than selected media propagandised garbage supported by statistically manipulated polls.

It's not anti-anyone..... it's normal people asking difficult questions of people (races, beliefs, religions, whatever you want to call it) that either don't WANT to answer or CAN'T answer without exposing themselves, their agenda or their 'crimes'.

Slapping the 'anti-' label on it is classic Marxist distraction techniques and TOO MANY people fall for it and don't even realise they're being manipulated by it..... FFS.

Anonymous said...

JPM said @ 08:25

'If you believe in the emancipation of ordinary employed people, whether labourers or doctors, and you share the values of decent, civic, enlightened society, internationalism, legal equality and so on, then Labour is absolutely for you.'

Emancipation we have had for many decades: there are no legal, social or political restrictions nowadays - except on free speech, which Labour introduced in the first decade of this century too coincide with mass immigration. I'm the third generation of my family to vote Labour, one grandad a West Country fisherman the other a South Wales miner. I gave up on them when I realised they couldn't give a shit about a folk who, despite being oppressed for centuries - but who finally got something from life after fighting two World Wars - were to become a minority in their own land by the end of this century. Your party mate hates the indigenous people of these islands.

Gordon Brown even went as far as to inform the UN that there were no indigenous peoples here. So the English are not indigenous to England, the Welsh to Wales and the Scots to Scotland. Emancipation will end for these peoples because history has a habit of repeating itself when an indigenous group transitions to a minority. We English in particular are starting to feel it now with the mass grooming of little English girls - and I recommend you read Easy Meat written by Peter McLoughlin. Humans are tribal. It's a survival mechanism. The Left know this so the attack on our culture was in many ways predictable. This is Labour's creed:

If you can't get the change you want change the people.

So they did.

Steve

Ravenscar. said...

Alas kicked to death we are being, membership of the devil empire irrevocably decimated the UK political landscape, now all parties represent Berlin not Britain, the very clever bit is that, the British still don't realize it.

Scrobs. said...

I think this calls for recollections about a certain Mr Kinnock being faced with some tawdry lot calling themselves 'The Militant Tendency', back in the seventies!

It was probably the last/only useful thing he did, but even though his family became the normal troughers we often see in politics, at least most of the arch-lefties were silenced for a while, and decent citizens got on with doing what they do best - Backing Britain.

The 'magic grandpa' effect worked well with snowflakes etc., a couple of years ago, but he's well past it now, as they all have their Ipads, free housing, mobaws, an stuff, (not) and won't bother about voting again, as it means - er - changing the address yet again...

Anonymous said...

Prepare for the great sell out if this is what Boris believes ...

“Actually, Northern Ireland has got a great deal. You keep free movement, you keep access to the single market and, as it says in the deal, unfettered access to the UK”

Vote for Brexit Party Ltd.

Kristal Night said...

A night to remember.

An unwillingness to form coalitions let in the nasty party.