Why I didn't vote Labour

Tom Harris MP Fri May 30, 2008 at 10:41:29 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

BBC Parliament’s repeat today of the 1983 General Election results brings into sharp focus some of the arguments being put forward by some party members in response to our party’s current difficulties. If you want to know what happens when a party ignores the wider electorate, tune in to Sky channel 504.




I was a floating voter in 1983. I had used my vote for the first time a year earlier at the regional council elections to support the sitting Labour councillor, Jimmy Jennings. But by the time the general election came round, and despite pleadings from my parents to stick with Labour, I was utterly fed up with the party, its ludicrous defence policy, its renationalisation policy, its policy of withdrawal from Europe. And although I had some respect for Michael Foot, let’s just say I was unimpressed with his potential as prime minister.

In subsequent years, having joined the Labour Party, I was reluctant, for obvious reasons, to confess to comrades that I had voted SDP. But when Tony Blair and New Labour arrived, I realised there was nothing wrong in admitting, not only that Labour didn’t win my vote, but that Labour didn’t deserve my vote. And although there’s no prospect of our going down that self-destructive, arrogant, self-absorbed road ever again, 1983 should nevertheless stand as a reminder - or a warning - of what happens when parties start excluding part of the nation from their conversation.

 

Visit Tom's blog. 



tags: , (all tags)

Display: Sort:
Why I didn't vote Labour | 39 comments (39 topical)

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#1)

by grimupnorth on Fri May 30, 2008 at 12:08:43 PM GMT

What  a piece of  arrogant tosh. I can tell you  that I   also wouldn't be voting  Labour if Tom Harris were my MP. And exactly what  purpose is this  post serving? To remind us how  fantastic New Labour are? It only serves to remind me how    the Party has been hi-jacked  by a bunch of right-wingers who have no  interest  at all in socialist values. They called the 1983  manifesto the "longesr suicide  note in history." I think history will show New Labour's  is  stil being written - sadly at  our expense. "Self-destructive, arrogant, self-absorbed" Yep, just about sums the Blairites/Brownites up


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#27)

by NorthernMonkey on Fri May 30, 2008 at 08:51:15 PM GMT

Oh do you mean, as opposed to 1980-1983 when the party was hijacked by far-left Militants who would quite happily have destroyed the party as long as they could force the party to follow their extreme views?

I agree with what Tom says - the Labour party in 1983 was in a poor state. I suspect there are many Labourites today who would not have supported Labour back then. Shows how far we've come. And we're all the better because of it.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#2)

by doctordunc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 12:16:46 PM GMT

Well thanks Tom.

I voted Labour when the government was slaughtering Iraqis and Afghans, because I've kept faith with the labour movement and believed it would one day turn us back into being a decent party I could be proud of.

When I read posts like this, it brings into sharp focus who the real loyalists are.

Only my tribal Labourist loyalty stops me from hoping you lose your seat!


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#17)

by jkitleft on Fri May 30, 2008 at 05:04:37 PM GMT

I think it's a bit harsh to say that the government are the ones who have been slaughtering the Afghans and Iraqis, but I agree we should leave. But lets leave this issue for another post.

I agree, it is really terrible to see people denouncing anything other than New Labour. I think the original New Labour, led by (and I know the prefix had not been added) Smith and Kinnock, had some interesting ideas. But it's the triangulation that I can't stand. Thanks to Blair, discussions on the issue of crime has been driven into a right-wing ditch, as have civil liberty issues.


I wouldn't mind New Labour, if I knew what their political philosophy was. Someone is going to say 'progress', 'forward not back', 'fairness', 'fighting social injustice' etc. But all parties believe they are adapting these slogans to their philosophy. The phrases are apolitical.

What do they stand for?


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#3)

by nickc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 12:17:24 PM GMT

Well I agree with Tom. I didn't vote Labour in 1983 either. It's ridiculous to compare new Labour with the 1983 manifesto - at least new Labour gave us 3 consecutive election victories - 1983 gave us sod all.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#4)

by Free Radical on Fri May 30, 2008 at 12:26:32 PM GMT

Yes, Tom. And Paul had a revelation on the road to Damascus, and St Augustine came to regret the excesses of his youth.

