I was struck by the degree of anger against the LibDems that came across, and hence the number of their previous voters who were all too ready to admit they were changing sides (though we’ll have to wait till Thursday – I’ve heard this sort of talk many times before). What is so serious for the Liberals is not that their leaders have been found to compromise to get and keep power – the electorate thinks this about all parties – but rather that their supporters genuinely believed that the Liberal party was different from the power-hungry grubbiness of the other two parties, and had a core of ethical decency which could be relied on to be more honest and trustworthy. The abrupt disabusing of this notion has come as a painful shock which will not go away quickly or easily.
What is so galling for the LibDems in this tight contest is that the Tories are more guilty on this score than they are. Who was it who said just before the election: “Any Cabinet Minister who comes to me and says ‘Here are my plans’ and they involve frontline reductions, they’ll be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again”? Cameron. Who said a month before the election: “Our plans don’t involve an increase in VAT”? Cameron. Who said: “We will stop top-down reorganisations of the NHS”? The coalition agreement. Who saidtwo months before the election: “I wouldn’t change child benefit, I wouldn’t means-test it, I don’t think that’s a good idea”? Cameron. Who said just before the election: ” I have never said we would scrap EMA. We won’t”? Michael Gove. And so on and so on. Labour will win Oldham East (a setback for the Tories, but a serious crisis for the LibDems), but it won’t win the country till a belief in honest politics revives.
Not a word of apology from you about the loathsome Woolas & the racism of your Oldham Labour Party’s campaign to “get the white folks angry”, stirred up again by Straw’s islamophobic ravings at the weekend.
Remind me again, which party promised not to introduce tuition fees? Which party took us into an illegal war? Which party introduced Control Orders? Which party attacked the poor by removing the 10% tax rate? Which party cut lone parent benefit by £5 a week? Which party kept selling council houses & prevented councils building new council houses?
Colin: I think we’ve made clear our attitude to what was said in the leaflets produced during Phil Woolas’s general election campaign, including here and here, and on most of the other issues you raise. Left Futures is here to change the Labour Party from what it was in government, not justify what it did.
My comment was diected at Michael Meacher’s article Jon.
Whilst you may have expressed your horror at the Woolas campaign, Mr Meacher publicly backed Woolas, and still does – as did many other NW Labour MPs, despite full knowledge of the nature of his campaign. Indeed, Ed Miliband appointed Woolas to his frontbench team.
Nothing has been done to remove those who ran the campaign from Oldham E&S CLP & your candidate in the current byelection has refused to apologise for Woolas’ racist campaign.
And then there’s Jack Straw…..