Greybeard incompetence

oratorhunt Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 03:22:44 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

How come Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon have suddenly become the official repositories of the party's better judgement?

It's this pair of jokers that convinced Brown not to go for the election last October - ever since which he's been seen as a "bottler", a coward, a ditherer.  Had we had it then, there's every chance we could have could the Tories off the guard (prior to the Ashcroft money getting to work) and given them hell.  The idea that the economy was going to get better if we waited was lunacy!

They only got top jobs by being craven yes-men, useful idiots that would toe the line of whoever was at the top.  Well, it's time to boot out the old guard along with the Blairite ultras and have some people with imagination, political judgement and public respect instead. 





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Greybeard incompetence | 3 comments (3 topical)

Re: Greybeard incompetence (#1)

by otware on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 03:30:08 PM GMT

Yes definetly. The great crime of Blair's long premiership was that he didn't promote young ministers and his clique was put in complete control. As such we have a leadership vacuum with Miliband being really the only cabinet-level possibility.

In the Attlee cabinet left and right were represented, Morrison and Bevan for example. Under Wilson you had Jenkins and Castle. But now there is no space in the cabinet for those who don't toe the New Labour centre-right line. 


Re: Greybeard incompetence (#2)

by Free Radical on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 05:22:27 PM GMT

This is very true.

In Wilson's cabinet there were about eight or so towering talents who could have easily been prime minister - Benn, Healey, Crossman, Crossland, Castle, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, Callaghan - what do we have now? I don't know whether the general standard of MPs has fallen since that post-war generation, for whom politics was all too real, not just a route to a nice career, or whether, as you say, Blair simply did not develop people. Probably both. Eleven years of top-down Blairite control-freakery has reduced our democratic party to this abyss of cynicism and personality politics. At the deputy leadership contest two things stood out for me: firstly that the standard of the candidates was poor and secondly that, nevertheless, it was refreshing to actually here some political discussion and unspun politics.

The question is, what to do now? The party needs rebuilding from the bottom upwards. And it will take some time.

I was with two comrades - party members - last night and we were all in some despair, not about Brown or who should lead the party (though heavens Brown has been unimpressive) but about what the party stands for now. You can't inspire a party by triangulating to the right. If I were not actually a member I would maybe not vote Labour simply over the 42 days legislation. People close to me have left over civil liberties.

Milliband's statement that NHS reform should have proceeded faster was contemptible - trying to out-Tory even Gordon Brown. The idea of Milliband and Johnson as some kind of "dream ticket" is laughable - it would have about as much chance of success as the original dream ticket of Kinnock and Hattersley.


[ Parent ]

Re: Greybeard incompetence (#3)

by Tankist on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 03:18:34 PM GMT

What utter rubbish.

Let's deal with the history first: Bevan wasn't in Attlee's Cabinet at the end of the government because he (along with Harold Wilson) quit. Collective responsibility applied just as much in Attlee's day (when people like you would have and did denounce him as a sell-out) as today.

At the end of Attlee's time in office the debate was between the "consolidators" (broadly the social democrats) and the "socialists" - the left lost and took their bat and ball home helping to give us 13 years of Tory misrule.

On Blair: the list of young ministers promoted - Cooper, Balls, McFadden, Miliband E, Miliband D, Kelly, Milburn (was the youngest member of the Cabinet for a long time), Murphy, Leslie, etc, etc etc

Who are the people he was supposed to promote but didn't?


[ Parent ]

Greybeard incompetence | 3 comments (3 topical)