And I didn't vote Labour when Blair blocked Livingstone's candidature as London Mayor. Along with thousands of members no doubt.

At a time when the party faces real challenges one might hope that an MP might be trying to rebuild the great coalition of the centre-left that our party needs to be.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#5)

by doctordunc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 12:45:05 PM GMT

Actually, although I responded in anger to this message, I actually think we should - despite it coming from an MP - treat it like a "troll" message.  It can be designed for no purpose other than to be divisive.  I say this, because I was about to reply to nickc and then just caught myself and though 'why?'  Why have a massive row about an election 25 years ago?

I advise ignoring it.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#28)

by NorthernMonkey on Fri May 30, 2008 at 08:56:53 PM GMT

It was a perfectly sensible post and it would be appropriate for people to understand why so many people were turned off by Labour in 1983 and why we needed to change to win back our natural coalition of supporters.

Whether you agree or disagree with him, Tom's post was mature and sensible. It's clearly stimulated some debate anyway.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#6)

by alexhilton on Fri May 30, 2008 at 12:58:33 PM GMT

I have only ever voted labour - though the advent of second preferences has given me something to think about in recent years - and I have used my second preferences for other parties

Not least, Ken Livingstone was my second preference to Frank Dobson in the first London Mayoral election - and while I wanted Ken to win, I felt a responsibility to Frank.

I have never sought to criticise those Labour Party members who gave Ken their first preferences in that election, nor those who campaigned for him.

But you have to go back nearly another 20 years before you get to the 1983 election that was the last time Tom voted against Labour.

I think the idea of a young man voting in a general election for the first time, a man with no party affiliation at the time, is something we shouldn't judge harshly.

Tom is clearly not saying that he would again consider voting any way other than Labour. He is saying that we mustn't become a party that our natural supporters find unsupportable.

I was 7 years old in 1983, though I did leaflet, not least because my mother was the Candidate in Wanstead & Woodford.

Those people who went to the SDP, they thought they were saving left wing politics - and many of those people are now back in the Labour Party.

We have to make sure that the Labour Party is the engine for 21st century progressive socialism, not an impediment.

And that seems like a fair enough argument to me.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#7)

by doctordunc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 01:05:54 PM GMT

I'm not going to judge how he voted in '83 - people make all sorts of mistakes.  But he is saying he was right not to vote Labour, and that Labour didn't deserve his vote.  Which is deliberately designed to bait people like me.  And then when I bite (which I did) it can be grist to the mill of 'look they want to take us back to 1983'.  It's grubby, divisive politics at a time when we should be all working together.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#9)

by otware on Fri May 30, 2008 at 01:13:56 PM GMT

I actually agree with a lot of this. I too think that we shouldn't have a go at Tom for voting SDP (I know how hard it is to decide the first time you vote). What I find to repugnant is the way that he boats about not voting for Labour.

What I want to know is how did somebody with obviously such little respect for Labour values come to be not only a Labour MP - but a minister! 


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#10)

by doctordunc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 01:16:39 PM GMT

It's worth bearing in mind that 8,456,934 people voted Labour in 1983 (despite the SDP) and if Labour get that many votes in 2010 we will have recovered indeed (and would almost certainly win).  Tom is right that there's a problem if we stop having a conversation with people - unfortunately, an awful lot of those 8 and a half million people, and lots of young radicals as evidenced here and elsewhere, feel we've stopped having a conversation with them.  Further idiotic demonisations of '83 just reinforces that.  There were many problems in '83 - Thatcher and the Falklands factor; front-bench people going on telly saying they wouldn't actually do what was in the manifesto, etc, etc. - but it was 25 years ago.  What are you going to do about the people you're excluding from the conversation now, Tom?  Or will you just snipe at ghosts from the past; be a spiteful, disloyal, anti-Labourite and lose?


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#11)

by otware on Fri May 30, 2008 at 01:30:27 PM GMT

Labour will certainly lose if it allows itself to be controlled by the likes of Tom Harris.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#20)

by snowflake5 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 05:25:11 PM GMT

The reason Labour got as many votes as it did despite the SDP was because Michael Foot was brilliant over the Falklands war, immediately and instinctively supporting the fight to get it back - indeed forcing Thatcher into action by calling an emergency session of parliament that left Thatcher telling her generals "my job is on the line".

