How about asking two senior Labour people who secured three victories?

Ah, no, of course, they are giving the wrong answer too, aren’t they?

1 – that’s because they’re really Tories too, obviously.

How about asking two senior Labour people who secured three victories?

You mean like…. ‘there are WMDs in Iraq!

On a more serious note – it isn’t difficult to see why neither of them like Ed Miliband – endorsing him would be acknowledging that Labour lost 5m voters since 1997, and that they got a ton of things wrong.
And here I was thinking that you didn’t like Labour cjcjc! Great to hear you also want them back in power soon. Considered joining the party?

Isn’t the Labour party’s problem more one of how to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?

Of course the Tories will have a view of who would be the “best” Labour leader for them to tackle… it would be somewhat odd if they didn’t, no? In the end few in the Labour party with a voice in electing their leader are going to give much weight to what ANY Tory says, any more than most Tories paid any attention to Labour party wonks opining about the “best” replacement for Thatcher, Major, IDS, Haigh, or Howard.

As for the thought of asking those responsible for winning previous New Labour victories…. have they learned nothing? If ever there was a busted flush it is New Labour and the dwindling band of people who think Blair was anything other than animated principle void. In the Venn diagram of life, the circles of New Labour and Progressive rarely intersected – the sooner the candidates and their party realise that and compose New Labour’s euology the better.

I’m not holding my breath, but given the mediocrities involved we might as well accept that this generation hasn’t got a hope in hell of achieving power anyway. One can only hope that there are some more promising, progressive and radical replacements in the wings. If not the Labour party will go the way of the old Liberals..and good riddance too!

Their are weapons in Iraq of Mass destruction, by the way what the hell is a weapon of mass destruction in my day we called them explosives if you were close to it when it went bang boy did it destruct you.

Yes, let’s not listen to the Tories on who should be leader. But – and this is important – let’s not listen to them with a view to doing the opposite of what they advise either. Supporting Ed Miliband on that basis would be madness. Yet this site has come close to suggesting that we do just that a couple of times now.

The next Labour PM is currently a nobody, just as Cameron was 10 years ago.

I don’t believe it matters much who is the next leader though Abbott would obviously be the most entertaining.

@9

If you think your lot will hold on to power for 10 years the way they’re going, you’ve got another thing coming.

@9 bluepill

I’m not sure hoping for a “New” NuLabour government for it’s comedy value is all that sensible tho. Ending up with the ConDems was bad enough, but the prospect of ANY of the five current contenders becoming PM (however unlikely) is scarcely something I would relish!

If I honestly thought there was a realistic prospect of a truly radical, progressive force rising from the ashes of NuLabour I might be more inclined to pray for the collapse of the coalition. Sadly, the rennaisance seems far off, particularly if enough Blairites are prepared to listen to the siren voice of their King Across the Water telling everyone that the only way Labour can win is not to move a millimetre from its NuLabour roots.

Face it, we are faced with a dearth of talent in ANY of the parties. They are all as devoid of charismatic leadership as they are of ideas. *sigh*

I think it’s fair to say (on the next election) that it’s a little too early to tell!

@10

Aren’t we supposed to be a bit better than using all that Speak You’re Branes “NuLab” rubbish?

The simple fact is that any Labour administration is better for the majority in terms of opportunity and equality than any administration involving Tories. Cameron’s “bright future” is only for the few who’d have had a pretty bright future already, The authoritarian tendencies of the previous administration, frustrating though they were, grew from the idea that we all have a responsibility towards each other and personal wealth and privilege, country of birth or whatever should not exempt anyone from that social compact – to be honest, I’m fine with that. What was depressing was when they turned that towards responding to Daily Mail/Sun headlines, and enacting every liberty-eroding suggestion that the ACPO put forth, for fear of the press backlash if they refused.

The fundamental credo of neo-liberalism, conservatism, call it what you will is that the natural order is that there will always be winners and losers. As such the latter should just learn to suck it up and the former should feel no compulsion to help the latter. I see something very wrong with that picture.

I fear the quote about Attlee was not in fact Winston Churchill. He regularly blamed the quote on some one else, pointing out that he would never say such a thin about a man he held in such high regard. Of course he might have lying, but a lot of Churchill quotes were in fact not his and were just added to his list without much question.

“but a lot of Churchill quotes were in fact not his and were just added to his list without much question.”

True. This source cites many examples:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/quotations/quotes-falsely-attributed

I rather liked this one: “The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash. – — Churchill’s assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne said that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he wished he had.”

@7 Soho Politico
“let’s not listen to them with a view to doing the opposite of what they advise either”

Absolutely bang on – although this is a distinction lost on far too many of today’s politicians. We get so many stories along the lines of “A thinks X. B also thinks X. A thinks Y, therefore B must also think Y” which are just utter nonsense.

This is what Labour must realise. The Tories are going to have their opinion – you just have to remember that it’s not automatically going to be ‘wrong’ just because it’s their opinion.

@12 bluepill

“The simple fact is that any Labour administration is better for the majority in terms of opportunity and equality than any administration involving Tories.”

