> But the other thing to keep in mind is Blair's priorities. It's true that
> he's a control freak that would like to win every election at every level.
> But given a choice between winning local elections and purging his left
> wing, it's more important to him to purge his left wing. And that the
> Livingstone election has done magnificently. It's the same thing he did
> in Wales. It looks like madness at first when he opposes himself to a
> very popular Labour candidate. It not only ruins Labour's chances of an
> easy win, it displays all his most dictatorial qualities, which gains the
> candidate additional sympathy votes. But Blair's position is that the
> Left wing of the party cannot ever again be permitted to win. If he has a
> choice between the Left wing of labour winning, and another party to its
> left winning, he clearly prefers the latter.
Michael, you often write good stuff but this is ill-informed. Blair has already apologised for his Welsh debacle; his candidate has now resigned as Welsh Assembly First Secretary and Rhodri Morgan, the (actually, not-very-left) person Blair tried to block is now in place and by all accounts ... cooperating very well with the Blairistas. As for London, the election of Livingstone was a disaster for the Blairistas and is recognised as such by all concerned. There is no subtext behind Blair's own repeated apologies and retractions: he's agreed it's wrong to be a control freak and that he misread the runes. Far from sinking the Left, it's New Labour's project which has sunk: the project being, of course, to be more Tory than the Tories. Only two years ago, the Blairistas began an all-out assault on what little remains of the Welfare state, attacking benefit payments to the most vulnerable groups including single mothers and disabled people. But, as Lenin once said, the masses proved to be to the left of our left, and since then the Blairistas have been forced to reinvent themselves as caring sharing new-old Labour, with huge budget increases for health and edcuation and even announced today, massive increases in state pensions.
What legitimised the Blair project in the beginning was the often quite incredibly nasty, spiteful, divisive and self-interested, not to say anal, behaviour of the so-called 'socialist' ultra-left, in and out of the Labour Party, during the 1980s. That's why he found it easy to purge them: they weren't worth defending.
The stupidity of the sectarians was not confined to Trots alone, it afflicted Stalinoids, eurocommunists, single-issue people, pomo politicos and everyone else with an anti-system axe to grind. What's changed is that these people have lost all claim to ideo-historical legitimacy or even rationality themselevs and have no popular resonance or touch or mass base (of course). But the underlying issues which they usurped while donning the undeserved mantle of leadership, remain, and the inflections of mass desire and popular fear, outrage and anxiety which these issues/processes generate produce their own leaders and folk heroes, people who touch a common chord, people like Livingstone. Do not underestimate the cloacal fear and loathing which the Blairistas have for the likes of Ken, because his authenticity underscores thjeir own falseness.
> Blair's reasoning is that he wants Labour cemented in the middle. He
> thinks that in that way he can stay the natural party of government. And
> if the left wing and/or nationalist groupings are local parties (or
> independent candidates), so much the better, because then there is little
> chance they will ever unite to form a serious national threat. Blair's
> grand strategy is that devolution, properly managed, can keep Britain's 2
> and a half party system in its present shape, with Labour the one whole
> party, half a grouping of parties to its left, half a party to its right,
> and half a party in the coalition.
There is plenty of truth in this, at least. We should dust off our histories of popular front movements and govenrments in the Thirties, perhaps, to see just what Blair is afraid of and why we ought to acknowledge, if not share, his concerns.
>Livingstone's
> victory, no matter how much it hurts Blair's vanity (which is a pleasure,
> admittedly), doesn't yet threaten that strategy at all. In a certain
> sense, it's a victory for Blair, albeit one that he has payed dearly for.
> He's been fighting Livingstone tooth and nail since Labour took office.
> And now he's finally and irrevocably out of the party -- the most
> charismatic figure on the Labour left, the man it's been rallying round
No, this is surely wrong, and Livingstone will soon be back in the party, I think.
Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList