Bolitics The New Condem Government

[snowychap]

I'd have thought that one of the security sensibilities would be whether Pakistan gets the arse (with the UK).

[Awol]

I'd have thought that one of the security sensibilities would be whether Pakistan gets the arse (with the UK).

It's okay, if they do India can Nuke em

One thing made very clear (publically for a change) by the wikileaks papers is that Pakistan is no friend of the UK. Helping to develop Indian capability is probably the only effective way to give them the finger and do well out of it at the same time.

[snowychap]

One thing made very clear (publically for a change) by the wikileaks papers is that Pakistan is no friend of the UK.

In which case, could a move like this not appear to be intentionally provocative?

You spoke about Cameron's words on Turkey and the EU as being smart geo-politically. Could this (especially considering the caution suggested by the FCO and MOD) be seen as geo-politically not particularly bright?

Going back to the Af-Pak situation, could moves like this which would seem to have the potential to further isolate Pakistan in the region (as, if it happened, it would surely be rather dangerous in terms of tipping them over the edge)?

Then again, I've never thought it particularly smart to have any policy (other than economic policy - so that includes social policy, security policy and foreign policy) dictated by economics (especially economic ideology). It normally creates more problems than it solves, just makes money (in the long term) for those that already have it and has those that don't picking up the bill of whatever new policy is put forward to correct the previous errors.

I wonder whether it is less Britain open for business and more Britain for sale.

[Awol]

One thing made very clear (publically for a change) by the wikileaks papers is that Pakistan is no friend of the UK.

In which case, could a move like this not appear to be intentionally provocative?

My considered opinion is f**k Pakistan frankly. They won't do anything more than they are already doing and their card is marked by bigger boys than Britain. India on the other hand is a golden opportunity to deepen ties with an emerging superpower. For those who wish we were not so close to America then deepening the Anglo-Indian relationship should be a given.

You spoke about Cameron's words on Turkey and the EU as being smart geo-politically. Could this (especially considering the caution suggested by the FCO and MOD) be seen as geo-politically not particularly bright?

No, the opposite imo.

Going back to the Af-Pak situation, could moves like this which would seem to have the potential to further isolate Pakistan in the region (as, if it happened, it would surely be rather dangerous in terms of tipping them over the edge)?

Pakistan is going over the edge regardless and it's the much deeper internal problems in the country which will drive that. In the grand scheme of things us assisting the Indian civil nuclear programme will barely register on Pakistan's list of things to worry about.

Then again, I've never thought it particularly smart to have any policy (other than economic policy - so that includes social policy, security policy and foreign policy) dictated by economics (especially economic ideology).

They are all bound up with each other imo (excluding social policy) and can't really be compartmentalised in the way you suggest.

I wonder whether it is less Britain open for business and more Britain for sale.

:? Not sure where you get 'for sale' from, economic growth through trade is exactly what the country needs.

[snowychap]

My considered opinion is f**k Pakistan frankly. They won't do anything more than they are already doing and their card is marked by bigger boys than Britain.

...

Pakistan is going over the edge regardless and it's the much deeper internal problems in the country which will drive that.

In which case (and I understand this is taking this a bit off topic so apologies, everyone), do we not then have the real potential for the situation in Pakistan being one of the next decisions that those 'bigger boys' are going to have to take? I.e. is it not very possible that Pakistan will turn out to be a much bigger Afghanistan and be the next domino, especially as it seems we, as a country, are committing ourselves to a foreign policy that seems to allow for that?

Then again, I've never thought it particularly smart to have any policy (other than economic policy - so that includes social policy, security policy and foreign policy) dictated by economics (especially economic ideology).

They are all bound up with each other imo (excluding social policy) and can't really be compartmentalised in the way you suggest.

I didn't suggest that they ought to be compartmentalized as such, just that shouldn't be dictated by economics. Shaped, yes. Treated as part of a holistic approach, yes. Have economics and economic ideology as the driver, no.

I wonder whether it is less Britain open for business and more Britain for sale.

:? Not sure where you get 'for sale' from, economic growth through trade is exactly what the country needs.

Nuance.

Cameron said (from the Beeb report):

I want to make sure that whenever any British minister, however junior, is meeting any counterpart, however junior or senior and for however short a time, they have always got a very clear list of the commercial priorities we are trying to achieve, whether that is pushing forward British orders, attracting inward investment or promoting bilateral or unilateral trade talks.

Now it might just be that these comments were tailored to his audience though I think not and I suggest the approach in India and any incidental consequences confirm that thought.

