Musings on World events from the perspective of a Social and an Economic Liberal.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Don't call us, Gordon

Vernon Bogdanor suggests in today's Times that Gordon Brown, if he is to avoid a "new Conservative century" should now reopen the discussions with the Liberal Democrats that were terminated after Tony Blair decided to ignore the Jenkins Commission. Bogdanor, who was David Cameron's tutor at Oxford, argues that the recession, although underlining the validity of Social Democratic ideology is in fact undermining Labour, the Social Democratic Party. Bogdanor's solution is to "reunite the left" and that the Prime Minister should talk to the Liberal Democrats.

Well sorry Vernon, the Liberal Democrats won't get fooled again.

The Labour Party has had nearly twelve years in office. During that time they haveideological party, it is a pragmatic vehicle for power, so too is the Conservative Party to a great extent. However, the "Labour movement" that created the Labour party no longer exists. The massed society that spawned the Labour movement itself no longer exists. There is now no ideological agenda behind the new Labour project- only "whatever works".

In 1979, when Labour last fell from power, the extreme left-wing of the Labour movement seized control, and it was only with their defeat and the imposition of the "New Labour" project by Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Campbell et al that the party regained its electoral credibility. Even then it was a very close run thing. In 1983, the Labour Party only just squeeked into second place, ahead of the Alliance. The ultimate