Labour Leadership

[Hugh]

Labour leadership is now in full swing, and it looks like Edward is the likely winner,
he certainly comes over well and could make a good prime minister.  Who would you like to see win the contest for the leadership contest? Me not being a Labour supporter, any one else will do.

[avalonmpk]

Bring back Gordon Brown he put his party  and this Country in the mire he should be there as a warning . . .

[Hugh]

G.Brown will not come back he like Blair lined himself up with a well paid job. I thought we had seen the back of him but no such luck he was back on the box the other day.

Any way good morning to all readers of the forum from sunny Mansfield.

[Papaumau]

The trouble with this contest is that all of the candidates are unknown quantities and it will be the ones that can carry the most support from the other members that will eventually win through.

Many of the solid back-benchers want to see a move away from Blair's idea of "New-Labour" as they see this as just a devalued copy of Toryism.

When the dust settles I guess we will see a resurgence of many of the old Labour values as the next Labour administration does NOT want to be tainted by what went before under Blair and Brown.

What I want as one individual is neither here nor there as it will be the grandees in the party that will reshape it's future.

[Ivanhoe]

Labour leadership is now in full swing, and it looks like Edward is the likely winner,
he certainly comes over well and could make a good prime minister.  Who would you like to see win the contest for the leadership contest? Me not being a Labour supporter, any one else will do.

It never ceases to amuse me working class people not being Labour supporters, because the Labour movement was formed to protect the lower orders ( working classes ) of Britain.

[Papaumau]

Good point Ivanhoe !

I agree that, just like Blair said, "We now live in a classless society" many people are now not prepared to admit that they are working class as they see this as some kind of a derogatory thing to admit to.

Because we now live in much more luxury than we used to many working people now consider themselves to be "middle class" and because of this situation there seems to be a large population that fancy themselves now to be better than the ordinary Joe.

Maybe if we started to realise where our roots are and where our allegiances should lie we would see more people voting for and supporting each-other rather than for some imaginary standard that just does not exist.

I am a well off ex civil-servant that came from nowt but I have never forgotten my roots and I am STILL proud to say that I am working class !

I wonder how many others can honestly say that ? 

[Ivanhoe]

////////// there seems to be a large population that fancy themselves now to be better than the ordinary Joe.//////

Precisely.  Hence the break up of Britaikn, class attitudes are rife.

[Hugh]

Labour leadership is now in full swing, and it looks like Edward is the likely winner,
he certainly comes over well and could make a good prime minister.  Who would you like to see win the contest for the leadership contest? Me not being a Labour supporter, any one else will do.

It never ceases to amuse me working class people not being Labour supporters, because the Labour movement was formed to protect the lower orders ( working classes ) of Britain.

Well Ivanhoe because I am a working class person in theory I should be better off under Labour but I was far worse off but when M. Thatcher came to power I should in theory be worse off but I found my self better off. In my shoes who would you vote for?

[Ivanhoe]

Hugh, I could never be you, even if I was as poor as a church mouse I would never vote Tory because I know what they are capable of, you clearly do not, and sadly you never will.

[Hugh]

Hugh, I could never be you, even if I was as poor as a church mouse I would never vote Tory because I know what they are capable of, you clearly do not, and sadly you never will.

Lets make this quite clear I have never ever voted for conservatives party. Just because I ended up better off under M. Thatcher it doesn't mean it will be the same this time round.
When Labour got in no one got what we expected. Country in a mess and two wars.
Your Vote and like minded people put a right wing labour party into power. Blair hood winked us.

I have now come to the conclusion its far better to ignore the party name and vote for the leader who I feel will run the country best for all.

[Ivanhoe]

/////I should be better off under Labour /////

I was under the impression that you mean't "traditional" Labour, not "New" Thatcherite Labour.

Since New Labour came to power in 1997, both the media and opposition parties at that time constantly refered to New Labour as Labour, when New Labour had nothing whatsover in common with "traditional" Labour.

[Hugh]

/////I should be better off under Labour /////

I was under the impression that you mean't "traditional" Labour, not "New" Thatcherite Labour.

Since New Labour came to power in 1997, both the media and opposition parties at that time constantly refered to New Labour as Labour, when New Labour had nothing whatsover in common with "traditional" Labour.

You and like minded people have the right to be bitter you voted for traditional labour and got Blair right wing labour. I was over seas at the time and missed the proxy form so i didn't vote so I have no right to complain. The big question is will there ever be a return to the old traditional labour party???  ?

[Ivanhoe]

/////I should be better off under Labour /////

I was under the impression that you mean't "traditional" Labour, not "New" Thatcherite Labour.

Since New Labour came to power in 1997, both the media and opposition parties at that time constantly refered to New Labour as Labour, when New Labour had nothing whatsover in common with "traditional" Labour.

You and like minded people have the right to be bitter you voted for traditional labour and got Blair right wing labour. I was over seas at the time and missed the proxy form so i didn't vote so I have no right to complain. The big question is will there ever be a return to the old traditional labour party???  ?

I hope so.

[Papaumau]

I think that is the point that we are coming to recognise here:

New-Labour IS NOT LABOUR, as it was originally designed to appeal to disaffected Tory voters. As much as I did not like Blair and his smarmy ways I have to give credit where credit is due as his re-design of the Labour Party certainly did make "Labour" re-electable again.

Now that most of the people see that this design was artificial they have reneged against "Labour" without realising that it was not actually "LABOUR" that they were reneging against.

I have heard the argument that during the Thatcher years some people felt better off but I have always thought that that feeling was based on propaganda rather than any real truths.

The Thatcherites in the old Tory government are still alive and kicking in the new Tory government, they are just better hidden than before. Be certain-sure that none of them give a damn about anybody that calls themselves "working class" and anybody that thinks they do are naive at best and dangerous to their own class at worst.