Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Lost Leader

Gordon Brown has no luck. He will now need to call another by-election in a Scottish constituency - the one next door to his own. A Labour colleague, who had a majority of just over 10,000, just died following a long battle with cancer. He could well find himself under real pressure when Labour looses this seat, just it lost in Glasgow.

Its looking more and more serous for Labour. They are covering up their leadership crisis and hoping that they can muddle through. They won't. Its like lemmings marching in unison towards the cliff edge. Leaderless and in denial, the party struggles with its identity and its role.

The Spectator's Fraser Nelson wrote a piece (see the 2nd August edition) suggesting that Labour could be in the wilderness for a very long time, replaced by the Liberal Democrats as the second part. He notes strong parallels with the collapse of the Liberal Party - once the natural party for government. Lets hope he is wrong - there are good people with serious intent inside the party.

But "new" labour has failed. Its social investments haven't led to the kind of change they promised and the party itself is both rudderless ands broke. Its time for a radical change within the party and a change of its social policies.