The Wilted Rose

I was sitting marking some university coursework on the terrace of Starbucks on Botanic Avenue, Belfast today in the blazing sun, thinking for a moment that all is well with the world.  Then reality returned and I remembered that Labour is still in power, and floundering, and misgoverning the UK.  Its current policies on taxation affects everyone, even those of us ruled partly by a Devolved Administration…

So Alistair ‘he’s no’ Darling has backpedalled.  Brown’s latest u-turn still leaves 1.1m people worse off.

Labour just can’t admit its policy of abolishing the 10p tax band is plain wrong.  So, rather than reinstating the band, he tinkers with thresholds and still leaves over a million people, many of whom no doubt live in Crewe & Nantwich, worse off.  They’re unlikely to be voting Labour next Thursday.

What is the source of Labour’s ills?  My fellow Belfast blogger (although of a different political persuasion) Johnny Guitar sums it up pretty succinctly:

As Polly Toynbee commented in the Guardian on Monday, it was about “basic political competence” rather than abstract ideological concerns. For me though there is a strong connection between the lack of ideology in the New Labour project and the political incompetence which we have been witnessing in recent months.

Precisely what policies are required to turn around Labour’s fortunes I’ll leave for another post, though a quick u-turn from Mr Darling on a certain issue may be a good way to kick start things.

Back in 1995 Clause IV of the Labour constitution was amended to present the organisation as a “democratic socialist party” whose goal was to place “power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.” Barely a decade on and Gordon Brown’s current government is finding it impossible to live up to even the superficial sentiments expressed in that diluted statement of intent. Tony Blair once remarked that power without principle is barren but that principle without power is futile. Unless things change radically in the short term Labour will be a party with neither power nor principle.

In fact, people in Crewe have made it clear that they see through this latest Labour scam.