Some (deliberate?) unclarity here about who ‘the left’ is. In my book, there are large parts of New Labour which have no left-wing credentials at all; and large parts of the Left that are not in the Labour Party.
Whoever wins, they have no better claim to be ‘the’ Leader of the Left in this country than does (say) Caroline Lucas.

Agreed whole-heartedly

Whoever wins, the left doesn’t change and neither will the coalition. The campaign has drawn out a lot of good ideas and has helped highlight some of the problems the left faces as well as some of the damage the tories (of bother colours) intend to do to the country.

I hope whoever wins also recognises that the left is wider than Labour. Ken did well fostering links with the Greens in past mayoral elections and Labour needs to form its own wider coalition of ideas and campaigning to compete with the new centre-right coalition.

After the vicious and unpleasant things said about David Miliband on this blog over the past few months, the prospect of you lot “uniting behind” him is, to the outside observer, a pretty mind-boggling one. Some will think that such a volte face won’t say much for your consistency, honesty or political integrity. But hey, that’s politics.

Rupert:
In my book, there are large parts of New Labour which have no left-wing credentials at all; and large parts of the Left that are not in the Labour Party.

I agree on that. But I’m not saying the left agrees with everything Labour does at all. but I am saying the left can/should unite to fight the cuts – and within that include Labour party people.

Nice bit of trolling there flowerpower.

Flowerpower

Be fair – I’ve spent the last two months criticising some of the appalling stuff LC has written about David Miliband. But having a view of a particular leader, whichever might win, doesn’t diminish one’s belief in a much wider movement.

“You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back”- Yes Minister.

Just kidding Sunny. I am glad that you are taking an issues-based approach to the coalition, and not just attacking them indiscriminately.

@1 sums up the problem nulab/LP has, what exactly is meant by ‘the left’, while I’m continuely banging on about this on LC, it isn’t me that nulab/LP have to appeal to (incidently Sunny, is it nulab or the Labour Party?) and if it is the Labour party, as you refer to in the op, is it just a change of title or a change of direction?
And if you want to appeal to the thousands of voters who have decided to abandon this party, you may, indeed, have to think about being out of power for a decade, because it will need a lot of cleansing to remove the stench of Blair.

“After the vicious and unpleasant things said about David Miliband on this blog over the past few months, the prospect of you lot “uniting behind” him is, to the outside observer, a pretty mind-boggling one”

Vicious and unpleasant things like “Why I am voting for David Miliband’ ?

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/09/03/17327/

7 steveb

Well said. There must be many, many people like steveb and myself who could never bring themselves to support or vote for Labour unless we are sure it has been exorcised of the spirit of New Labour.

I wish those of you within the party luck, because I have a strong sense you are going to need it. In the meantime, I’ll be looking at other options…. it’s hardly as though I will be spoiled for choice sadly!

Agreed. The overwhelming weakness of the Left is its inability, compared to the Right, to tolerate bits of itself it doesn’t completely agree with (The Right has to spawn something as extreme as the Tea Party before it fractures; we have lines drawn between two different kinds of socialist.) Kudos to Sunny for actually trying to do something about this.

6 Rumbold

That was exactly the quote I was searching for and you beat me to it!

All kidding aside tho, a big part of the problem with appeals for a united left of centre/progressive front (however unofficial) is that most of those who self identify as “of the left” don’t trust those in the Labour Party further than we could throw them.

I’m prepared to listen to whoever wins tomorrow, and judge them by their actions, but I’ll still be hearing the old warning in my head everytime whichever of the political pygmies eventually wins tomorrow speaks: “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?”.

It seems that all posts here (and indeed most articles/posts in left wing media over the last 30 years) are variants on “Whither the Left?”.

At what point are you going to twig?

Pedant point – Mrs Thatcher didn’t make any cuts. The last government to make cuts was the one led by Mr Callaghan, operating under orders from the IMF.

