Do you have a link to the remarks by Paul Richards?

Here we are, Guano…

Nick Cohen in What’s Left describes the phenomenon of Guardian-reading left-wingers marching alongside misogynist, homophobic, anti-democrat Islamist right-wingers, united in the cause of wanting to keep Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. Lenin’s helpful formula ‘useful idiots’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Has someone told Paul Richards that those trains of thought stopped running from Euston about three years ago?

“One of the strangest political trends of the year… This week, Phil ‘not the singer’ Collins, Tony Blair’s former speechwriter and chair of Demos, has a smug article in the Spectator…”

Not strange, absolutely predictable. Simple preparation for defection to a Tory Party about to win a landslide, shurely?

Phil ‘Not the Drummer’ Collins has form for this kind thing, as in this report from the Guardian from May 2008:

In the clearest sign of the unease among Blair’s supporters, who have kept a low profile since Labour’s defeat in the Crewe and Nantwich byelection, Phil Collins accuses Brown’s circle of placing their faith in the “deep poisoned well” of the leftwing Fabian tradition.

When the Blair groupies start picking fights with the Fabians, fercrissakes, they really must think everyday it’s 1983, and Michael Foot is still leader of the Labour party. I’ll just add the following to add to Strategist’s point:

Collins indicates that Blairites are becoming increasingly impressed by David Cameron, who attacks Labour for providing centralising “top down” solutions and who pledges instead to empower people. In his article, jointly written with the author Richard Reeves, Collins warns that Cameron and Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, “have got the point”, unlike Brown who finds himself on the wrong side of a new divide in British politics.

Nuff said.

If you genuinely believe that X, Y and Z are the right things for the government to do, a political party is merely a tool to be used to make it more likely that the government will do those things. Why is anyone loyal to a tool?