by antiaristo » Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:29 pm
Peter Kilfoyle was in the 1997 Cabinet (think Donald Rumsfeld).<br><br>So my work here is done.<br><br>Just don't get yourself suicided by the Windsor family, Peter.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Comment <br><br>We will demand real change from Tony Blair's successor <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="font-size:small;">Labour must never again allow itself to be hijacked by a small group antagonistic to our collective values</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>Peter Kilfoyle<br>Wednesday January 25, 2006<br>The Guardian <br><br><br>When Margaret Thatcher was unceremoniously dumped as leader by the Tories, the process was begun by an obscure Welsh Tory member of parliament - Sir Anthony Meyer. While Michael Heseltine waited in the wings, the coup de grace was delivered by those raised up to the cabinet by Mrs Thatcher.<br><br>They had recognised that the poll tax was a loser. They watched their local government base start to shrink, and feared that - unless radical action was taken - they too would disappear from government. Sentiment did not enter into the equation; it was a simple question of survival, regardless of Thatcher's hat-trick.<br><br>Tony Blair would do well to ponder on that piece of history. He is also a three-time winner, but has fatally disclosed that he will not stand again. His cabinet colleagues observe this with more than passing interest. Like his role model Mrs Thatcher, he has also been viewed as a vote-winner. Yet these are changing times, with a doppelganger of his youthful self leading the Tories, and all political eyes will be on whether David Cameron can maintain the momentum he has carried with him into 2006. The first real test will be at the May local government elections.<br><br>It will be difficult for Labour in the run-up to them. The prime minister has already alienated a huge number of Labour activists, and repeatedly snubbed the unions. He believes that he can reach beyond them to an almost mystical "people" who will continue to support him. Not, I believe, with the 36% share of the vote won in the general election. It will be even harder to motivate Labour voters in May. Failure will be extremely damaging to his standing, in and outside his party.<br><br>Between now and then, he has set himself some extra - and rather formidable - obstacles. Reactionary education proposals have already aroused serious opposition. The trade unions fume as they await delivery on the Warwick Accords, and watch government water down proposals on corporate manslaughter. Privatisation and market-modelling of health services provoke as much antipathy as does the onslaught on schools. Pensions and benefits rumble in the background.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>It is almost as if the prime minister is trying to goad his party to take him on. If so, it would be foolish. No one wishes to see Labour go out of government with him. Indeed, there will be a number of his colleagues looking to succeed him, and others hoping for preferment or resurrection under a new leadership.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Unless there are changes in both strategy and tactics, the prime minister will place himself in exactly the same position as Thatcher - a presumed negative in national ballots. His cabinet colleagues may then summon the courage to say that he ought to go sooner rather than later.<br><br>The issue facing the Labour party then would be to decide on a successor. The long-standing favourite is Gordon Brown. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>However, he faces the dilemma of representing a Scottish seat while potentially deciding in England on devolved matters such as health and education.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> More importantly, after David Cameron's election, and one to come in the Liberal Democrats, it would be short-sighted of Labour not to have a choice of candidates.<br><br>Who they might be, time will tell. Cometh the hour, cometh the man or woman. Choice might be fanciful for those who have taken exception to cabinet complicity in the Iraq war, top-up fees and other breaches of trust. Yet with choice comes responsibility to ensure that whoever succeeds will deliver Labour policies on the basis of Labour values.<br><br>It is not easy to see who that might be, but <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>never again can the Labour party allow itself to be hijacked by a small group antagonistic to the collective values which characterise the party.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> The party needs a new style of leadership that will offer to citizens, at home and in the workplace, the same benevolence which has often been showered on big business by New Labour.<br><br>Naturally, that leadership must accommodate policies to the rapidly changing world around us. The internet age does not allow us the option of 20th-century solutions for the daunting tasks of the 21st. Sensible people - and they are in all wings of the Labour party - recognise that we cannot halt the processes of change; but they can be better managed for the good of all.<br><br>Yet since 1997 there has been a failure to promote the necessary new type of politics, as promised. Certainly, in parliament, the same old disregard by government for parliamentary scrutiny has been a persistent problem. Too many features of a democratic centralist approach to government have taken hold. Where changes in parliament have been made, and where accountability has been strengthened (<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>look at the Freedom of Information Act), there has been a determined government effort to emasculate those changes</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. These are the discredited politics persistently but wrongly spun as old Labour.<br><br>So when we seek the next Labour leader, we will look for cast-iron commitments from the candidates, not just on policies, but also on their respective approaches to leadership. Their answers will decide the issue with many Labour party members, and with the trade unions, a critical element in the election of a new Labour leader. The candidates will have everything to play for. In 1994 Blair captured the party's head; this time the winner will also need to capture its heart. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>We may well find out who has done so at this year's party conference.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>· Peter Kilfoyle is Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and a former defence minister.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1694001,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/commen...01,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Notice he cites the Freedom of Information Act as having been emasculated. This is what he is referring to.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="font-size:small;">A quick peer at Archer? No chance</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>The freedom of Information Act has been hailed as a new charter for British investigative journalism, but so far seems to have yielded little of real substance. Some interesting little snippets on how much interior decorating cost at 10 Downing Street, a piece here or there on the cost of speed cameras and security cops for islamic preachers, but the letter of the new act has been observed far more than the spirit. <br><br>So no glasnost on the legal advice prior to the war in Iraq, no information on how much we wasted on Black Wednesday - as yet. To this frustrating list must be added the story of Lord Archer and the mysterious case of Anglia TV shares. <br><br>New readers start here: in 1995, the novelist-peer had a little dabble in shares in the Anglia TV company, and made a nice profit. But then, he had the advantage that his wife was a non-executive on the board, and a takeover bid materialised for the company just days after he bought his shares. <br><br>Coincidence? The Department of Trade and Industry thought there might be more to it than that, and asked inspectors to investigate. Roger Kaye and Hugh Aldous plodded assiduously through the byzantine complexity of the case and completed their report, which was then left to gather dust on the DTI's shelves. <br><br>Could The Observer possibly see a copy, we asked? In the new spirit of freedom of information, of course. We sat patiently waiting for the report to arrive, eager for all those grubby little details Lord Archer effortlessly generates, only to be told: 'Information is exempt information if its disclosure by the public authority holding it is <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>prohibited by or under any enactment.'</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>So back to square one then. Now where was that phone number for Hugh Aldous?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1406804,00.html">media.guardian.co.uk/site...04,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>