12
When are we going to twig what?
Socialism has come a long way since Marx and Fabianism, unlike the dinasoars on the right. who still quote an 18th century sage. Socialism belongs to a modern society not one that still looks towards land-owners, feudal lords and small village society. Admittedly Thatcher was able to use vast sums of money to hoodwink the population into believing that markets can really work. And the coincidental fall of the Soviet Union, spawning the phrase that ‘it’s capitalism which has won’ is still touted, but it seems empty when we now survey the capitalist world.

Richard,

“Pedant point – Mrs Thatcher didn’t make any cuts.”

That explains why Sunny is so sure Messrs Osborne and Cameron want to do deeper cuts! Although to be fair, I’m sure Mrs Thatcher redistributed money from one area of government to another, which can be represented as cuts (quite properly).

I do not doubt most of the Labour movement will remain loyal to their leader, and fellow travellers may see the advantage of working together with the movement; the problem will come with the policies – will everyone be able to agree on how to deal with the deficit for example? I can see a situation where Labour is united behind a leader, but has no clear idea of policy as different factions put forward their own ideas and the void at the heart of the Labour party (what is it for?) remains unfilled. And a loyal party with no purpose is no better than a disloyal party with clear purpose.

8

do you not read articles other than your own?

He’s been attacked as a propagandist, as being enthral to the daily heil, being right wing, for steamboating (or whatever the american phrase was), and a lot more besides.

steveb,

Be fair. Show us an example of a functioning socialist society, and we may be inclined to believe it works.

Socialism achieved a lot – I think our current NHS, welfare state, education system (despite all important reforms being passed by Conservative governments) etc is a direct result of the existence of socialist ideas. But what is it offering now, and how does that work?

steveb

Worth noting – that all those who left the party – are not neccesarilly the party’s core support. Despite the simplistic narative along those lines, in East London the core support has stayed very strong and saw majorities rise in 2010. (Look up results in places like east and west ham)

So it isn’t as simple as returning the party to the left. reconnecting with the centre-left/middle class voters who abandoned the party in 2005 and 2010 matters too.

Of course identifying why they left is hard. Iraq was probably part of it. The economy was too, I would imagine. But the key is to focus on what those who stick with the party felt was worth sticking with – and building from there.

Watchman

Actually one could argue the UK is a successful and functioning socialist state. Socialism was not communism. It was conceived as an interim system that would exist in the transition from a capitalist age of shortage to a communist age of plenty.

It was generally described in terms of the process of the market continuing to allocate resources, but with capital owned collectively.

If you simply cast off the false impression that ownership = control you can see that socialism exists now. Regulation of companies, employment, standards of goods, working time, and so on – is very much a communal control.

Obviously I’m being light-hearted in making such a case. But you can see why it is somewhat foolish to ask for a clear-cut example of something that simply is not clear cut.

Nice to see Sunny trying to wriggle out of it, in case he’s backed the wrong horse. Again.

According to Guido Fawkes, ‘Red Ed’ will likely lose the first ballot to brother David but win through after second preferences are taken into account.If so, he has played a master stroke in that his (cynical?) lurch to the left was succesful in seducing the unions and the activists to support him.(Second preferences,eh? If AV is so good for electing a leader why not promote it for general elections? Oh, I forgot that used to be party policy dropped in the cynical belief it might undermine the Coalition.)

Calls for unity like Sunny’s above are wonderfully pious and full of ‘mom and apple pie’ – heartwarming, indeed and let’s face it…….no one is going to say the opposite, are they?

Anyway, if Ed does win, he will need to appeal to the electorate at large not just the devoted and that means somehow getting back onto the centre ground now occupied by the Coalition and recently abandoned by Gordon Brown.A tough task and one which if he pursues with the same calculation as he employed to become leader will see him (like many Labour leaders before him) quietly and quickly put the activists and unionists back into their box.

After the honeymoon therefore comes the reckoning,once the activists and unionists realise yet again they have been sold a pup, we will begin to see the old divisions reappear.

Unity? Good idea, but it will be short lived.

According to Guido Fawkes…

Please – let’s try and use intelligent sources?

He’s just quoting the changing view on the betting markets this morning. None of it’s based on any new information – as far as I’m concerned both have an equal chance of winning.

