Wait, why is giving a former Labour Cabinet minister a place in developing a strand of Labour thinking ludicrous? Because you don’t agree with that strand?

It’s notable that the main contribution Hazel Blears has made so far, in the ebook, can be summarised as follows; “I don’t think this is a very good idea”. Anyway, another piece of playing the man not the ball that confirms to my mind that the substantive arguments against Blue Labour are weak.

Parasite ,you beat me to it.

I americe the Democrats are the blue party the Republicans the Red one, teh word Blue is just a name the same way “new ” was just a name and It was “new labour that helped Laobur win in 1997

Also odd elision – since when does “actively contributing” mean the same as “the leader of”?

@oldpolitics – the article I linked to had a section called “About Blue Labour’s leaders” from which the quote was taken.

As for “playing the man, not the ball”, it seems to me entirely relevant to note that the people who are developing Blue Labour’s ideas are “progressive, academic and middle class”, given that Glasman thinks that the big problem with the left is that it is “progressive, academic and middle class”. Let alone the fact that he thinks that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown aren’t serious thinkers or political strategists but Hazel Blears has a lot to contribute.

“Anyway, another piece of playing the man not the ball that confirms to my mind that the substantive arguments against Blue Labour are weak.”

Here’s a couple of posts to start you off on arguments against Blue Labour:

http://don-paskini.blogspot.com/2011/02/is-labours-future-conservative.html

http://don-paskini.blogspot.com/2011/01/civil-society-and-big-state.html

@1

Probably because Purnell’s actions in creating the Work Capability Assessment has led to the suicides of several extremely vulnerable people and the abandonment of some of the hardest done by in our society.

6@ maybe if you dont agree with a former labour minister now heading a think tank, your in the wrong party then

Hear, Hear.

How is James Purnell the neoliberal Blairite any different from James Purnell the Blue Labourite?

I’ve read reams on this stuff on ‘Blue Labour’ without stumbling across a single substantial policy proposal that might ground the theory in the real world.

How is it on financial regulation, what model would it suggest for the NHS or the education system, how do you tackle escalating inequality other than through the mechanisms of the state – i.e. taxation of the wealthiest to pay for the services, pensions and social security of the increasing bulk of low earners who have no option but to rely on the state? What does localism actually mean in practice – and how is it relevant in a world where corporate power structures are becoming ever more concentrated monolithic and both economically and politically powerful?

p.s. if the movement does seek political credibility, I’m not sure Hazel Blears is the poster girl to choose to achieve that aim.

“maybe if you dont agree with a former labour minister now heading a think tank, your in the wrong party then”

I think it is a bit harsh to say that because George doesn’t agree with James Purnell he must be in the wrong party, given that he is a Lib Dem

Yeah, how dare those people with “principles” have a say!

We should all be Blue Labour and, like Purnell, get on with the serious and pressing business of attacking the sick and disabled. Supporting benefit claimants is not a “vote winner” or so the Blue Labour people tell us.

At least this time they’re being honest about not wanting people like me to support Labour.

We are where we are in politics. Most people who have a platform are middle-class. It’d be nice to imagine that the time is ripe for an autonomous working-class insurgency that sweeps them away, but it isn’t going to happen – it’s hardly the extreme of vanguardism to suggest that the path to empowering more working-class voices is going to go via, amongst other things, middle class voices advocating that empowerment.

Otherwise, what’s a middle-class academic (I’m not clear which definition of progressive we’re using this week) who thinks there is too much focus on middle-class academics in general meant to do? Resign their academic post? Take a vow of silence in the hope that reducing the number of academic voices by one makes the crucial difference?

The last paragraph of your first article, and the penultimate one in your second, are both excellent articles in favour of what Blue Labour is substantively saying. That, for whatever reason, you’ve taken violently against the messenger, puts you in the “This is interesting thinking but here is a very slightly different way of putting it that means I can launch a vicious attack on the Blue Labour version” camp. I suppose at least it’s a step or two up from Billy Bragg’s “here’s why I’m against something I have imagined Blue Labour might be in a parallel universe”.

“How is it on financial regulation, what model would it suggest for the NHS or the education system, how do you tackle escalating inequality other than through the mechanisms of the state – i.e. taxation of the wealthiest to pay for the services, pensions and social security of the increasing bulk of low earners who have no option but to rely on the state? What does localism actually mean in practice – and how is it relevant in a world where corporate power structures are becoming ever more concentrated monolithic and both economically and politically powerful?”

To be fair to Blue Labour, it has interesting things to say on all of these subjects (theoldpolitics and others might want to add) :

On NHS/education, Glasman is very critical of the managerialist, target driven culture and thinks that professionals should have more autonomy to run services as they think best, and that there should be a greater role for civil society organisations which treat people with respect rather than dehumanising bureaucracies.

Tackling rising inequality – Blue Labour argues that more should be done to reduce inequalities in pay, rather than just redistributing via the tax system. This means, for example, living wage campaigns to increase earnings of low paid workers, and a more German style system with workers’ representatives on company boards.

On the problems and power of monolithic corporate structures, Blue Labour is all about democratic resistance to capitalism, building alliances of working people through relationships and society rather than passively relying on the state or market.

All a bit different from Purnell’s approach while at DWP, of course.

Douglas;

We should all be Blue Labour and, like Purnell, get on with the serious and pressing business of attacking the sick and disabled. Supporting benefit claimants is not a “vote winner” or so the Blue Labour people tell us.

