Thursday 6 October 2016

The new Conservative and Labour Political Puritism


In this first week of October 2016 I am going to continue to write about cultural experiences, artistic works which require years of training and exceptional skill, and works primarily of entertainment but which also can move, challenge or demand attention. I am doing this while I reflect further on having devoted my time during the first part of each of the past two weeks to the annual conferences of the Labour and Conservative Parties and reflecting further on my decision at the end of June to openly contest the rebellion of the Parliamentary Labour Party who appeared to have not only declared war on their leader but on the majority of the Party membership because of the audacity to support and elect someone as leader who offered an alternative and better approach to political participation and engagement, who had analysed why as the fifth largest economy in the world inequalities and injustices were flourishing and causing great harm to hundreds of thousands of British citizens in their homeland, and who together with a few likeminded others proposed alternative policies which are summed up in the phrase twenty first century socialism.

In response to a Party said to have over half a million members, at least twice, if not three times that of the Conservative Party, their new leader and appointed Prime Minister has recognised the threat to the political stability of the present order of international global capitalism and free market exploitation, and its implication for the immediate future and standing of her Party and in one sentence switched the attack from a Conservative Nasty Party to a Labour Nazi Party and in one speech parked  her tanks on the ground of the centre left as much as the centre right.

In fact, both leaders and many within the women’s section of the Labour Party, are advocates for a new political puritanism so that when she called upon those in the conference hall at Birmingham to join her, she was as much appealing to Yvette Cooper and Angela Eagle to join her as she was warning those on the far right of her own party to get on side or leave the battlefield.  On the basis of admittedly one speech and a few indicators of the governmental action to come and using the concept of the five set major lawn tennis final, she has taken the Tory party into a three to one set lead in winning the next general election which I suspect she will attempt to hold before 2020 but only after the terms of Brexit have been negotiated and the deed accomplished or if forced putting the deal to the electorate and only  then if she is convinced she will gain an overwhelming vote in favour.

The Prime Minister is unlikely to repeat the mistake of her predecessor who only got away with the vote to keep Scotland in the Union with the help of Labour and in particular the intervention of Gordon Brown. Just as the Liberal Democrats have faced political extinction because of their attempt to gain power through the Tory Party, the Labour Party in Scotland has paid the price failing to combat the Sottish Nationalists and then by forming an alliance with the Tories of the referendum. The Labour Party has faced potential General Election disaster in England because the evident lack of support given to their leader and then at the very moment the tide appeared to be turning, by open revolts and the threat becomes even greater if the civil war continues and has reached the tipping point that unless the Parliamentary Labour Party can embrace 21st century socialism action will commence to replace as Corbyn supporters gain positions of power within constituencies. The first test will be Prime Minister Questions on October 12th with the Labour Leader appearing before the Women and Equalities Committee beforehand at 9.30am

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