You two have no realistic alternative to all this shit, and even if you did no one would be listening. Politics in Britain is destined to be a Labour - Tory merry go round for ever.
You two need to take a reality pill.
So, what was the purpose of your interjection? Did you really object to me pointing out that nobody should be surprised that New Labour in many ways went further than the Tories?
You say that elections yield governments branded Tory-Labour-Tory-Labour-Tory. That’s broadly correct, but what do you want us to do with that information?
You’ve known me long enough to know my position on electoral politics: that we shouldn’t await deliverance by politicians, but should strive to improve conditions through direct action.
That’s the blunt tool, but we also need an understanding of the conditions within which we seek to use it. Again, you’ve known my rantings long enough to know my opinion here, too: in the terms of the current discussion, that is that the post War welfare state consensus began to be overturned in the late 70s (when Labour were the government). This happened because the position of the working class was weakened by rising unemployment.
The 80s were the battlefield where the new consensus was finally asserted, and since then we’ve had the electoral choice between two neo-liberal parties of government.
None of this is startling or new. It is, however, my view.
We can’t overturn the post Thatcher consensus if we don’t know what it is. If we don’t understand where the weakness of our class position comes from. (It isn’t currently high unemployment, for example).
I’ve said in another thread that a social democratic electoral option won’t realistically be available to us in the current conditions, as it was post War. In my view, then, effort expended in that direction is expended largely in vain.
What is your analysis, Exo? What is your prescription for action?
Or did you just want to demonstrate your bilious incontinence? Well, we know; your spleen continues to seep. You have my sympathy.