The SDP took a different line, dismissing the war as irrelevant - and it cost them votes, and ensured that Labour polled more than they did.

Dear old Michael Foot will always have to his credit that by being instinctively patriotic he ensured that Labour held it's core vote and didn't collapse as predicted by all and sundry. You could say in a funny way, he ensured Labour survival despite the treachery of the SDP.

People always seem to underestimate how gung-ho Labour voters are (and I say this as someone who opposed Iraq). It explains why Labour won in 2005. I believe this gung-ho nature of voters is also part of the reason that Labour won so big in 1945 - voters recalled how the Tory party voted en masse for Appeasement, with only Labour MPs voting against. Churchill for all his grandstanding, merely abstained, (which given the importance of that vote makes him more of a wuss than the Labour rebels on the Iraq war - but of course most of what we know of Churchill's heroics was written by himself after the event to paint himself in a good light!). But at the end of that grim world war, voters were going by their actual memory and experience, not glittery memoirs, and they cleared the Tory appeasers out of parliament.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#8)

by otware on Fri May 30, 2008 at 01:06:44 PM GMT

 

I voted Labour for the first time on May 1st despite people like you. I thought "maybe the candidate is left wing".

 

It's shocking to think that you're a Labour MP and a minister! If you were standing in my constituency I wouldn't vote for you, after what you've said here and after all of the crap from New Labour.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#12)

by Tom Harris MP on Fri May 30, 2008 at 01:34:37 PM GMT

Well, gosh! I genuinely didn't expect or intend my post to ellicit such an angry response. I joined the Labour Party in 1984, inspired by Neil Kinnock's determination to make Labour relevant again. Of course now I am utterly tribal and would never contemplate voting anything other than Labour, but that experience in 1983 has given me an insight into how floating voters think. I'm surprised at such anger against a first-time voter (and non-Labour Party member) deciding objectively that Labour didn't deserve his vote.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#15)

by otware on Fri May 30, 2008 at 02:39:05 PM GMT

The reason people are angry is that you are boasting about how you refused to vote for the left, but you offer no solutions other than rallying around New Labour. You are basically taking a swipe at legitimate Labour opinion to score a point whilst offering no solutions to Labour's problems. It confirms my suspicions that government ministers care more about their petty point-scoring and imediate future than the growth of the Labour movement with its progressive agenda. What does swiping at left wing opinion do other than further alienate the core vote, and lead to further decline and stagnation in the party?


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#21)

by snowflake5 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 05:29:45 PM GMT

Well obviously as a new floating voter, you just went by what was in manifestos, and it's a good point to raise as activists forget how voters view things.

People are angry about the SDP, because they see them as traitors (especially as some boasted after the event they deliberately voted for Foot to wreck the labour party, before they left to found the SDP).

You write with approval about Tony Blair - but what makes Blair a Labour hero, as opposed to an SDP hero, is that he stuck with Labour during the dark times, when he could have easily scarpered off and joined the apparently rising party.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#13)

by jane18 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 02:04:26 PM GMT

I am older than Tom Harris and very well remember this election when the Labour Party left many of us out in the cold.  Some of their policies were simply outrageous and it was right they were trounced at the poll.  The SDP at that time represented the views of moderate labour supporters and Shirley Williams et al were respected by the public and many labour party members.  Michael Foot was a great orator and kindly man but a disastrous leader - an embarrassment too for those of us who supported the party.

Why should one slavishly support a party that is totally out of touch with aspiration and whose policies one does not agree with?  The days of supporting a party that ones parents supported are over and we should all recognise that after the local and Crewe bye elections. People who had supported the Labour Party for years abandoned them because they were unhappy with tax policy.  The Conservatives  (now) and Labour Party know that to win an election you have to hold the centre ground  even though many party activists are either left or right.  The majority of the electorate are not committed to any political party and if you want to govern you have to address their wishes and needs.  As one who remains £112 a year worse off under the tax changes (despite increased allowance) I can tell you that I am sympathetic to those who abandoned labour in the past few months! 


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#14)

by doctordunc on Fri May 30, 2008 at 02:25:18 PM GMT

The SDP were a bunch of splitters.  They attained their high political status and well-paid jobs on the back of the Labour movement, which they then went on to kick in the teeth.  It doesn't matter how many reasonable things the likes of Shirley Williams might say now, she'll always be a traitor.  Our only comfort can be that, despite massive media endorsement, their party was a failure.  And not the best advert for the argument that gravitating to the centre is the only way to win elections.

Jane - I'm sympathetic to people who abandoned us in the past few months too.  That was this year, not 25 years ago, and so is acutely relevant.

Why should one slavishly support a party whose policies one does not agree with?  That's a fair question to pose, especially to somebody like me, who has found it increasingly difficult to hihglight policies I agree with.  Why?  Not because of how parents voted, etc. but because of the history, the might and the potential of this movement.  We are so much bigger than one government, or one parliament, or one manifesto.  Tony Blair or Gordon Brown are just unfortunate footnotes in a history of progress and social justice.    So while it is that party, I will continue to support it, though I will continue to oppose those policies that need to be opposed, and will keep fighting to change the party's trajectory.

And none of that has anything to do with 1983.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#29)

by NorthernMonkey on Fri May 30, 2008 at 09:19:04 PM GMT

If the likes of Bob Crow came crawling back to the Labour party, I bet you wouldn't call them 'traitors'.

The fact is we needed SDP voters to come back to us or we would never win elections again. By calling them traitors, you're just alienating a good proportion of our natural voters.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#32)

by jkitleft on Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 01:55:19 PM GMT

Bob Crow is a nasty piece of work. But he has NEVER been a member of Labour. Even during the dark years.


It isn't the SDP voters per se. There are some who are genuine social democracts, like Polly Toynbee. But it was the fact that several SDP MP's admitted to intentionally voting for Foot, to wreck the party.


Ironically, just as many extreme Bennites did in the 80's, New Labour are forgetting the core voters too. We have broken the coalition that gets us elected. So while I disagree with the direction the Militant Tendancy took Labour in, New Labour also needs to focus on the core consituencies being alienated.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#34)

by doctordunc on Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 03:52:32 PM GMT

I didn't say that of SDP voters.  Let's leave the straw men at the door shall we?

And if SDP members came back to the party and made good contributions, I would be delighted - it wouldn't right off what they did though.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#16)

by Redflag85 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 03:09:58 PM GMT

Jane,

"Why should one slavishly support a party that is totally out of touch with aspiration and whose policies one does not agree with? "

 Hardly slavish support just to vote.

I vote for Labour all the time, and disagree with plenty of policy, because I am Labour. 


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#18)

by snowflake5 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 05:06:09 PM GMT

I was too young to vote in 1983, but from everything I have read about the Labour party, it becomes increasingly clear that the 1983 Labour party was an abberation in Labour history. Yet we've somehow allowed the press to portray Labour circa 1983 as "true Labour".

eg It was Atlee who started our nuclear program in 1947and Wilson who bought Polaris in 1963. Blair and Brown in renewing Trident are simply in line with those previous Labour PMs. But the 1983 Labour party was anti-nuclear.

You can go on and on showing examples that the Labour movement has always been pragmatic and centrist - apart from in 1983, when we came close to disaster.

There is one final funny thing about 1983 - the extreme parts of the Conservatives seem to be adopting some of that manifesto - eg they want to come out of Europe, they've been ambivalent about nuclear (with Zac Goldsmith wanting to halt all nuclear power stations and Portillo arguing against Trident). All of this gives me great hope, because Labour remains more sensible than the Tories on these things!


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#19)

by Free Radical on Fri May 30, 2008 at 05:12:13 PM GMT

Many people don't realise that we have a duty under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to work towards our own nuclear disarmament.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#33)

by jkitleft on Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 02:10:27 PM GMT

t might suprise you, with the notion that I'm gung-ho myself, to find that I think disarmament is key. I don't think it would've been desirable during the Cold War. The allusion of MAD kep the powers from nuking each other. But proliferation is no longer about West vs. East. It is about smaller, isolated conflicts. India against Pakistan, Israel against Iran, North Korea against Japan etc. This makes non-proliferation more necessary.

