Predictably Gordon Brown and Labour did not win the British general election but neither did the Conservative Party. The dislike for Labour did not translate into anything like a clear cut win for the Tories.
I imagine that David Cameron was all prepared to deliver a rousing victory speech to a 'grateful' nation but, in the end, all he could say was that Labour had lost and that it no longer had the mandate to govern. I thought this was somewhat ironic coming from a leader of a party that had got something like a third of the popular vote. Dave - seventy percent of the country didn't vote for you!
Cameron wasn't exactly truculent but he still looked like a boy who had had his bag of sweets swiped.
The best that Cameron can hope for is to cobble some kind of deal with the Liberal Democrats. He thought he was going to have 10 Downing Street all to himself but he now he will have to take in a flatmate if he wants to be Prime Minister. No wonder Cameron looked like he had swallowed a dead rat. Clearly he's not that keen about sharing the bathroom.
Will Cameron concede to the demands of the Liberal Democrats for electoral reform?
If the Conservatives can't make a deal with the Liberal Democrats then the alternative is a Labour-Liberal Democratic coalition but without Gordon Brown as Labour leader. Given the big swing against Labour, Gordon is on borrowed time.
Labour's slavish adherence to the policies of neoliberalism, to the politics of greed and division were clearly rejected by the British people. Perhaps this will give Phil 'the free market is great' Goff some food for thought.
Whatever government is formed though severe austerity cuts remain on the agenda and there will be some big struggles ahead.
For those of us who are interested , the results for the far left were mostly terrible. It looks like it got something like one percent of the total vote although there were some strong showings in several seats.
The far left has made some real gains in Europe but that trend has not crossed the British Channel. The British far left still has little room to manoeuvre.
This doesn't mean that the far left should now fall meekly in behind what remains of the discredited Labour Party - which would be a fatal mistake. But it does mean that it will have to do some reassessment about where it goes from here.
Oh, come on, Steve, this is self-delusion on a truly heroic scale.
ReplyDeleteAnybody watching the BBC's excellent coverage of the UK elections yesterday will know that the working-class constituencies of urban England, most of Wales and nearly all of Scotland remained fiercely loyal to the Labour Party.
This "rejected by the British people" twaddle simply isn't worthy of someone who claims to be a revolutionary socialist.
The only politicians decisively rejected by the voters, as you rightly note, were those of the far Left - including George Galloway, whose parting gift to the English working-class was a Tory MP in what should have been a safe Labour seat.
A little class analysis wouldn't go amiss, Comrade.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteAre you seriously boasting about Labour's electoral wipeout?
Its obvious that the prospect of a Tory victory provoked a strong swing back to Labour - but mostly in solid Labour areas (eg Scotland).
It was not a vote for Labour but a vote against the Tories. To describe this as 'loyalty' to Labour really is self-delusion on a heroic scale.
You can't have it both ways, Steve. You can't claim that Labour doesn't offer anything to the working class, and then claim that the working-class only voted Labour to protect itself from the Tories.
ReplyDeleteIn that case, logic would dictate that, at the very least, Labour offers the British working-class its best means of defence.
And, if that is true, then any claim that Labour offers the working-class nothing must be false.
Besides, the working-class had the option of the Liberal-Democrats in many seats - as an effective alternative means of protecting itself from the Tories - and yet vast numbers of working-class voters still opted for Labour.
By any logical test, this can only be interpreted as yet more powerful evidence of the working-class's electoral loyalty to Labour.
Until you abandon your current "there's no difference between the Centre-Left and the Centre-Right" mode of thought, Steve, you're going to remain trapped in an intellectual and political cul-de-sac from which no useful contribution to the advancement of working-class interests can possibly emerge.