Anyway, if Ed does win, he will need to appeal to the electorate at large not just the devoted and that means somehow getting back onto the centre ground

Agreed – but he’s always been a centrist candidate for anyone who actually bothered reading up on his policies.

After the honeymoon therefore comes the reckoning,once the activists and unionists realise yet again they have been sold a pup, we will begin to see the old divisions reappear.

Not really. My point above is that the left has to make their case repeatedly – whether Ed or whether David is in power. But it’s possible to make that case repeatedly and effectively without getting all ‘it’s betrayal all over again!’ all the time.

19 margin4error

“Actually one could argue the UK is a successful and functioning socialist state. Socialism was not communism.”

You could argue it, but your’d be wrong. Social Democratic perhaps…even that would probably be overstating it. Your posited “socialst” society really didn’t make a hell of a lot of progress in making society that much more equal did it? We still have a small % owning most of the resources, an under-regulated financial system, and a society that is frighteningly archaic in many ways.

I mean good grief, they didn’t even get around to reforming the Lords until recently!!

Galen

Depends how you define equal

If you mean purely in terms of cash earnings – no – we are not more equal.

But if you mean in terms of inequalities in being able to eat, heat one’s home, healthcare, literacy, and so on – we are an awful lot more equal than at any time in history.

And as I said – socialism wasn’t communism. Communism could provide greater equality. Socialism was always described as being a transitional era in which capitalist functions continued in a socialised form. So why would cash inequality cease?

though again – I realise this is obviously a worthless debate as it really doesn’t matter if what we are living in now is socialist or not according to a traditional rather than politicised/slang/insult sence.

Much better to focus on practical things like redistributing wealth to support the poor, better services, and so on.

Hence the left needs to unite to challenge the cuts the right are about to instigate.

Because you could double the cash of the poor, and make them worse off none-the-less by closing their hospitals. (As is happening and was even reported in Boris’s campaign newsletter yesterday – all be it only on about page 12)

17
There’s never been a functioning socialist society, so I can’t point to one, and neither can you point to a functioning modern capitalist society (I suppose there might be different definitions of functioning)
18 The people who left nulab/lab can be broadly placed into three groups, floating voters, the old LP supporter (I call them the core voters) and those who defected from nulab (core nulab supporters) because of totally different reasons from the original core LP voters. So you are correct, the core support of nulab are/were not the core voters I allude to.
19 ‘If you simply cast off the false impression that ownership = control’ I’m glad that you qualified this comment by stating that you were being light-hearted.
@17 As you point-out, corporatism was a total failure, and I think most on the left (my definition of left) would agree with you But isn’t it strange that most on the right want to carry-on with it to some degree, don’t you think that’s strange considering it’s supposed to be a socialist ideal

“If AV is so good for electing a leader why not promote it for general elections?”

Because general elections are about electing a large assembly, in which both a degree of plurality rule and proportionality can be reflected, whereas leadership elections are about a single individual where there is a clear logical case for rewarding a ‘consensus’ candidate?

@27: Because general elections are about electing a large assembly, in which both a degree of plurality rule and proportionality can be reflected, whereas leadership elections are about a single individual where there is a clear logical case for rewarding a ‘consensus’ candidate?

Nonsense. I a general election, your vote only affects who is elected to represent your constituency in parliament. This is equally true under FPTP and AV. So you are electing a single individual.

If you want a general election to explicitly elect a government, the best system would be to have a directly elected head of government, as they do in the USA or France.

Speaking as someone who lives in a Lab / Lib Dem marginal, who voted Lib Dem at the GE, and who is not a fan of the Tories, what it would take to get me to vote Labour at the next election would be, at the minimum:

1. Labour becoming pro civil liberties

2. Labour becoming pro proportional representation. Supporting AV in the referendum would be a big step in the right direction.

I suspect that there are millions of former Lib Dem voters who it would not be too hard to persuade to vote Labour, especially if Labour’s policies reflected their concerns, and if the coalition’s economic policies aren’t seen as successful. If the new Labour leader wants to win over these people, he should bear in mind you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.