The Long Game

-


My political party - Labour (lifelong and unswerving) - is in a tailspin that could result in its dilution, dissipation and ultimately its destruction, and the fault lies not with Jeremy Corbyn's brief tenure as leader, as so many misguided critics allege; but in its current denial of the core of its principles and a desire to please all of the people all of the time. After the party decided to go with the media flow and oust Corbyn (whose manifesto pledges have ironically, by and large, have been taken up by the Tory government!), I voted for the current leader as the best alternative available, having a good legal brain and a calm demeanour, in complete contrast to our frankly unhinged and dangerously feckless Prime Minister. I still believe Kier Starmer to be a potentially able leader and even a future Prime Minister, but he is missing the path that Labour currently needs to be following.

The Tories have an unassailable majority: fact. They will not be removed any time soon: fact. They will almost certainly be a full-term government: fact. Attempting to win a media popularity contest by seeking the counsel of the likes of Blair and Mandelson is just a vain attempt to attract some of the 'shine' that won Labour power in 1997. That was then, this is now: it won't work now and can't work now. The simple fact is that this PM and his lickspittle cabinet of losers are getting away with blue murder, and have the remit under which to do so for as long as this current parliamentary term lasts. Labour needs Tory dirt (which is there in abundance for all to see), a Tory-like level of deviousness, and a strategist with a team of top-notch researchers & PR people, to put pressure on the government through a concerted dirty tricks campaign so that when the time comes, the reckoning will be ours, not theirs. Simple as.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more