mckenzied.com In defence of politics & some politicians, in loyal support of Labour and in appreciation of decent political journalism.

20 May 2015

If you didn’t see defeat coming, you don’t understand how politics works.

Filed under: Labour,Labour politics — Ian McKenzie @ 3:44 am

It’s at least ten years since anyone paid attention to what I think about politics, if they cared even then. But the last five years have been very frustrating and if I don’t get what follows below out of my system soon I’ll have an aneurism which would be very bad on top of the subdural and arachnoid brain haematoma I suffered in March at the hands of the hit and run driver who knocked me off my bike.

I know that an absence of rancour, a positive attitude and looking forward not back are in order. I know that the public in both the UK and the Scottish part of it need Labour rationally and calmly to hold both majority governments to account and I am sure that those responsible for doing those things in the Labour Party will do them just fine. For now though, I’ve waited over a week but I’ve seen nothing yet to make me feel positive about anything. The August 2013 Syria vote aside, I’m as angry as I’ve been about politics for decades. I’m angry about a few other things too, so apologies in advance for the splenetic tone of what follows.

We lost the 2015 general election in September 2010 and probably also the 2020 one as well. The result was bad for Labour but catastrophic for the millions of people who rely on us to look after their interests. We let them down, and badly. If the Labour Party – a major controlling proportion of it – doesn’t rapidly accept that the only chance to make amends is to stand in the centre ground, shoulder to shoulder with, listening to, working for the British people, and fight and win elections from there, then it will cease to exist and it will deserve to die.

Without the will and the means to win elections we are irrelevant. We might as well be Compass or a whelk stall.

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