Withdraw Labour?

Ed Miliband is back from his sojourn in Ibiza and  must be grateful at least that the expression is not “Your nose must have been burning” because the airwaves have been a-buzz with mention of his name… and it’s a hell of a nose. Everybody has been talking about Ed in his absence and most of it is not very nice to hear. It turns out he was wrong about everything and the shadow cabinet of ‘the nice party’ have fallen over themselves to say so. Well we, the hoi polloi, knew all along but wasn't the party one-million-per-cent behind Ed all the way? Yes, it turns out they were right behind him and pushing him towards the cliff.

On Monday Yvette Cooper attacked Ed on his approach to business. Chuka Umunna did it last week before stepping down from the contest on still-unexplained grounds. Even union-man Andy Burnham expressed disappointment and a recognition that any government needs to keep business onside. And the reason all the knives are out? It seems, at least right now, that the leadership contest will be won by the contestant whose blade plunges the deepest into Miliband’s back. If I were Ed I think I’d just stay away from England forever.

But I thought they all wanted Dan Jarvis to stand? Dan who? Dan the war hero who nobody outside Labour had ever heard of before last week and is now the darling in waiting; the man to lead Labour from the shadows. Except he doesn't actually want the job. Not yet at least; he’s backing Andy Burnham instead. When I first heard about Dan Jarvis I was perplexed. Former Parachute Regiment officer AND Labour man? Surely it’s been a good fifty years since that juxtaposition of allegiances was normal? In Thatcher’s day the armed forces and the police were Conservative to a man. But wait, let’s hear what he has to say.

Oh, I get it now. He’s backing Andy Burn'em because he thinks Captain Scarlett has the greatest appeal to the public and therefore he has the right credentials to lead the party. Meanwhile Red Len McCluskey, true to bully-boy form, is threatening Labour that its financial backing could be put at risk if they fail to represent “the voice of organised labour”. Hmm, I wondwer if there's any particular reason that Unite is backing Burnham? So, Emperor’s new clothes then? Nothing new from labour at all; it’s not about policy it’s about whatever will get them elected; it’s about appearance. Well, they appear to have a bit of as problem then, don’t they?

Still? Hasn't anybody read the instructions?

You see, original Labour became Old Labour the moment Blair, Mandelson and Campbell unveiled the ‘bit-like-the-Tories’ New Labour. Then, under Ed, they were sort-of Unite Labour a bit like Old Labour again… almost. But now that Yvette Cooper has been talking about adopting Tory policies towards business and immigration and the deficit, the term Blue Labour is looking likely. But maybe it’s time to finally admit that after whatever branding and re-alignment and new-directional tweaking they decide is necessary to make the party palatable, the only electable name remaining is Not Labour.

Blaired Lines

Tony Blair. Anthony Charles Lynton "Bastard" Blair. The figurehead of New Labour, the movement that, by sleight of hand, made the anachronistic and spent Labour Party electable long enough to deliberately lay waste to British culture and lay the foundations for the demise of the most significant force for good the modern world has ever seen. (But don’t expect to ever read any of that in the rewritten history books, or hear it from the re-educated, post-national generation.)

Under the dictatorship of those who worked his strings – masked by that oafish smile and the slick practised gestures of humility and the faked bloke-u-like glottal stops – education headed ever downward and various anti-sovereign-state policies were pursued towards their sinister ends. We tolerant Brits all became racists overnight and the welfare state was imposed on everybody with a child. The issues of ruinous uncontrolled mass immigration became an untouchable sacred cow… and everything else just turned to shit. He retired the Royal Yacht, for pity’s sake!

Now Tony  - £70-million - Blair is determined to do to the Middle East what he was so successful in doing to Britain and so eagerly seems to want for Europe… turn it over to muslim rule, by the look of things. In yesterday’s contrived ‘anniversary’ speech, despite being entirely absent from the Middle East peace process he is so handsomely rewarded for getting in the way of (although only via the corruption of the backsheesh door – charity, my arse) he has the gall to blame you, the British people and all your ancestors for all the evils of the world.

He also says "Just for the record, I read I'm supposed to be worth £100million - Cherie's kind of asked me where it is. I'm not worth half of that, a third of that, a quarter of that, a fifth of that - and I could go on.” Except he doesn’t, because £70m is actually 70% of that. The man is a walking lie, a manifestation of the old saw about selling yourself to the devil. Without an honest bone in his body, Blair is a well-paid puppet for hire because - and here’s the bit I don’t get – even though his appalling record is in the public domain people are yet in thrall to power and its public face.

The twisted picture of Dorian Blair...

He already fucked over the country once, yet he is tolerated while he attempts to bend it over and fuck it again. And again and again and again. Even Peter ‘snake’ Mandelson has largely retreated from public life and some of his former cabinet colleagues have even had the belated decency to almost apologise. What will it take for Blair to be unmasked for what he truly is and be sent into exile? Perhaps, since he seems to love it so much, he should embrace the religion of a thousand pieces and leave us all to struggle on without that winning crooked smile.