sally cinnamon wrote:The Labour party is crap. During my lifetime it has always been crap apart from when Tony Blair was leader. Briefly under John Smith they were getting it together too, but they were still a cautious party of opposing the Tories rather than really striking out and having a good vision for society which is what they had under Blair.
They would have had it again if David Miliband had been leader but they liked the fact Ed posed as 'standing to the left of David' but he hasn't really stood for anything at all. To be honest Ed Balls would be a more forceful leader that would stand for something, but yes it would be too left wing for the non Labour member public to really get excited, and he is also a character that falls out with people and makes enemies too quickly, so they would be back to where they were with Brown.
If not David Miliband then Alastair Darling would be a good leader.
But even with Ed Miliband in charge and the party being in dire straits, why are the Tories still behind? Why couldn't they win an overall majority last time against Gordon Brown of all people. Do you think the party of Thatcher or even Major, would be reliant on the Lib Dems to give them a majority against the Labour party in its current state?
That's definitely the way I see it as well - agree with all of that.
I briefly remember Wilson, but Kinnock had a massive job on and effectively sacrificed himself to re-write the Party. The internal opposition he faced and the overwhelming animosity of the entire popular press bar the Mirror meant he was never going to be PM. Smith was a real honest, solid, electable leader but Blair took the Tories apart - he didn't just defeat them he destroyed them for a decade. Ed Milliband is the biggest mistake the party has made since electing Micheal Foot leader to take on the spin machine of Thatcher.
I was devastated when I saw him beat his brother - everything I feared would happen has come to pass. Humiliation after humiliation at the hands of the Public School bully on the other side of the House, a constant need to "define what he stands for" without ever actually managing to define what he stands for and an almost "Thick of It" style inability to decide if he's in opposition of not.
Cameron and his bunch of clueless clowns should be buried in the polls by now and every day at PMQ's the Leader of the Opposition should be ripping them all numerous new holes to talk out of. Blair would have made Cameron feel like it was back to his fagging days for the big boys at Eton. By now he would simply be turning up to the House of Commons, dropping his pants and bending over for his daily thrashing at the hands of his betters.
But is Labour finished? No. There are still good people in the party and they are still more popular than the Tories.
Not even mentioning Eddie Izzard.
