I hadn’t visited LabourList since shortly after the Damian McBride affair and Derek Draper’s resignation as editor. Suffering last night from a touch of insomnia, I thought I’d check it out to see how it was faring under the new direction of Alex Smith.
First impressions, frankly, weren’t good. The site still has the intensely boring red-type-on-white-background layout inherited from Draper. It looks dreary and unappealing, and if there is one thing that Smith should do, and urgently, it is to give it a makeover. He could do worse than take a gander at ConservativeHome to see how it should be done.
Subsequent impressions were no better, either. If LabourList (“Where Labour Minded People Come Together”) is anything to go by, the Labour state of mind at present is one of despair, confusion and paranoia.
First, the despair. That is made pretty clear by an article written by Alex Smith himself in the wake of Norwich North. The tone is that of Dad’s Army’s Private Frazer:
The magnitude of this defeat shows that this was more than just a protest vote and it was more than simply a reaction to the expenses crises – that excuse did not wash after June 4 and it will not wash this time.
Indeed, this was more than a response to the apparently unjust deselection of Ian Gibson. He, too, would have lost.
No, a swing of this proportion – not unlike the one to Labour in the Wirral in 1997 – is a sign of embedded culture change. It shows that the country is ready and willing – if not craving – to vote for a Tory government in substantial numbers.
Aye, we’re all doomed. Frankly, if it really is as bad as that, there’s not much point in Mr Smith carrying on.
But what can be done to turn things round?
There must be, Smith declares, a “full recalibration of our party’s policies and our party’s message” and a “more coherent and cohesive narrative” if Labour is to avoid a “huge and self-inflicted defeat”. In other words, he hasn’t a clue.
This provokes a variety of comments, possibly the bluntest (and most entertainingly perceptive) coming from Ricardo’s Ghost:
Brown’s paralysis (it’s beyond dithering) and cack-handed approach to policy (witness the humiliation of his reform package for MPs being ripped to shreds on the floor of the Commons) is having a debilitating effect on Labour. Nobody knows what Labour is about any more, what it wants to do for the country, what a vote for Labour gets you – and when I say nobody that includes the Ministers in the government. The great clunking fist is stumbling around and swinging wildly in the air.
Next, the confusion. This is provided by a blogger called “Societarian”, who is, in fact, a blogging collective comprised of “university graduates from non-selective state schools”, hence ethically impeccable, environmentally-friendly and probably gluten-free.
“Societarian” asserts that what Labour needs at this trying time in the party’s history is nothing less than a “new Clause IV”.
Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution, readers will recall, committed the party:
To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.
Tony Blair, after assuming Labour’s leadership, correctly identified the clause, which had been drafted by Sidney Webb in 1917, as incongruous in the modern, post-soviet era and a major obstacle to progress for the party. After considerable travails, horsetrades and negotiations, it was scrapped in 1995. Blair never looked back.
However, “Societarian” seems to think that that was, on reflection, a bit of a mistake:
In the past, one of the cornerstone (sic) which separated the Labour party from the others was the ideology wrapped up in Clause IV that set out the party‘s values and the methods by which we would achieve those values. Back then the goal of Labour was to secure the “full fruits” of what society produced as a whole for everyone within our society. And the means of obtaining that goal (or fruit) was the redistribution of the wealth produced by that society.
I have to say that, given the current state of disarray of the Labour party, the last thing it needs at the moment is a debate about what it stands for. The response of the average voter would very likely be: “If you don’t know that after twelve years in government, why should you expect us to take you seriously and vote for you?”
And finally, the paranoia. And I use the word advisedly.
This is provided in an extraordinary article by a Mr Dan McCurry, entitled Cameron’s Watergate (yes, really), which commences:
I’m never short of admiration for David Cameron as a campaigner. He has no policies, but he is a brilliant man for the way he has pulled his party around and made them so electable. But it just seems strange the way this rash of thefts and bugging has been happening since he’s been around.
No, honestly, I’m not pulling your legs. Do take a look at the entire, barmy piece and wonder at the sort of personality that could compose such conspiracy-theorising claptrap. And the judgment of an editor who could allow it to be published.
LabourList is an online distillation of the malaise that afflicts the wider Labour party at present. It is tired, bad-tempered and a bit weird. Whoever is funding it (itself an interesting question) should take a hard look at it and consider whether, under its present direction, it really is a suitable vehicle to help improve the party’s prospects of recovery.
The remarkably Eeyorish Bob Ainsworth, who is still Secretary of State for Defence, has today given a suitably defensive interview to the Telegraph.
The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war may yet blow up in the face of Gordon Brown, with collateral damage to his predecessor.
