Monday 12 July 2010

Mandelson's Irrelevant Memoirs

Jackie Ashley, in her piece in the Graun this morning that's basically a 1500-word moan about why-oh-why the Labour party is imploding and so many people are 'abusing' the party's record in government, describes Mandelson's new memoirs as "bank-swelling". I'm not sure I agree with her about that. Beyond all the MSM political hacks who must buy it (assuming they're not given free copies), the professional bloggers (one of whom probably helped to publish it), MPs and former ministers, (who'll all be desperate to see if they get a mention from the oily old pocket-liner) I have a sneaking suspicion that very few people will be remotely interested enough to shell out their hard-earned on such an artefact of conceit.

You see, the thing Labour people like Ashley don't seem to grasp is that contempt for the Labour party and all its works has gone well beyond mere abuse now. Try as she and her BBC husband might to talk it up, the fact is that people have moved well on from the Labour narrative and are comfortable with the new, Tory/coalition one. So comments like this from her, let's face it, pretty desperate piece...
Somebody needs to fight back against the hysterical torrent of abuse being poured on Labour's economic record, which after all included a decade of good times, the rebuilding of public services, and successful action to stave off a full-scale collapse in the banking system. It may be too early: the self-righteousness of the Labour-haters now matches the self-righteousness of New Labour in its pomp. But the time will come.
...sort of pretty spectacularly miss the point. The "hysterical torrent of abuse" would not be the relevant thing even if it actually existed (it doesn't), the outcome of the general election is, with millions of people deciding, not as "self-righteous Labour-haters" (a rather feeble example of the sneering hyperbole I've often heard from self-righteous Tory-haters like her), but as ordinary voters, to reject Labour and its pisspoor record. You know, in their self-righteous Tory-hating, which shields them from all conceivable criticism, I think Labour-losers still really haven't understood the fact that they have lost the argument - comprehensively and conclusively - and that they are, consequently and with increasing shrillness, talking to themselves.

The sales of Mandelson's new novel, the serialisation of which is safely hidden behind a Murdoch paywall, should provide a fair measurement of just how irrelevant Labour have quickly become, and just how far the country has moved on from them and their sorry tale of failure in government.

Me? I expect to see it in the bargain bins within weeks, along with Mandelson's memoirs.

2 comments:

  1. The vociferous Leftist who still believe in the Labour dream will never understand how massively they and their Dogma have been rejected by the ordinary voter.

    In 1997 one of the first things that Bliar did was to alter the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries, the outcome being massively favourable to Labour (of course) and if memory serves me correctly, required an 8% swing to a Conservative candidate just to bring them back to parity with the pre-1997 votes that would have been required.

    If the pre-1997 manipulations had not existed in May, then Labour would have been extinguished as a Political Party and the LibDems would have been the official Opposition.

    Just taking a look at the Country when marked out with the Party colouirs to represent seats held, will show that the UK is primarily blue.

    Of course the current debate on further boundary changes is condemned by the likes of Straw as being anti-Labour and designed with marginalising Labours chances in the future.

    In addition to being the usual sort of deluded, disingenuous and downright untrue hyperbole we have, long come to expect from this hypocritical former Student Union leader, it is a mark of the man, and indeed the scum who now reside in Labour that they cannot see the irony of the situation. They were all rather quiet on the subject of fairness when the boundary changes favoured them, and now they wonder why the ordinary voter simply loathes and detests the very ground they walk on and begrudges them the air that they breathe.

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  2. Well-said, Old Timer. I expect the coming boundary changes row to give me lots of material, for the reasons you so eloquently give.

    Bring it on.

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