Is Labour fit to Oppose?
Around 10 years ago, I was visiting a patient in Wood Green, North London. As we finished talking I glanced at my watch – running late for next appointment! I fled to my car, threw my papers on the passenger seat, lit a fag, and in one fluid motion shot out of my parking space and up to the T-junction. An impenetrable line of traffic awaited me.
There was a brief gap, perhaps 5 metres? My car was, oh, four and a half metres – we can do it! I did.
The four ebony coloured occupants in the car I had slid in front of bared their teeth. The knitted hat occupants of the car in front turned their heads and bared their teeth. We crawled towards the red lights.
At the lights, a policeman waved us through. Another mile, another set of lights, another policeman. The entire line of traffic was doing around 5 miles an hour. As we neared Wood Green there were more policemen – and the side streets were a mass of people in every shade of black, except grey. Improbably, everybody wore sunglasses in the winter sunshine. People bent down to peer into my car, lips curled, and I was feeling ever so slightly uncomfortable, I had intended to turn left, but each turn off was barred by police.
As we passed in front of the Town Hall, there was Dianne Abbott standing on the steps, sobbing into a handkerchief. It finally dawned on me that I had managed to gate crash Bernie Grant’s funeral cortege. Several hundred cars worth of solidly black funeral cortege.
Dianne describes herself as a ‘the first black female MP’ now she wants to be the ‘first black female leader of the Labour Party’.
She wants to see a more ‘diverse’ range of candidates. Dianne’s idea of Diversity is no more diverse than was Bernie Grant’s. It’s not diversity; it’s exclusivity for the black population.
She was a race relations officer with Harriet Harman and Paul Boateng. She tried to establish a ‘black caucus’ within the Labour Party, but was thwarted when other black MPs declined to join – some even going so far as to suggest that her idea was ‘racist’. The Times quotes her as saying that ‘the British invented racism’. Yet she herself was once more accused of racism when she said the ‘blonde. Blue-eyed Finnish girls’ in her local hospital in West London were ‘unsuitable’ as nurses because they ‘may never have met a black person before’. Ironically, Dianne’s Mother was a nurse who emigrated to Britain from Jamaica at a time when few white people had ever met a black nurse.
The Labour Party is quite bad enough as it is, the last thing that is needed is for a racist to be leader with an arch feminist bringing up the deputy leadership. Both Abbott and Harman will be consumed by their separate ideologies, and neither will be paying any attention to holding the government to account on the things that really matter to the population right now – the economy.
A strong opposition is just as important as a strong government – and we need a Labour Party that has an intelligent leader who will poke and probe the government’s policies, not carp and criticise for cheap feminist or racist points.
-
1
May 23, 2010 at 09:17 -
4
May 23, 2010 at 10:05 -
”
we need a Labour Party that has an intelligent leader …”Dunno where we’re going to find one of those. Somewhere in the newbies maybe? A virgin, as yet uncorrupted?
Certainly Straw, Johnson, Harman, both Milibands and Balls — all out of the running. Diane may be the best that’s on offer. Her voice is so soft and muffled that its hard to pick out exactly what she’s saying. That’d make a nice change.
-
5
May 23, 2010 at 11:46 -
I know I am probably missing the point, but The Labour Party (or whatever it may change its’ name to) should be made illegal, or at least barred from having ANY say in how this country is governed ever again.
I am now unemployed because of those vile people, the country is destroyed, courtesy of those vile people.
As your mate Old Holborn highlights on his blog, the treason opportunists are now lining up to condemn THEIR illegal war.
All I can do is sit here typing angry comments onto blogs. I genuinely think I really would die laughing if Mandelson, Blair, Brown, Campbell, Balls, Milliband(s), etc were to contract a deadly virus & suffer a horrific death.
-
6
May 23, 2010 at 12:16 -
“I am now unemployed because of those vile people”
You too.
I tried so hard to complain and explain how they were destroying people’s lives that they used the FTAC to have me locked up. I eventually won my freedom back, but the damage done means that I will never work again. Furthermore I have no access to parliamentary representation, healthcare, and many other things that other citizens have.
There is not going to be any change for the better under the new government. In many respects my life will get a LOT worse until it inevitably reaches the point where it cannot be maintained.
“I really would die laughing if Mandelson, Blair, Brown, Campbell, Balls, Milliband(s), etc were to contract a deadly virus & suffer a horrific death.”
So say we all.
-
-
7
May 23, 2010 at 11:51 -
Yes, go for it, Ms Abbott – with any luck, we’ll never see ZaNuLabour in office again.
-
8
May 23, 2010 at 12:22 -
” It finally dawned on me that I had managed to gate crash Bernie Grant’s funeral cortege…”
On the bright side, at least you were able to reassure yourself that the rabble rousing waste of skin actually was dead…
-
10
May 23, 2010 at 13:41 -
Me three.
I hope the Labour Party destroys itself as messily as possible, taking every PC gauleiter with it into the hottest and smelliest part of Hell for eternity or another thirteen lying years whichever feels longer.
Hold it. Breathe out. And relax.
-
11
May 23, 2010 at 14:25 -
It’s not dead yet. These fleas will not stop feeding until the host dies.
-
12
May 23, 2010 at 15:51 -
I want “The Nightmare Ticket”……Either Abbott with Balls as deputy or the other way round. Doesnt make a lot of difference.
Either would be a splendid result, great for the UK, great entertainment for the voter for years to come watching as they shred the party’s support and render it an unelectable political pariah.
-
13
May 23, 2010 at 16:01 -
“I really would die laughing if Mandelson, Blair, Brown, Campbell, Balls, Milliband(s), etc were to contract a deadly virus & suffer a horrific death.”
Personally the thought of it alone, may make me laugh myself to death NOW, and save me all the bother of waiting for it to happen, plus the pain that will acompany the waiting!!!
(its a dreadful thing to get a persons hopes up like this) -
14
May 23, 2010 at 16:14 -
Did you have to use a photo of the vibrant MP for Hackney that makes her look like a mouth-breathing moron, trying to decide if she wants fries with that*?
Assuming, that is, that more flattering photos actually exist!
*I’m guessing the answer is always ‘Yes!’
-
15
May 23, 2010 at 17:32 -
I would love Diane Abbot to become Labour leaders. But then I am a satirical blogger.
Whoever wins though, they’re finished. Deadward are joke. Balls is a clown, Burnham does not have pubic hair yet and the other bloke is …. remind me, who is the other bloke?
-
16
May 23, 2010 at 22:01 -
“A strong opposition is … important … we need a Labour Party that … will poke and probe the government’s policies …”
Sed quaere : what you really need, I respectfully submit, is a strong 1922 Committee to hold the government to account. Or perhaps a 2010 Committee.
With an opposition consisting of yet more socialists, who will actually be against the government ?
ΠΞ
-
17
May 24, 2010 at 00:03 -
Irrespective of what Quaere may or may not have sed, I consider all professional politicians to be worthy of only the deepest suspicion.
-
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }