Pacts with Labour
I am glad that the Grauniad is now reporting that Ming has ruled out LibDems in Brown’s cabinet.
I do wonder what this has all been about. The mess with his spring conference speech and now this. Is this just poor handling or does someone have an agenda?
As far as I can see, those who’d benefit most would be the Tories, it would cause even more anti-Labour votes to go to them, but I don’t see how they could push this story. Perhaps there are some in the LibDems and Labour who’d like to see this sort of thing and they’re floating the idea, or it could be there’s people opposed to it who are leaking the idea in an attempt to halt any discussions.
Both these are unlikely as they both carry great risks and given the party’s apparent ineptitude in dealing with the media I’m tempted to say this was just a fuck up.
It will probably come as no surprise that such a deal would be a resigning matter for me. I am implacably opposed to the Labour party and its whole ideology, what is needed in British politics is not another centre-left party or Labour-lite, what is needed is a liberal party. Getting into bed with Labour (or for that matter the Tories) will not deliver this, it will just make us look like an attachment of the other party (particularly in the case of Labour).
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June 21st, 2007 at 1:13 pm
[...] Tristan Mills, Liberty Alone: ‘Pacts with Labour’ [...]
June 21st, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Why did Brown bother asking in advance? He should just have announced his full list of Ministers once he got in, including both a Lib Dem and a Tory in each department, and said that people who didn’t want the job were free to resign.
Those approached need to ask themselves what it is about them that Brown found so attractive politically. The Lib Dems also need to ask this about each of them, as well as what the point of their own party is if it is going to pass up offers of Ministerial office, even including at Cabinet level. Everyone needs to ask what the reply from Ashdown, never over-troubled by self-doubt, would have been if Brown had offered to make him Foreign Secretary; also, to consider that, just as Sarkozy gave the Foreign Ministry to Kouchner, the only prominent French Socialist to support the Iraq War, so Brown has tried to bring in Ashdown, a pioneering neocon cheerleader from the Yugoslavia days, and who recently surprised no one by coming out as holding the same views on Iraq.
The Tories need to ask themselves why nobody bothered to do try and do a deal with them (although I suspect that that would have been Phase Two, and might yet be Phase One And Only instead). Labour Party members need to ask themselves why not one of their number – MP, Peer, or able to be raised to the Peerage for the purpose – was deemed capable of doing any of the Ministerial jobs in question, including one at Bevan’s NHS. Labour MPs, in particular, need to ask why, at least where these particular positions (and how many more after this?) are concerned, the man whom they gave a clear run for Leader would rather have a Lib Dem Peer than ANY of them.
And we all need to ask ourselves and each other what we are doing to replace this whole sorry lot with proper parties and proper politicians, speaking and acting for us.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I’m not in favour of any arrangement with either of the two main illiberal parties nationally. Overall, due to a [historical] commitment to a social justice agenda Labour is the lesser evil for me personally.
Further seeing myself as being on the progressive wing of British politics any Westminster deal with the Tories would be a resigning matter for me. I share no common values, principles or aspirations with the Tories !