Is it not the same kind of attitude that has/had countries arming countries which they then ended up fighting, for instance?

To quote Bill Hicks:

"Iraq: incredible weapons - incredible weapons." How do you know that? "Uh, well... We looked at the receipts Haar." "Ah but as soon as that cheque clears, we're going in." "What time's the bank open? 8? We're going in at 9."

We seem to be swapping a foreign policy born out of 'security expediency' for one born out of 'trade expediency'.

[Awol]

In which case (and I understand this is taking this a bit off topic so apologies, everyone), do we not then have the real potential for the situation in Pakistan being one of the next decisions that those 'bigger boys' are going to have to take? I.e. is it not very possible that Pakistan will turn out to be a much bigger Afghanistan and be the next domino, especially as it seems we, as a country, are committing ourselves to a foreign policy that seems to allow for that?

I don't think so, no. The only player that is realistically willing and able to deal with Pakistan is India. We won't be getting involved in any meaningful physical fashion full stop imo, for the simple reason our armed forces are nowhere near big enough. The beef between India and Pakistan is well known and there is no reason for us to become embroilled in that directly - that is not to say it's wrong to back the winner in advance.

I didn't suggest that they ought to be compartmentalized as such, just that shouldn't be dictated by economics. Shaped, yes. Treated as part of a holistic approach, yes. Have economics and economic ideology as the driver, no.

I reckon putting our own economic welfare front and centre is the right thing to do and a bit of 'British interests first' from our political masters is a refreshing change.

]I want to make sure that whenever any British minister, however junior, is meeting any counterpart, however junior or senior and for however short a time, they have always got a very clear list of the commercial priorities we are trying to achieve, whether that is pushing forward British orders, attracting inward investment or promoting bilateral or unilateral trade talks.

Well said Davey boy.

Is it not the same kind of attitude that has/had countries arming countries which they then ended up fighting, for instance?

We are a democratic country, India is the world's largest democracy. If you can point me to the occasion when two democracies have been to war I'll take that point on board, but you'll find that they never have in modern history (the only example ever that I can think of is the US vs the UK when the former invaded Canada in 1812).

[snowychap]

I don't think so, no. The only player that is realistically willing and able to deal with Pakistan is India. We won't be getting involved in any meaningful physical fashion full stop imo, for the simple reason our armed forces are nowhere near big enough. The beef between India and Pakistan is well known and there is no reason for us to become embroilled in that directly - that is not to say it's wrong to back the winner in advance.

I didn't mean us - which is why I drew attention to your 'bigger boys than Britain' comment.

I'm not suggesting that we'd try and rock on in to Pakistan though I think there is always the possibility that if someone else were to that we'd be dragged along, as per.

I didn't suggest that they ought to be compartmentalized as such, just that shouldn't be dictated by economics. Shaped, yes. Treated as part of a holistic approach, yes. Have economics and economic ideology as the driver, no.

I reckon putting our own economic welfare front and centre is the right thing to do and a bit of 'British interests first' from our political masters is a refreshing change.

Again, I still don't think you're getting my point (see my comment about swapping one expedient foreign policy for another).

I would suggest that British economic interests first != British interests first (necessarily). That is why I would suggest that putting economic/commercial interests first (or at the head of the agenda) could allow for some very unpleasant situations to transpire in the future.

Is it not the same kind of attitude that has/had countries arming countries which they then ended up fighting, for instance?

We are a democratic country, India is the world's largest democracy. If you can point me to the occasion when two democracies have been to war I'll take that point on board...

Again, you've not got my point and I apologize if it wasn't clear but my point was not that selling arms to India was necessarily likely to cause a problem in terms of going to war with them but that the attitude that puts commercial interests above all others in terms of foreign policy is the same kind of attitude that sees a country ending up going to war with other countries which it has armed (hence the Iraq reference in the Hicks quote). I suggested that the approach in India confirmed my thought that what Cameron said was not tailored to the audience but was going to be the actual policy, i.e. the attitude.

[Gringo]

Grauniad"]To glimpse the sad state of Labour's soul as parliament breaks up for the summer, have a look at a modest YouTube hit, at the height of the controversy caused by the cancellation of new school buildings and Michael Gove's flawed lists: the Midlands MP and former Brownite consigliere Tom Watson fixes the schools secretary with a hateful look, surveys the great glasshouse around him, and calls Gove "a miserable pipsqueak of a man".