John Kerry has estimated that it would cost £8 billion, as opposed to the (estimated)£76 billion spent on Trident, to store uranium from collapsing nuclear power stations across the globe. Even our safety measures are- for want of a better word- shit. We don't keep basic safety measures, like having secret launch codes. Trident is making us less, not more safer.

Also, the ostensibly pacifist Japan, has an alternative option. They have the design teams, and the capability to build a nuclear bomb within 6 months-2 years. But they don't actually have the weapons. We won't just turn round one day to find that nuclear war has suddenly broken out between Israel and Iran, the world situation woulkd heat up. If that was the case, we could build a nuclear bomb.


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#22)

by madasafish on Fri May 30, 2008 at 05:31:27 PM GMT

I remember 1983. I remember the nutters in British Leyland on the union side who helped a useless management ruin the company (not that it needed much ruining). I remember Militant who basically drove Liverpool City Council into virtual bankruptcy. I remember Michael Foot as a Leader who had NO idea of what he was doing.

Frankly in my opinion it is wrong - indeed arrogant - to criticise Tom Harris for not voting Labour then . Indeed for Labour to poll as many votes as it actually did shows the strength of Labour support for a party - which if it had won power- would have screwed the country up worse than any Government post war cos they were clearly hopelessly incapable of running the country.

If you believe in voting for the same party all the time irrespective of their policies, leaders and competence, then good luck.  You'll need it. Cos eventually you will end up with a leader who looks incompetent, acts incompetently and ruins the Party.

I am a Conservative supporter. After the shambles of the Major administration, I voted LibDem to help oust the people in power - cos they were clearly unfit to be in power.



Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#23)

by Tom Harris MP on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:06:42 PM GMT

Okay, this will be my last word on this particular subject - promise. Some of the people who have commented here have only read about 1983. Others lived through it. In 1983, I was unemployed, as were my father and my sister. We lived in a council estate in one of the poorest areas of the country. And let me assure you that when, every second Tuesday, I went to the labour exchange to sign on, it was no consolation tome or the hundreds of others in the queue to know that a future Labour government would abolish Trident. At a time when the country's poorest needed Labour most, the Labour Party started talking exclusively with itself, indulging its own pet subjects and obsessing with issues that were of no relevance to the electorate. I don't need to justify or prove my loyalty to the Labour Party any more than anyone who's commented here. But if anyone thinks that retreating into a comfortable little left-wing cul-de-sac is going to benefit the people who really need a Labour government, then they really should pay more attention to the 1983 election results.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#26)

by jljb2 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:08:30 PM GMT

I totally agree that many elements of the 1983 manifesto were self-indulgent - but there's a middle ground to be had surely, between Bennism and Blairism? Neither have done anything substantial for our core voters, one because it was too inward-looking, the other because it was too unambitious. I don't accept that those are the only choices we have - if I did, I would not be in the Party. We CAN help our core voters, and really change society, with majority support - we don't have to 'sell out' as we have done since 1997. Why do you people persist in saying we do?


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#24)

by Tankist on Fri May 30, 2008 at 06:51:55 PM GMT

I was too young to vote in 1983 (17) though I worked my guts off for the party. I came away from that election hating the SDP and all its leaders.

But when I look back on it now I wonder how we got any votes at all!

I'm not defending voting SDP, no way. But the ludicrous comments - especially the first one here - show why the hard left should never be allowed anywhere near the Labour Party's driving seat ever again.

 

Imagine of Tony Benn had won the deputy leadership in 1981. We'd have been destroyed.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#25)

by jljb2 on Fri May 30, 2008 at 07:04:39 PM GMT

"1983 should nevertheless stand as a reminder - or a warning - of what happens when parties start excluding part of the nation from their conversation."

Whereas now we're 'including' a massive 24% of the population! And we're almost certainly going to win less votes at the next election than we did in 1983 - even if we win. That's progress for you. Sticking your head in the sand is only going to cost your colleagues their jobs Mr Harris - for pity's sake stop living in 1997 and recognise that New Labour has failed: both in policy terms, and in terms of building a stable, lasting coalition behind Labour values.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#30)

by bigpapi on Sat May 31, 2008 at 09:50:09 PM GMT

1983 was the first year I was eligible to vote, and I didn't follow politics to any great extent; I had some Labour tradition in my family - my Uncle had been a Labour Councillor and Town Mayor, but I did know, as a disabled person, that I had a champion in Jack Ashley who was my MP.  If he had joined the SDP (and I know from talking to him since that he came under heavy pressure to do so) I would have voted SDP.