Whilst your statement may be true, it’s breathtaking lack of vision demonstrates rather well why we ended up with that vacuous, oily bunch of spin obsessed trimmers masquerading as a left of centre political party. Were you asleep through most of the 13 years they were in power?! It didn’t take much to be better than pervious Tory administrations.

It’s not so much the lack of shame on the part of those responsible for NuLabour that bothers me, it’s the fact that the husk they have left shows little chance of providing anything like an effective opposition, never mind articulating a coherent and progressive alternative. The lack of talent and lack of ambition to create something better is the most depressing aspect of the 2010 defeat.

Talking of Churchill quotes, I heard this one today for the first time, re current Hague business. It’s a good one, even if he didn’t say it:

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

Looking at the original post, I can see a couple of problems with its logic.

Firstly, Mr Foot was undoubtedly a great orator, and capable of being a statesman (I don’t regard donkey jackets as non-statesman like). He was not capable of containing a violent civil war in his own party, but to be honest he would have had to be more ruthless than Churchill to achieve that – the 1983 debacle was needed before it was possible. The question is not what Mr Foot achieved, but rather who would have done a better job at the time? The Conservatives may be correct that he was the best bet for the job, for all he has gone down as a failure.

Secondly, the cafe analogy has as a key part the return of the head chef to France. This is an unexpected occurence, the sort of thing leaders will have to deal with. It does not make the original advice wrong, as the restaurant was seemingly doing fine till the chef left; it means that circumstances changed, making the original advice less useful. This is the most likely occurence here.

If Conservatives are being honest (Sally, please note this can happen), they will identify the Labour leader they see as most dangerous to them. They will not however know what will happen in the future – the chef may leave (how would Mr Blair have done if Mr Brown had resigned in 2000, for all their later troubles?), the party may explode. So such a prediction is based on their current (incomplete?) knowledge.

@watchman

It wasn’t a donkey jacket! (I know you weren’t being disparaging but it’s a common myth…)

For what it’s worth, Ed Balls would make the most effective leader of the opposition (but would I think struggle to look Prime Ministerial), David Miliband is the most obviously papabile of the bunch, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott are not running to be leader but, respectively, to put down a marker for a future contest and to become the leader of the ‘left’. Which leaves Ed Miliband, about whom I have not yet made up my mind.

All of which is irrelevant, because Labour tend to pick the favourite, and DM is the favourite.

S. Pill,

Thanks. I always thought it looked slightly odd for a donkey jacket – that might explain it.

And a statesman should be able to wear whatever coat they want…

Hmmnn.. speaking of coats, perhaps all 5 leadership candidates might benefit from a spell wearing a sanbenito*

(* Noun 1. Anciently, a sackcloth coat worn by penitents on being reconciled to the church.[Websters] )

@Watchman

Quite!

I take back my previous statement – the only mercy is that that picture was not in colour…

Winston Churchill – a man who seems to prove that all the rules of normal political careers (including never wear patterned housecoats when cameras are present) can be ignored if you are arrogant enough about it…

@Watchman

To be fair he was getting over pneumonia when the photo was taken… but still, as you say only Churchill could get away with that!

@1

That is not the point of my article. But by your logic Roy Hattersley and Tony Benn’s views are equally as valid as they are:

“two senior Labour people who secured three victories?”

Personally I wouldn’t agree.

@Watchman

I am sure you are ignoring the subtle point I am making involving the chef. Of course there were wider issues – locals wanted coffee in the mornings and not French cuisine in the evenings regardless of what end of the road they lived on.

@13

Whether the Churchill quote is attributable maybe debatable, however Churchill’s less than favourable views of CA are well accepted. On the subject of Churchill, I could have pointed out that it was Labour and not the Conservative party who wanted Churchill to takeover from Chamberlain in our finest hour. Another fine example of the Conservatives not being a good judge of leader.

There’s a Steve Bell cartoon from the last days of Margaret Thatcher that had her rearranging empty suits as a euphemism for the paucity of talent amongst her frontbenchers when it came to Cabinet reshuffles. It also acknowledged her primacy in that government as one of the few members who had the political will and vision to stand out (and that’s not a party political view – I’ll be queuing with my dancing shoes when she croaks). Twenty years later, we have very few MPs who are anything but empty suits, and even fewer who have any kind of vision other than the right career moves to make, and those empty suits who danced with the lady before they threw her out are the ones behind Cameron who are gleefully emasculating the state while the empty suit at the front preaches caring and concern. The same can be said of the opposition, except that after thirteen years in power, and seventeen of armouring itself against the sort of criticism of Michael Foot and his generation that wounded it in the 80s, there are nothing but empty suits, the policy wonks who advised Blair but who can’t master the charisma and self-belief that made him successful.

When the Tories ‘recommend’ Milliband, D or whoever, it’s not in the sense that they’re the man that they want as leader of the opposition, but a recommendation in the sense of LinkedIn’s recommendations, of a man that they can do business with, one who they see as their own and whose political differences are a small consideration in the business of politics.