Posted 3:23 PM by Paul
Now He Has Gone Just Too Far

Blair has just announced a "Personal Crusade Against Crime" and " and end to the Social Liberal Consensus of the 1960s".  Leaving aside the fact that the word Crusade has roughly equivalent connoations to a Moslem as the word Pogrom does to a Jew,  this shows an marked increase religious rhetoric in Blair's policy pronouncements.   Worst still,  it has also just been revealed that he is off on holidays again to Sir Cliff Richard's paradise hideaway in Barbados.  I suspect Sir Cliff joins the Blair family for a sing-song by the pool in the evening.

The proximity to one of Britain's best known celibates and evangelical Christians is clearly having an effect on the PM.  he is even starting to look like the ageing popster. It is only a matter of time before he will announce that "The Millennium Prayer" has replaced The Red Flag as the song which will close Labour Party conference, which will be renamed the Labour Family Prayer Meeting.  Maybe he will start to speak in tongues at PMs Question Time when Charles Kennedy rises to speak.  Get thee behind me Liberal Satan!  In 1997 millions of people voted for a modern optimistic version of Social Democracy and ended up with Mary Whitehouse in a suit. It is beyond satire

All of this leaves people like Heather and me politically homeless.  Our problem with the Liberal Social Consensus of the 60s is that it did not go far enough. The much vaunted Liberalism of the 60s, particularly in the case of women's rights,  was largely a myth. My mother still couldn't get credit to buy me my first work suit in 1973 without the signature of her husband. This was a problem as we had cremated dad five years earlier. Should we have brought in the urn of ashes in protest?

There was plenty wrong with 60s: system built council housing, Ken Dodd in the charts, patchouli oil and flared trousers. But it was also the decade when it became illegal to discriminate against another British citizen because they were black. Gay men no longer faced jail for expressing their love.  In theory at least,  women were to get equal pay for equal work.

All of these changes were brought in by a corrupt and evil organisation known as the Labour Party. The arch satanist Roy Jenkins led a campaign that would corrupt the minds of the innocents who are now salted for salvation by The Rev. Anthony Blair.  It seems amazing to me now that we vilified Jenkins for being right wing.

A few days ago Labour lost a safe seat in Leceister to the Liberals and just held another safe seat in Birmingham despite an astonishing 27% swing against them.  My old friend Tom Watson (MP) led the campaign for Labour and I have no doubt that It Was Tom That Done It (copyright The Sun)  He would have rung out every last vote from an electorate more likely to vote to see Michael Barrymore back on ITV than Blair as PM.  He also has a wicked sense of humour and dubbed the Liberal candidate Nokia Nicola as she was the PR spokeswoman for the mobile phone industry.  Her speeches were interrupted by Labour supporters setting off their ring tones.  Puerile yes, but also highly effective.  The Liberals are usually very good at this kind of street fighting  but on this occasion were not up to the challenge.  All they needed to have done was flypost the entire constituency with a photo of Blair grinning with the words " Blair? Labour?? - You Must be joking" . From being their greatest electoral asset Blair is now their greatest weakness and is now the subject of ridicule.  So congratulations to Tom but I wonder if he feels it is a mixed blessing.  Two defeats could have seen Tony moving in with Cliff not just spending his holidays in his second home. 

In normal circumstances losing a safe Labour seat at a time of full employment would have been terrible news for Labour, but this time there was a silver lining in the psephological cloud. The Tories were pushed into third place, a fact they explained by saying, "People voted for the candidate who they thought could inflict most damage on Tony Blair." Which is why voters chose the party that had always come third in both constituencies and gave Michael Howard and his Blue Meanies a big 1960s V sign
 
The Tories had a truly psychedelic analysis.  Had they been taking LSD? 

So, for the time being Labour is safe because Her Majesty's Opposition, the only party that has managed to be even more right wing than Tony Blair,  is permanently stuck on 25-30%. The election will be in May 2005 and Labour will win it againist a background of US style low turnouts coupled with an electoral system that could deliver a working Labour majority with only 40% of the votes cast.
 
All this suggests that the UK is probably more progressive than it has been since 1945. The Labour Party therefore does not need to have to adhere to re-heated Thatcherism favoured by Blair's inner circle in order to secure its position and deliver real change.  They are doing it because they actually believe all this tosh about choice and markets in schools and hospitals.  People don't actually want choice in public services. This is because they are sophisticated enough to realise that a Hospital is not a health spa. They want decent services near to where they live.

So who do we go to? The Liberal Democrats I suppose. But not with any great sense of enthusiasm.  More out of desperation.