I am disappointed that Polly Toynbee appears to
swallow fully the Blairite agenda with her description of Jeremy Corbyn as a
"relic of the 1983 election", when Labour was destroyed by its "re-nationalise
everything suicide note" (Labour`s debate is leaden, but the next leader is
emerging,23/06/15). This description of Labour`s manifesto by the New Labourite,
Gerald Kaufman, is totally misleading, as it ignores the "hatchet job" done on
Labour`s then leader, Michael Foot, by the right-wing media, and also the facts
that the anti-Tory vote was almost evenly split between the SDP/Liberal
alliance and Labour, and that the Tory vote fell by 700,000. Toynbee is wrong
to dismiss Corbyn as the "outsider, not playing by the usual political rules";
look where following such rules has got Labour!
If such rules, as Toynbee says, forbid
Labour to "argue against Trident", they presumably also prevent support for any
form of re-nationalisation, despite its popularity in the polls, or of wealth
tax, or of strict regulation of the banks; anything, in fact, which copies or
resembles proposals from the 1983 manifesto. That same "suicide note" included
pledges to raise living standards by a minimum wage, to introduce a National
Investment Bank, and a Keynesian £11bn "programme of action". Many of the 1983 pledges were enacted, such as the Freedom of
Information Act, a ban on foxhunting,and devolution to Scotland and Wales, but,
of course, most were not, and the opportunity to prevent the disastrous
neoliberalism taking hold, and with it the inevitable rise in inequality, was
lost. Were the months prior to the 1983 election really, as the likes of Toby
Young suggest, the "days of delusion" for Labour?
Why should "monstrous £12bn benefit cuts" be
forgotten by 2020, especially by the 63% which did not vote Tory last May? A
Labour party misled into mimicking the Tories by its own right-wing, because
it fails to understand its own history, could well be writing its own "suicide
note", but this time, for real.
No comments:
Post a Comment