With Miliband and Balls at the helm, and the Daily
Mail waiting on the wings,the Labour party has changed, but, sadly, not in the
way Miliband`s Marxist father would have liked; New Labour may be in a long
overdue decline, but its replacement may as well be called the Lab-Lib Dem
party!
The evidence for this is clear to see, starting
with Miliband`s conference speech; despite Clegg having given him so many
reasons in his speech the previous week to go on the offensive, with his
spurious claims that he and his cronies, complicit in most things Cameron, had
prevented the Tories from passing right-wing legislation, Miliband refused to
take the bait. Instead, we hear of some centre-left policies, albeit welcome
ones in the form of ending the bedroom tax and freezing the prices of greedy and
profiteering energy companies. We are told, too, of a proposal to introduce a
mansion tax, an idea originally from the Lib Dem party! The message is clear!
The Labour party is filling the vaccuum left when the original Lib Dems sold
their soul to the Tory-led coalition. By doing this, of course, it appeases the
"suppering classes" of the marginal south-east seats, and paves the way for a
coalition with Clegg, should he and his power-at-any-costs
companions.
What we didn`t hear at the conference, and in the
weeks since, is even more revealing. If Miliband had spoken out against the
Royal Mail privatisation fiasco, and pledged the party to re-nationalisation
after the election, the City fat cats would not have been so keen to dip their
greedy paws into what always should be seen as a public-owned
institution.
Clearly, price-freezing energy prices, again a
centre-left populist move, didn`t go far enough; the announcement by SSE of an
8% price rise this week, no doubt merely a harbinger of more to come from the
other 5 energy companies, shows the need for nationalisation as the only means
of stopping endless greed.
Of course, this would seemingly be a step too far
for this Miliband, too worried by assertions from the likes of posh-boy Osborne
that he was part of a "communist plot". If he, with his background, cannot
defend himself against such obvious idiocy, he is in the wrong job.
Even with the united teaching unions carrying out
industrial action and demonstrations against Gove`s attempts to create a
two-tiered education system and a non-qualified "profession", Miliband stays
silent. His shuffling of his shadow cabinet was welcome, but will the teachers`
optimism be raised by the appointment of Tristram Hunt as shadow spokesperson
for education. Will he be seen at any of the demonstrations? Of course not.
Nothing, either, on moves to a more progressive
and fair tax system; we hear opposition against the tax reductions for the super
rich, but why should the very rich escape scot-free from any increase? Aren`t
people earning three times the national average deemed to be rich by this Labour
party? Isn`t there a real case to be made for a new income tax band of 45% for
the £75-149,0000 earners? Of course there is, but it`s not going to
happen.
How can it, when Miliband`s party is one dedicated
to being centre-left and more Lib Dem than Clegg ever was?
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