Such is a sound that may well echo into the autumn and beyond: Labour fury rendered comical because no one on the opposition benches is quite sure of the exact basis on which they're opposing the coalition's plans. The cuts, they insist, are savage, iniquitous and worse – but aside from vague talk of a rebalancing of tax rises and spending reductions from some of the leadership candidates, there is still little sense of any clear Labour alternative. Meanwhile, as the government readies us for supposed revolutions in health and education, something even more troubling eats away at Labour's being: might it have to take some of the blame?

In 2004, the Labour-aligned activist and writer Neal Lawson put flesh on the bones of the freshly formed pressure group Compass with a text entitled Dare More Democracy. As I flicked through it this week, one particularly prescient passage screamed from the page: "New Labour's gamble is … that the Tories will never get back into power – for if they do there will be no collectivist culture of institutions for the left to shield behind. The bleak years in opposition in the 1980s will feel like a picnic."

And here we are: the ramparts dividing public and private sectors long since weakened by the last government; the drive for "choice" and "contestability" ready to be taken to its logical conclusion. Also among my recent reading matter was Tony Blair's Labour conference speech of 2005, which captured him at his unhinged peak: "The NHS reforms, to break down the old monolith, bring in new providers, [and] allow patients choice, must continue. Money alone won't work … This autumn we will publish our education white paper. It will open up the system to new providers and new partners, allow greater parental choice, [and] expand foundation, academy and extended schools." Now think of plans lately laid out by Gove and Andrew Lansley, and feel a frisson of deja vu.

As the Guardian reported yesterday, the frantic pace of Gove's academies project may have been undermined by the yawning gap between the 1,000-plus schools initially said to want in, and the 153 who so far actually do. But this self-styled "born-again Blairite" will doubtless continue his drive to revive the vision Blair laid out five years ago, and cast off the qualifications that were reluctantly bolted on to the education bill of 2006 (only passed, let us not forget, thanks to Tory support; the Lib Dems, for what it's worth, were dead against). Following the story in some penthouse suite or departure lounge, the former prime minister must surely recognise his own legacy – and so it is with swaths of the coalition's plans. Yes, Gordon Brown and his allies may have slightly stymied what was once known as "eye-wateringly New Labour" policy, but they were too confused and introverted to decisively change direction, and the essential logic remained in place; now the Lib-Cons simply pick up the Blairite baton, and run like hell.

Simon Stevens, the "president of global health" at the US multinational UnitedHealth, offers more evidence of this grim continuity. In a giddy op-ed piece in the Financial Times, he recently saluted the coalition's plans for GP commissioning and a hugely expanded domestic healthcare market, and identified their pioneer: "The proposals come 10 years after Tony Blair … took the first steps down this path. What makes the coalition's proposals so radical is not that they tear up that earlier plan. It is that they move decisively towards fulfilling it – in a way that Mr Blair was blocked from doing by internal opposition within his own 'virtual coalition' government." Stevens should know: from 1997 to 2004 he was Blair's health policy adviser, before joining one of the corporations who stood to gain from where New Labour was heading.

To oppose all this is not to lurch left, or to take the soft option; it does not preclude difficult debates about how to make public institutions more open and responsive. Indeed, one of the main arguments against Westminster and Whitehall's now standard model of "reform" is that it usually pushes things in the opposite direction. The main point is this: Labour has to open the page on an era when it laid the ground for the possible destruction of the few remaining bedrocks of what the leadership hopefuls call "Labour values" – with the obvious and frightening caveat that it may already be far, far too late.

[peterms]

... The beef between India and Pakistan is well known and there is no reason for us to become embroiled in that directly - that is not to say it's wrong to back the winner in advance.

Well, maybe there's the slight problem that we created the problem in the first place.

Still, that was some time ago, probably beyond the memory of most readers on this messageboard, so no need to bother about that, eh? Any resulting political problems are the sole and total responsibility of the people living there. We're long gone.

[peterms]

The main point is this: Labour has to open the page on an era when it laid the ground for the possible destruction of the few remaining bedrocks of what the leadership hopefuls call "Labour values" –]with the obvious and frightening caveat that it may already be far, far too late.

It will be too late for some. The Labour Party accepted the Blair years, and the ideological shift they produced. They have sacrificed the values which led people to vote for them out of loyalty.

As a result, many people have lost what allegiance they had to the party, and will look elsewhere for vehicles of social change.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

These values are not Labour values, but social values. They are not eroded when the leader of a particular political party decides he wants to have a holiday at the villa of the most corrupt political leader in western European post-war memory, or worship at the shrine of the not-quite-dead blessed Margaret. The party is weakened, possibly irretrievably, but time will tell. The values remain.

