The outstanding feature of the political scene over recent decades has been the catastrophic loss of the left’s intellectual self-confidence. It has been particularly marked in the UK and reached its most extreme form with New Labour; as I observed at the time, the short three-letter word with a capital ‘N’ was meant to convey […]
Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’
Thatcher’s legacy for the Left
Apr 11th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.If there is one thing, and perhaps one thing alone, that the Left should draw from Thatcher’s hegemony, it is the need for a leader with the same uncompromising conviction and steely determination as she repeatedly demonstrated. She interpreted her mission in 1979 as confronting trade union power, rolling back the State, instilling unabashed individualism, […]
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Don’t be derailed by Progress confrontation
Feb 6th, 2013 by Ben Folley and Calum Sherwood.This week, former General Secretary of the CWU Alan Johnson has issued an unabashed attack on trade union influence within the Labour Party in an interview with Progress, part of an increasingly confrontational and destructive approach to dictating Labour Party policy from the Blairite wing. Jacqui Smith’s now regular articles, including hers on Osborne’s welfare trap before the […]
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Does Ed want to clean up the party or not?
Feb 23rd, 2012 by Jon Lansman.We hear that a post is to be created in the Leader’s office for Alicia Kennedy (née Chater), Labour’s former deputy general secretary whose post was deleted last November in a “restructuring” designed to clean up the party. We have no doubt that Alicia has many skills and talents; unfortunately they are skills and talents which […]
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The Miliband magic
Jan 31st, 2012 by Michael Meacher.What political leader in Opposition has ever stopped in its tracks what looked like irresistible momentum towards a disaster? No, I can’t think of one either. Certainly not Cameron – can you remember any of the positions he took during the 5 years before the 2010 election, apart from slyly posing beside a dog-sleigh in […]
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The real divisions in the Labour Party and what Ed should do about it
Jan 25th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.Most Labour party members are, above all, loyal to their party. They have a strong inclination to back their leaders, even when they disagree with what they’ve said or done. And disagree they did, by and large, when Ed Balls announced that “the starting point….is we’re going to have to keep all these cuts” and accept […]
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A call to arms
Jan 19th, 2012 by Owen Jones.For those who stand outside the austerity consensus, reading Len McCluskey’s column on Tuesday was like coming up for air. It is a cause of deep frustration that, as the Tories’ economic policies are shown to fail (in terms of jobs, growth, consumer confidence, economic inactivity and borrowing levels), the Labour leadership has moved to legitimise […]
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It’s too late to build a Two-Ed-ist coalition against the Two-Ed detractors
Jan 18th, 2012 by Andy Newman.It is a paradox that the coalition building skills necessary to be a successful party leader are often not the skills of persuasive and decisive determination necessary to be a successful prime minister. Sadly, it seems that Ed Miliband may not have the attributes to be succesful in either role. Miliband is certainly ill-served by […]
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Labour’s standing in the polls is a poor excuse for knocking Ed
Jan 16th, 2012 by Lee Brown.Polling evidence does not support the idea that Ed’s time is up. Silly season is normally reserved for the summer. But this year we have also had the Winter version with a torrent of newspaper articles making it clear it that their authors believe that Ed Miliband’s time is up. Pages have been filled undermining Ed, […]
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What is Ed Miliband’s elevator pitch?
Jan 13th, 2012 by David Osler.There is no alternative. It’s the economy, stupid. Third Way. Big Society. Encapsulate your outlook into a pithy slogan of as few words as possible, or risk having someone encapsulate them for you. That these designations are typically vacuous and point to little of substance matters not. Fail to play the game, and posterity will […]
