Another blogger, Ed Whitfield, wonders why I’ve accused the Labour Party of being “Socialist”. Isn’t conventional wisdom that since Tony Blair, Labour’s been many things – including “right wing” and “fascist” and lots of other juicy political words – but what they’ve not been, surely, is “Socialist”?

I thought, hey, I’ve not done a generic ideology post in months and this is as good as an excuse as any to do one. A short one.

Socialism is a very ill-defined concept and anyone who tells you otherwise is likely to be confusing, “wot I reckon socialism means” with “wot socialism means”. You show me one book with a clear definition (unlikely, but I’ll let you try) I’ll find another that contradicts it and explains why the other lot are totally wrong.

Individual socialists are very clear about what their version is not “It’s not the USSR” , “It’s not Capitalism”, “It’s not fascism” etc, but as for what it actually is? Well it’s an ever changing, mean-anything-to-anyone concept that has some sort of vague notion of collectivism at the core.

I appreciate that there’s some sort of “Hobbyist Socialism”. Hobbyists up and down the country have little political parties and pressure groups that dabble in a more hardcore, DIY, build-your-own Socialism. Some even write blogs and pamphlets. And books. There’s a whole cottage industry devoted to explaining the inexplicable.

But, for the sake of my own sanity and not getting involved with long protracted arguments about what one particular word means, I have found a useful way of explaining “socialism” (at least the British variety) is to say simply that it’s whatever stupid shit The Labour Party are doing today. I call Labour “Socialists” because, lacking another credible definition that any two people can agree upon, it makes sense to regard Labour as “Mainstream Socialism” and Mainstream Socialism is defined by what Labour do.

It’s not ideal but, seriously, politics is dull and complicated enough without pointless additional complexity created by deliberately vague labels and words like this. It’s not dumbing down – it’s about not wasting energy on stuff that doesn’t matter.

As Labour disappear off into opposition ready to tear themselves apart, they’ve found themselves in agreement about one thing:

The Coalition isn’t the fault of all those people who voted Tory, giving them the 306 seats.

It’s not their own fault for running up a budget deficit of £175 billion and running a Government based on spin and celebrity, pandering to the The Sun and the Daily Mail on law and order and immigration, waging George Bush’s War on Terror here in the UK and, most unforgivably of all, treating Civil Liberties as something a ‘modern’ society doesn’t need. Nope, it’s not their own fault.

Who’s fault is the Coalition? That’s right: It’s the Liberal Democrats fault, you traitors! You liars! Obviously the Labour Party would never have compromised their principled objection to economic sanity by doing a deal with the Lib Dems, so that left the Lib Dems with the one option they were supposed to take: Don’t do the deal and help bring down the minority Tory Government within a few months. Then there’d be another election, Labour would be returned to power with a new leader and we’d all go back to living in a Progressive Paradise(tm)

You know, I’m looking at this narrative and wondering just how out of touch and crazy Labour really are likely to become. For all the trite talk of a “New Politics” this Coalition is exactly that. Partisan, tribal politics has been ditched in favour of compromise, negotiation and attempts at harmony.

Do Labour seriously think that the real people, the normal ordinary voters that don’t get quite so involved, will see more virtue in Labour’s principled objection to co-operation, or will they reward the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for doing something no-one really believed possible?

The Lib Dems have played their hand extremely well. They’ve taken an opportunity to get a lot of their manifesto turned into real living Government policy, and in return they just had to avoid their instincts to become partisan bores about it.

I think history will show Labour to have been on the wrong side of this particular movement, no matter how confident they feel that others will share their tribalist dogma.

As pointed out by Heresy Corner,

The problem isn’t that he called her a bigot; it’s that he assumed, on so little evidence, that she was.

It’s worse than that, of course. This is the same party with a ‘tough’ immigration policy and that famously stole the BNP’s “British Jobs for British Workers” slogan to pander to, well… bigots.

How are we supposed to react to this apparent world of difference between Gordon’s personal feelings, his willingness to be very nice and friendly in public with a woman he privately believes to be a bigot, and the policies he puts forward?

Is the real significance of this event that it’s exposed a bit of a liberal streak (in the ‘Liberal Conspiracy‘ sense of course) in Brown, one that he hides to create an image of himself as a hard nosed anti-immigration populist? Surely it’d have been worse if he’s said, “That was brilliant. She was anti-Immigration and she supports our policy”?

Sod Tebbit. There’s only one story that’s going to dominate the next few news cycles and that’s the footage of Brown chatting to a voter then getting into his limo with his microphone still on, creating an almost pure “The Thick Of It” moment. Transcript:

Brown: That was a disaster… should never have put me with that woman.  Whose idea was that? It was Sue I think… just ridiculous (punches back of seat?). Another voice: What did she say?  Brown: Och, everything, just some awful, bigoted woman. Used to be some Labour voter… (breaks up)

What effect will this have on the election? I think you can safely predict that the Gillian Duffy herself will have the entire media bearing down on her to give her reaction, and if the Tories and Lib Dems have any sense at all they’ll simply let this one play out without getting too involved.

Another consequence might be to reignite the stories about Brown’s temper and lacklustre social skills highlighted in Rawnsley’s book, “End of the Party”. Is this bad for Labour and Brown? Well, yes. It’s absolutely terrible and sensational at the same time. I’ll take my hat off to Brown though – he’ll have finally put Labour in top billing in the news for the first time this election.

UPDATE: I hadn’t finished typing this up when Brown had already gone on the radio to apologise. Gillian Duffy is apparently, “very upset”. Sky’s Adam Boulton says, “I’d be surprised if any of this turns out to be a vote winner.”

The big words from Labour’s Manifesto? People! New! Manifesto! Labour! Support!

Truly I’m inspired. It starts with a beautiful image of a peasant family toiling in the fields taking a break to allow the vision of the Sun of Socialism to illuminate their poor, working class lives. Gone is the slick design of manifesto’s past – say hello to simplicity and crap hand drawn shit. This is the manifesto of a true people’s party, like the Holy Grail is actually the crappy wooden one at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I’m going to steel myself and read this masterpiece and report back later.