[Awol]

... The beef between India and Pakistan is well known and there is no reason for us to become embroiled in that directly - that is not to say it's wrong to back the winner in advance.

Well, maybe there's the slight problem that we created the problem in the first place.

Still, that was some time ago, probably beyond the memory of most readers on this messageboard, so no need to bother about that, eh? Any resulting political problems are the sole and total responsibility of the people living there. We're long gone.

Not everything is the fault of the British Empire, although that excuse is a convenient refuge for countries or politicians who would rather not take responsibility for their actions two or three generations later. What exactly are we supposed to do about it anyway? Surely attempts to interfere or mediate directly would be a further display of colonial arrogance? Where we are right to comment however is if one country's support of terrorism directly impacts either ourselves or our allies. Pakistan qualifies on both counts.

Pakistan = corrupt, terrorist supporting basket case.

India = World's largest democracy.

Not a difficult decision as to who should be getting our support.

Looking at FP more broadly, I read a long but thoughtful article in support of Cameron's position a few days ago that is worth a look:

Thinking Strategically

A reply to Melanie Phillips in defence of David Cameron and Conservative foreign policy

Melanie Phillips has written a blistering attack on the Prime Minister and his foreign policy, accusing him of everything from cowardice to incompetence but stopping short of sodomy. As crazy goes, the diatribe is pretty crazy. David Cameron is ‘dangerous’ to the national interest, as shown by his speech in Turkey on Tuesday. He praises its vile government for being liberal when it is evidently no better than the Taliban.

The Prime Minister describes Turkey as a bridge between civilizations and cites it as an ally against terrorism and Iran, ignoring the relationships that it is forging with ‘Islamic terror regimes’. ‘Is this what Cameron regards as evidence that Turkey is playing the role of “great unifier” between east and west?’ The praise heaped on the country made his subsequent attack on Israel ‘viciously unjust’, though it is plain to Phillips why he did it. ‘Cameron [has] no knowledge of or interest in foreign affairs, and so was always likely merely to reflect the most politically expedient views he encountered.’ This has pushed him into ‘appeasing Britain’s mortal enemies in the Islamic world’ and ratting on Israel. ‘Weep for Britain’, she concludes. ‘It has just become even more unsafe – and British politics a lot more disgusting.’

The prism through which Phillips sees the world has many terrifying shapes and menacing colours, and she brings together and fuses the most unhinged ideas about international relations. One is taught as a child to not engage crazy people, but her attack is so perversely ignorant that it needs to be engaged and taken down.

The premise with which Phillips starts her attack on the Prime Minister is that he has no knowledge of foreign affairs and has never taken an interest in it, an ignorance that makes Britain unsafe. Anyone who has paid attention to Conservative policy in opposition will know that that is factually incorrect.

David Cameron has a coherent worldview based on broad knowledge of world affairs and keen interest. He gave a speech to the Foreign Policy Centre a month before announcing his candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership, explaining the fundamentals beneath his worldview. ‘Our foreign policy response, our security response and our national response should all be rooted in our shared values.’ Cameron summarised these values as freedom under the law, but was cautious about forcefully exporting it. ‘As a Conservative, [my] natural instincts are to be wary of grand schemes and ambitious projects for the re-making of society’. Speaking to the British American Project a year later, he expanded on this speech and gave a detailed critique of neoconservatism. The policy of Britain and the United States in the previous five years had ‘represented a view which sees only light and darkness in the world – and which believes one can be turned to the other as quickly as flicking a switch.’

Our choices are not as clear cut as this, however, and foreign policy requires caution. ‘We need a sense of balance, judgement and proportion in handling the complex and dangerous challenges of foreign and security policy in the 21st Century.’ This is particularly true when it comes to the use of force. Cameron has emphasised repeatedly that military action should be connected closely with policy. ‘We should only send more troops if there is a proper political strategy’, he said about Helmand two years ago.

This attitude reflects the Prime Minister’s appreciation that the last decade has highlighted the limits to using force. ‘The prospect of war may attract too readily those who look for quick dramatic answers. Such answers often turn out to be illusory.’ Cameron’s worldview has also been complemented by policy proposals to improve foreign policy and national security, notably the National Security Council. ‘The machinery of government in the field of national security is out of date’, stated An Unquiet World (2007). An NSC would constitute ‘a permanent forum for long range strategic policy formulation in a context where it is easy to assemble the necessary expertise.’ This was created on Cameron’s first day in office. It is difficult to find a factual basis for Phillips’s starting accusation then. The Prime Minister has extensive knowledge of world affairs and keen interest, and his worldview is considerably wiser than the one held by Melanie Phillips and safer to Britain’s national security.

