Cruddas the Brave(Compass Conf)

[butchersapron]

he didn't say give up on the welfare state. His language is dangerous ambiguous, I accept that, but it's the game he's playing - holding the line whilst there's a good old fight about the party's direction. But the idea that we need to rebuild networks of solidarity and collective power in communities is fundamentally right. It's just that this language can also be used and traduced cynically, for a market-driven carve up of public services.

Holding the line? Holding what line exactly?

 

[Libertad]

Holding the line? Holding what line exactly?

Holding the velvet rope more like.

 

[articul8]

So why are you trying to get people to focus on the good parts? Serious question, in your professional circles are many of your lefty colleagues positive about Cruddas and this kind of talk from Labour?

I'm not asking people to be well disposed to Cruddas - I'm asking people to look at what he's said warts and all, but that also means non-warts, even if it is a very warty face in general.

In terms of how Cruddas is viewed, you need to remember he took over that position from Liam Byrne - so it was welcomed at the time. At the same time - as bezzie mates with Purnell and supporter of DM he's not really trusted. He has been around the unions long enough to know what really gets peoples backs up - but this might make him a more dangerous figure still, advising on how to spin through the old neoliberal shit in a new guise

 

[articul8]

Holding the line? Holding what line exactly?

"Trust us, we know what we're doing, developing an agenda that's positive and going to rebuild Britain" yadyada yada - nothing too specific, not great financial costs to any promises, steady as she goes...

 

[butchersapron]

"Trust us, we know what we're doing, developing an agenda that's positive and going to rebuild Britain" yadyada yada - nothing too specific, not great financial costs to any promises, steady as she goes...

What does this mean then?

His language is dangerous ambiguous, I accept that, but it's the game he's playing - holding the line whilst there's a good old fight about the party's direction.

 

[articul8]

what really irrked me about the newsnight stuff was a) Allegra Stratton (her of the "why didn't you abort your kid", "do you think you deserve a house of your own"? etc) and b) the fact that I know Allegra and Dave Miliband are pally pally, so this is an arrogant m/c commentator knowingly complying with a load of obviously fake prolerly that they can both be contemptuous off when the filming stops.

 

[butchersapron]

what really irrked me about the newsnight stuff was a) Allegra Stratton (her of the "why didn't you abort your kid", "do you think you deserve a house of your own"? etc) and b) the fact that I know Allegra and Dave Miliband are pally pally, so this is an arrogant m/c commentator knowingly complying with a load of obviously fake prolerly that they can both be contemptuous off when the filming stops.

Here is where i try to re-establish what credentials i think i ought to have.

Shameless.

 

[articul8]

"Trust us, we know what we're doing, developing an agenda that's positive and going to rebuild Britain" yadyada yada - nothing too specific, not great financial costs to any promises, steady as she goes...

Well beneath this is the inside argument about what any of it means in concrete terms. There's one wing which says "we should say exactly what else we'll cut and how much", "we should be pro low-paid and anti-benefit even more than the Tories", "we need to show we're willing to crack down on the unions" etc - these people are scum. Then there are others who say want to scrap Trident, renationalise the railways, end PFI, restore disability benefits, impose significant rent controls, build council houses etc." And the bulk of the middle who are well we like public services but if the money isn't there...

 

[sihhi]

Well beneath this is the inside argument about what any of it means in concrete terms. There's one wing which says "we should say exactly what else we'll cut and how much", "we should be pro low-paid and anti-benefit even more than the Tories", "we need to show we're willing to crack down on the unions" etc - these people are scum. Then there are others who say want to scrap Trident, renationalise the railways, end PFI, restore disability benefits, impose significant rent controls, build council houses etc." And the bulk of the middle who are well we like public services but if the money isn't there...

articul8 - I doubt anyone means any offence to you - but shake some sense into yourself.

The Labour Party - with the exception of under 1% of it that are LRC Corbyn/McDonnell Labour Left - are wholly "well we like public services but if the money isn't there..."

You will regret your dalliance with Labour after 2015, just as socialist environmentalists will one day regret their relationship with the Greens.

I think 2015-2020 could well prove to be an anti-working class firestorm, or a sped up version of 1997-2010 Labour.

 

[articul8]

But in a sense the left inside and outside labour has failed to articulate why and how an alternative to austerity is possible. Leave aside the convinced neoliberals and the debate inside labour is a microcosm of the debate outside. It's as though people are rushing to the left beyond Labour?

 

[butchersapron]

What's that got to do with the rubbish that you've offered on here today?

 

[ayatollah]

But in a sense the left inside and outside labour has failed to articulate why and how an alternative to austerity is possible. Leave aside the convinced neoliberals and the debate inside labour is a microcosm of the debate outside. It's as though people are rushing to the left beyond Labour?