I'm glad Tom said 1983 though, because by 1987 I was an active Party member, and went to vote for Jack for the last time with two broken legs and a broken arm - now if Tom hadn't voted Labour then, I would have been mad!

(Oh and as somebody who has had dealings with Tom in his Ministerial capacity, I've found him to be one of the most helpful of all the Ministers since 1997).


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#31)

by Phil K on Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 01:35:43 PM GMT

Find it amusing that some of the arrogant lefties are accusing him of arrogance !

The misnamed "left" and their demands are causing more and more people to angrily turn from Labour.

Where I work there is a growing anti-Labour attitude, names used have been the "Unlimited Immigration Party" and "Minorities first, rest nowhere party"

I think Mr harris has it spot on.

The tail has wagged the dog in this party for too damn long.

Personally, I think the damage goes too deep, and for too long for any damage-limitation to succeed. 


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#35)

by fluffymike on Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 12:27:48 PM GMT

Labour had as much chance as winning in 1983 as the Tories did in 2001.

And that was the case regardless of leader or manifesto in both cases.

The media decided they wanted a two-term tory govt and made sure they got one - just like they decided in 2001 that New Labour would get a second term...

Anyone trying to denigrate what was actually a very strong manifesto should read Michael Foot's account of the election 'Another Heart and Other Pulses' - very interesting.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#36)

by ComradeNorton on Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 06:55:52 PM GMT

I know you are a politican (and therefore think that we are all interested in every minute thought that pops into your head) but: whilst there are some things that you may think if in doubt, say nout. 

Deep down everyone knows that when we move to the left we become unelectable and just allow the conservatives to become more extreme.  It is a bit simplistic I know but in a battle over appealing to base instincts over common sense the tories right wing position, over our "class-war", is always going to win because to you expect a tory to act like a s**t.

However, it is one thing to think it, its another to rub the noses of some people in your own party in it. 

Just get on with your job as a minister and try (along with upir colleagues) to stop being so useless.


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#37)

by ComradeNorton on Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 06:59:07 PM GMT

that should be your colleagues

(not upir which demonstrates that I can touch type but not check whether that typing was any good).

It still remains good advice to not be useless (may come in handy if you happen to run into Gordon and he asks for your suggestion).


[ Parent ]

Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#38)

by AlanJi on Mon Jun 02, 2008 at 11:03:17 PM GMT

Its never good to be bad-tempered or rude about the other person's experience or point of view.

"Militant" never lead the Labour Party anywhere, although they did get 3 MPs (Fields, Nellist and Wall).

1983 was the worst year since 1968. But in my constituency it was rather different. We were the only CLP in London to drop a sitting MP and run a new candidate. As a result, we met people who had voted for the first time in years. But we also met people who said they might have voted Labour if we were lead by Denis Healy rather then by Michael Foot.

And leaping forwards a few years, surely Tony Blair's famous comments about crime were a turn to the left?


Re: Why I didn't vote Labour (#39)

by syd4444 on Tue Jun 03, 2008 at 11:50:28 PM GMT

I turned my back on the Labour Party in 1997, having canvassed to get them elected. I'd been a party member for about 12 years. The crunch came when Gordon Brown made a speech saying that local authority workers would have to accept inflation or less than inflation rises for the foreseeable future. This was said after MP's awarding themselves a 26% increase in their wages. After 11 years of Labour, I've received my inflation wage rises and I've watched as my pay has  decreased and I am slowly moving backwards to reach the minimum wage. I've watched the gap between rich and poor get even wider. Things can only get better, well Mr Brown I'm still waiting! During the Tory years I remember things like the imcome tax allowances changing during the budget. That used to help a bit, and believe it or not during the 18 years the tories were holding local authority workers to inflation wage rises, in 1988 or there abouts we got a wage correction of more than inflation. Don't get me wrong Labour have done this too, but only the MP's got the rise.
I could be tempted back to Labour but they will have to take a reality check. Low wages and high taxes don't mix.


Why I didn't vote Labour | 39 comments (39 topical)