A consequence of David Cameron’s supposed ignorance of foreign affairs is his craven opportunism and playing to the populist gallery, as shown by his attack on Israel. The outcome from his corrupt mindset is appeasement. ‘Far from defending Britain and the west, Cameron is on his knees to their enemies’, she exclaims. The dubious connection between the terrorist threats we face and those threatening Israel will be explored below, but Phillips’s accusation about appeasement again demonstrates that she has not done her homework. The Prime Minister has consistently taken a hardline towards al-Qu’aida globally and in the Hindu Kush. At the Foreign Policy Centre, he described ‘the struggle’ that we are engaged in as ideological at root, which meant ‘there is no list of demands we can accept…to stop the attacks.’ Cameron made this point again to the British American Project. ‘We are dealing with people who are prepared to do anything, kill any number, and use suicide attacks to further their aims…This terrorism cannot be appeased – it has to be defeated.’ He made national security the reason for continued Conservative support in Afghanistan. ‘We are not in the business of trying to create a new Switzerland in the Hindu Kush’, he told the House of Commons last year. ‘We want to help provide security and deny Al Qaeda those training bases.’ This attitude has been emphasised in office, too. ‘Our forces are in Afghanistan to prevent Afghan territory from again being used by al-Qaeda as a base from which to plan attacks on the UK or on our allies.’ [1] And the day after Melanie Phillips attacked him for appeasing Islamists, the Prime Minister caused a diplomatic furore with his surprise censure of Pakistan. ‘We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote terrorism’.

It is thus clear to anyone paying close attention to David Cameron and national security in the last five years that accusations of appeasement are mindless and have a basis in neither word nor fact. One can even argue that the Prime Minister broadly agrees with Melanie Phillips about the threat posed by al-Qu’aida and takfiri terrorism. The difference between the two is that whereas she paints the threat in broad brushstrokes, Cameron has argued that we should break up the threat into manageable pieces. ‘Our aim should be to dismantle the threat, separating its component parts, rather than amalgamating them into a single global jihad that simply becomes a call to arms.’ This approach is sound strategically. It reduces the enemies we are fighting at one time, weds the use of force to limited objectives and reflects our limited capacity to launch military operations.

Phillips and neoconservatives like her conflate enemies, divorce violence from its strategic context and are partly to blame for the United Kingdom having an overstretched military. If anything has endangered this country, it is the reckless approach to foreign policy that Melanie Phillips subscribes to.

It is necessary to question the assumptions underlying the talk about strategy and ‘strategic allies’ that Phillips returns to repeatedly. At the core of the piece is the belief that Islamism poses a mortal challenge to Britain and that Israel is more important to us than Turkey. This is dubious. Like neoconservatives in the United States, Phillips tries to portray Israeli interests as our interests despite the comparison disintegrating if examined carefully.

If we start by asking how we would be affected strategically if Israel did not exist, then the answer is not much. The country does not provide us with resources like oil and gas and we do not depend on it for protection. Our connection to Israel is cultural, historical and religious and to some extent economic – but that is not the same as important strategically. Phillips and other neoconservatives cite the country’s geographical position and the fact that it is a democracy. This is a flawed perspective, however. First, it assumes that common values between nation-states mean common interests. To Phillips, democracies sit on one side and her idea of Turkey sits on the other with Islamist ‘terror regimes’ and Russia. Yet the correlation between values and interests is not exact and given Israel cooperates with Russia closely – including selling arms to India together – has no basis in current geopolitics either.

Second, the geographical position of Israel is only significant if we are hostile towards Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. We plainly aren’t though, and those countries cancel out any strategic weight Israel has in the region. If we accept Israel is essential to us, however, and then examine its importance as an ally against terrorism, then we are still left short. This is because we do not share the same enemies as Israel. Although they are concerns, Hamas and Hizbullah do not pose a threat to either Britain or the United States and they don’t profess to be – al-Qu’aida is our security priority. To Philips they are one and the same, but scholars and regional analysts would disagree. We also do not share the same level of threat as Israel. The Islamists on her borders are an ever-present challenge politically and militarily, and have the potential to undermine the Jewish state (simple demographics are one method). Al-Qu’aida is not that pervasive; and even if they managed to acquire a nuclear weapon and detonated it in London or Birmingham, the effects would be horrific but would not destroy the country as a national or political entity.

