… says Dave Osler as he signs off his latest blog post. He’s just witnessed young people screaming, “Labour Labour Labour, Out Out Out!” outside their conference hall and had, it seems, a startling moment of clarity.
Labour returned to power in 1997 based on a promise not to be typical old Tax and Spend Labour (fail), that they would remain firmly in control of the trade unions (fail) and they’d keep the support of the Working Classes by taking a tough new stance on Law and Order (fail).
They reasoned, correctly, that so long as they didn’t do anything mad and fed the Sun and Mail lots of socially conservative stuff they’d be able to get away with epic redistribution and a huge increase in power and security for the people they like.
Combine that with a charismatic and popular leader, one that looked, smelt and sounded much more like a Tory than a genuine Labour politicians, they had a winning combination – a Labour Party that was vaguely more tolerable to the British People than the Tories.
Except, really, when you think about it, massively increasing the power of the state, combined with a massive clamp down on civil liberties whilst punishing their unfavoured groups to reward the favoured is… well…. it’s all a bit fascist, isn’t it? I have extreme reservations about this tendency towards segregating muslim children, and the reprehensible and disgusting abuse of illegal immigrants for party political purposes is sickening.
But it doesn’t stop there: In caring for us, Labour have gone from Nanny State to the Bully State (Dick Puddlecote covers this in a brilliant post here). Call me old fashioned, but the state trying to dictate to me how I should live my life – what I should eat, whether or not I’m allowed to smoke, or drink, what I can say, what I can think…. well I resent that. Again, it’s just a wee bit fascist for my tastes. Authoritarian doesn’t really seem to capture that sense of outrage and frustration people feel when a Government behaves like it’s got it in for you. They’ve created a hostile, malicious, suspicious country full of jealousy, envy, anger and hatred, winners and losers at each other’s throats because they know the only difference is that one’s got the Government on their side and the other’s got the Government actively working against them.
If one good thing has come out of Labour’s 12 years in power it’s what Dave’s original post was all about. It’s the fact that actions speak louder than words, and kids who’ve grown up under Labour don’t see them as a party of the poor, or even of the working class. They’re exactly what they always were: The party of the trade unions and the special interest pressure groups, and a pretty meritless, calculating, authoritarian one at that.
The trick is to ask yourself, who are the big winners under Labour, and who are the big losers? The winners, in my opinion, are the heavily unionised public sector workers. The losers are the private sector and pretty much everyone else.
It feels like… well, you’ve invited a friend to stay with you, and at first it’s fine – they’re helping with the washing up, they do shopping and you’re thinking, hey – this isn’t bad. Then 10 years later they’re still here, except now they’re holding all the things they do for you over your head in order to boss everyone around – they get to decide what to watch on telly, they decide when you’re allowed to use the internet, they decide what films you can and can’t watch, they decide what food and drink you can bring into your house and you start thinking… you know what? Wish I hadn’t let that little prick do the shopping all those years.
That’s what it’s like.
Dick Puddlecote said...
29 Sep 09 at 10:23 am
“They’ve created a hostile, malicious, suspicious country full of jealousy, envy, anger and hatred, winners and losers at each other’s throats because they know the only difference is that one’s got the Government on their side and the other’s got the Government actively working against them”
So glad to know I’m not alone in seeing it that way. It just seems to me that Britain isn’t a nice place to be, anymore.
The people in it can’t have changed that drastically in the past decade, it’s just that they (we) have been cajoled and manipulated in such a way as to create a natural mistrust and enmity towards one another.
Thanks for the link.
Scottish Politics said...
29 Sep 09 at 10:39 am
Hi Charlotte,
Just wanted to say thanks for a wonderful post.
SP
Jack Hughes said...
29 Sep 09 at 10:40 am
I weep after I talk to friends in England. Central government and in particular local councils waging war on the public. Bullying and hectoring. Complete disconnection between the public on the one hand and the ruling elite and meejah on the other.
Sadly a lot of people have become conditioned to expecting the state to solve their problems and regulate all kinds of things ‘for the children’. They are demoralised and like you say this comes out in petty jealousy and a general rudeness.
Where to go ? I wonder if a constitution could help – I would say a straight copy of the US constitution. Yes including a right to bear arms.
American states have rousing mottoes like “live free or die” and “don’t tread on me”.
Calderdale council has: “everyone different, everyone matters”.
Jesus wept.
Andy said...
29 Sep 09 at 11:07 am
It feels like… well, you’ve invited a friend to stay with you, and at first it’s fine – they’re helping with the washing up, they do shopping and you’re thinking, hey – this isn’t bad. Then 10 years later they’re still here, except now they’re holding all the things they do for you over your head in order to boss everyone around – they get to decide what to watch on telly, they decide when you’re allowed to use the internet, they decide what films you can and can’t watch, they decide what food and drink you can bring into your house and you start thinking… you know what? Wish I hadn’t let that little prick do the shopping all those years.
And this is why you win awards.
No political party is perfect. Every single one contains a disturbing number of nutjobs. But better to have a nutjob who believes in not interfering with your life to one that does.
Andrew Hickey said...
29 Sep 09 at 11:32 am
Even ‘public sector workers’ in general haven’t benefited. Very specific types (bureaucrats, middle managers, consultants) have, while others (nursing staff, for example) have, at best, been ‘given’ below-inflation pay rises. Except that these have often not actually reached the nursing staff – when I worked for the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, starting in 2005, the management were ‘reviewing options’ as to how the legally-mandated pay rises were meant to reach the staff (who were all to be re-banded).
When I left in 2008 (having moved to another job, then moved back), the pay rises still hadn’t happened, and the view on the ground was that they never *would* happen, as we were all owed too much back pay and the trust couldn’t afford to pay it…
(These pay rises weren’t unreasonable ones, incidentally – just a 2% rise on a wage that was, in my case, £6.50 an hour. But 13p an hour adds up when you’re working eighty-hour weeks (as I sometimes was, along with many of my colleagues)).
James D said...
29 Sep 09 at 12:57 pm
Charlotte for Dictator! Err, I mean, Prime Minister…
Stacey Riley said...
29 Sep 09 at 3:13 pm
Great post.
This country is not a great place to be anymore. It’s easy to feel alienated if you don’t tick the correct boxes.
When I can find work, I love being a tutor and helping people but the bureaucracy means the education system is rarely about educating any more. It’s purpose is to fulfil targets and create paper trails.
AJ said...
29 Sep 09 at 3:49 pm
Charlotte
Love the friend staying analogy, spot on.
Is this a bit like when you invited the SDP into your party?
Andrew Hickey said...
29 Sep 09 at 3:51 pm
Not really – despite the myths that have grown up around a Liberal-libertarian/SDP-socialist divide, the truth is the SDP were if anything more right-wing economically than the Liberals…
Charlotte Gore said...
29 Sep 09 at 3:52 pm
Yeah, it’s rather more like visiting middle earth after the elves have gone.