I think this is a bit rich. Plenty of people on the broad left, and Left trades unionism, and even many centre left liberal economist types,have been "articulating " away for a long, long time, about the self-defeating, but superrich enriching, policy of "austerity". Plenty of people, not just on the Left, have "articulated" extensively about the capitalist class agenda behind neoliberalism in general and the "shrinking the state" (ie, "get ready to look after your sick relatives yourself like in the good old communitarian self-help days before the terrible top-down Welfare state oppressed you, because the Welfare State is toast") ideology.

This hasn't gained mass popular "traction" though its true. Partly because of the overwhelming saturation of pro austerity and pro "shrinking the state" ideology fed to everyone day in, day out, by the organs of mass communication. But also partly because the solidly capitalist political party inheriting the "Labourist" historical voting loyalty of most working class people is completely sold and corrupted by neoliberal ideology. Anyone spending their time putting a positive spin on the dishonest rhetoric of this bunch of political carpetbaggers is , intentionally or not, implicit in the maintenance of the now zombie corpse of old style reformist Labour as a distracting mirage of hope for radical resistance and change - when in fact the walking zombie corpse of old (still class collaborationist of course) social democratic Labour is actually just a neoliberal-parasite-infested-corpse.

Let it die articul8. If you did eventually get to be a NuLabour MP it'd probably only be in time to join the rest of em swinging from lampposts when the political logjam finally bursts anyway. We'd hate to have to string you up mate. It'd fair break our hearts !

 

[ViolentPanda]

But in a sense the left inside and outside labour has failed to articulate why and how an alternative to austerity is possible. Leave aside the convinced neoliberals and the debate inside labour is a microcosm of the debate outside. It's as though people are rushing to the left beyond Labour?

It's difficult to "articulate why and how" when the vast majority of left media continue to retail the Labour line, or at best a line that sees the acceptance of any ideas by Labour as a precondition to promulgating them.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Here is where i try to re-establish what credentials i think i ought to have.

Shameless.

I thought he sold his credentials to an identity thief, along with a copy of Red Pepper?

 

[articul8]

It's difficult to "articulate why and how" when the vast majority of left media continue to retail the Labour line, or at best a line that sees the acceptance of any ideas by Labour as a precondition to promulgating them.

How do you envisage people will come to see an anti austerity politics as not just necessaary but also viable?

 

[Hocus Eye.]

How do you envisage people will come to see an anti austerity politics as not just necessaary but also viable?

When it hits them in the face that austerity is making them poorer and threatening theirs and their friends and relatives jobs and homes. It won't take much longer.

 

[ViolentPanda]

How do you envisage people will come to see an anti austerity politics as not just necessaary but also viable?

Violently, and hopefully with great anger towards the shills of parliamentarism.

 

[sihhi]

SYRIZA's leader Alexis Zipras discovers that Cruddas and his team are in soul searching mode.

Would you say you have political allies in Britain?

I had the opportunity to meet with two teams from the Labour Party: an official one headed by [Jon] Cruddas, the party's head of policy-making, and another one with four to five Labour MPs. I got the impression that the Labour party today is in soul-searching mode, and the debate around austerity is on, so Greece is for them an interesting case study. Bearing in mind that in previous years they followed neoliberal policies, today Labour are deeply troubled about everything that has happened in Greece and especially by the collapse of PASOK [Labour's social-democratic Greek sister party]. They're following the situation closely and I dare say they are one of the few parties so close to power in Europe with whom we share a lot of positions and with whom we can be in constant communication.

So Syriza can find common ground with Labour?

It will depend upon how daring [Ed] Miliband intends to be and especially when it matters most: during the next elections when pressure from the mainstream media and oligarchs in Britain start speaking of the "red dragon" that has come to drive away the City and submerge us in inflation and poverty. Of course this will depend not only on Miliband's endurance but also on the circumstances under which this duel will take place. Because if elections are held in 2015, the two years in between will be apocalyptic as to the effects of neoliberalism in Europe. Britain is already in depression. Nothing is getting better. More and more people in Europe realise that austerity is not a viable prospect. I hope people realise that there is no other way but to radicalise even further.

Do you think there is potential for something similar to Syriza in Britain? A party emerging from outside the mainstream that will oppose austerity?

I can’t really know that. Every country has its own characteristics and in Britain there's a long tradition of a two-party system. If of course Labour wins the next elections and opts to continue along Cameron’s tracks, then it’s almost certain that they will lose every bond with the social classes that support them. The void left there will certainly be filled by something new. That’s the way it works in nature and that’s the way it works in politics.

 

[treelover]

So, why did they, the LP, abstain last week on a issue facing some of the worst off?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

So, why did they, the LP, abstain last week on a issue facing some of the worst off?

Because they intend to "win the next election and opt to continue along Cameron’s tracks".

 

[Delroy Booth]

Because they intend to "win the next election and opt to continue along Cameron’s tracks".

And when they do, they'll get smashed to bits, like Hollande is currently getting smashed to bits. They don't talk about him any more...

 

[sihhi]

Daily Mail reports on his exclusive holiday home in Ireland and his buying a flat in West London to secure places at Holland Park School and Cardinal Vaughan School.