With regard to counterterrorism then, Israel is doubtful as an ally. Phillips will cite Iran, but this is also open to question. There are few military options that Israel can take against the country, and even these will have limited impact; any containment policy meanwhile will be overseen by the United States. It should be clear to anyone that Israel is not important to the United Kingdom strategically – any way you try to calculate it. Our support derives from friendship. Phillips and other neoconservatives serve Israel poorly, however, by performing a sleight-of-hand and turning our friendship into an obligation and then telling us that we should be grateful to fulfil that obligation. This is awful diplomacy and it only highlights to policymakers the strategic unimportance of Israel to the West since the end of the Cold War.

To those who understand strategy and prefer to place one’s own country over the alleged interests of another, there is a lot to admire in the foreign policy of David Cameron. I have explained what I believe this policy to be numerous times, but it can best be compared to a hot air balloon. The Prime Minister has sensed the turbulent winds coming our way this century and believes the best way to avoid the gale is to throw overboard old and weighty commitments to make the balloon soar higher – at least until we run out of gas. His policy is not derived from some dubious analogy with a harmless pastime, however; it reflects a serious understanding of geopolitics and an appreciation of Britain’s future in the world. There is five years-worth of evidence to demonstrate this is his view and two months of firm actions.

In her article, Melanie Phillips offers readers the choice between supporting Israel and supporting Turkey – and if forced to choose, then Turkey offers us more opportunities economically, militarily and geostrategically. It is a false dichotomy but she and neoconservatives like her make this kind of decision easier for David Cameron and President Obama, and thus jeopardise the long-term security of the country they claim to support. They pose as much a concern to Britain and the United States also, because they do not recognise the changes affecting our future and instead cling to those old commitments and prejudices weighing us down. Weep for Britain and Israel if Melanie Phillips is ever listened to.

[snowychap]

A [more approprate and succinct] reply to Melanie Phillips:

You is mental.

[Chindie]

A [more approprate and succinct] reply to Melanie Phillips:

You is mental.

Far too soft, bloody apologists for mentalists.

A [much more accurate and necessary] reply to Melanie Phillips:

You is a hateful old bag with even more hateful views

As a side note, she accused my uni department of antisemitism, twice, the second time accusing one of my lecturers directly of the same when the bloke was anything but. **** hateful old bint.

...carry on

[Awol]

A [more approprate and succinct] reply to Melanie Phillips:

You is mental.

Far too soft, bloody apologists for mentalists.

A [much more accurate and necessary] reply to Melanie Phillips:

You is a hateful old bag with even more hateful views

Yep barking, but difficult to argue against Cameron's position as described in the article.

As a side note, she accused my uni department of antisemitism, twice, the second time accusing one of my lecturers directly of the same when the bloke was anything but. **** hateful old bint.

Well according to Shimon Peres..

The English Establishment is anti-semitic, fullstop

..and he's a leftie!

[Ads]

Speaking with an old friend who is now apart of a left wing Labour think tank, he tells me that they reckon Labour have no chance of winning the next election and that its their hope that given enough time, they can track back to more centre left issues. They were incredibly fearful of being wiped out at the election.

[snowychap]

Which direction do they think they'll need to go to get to the 'centre left'?

[Ads]

I didn't ask him that, but I will and I'll let you know.

[avfc89]

Speaking with an old friend who is now apart of a left wing Labour think tank, he tells me that they reckon Labour have no chance of winning the next election and that its their hope that given enough time, they can track back to more centre left issues. They were incredibly fearful of being wiped out at the election.

I think it's very premature to be making claims for the next general election. When the cuts begin to hit it will get very interesting indeed.

[Ads]

I can only pass on what somebody who works for a group aiming at producing policy for the Labour Party thinks. The way he sees it is that 2020 is the focus. He admits that is very long term, but he thinks the realignment back to the left (should it happen of course) will cost them 2015, but then he thinks they'll lose it anyway depending on how Cameron plays it with the Liberals.

[avfc89]

I can only pass on what somebody who works for a group aiming at producing policy for the Labour Party thinks. The way he sees it is that 2020 is the focus. He admits that is very long term, but he thinks the realignment back to the left (should it happen of course) will cost them 2015.

Interesting. I personally believe it will hinge on the cuts, we'll get a better insight next year. Labour have 38% of the vote according to the latest voting intentions.