Tagged with Luke Akehurst

The left are more realistic about the working class vote than some think

Since the publication of Progress’ Class edition, and the polling that has been done through YouGov, there seems to be some confusion about how the left perceive the voting behaviour of working class people in Britain.

Reading Luke Akehurst’s fair piece on LabourList, aside from the harsh reality-check that working class voters in this country are not all egalitarian socialists, one gets a sense that the Labour left ignores this reality and pursues wrongheaded politics regardless.

I would like to challenge this myth, while exposing the dangers of going too far the other way and pursuing only a politics based on the polls of the day. Continue reading →

On invoking the Holocaust in defence of Progress

Labour’s right appears to be panicking. That is the charitable explanation. No sooner had Paul Kenny suggested at the GMB congress that he supported a move to “outlaw Progress as part of the Labour Party” than Progress activists started to talk of a “purge“: “Seems the purges are about to start in the Labour Party! Odd, I always thought I’d be doing the purging”, said one. No matter that no-one had suggested expelling anyone. OK, it isn’t yet quite clear what Paul and the GMB have in mind but since the Left doesn’t want to expel Progress and its supports, it seems unlikely that the GMB does either — though they clearly feel very strongly about what Progress is trying to do in the party. But to make comparisons with the Holocaust? Continue reading →

Will the Luke Akehurst please

“Apologies for this note of sectarianism in the season of goodwill, but the price of electability is eternal vigilence.”

http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

The left should back off and stop smearing Labour’s hard-working staff. My complaint is the opposite – the daft code of conduct stops Labour staff doing their job. They should not be neutral referees. They should be able to promote the candidates and policies of the elected leadership of the party against their internal critics. Back in Morgan Phillips’ day as General Secretary or Herbert Morrison’s as London Regional Secretary there was none of this nonsense about neutrality, the party staff explicitly had a role in giving the left a kicking. Ah, the good old days!

What on earth is Progress up to?

I was a bit surprised and annoyed to see Progress (a moderate Labour magazine/political education organisation) giving publicity to this weekend’s Compass event in their latest email to members….

it seems odd that Progress would promote an event organised by a grouping/internal party faction whose objectives are so different to their own. My memory of the founding editorial board meeting of Progress (which ages me a bit …) was that Progress exists to ensure party members understand what the leadership is trying to do, whereas Compass exists to change the leadership and policy direction of the party.

I actually think Progress should be engaged in a branch-by-branch, CLP-by-CLP battle to expose the weaknesses in Compass’ analysis and marginalise them as an organisation.

It’s bad enough that some Government Ministers are giving credibility to this pernicious and subversive grouping by speaking at its event, let alone that the people who ought to be fighting them are publicising it.

I really take a strong objection to Compass’ constant undermining of the party and in particular the Prime Minister and think that all right-thinking people in the party should have absolutely nothing to do with them.links to this post

What has Trident got to with MPs

Being an old fashioned type I can’t agree with Jack Straw’s suggestion that MPs will get a vote on replacing Trident –http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5198708.stm

When did all this nonsense start?

Attlee and Bevin didn’t even tell MPs they were building an A-Bomb let alone consult them.

Whilst we don’t have a formal separation of powers in this country we do have different roles for Parliament and the Government – though some people are members of both bodies.

MPs are there to legislate and to scrutinise the executive.

The Government – as ministers of the “Crown” – are there to take non-legislative, executive decisions like do we have a new generation of strategic nuclear deterrent or do we go to war.

If MPs don’t like those decisions they can always remove the Government in a confidence vote.

It isn’t their job though to actually take part in Government decisions on matters of national security.

We seem to be drifting into an era of phoney “national debates” and “consultation” on key issues where what we ought to have is clear decisions that the electorate then judges at a general election.links to this post

of the Israel war against Gaza

According to Oona, Blair backed a “a disproportionate and bloody Israeli response to Hizbollah aggression” – strange that because whereas I did back the Israelis and wanted them to be able to carry on until Hizbollah had been destroyed, Blair has consistently said he wanted an early and sustainable ceasefire links to this postof Harriet Harman as Deputy Leader

in the unlikely event that she gets elected will the last person to leave the Labour Party please turn out the lights?
links to this post

of donald rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld and find the gloating at his resignation distasteful.

Why?

1) Well for a start off his strategy in Iraq was our Labour government’s too so if he’s such a bad/wrong person so are we – or at least everyone of us that supported the government line.

2) If you are going to have Republicans in power (and I’d rather we were now 6 years into an Al Gore Presidency) I would rather they were idealistic ones that believed in spreading democracy to the Middle East than Kissinger/Nixon style cynics practicising real-politik and focussed just on national self-interest rather than some higher ideological ends.

3) He’s the fall guy for his boss in the White House who in a European political system would be the one resigning after these elections.

4) He actually did the traditional job of Defense Secretary very well – overseeing two stunning military victories in Afganistan and Iraq in a matter of weeks – what he is being blamed for is the subsequent failiure to rebuild Iraq and of the US armed forces to peacekeep – neither of which traditionally were or should be core US military functions.

My hunch is history will say Rumsfeld made all of us a lot safer by destroying the Taliban/al-Qaeda base in Afghanistan and removing Saddam from power so he wasn’t around to refresh his WMD arsenal and marry it with N Korean missile technology.

There are a lot of Afghans and Iraqis (particularly Kurds and Shiites) who have a lot to thank him for.

Luke Akehurst departs Planet Earth

Luke Akehurst in spacesuit orbiting planet EarthI’ve found Luke Akehurst to be a friendly chap. He may be pretty sectarian in print and on the blogosphere, but as a leading light of the shadowy organisation, Labour First, he’s traditional Labour Right and at least seems to be at the right party unlike some of his Blairite friends in the Progress camp. But in his last couple of Blogs, he seems to be living on a different planet from me.

First, under the heading Sectarianism is alive and well on the Labour Hard Left, he attacks Michael Meacher (who unfailingly describes himself as centre-left) for daring to analyse the politics of the new Shadow Cabinet and for being trapped in the “early ’80s paradigm” of a divided party with “factional slates“. This is from the man who maintains the Labour First mailing list  for circulating right-wing slates, as he has readily admitted to me and others on Twitter. Continue reading →

The Nuclear Phallus

Luke Akehurst thinks Labour needs to take the side of ‘national security‘ in the debate around Trident renewal. I agree. However, Luke, like most proponents of nuclear weapons, is not on the side of national security. In fact, nuclear weapons, their existence and retention by all the ‘great powers’ (and some not so great) is a running sore of instability and national insecurity. What I find fascinating about this debate is that you can dress it up in all the fancy technical verbiage you like, it boils down to one thing — boys and their big shiny, destructive toys. Continue reading →