Friday 7 November 2014

When in a deep hole - stop digging ...

The problem for Labour is Ed Miliband is not a leader in any recognisable sense of the word or concept. Blair was a leader; manipulative, self agrandising and dictatorial but at least he had a clear sense of what he wanted to do and the wit to combine charm and threat to achieve it. Brown was not a leader because Gordon Brown was (and is) only interested in Gordon Brown. The Scotch Branch will have the same problem with Jim Murphy as the Labour Party had with Gordon Brown for exactly the same reasons. Jim Murphy is not a leader in any real sense because fear and threats can only take you so far when at the core, you are rotten.

The Labour Party currently appears to be run by committee insistent on creating a three legged camel with no humps. A party with no other idea than to do the same as the Tory Party, call it something different which their 'focus groups' think is 'cool' and continue its ever rightward drift in pursuit of the Tories and UKIP.

Maybe what we are seeing at this juncture in UK Westminster politics is the stultifying effect and impact of three decades of 'career' politicians where even a Farage can look appealing. This is about to get worse as Labour prepares to shoe horn familial dynasties into safe Westminster seats in such a blatantly incestuous manner. Labour is far too cosy with itself and its failing political machine.

First they need to identify someone who has leadership qualities - the ability to get ordinary people, to do extraordinary things, in an ordinary way. There in lies the problem for Labour across the UK - the MP's are all just followers, party machine apparatchiks, no flair, no vision, no chutzpah. Selected for their blandness and lack of threat to the small central cabal who 'own' Labour, to simply spout what they have been told to spout. 

Only now, when P45's are looking ever closer for the Labour drone MPs, does a sense of self preservation cut in and having coasted along for four years picking up the pay and expenses do they take any sort of look at their current leadership. The current panic going on on Labour's back benches about the safety of their own sinecures is too little, too late.

Maybe instead of hating the SNP for taking their toys away in Scotland, Labour could do to learn from the SNP before Labour loses Wales and the North of England too.

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