You mean like these Blue Labour people? http://blue-labour.blogspot.com/2011/06/labour-shares-blame-for-this-mental.html

Labour has to come out fighting in exposing the cruelties, injustices and humiliation being inflicted by this government on the most vulnerable of our society. It means owning up to its own past mistakes. So be it, let Labour be its own best critic. Labour’s best tradition is reciprocity – do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself. In reciprocity lies the source of our moral outrage when pain is inflicted on those who cannot defend themselves.

@oldpolitics:

How can someone like me, who is very ill, support “Blue Labour” when they say supporting benefit claimants is not a vote winner?

How can anyone like me support the man, Purnell, who created the WCA which, as pointed out above, has led to vulnerable people (the same people Labour was created to support) committing suicide and terminally ill people with less than 6 months to live being found “fit for work”?

Yes, I am attacking the man. Because this man in particular, imo, has no moral compass. Anyone who can create a test designed to deny disability and its effects on the most vulnerable should not be allowed to be in Labour, let alone call themselves human.

@13: I may need to temper my language and then wait to see what Blue Labour becomes, but I will not ever, ever forgive Purnell. He has blood on his hands.

How can someone like me, who is very ill, support “Blue Labour” when they say supporting benefit claimants is not a vote winner?

Not bothered reading the article, then? Anyway; are we really going to retreat to the kind of politics where we expect politicians to lie to make us happier, and condemn them when they confront us with difficult truths?

http://today.yougov.co.uk/commentaries/stephan-shakespeare/strong-public-support-benefit-cuts

Supporting benefit claimants isn’t a vote winner, that’s plainly obvious. It might be the right thing to do anyway, at the expense of taking a more populist line on something else, or there might be a longer-term project that turns political attitudes around, or the practical impact of the cuts might, over time, dissipate public support for the theory of them – but we should at least be honest with ourselves about where public opinion currently sits.

Anything associated with Purnell is tainted by proxy IMO. The man’s a disgrace and should be thrown out of the Labour Party.

9@ thanks if geoirge is a libdem he has no right to answer to 1@ who said that sunny was wrong to say that Purnell had a different opinion from him, that he shouln’t express it,.

“Otherwise, what’s a middle-class academic (I’m not clear which definition of progressive we’re using this week) who thinks there is too much focus on middle-class academics in general meant to do? Resign their academic post? Take a vow of silence in the hope that reducing the number of academic voices by one makes the crucial difference?”

I would suggest that options include “talk to people who aren’t academics or part of the Westminster elite, and involve them in your political project” and/or “do not issue denunciations of middle class academics, when you yourself are one”.

Glasman must know dozens of working-class people who have been active in living wage campaigns or Strangers into Citizens from his work with London Citizens. So why haven’t they been involved in Blue Labour?

@16:

I disagree, I don’t see supporting benefit claimants as “not a vote winner”. It is correct and right to support the weakest in society who cannot fend for themselves. I don’t care where public opinion sits. I don’t believe in things because it is “popular” or “has wide support”. I believe in things because they are “right” and “moral”.

I guess I’m one of those pesky people with “principals”. Though resolutely working class.

Which is another reason anyone with half a heart would put as much distance between themselves and Purnell . A disgusting anti-disabled, heartless man.

I disagree, I don’t see supporting benefit claimants as “not a vote winner”. It is correct and right to support the weakest in society who cannot fend for themselves. I don’t care where public opinion sits. I don’t believe in things because it is “popular” or “has wide support”. I believe in things because they are “right” and “moral”.

So – sorry to be thick – what do you disagree with me about?

@20. Douglas

Um, oldpolitics said that supporting benefit claimants is not a vote winner – which is a simple statement of fact – and agreed that it might still be the right thing to do. I’m not sure what it is you think you’re disagreeing with.

@ 21

Snap!

“Um, oldpolitics said that supporting benefit claimants is not a vote winner – which is a simple statement of fact – and agreed that it might still be the right thing to do. I’m not sure what it is you think you’re disagreeing with”

A poll carried out by Harris Interactive showed that 54% of people would back the reintroduction of the death penalty here in the UK.

More than three out of four British people think fewer foreigners should be able to migrate here. 61% of those polled by YouGov believe that all immigration should halted.

Let’s get with the programme! Bashing benefit claimants, bringing back hanging and stopping all immigration are vote winners!! That’s all that matters!!!

And James Purnell is a fine, upstanding figure of a man who would make great PM!.

The we can back the proper issues that exercise Liberal Conspiracy, like did minor sleb X make a racist/misogynistic/homophobic remark when pissed? Yes or no?

Another vote winner!

To be fair to Purnell…he probably only oversaw the introduction of the Employment and Support Allowance and the Work Capability Assessment rather than designing them…but the fact that he did sign off on it makes him a vicious scumbag who should be banned from membership. I have read no apology from him over this but again and again he likes to bore us with his ‘intellectual journey’ as he re-discovers the Western philsophical tradition…just like anyone doing an undergraduate degree James…just like anyone else.
Purnell also wanted to charge a 26% interest rate on crisis fund loans which made Chris Graying..CHRIS GRAYLING…wonder aloud if Purnell and Gordon Brown were re-inventing themselves as loan sharks.
I can never ever forgive Purnell for this policy and if Labour ever return to power soon and he sneaks back into influence then the Labour Party is somewhere I don’t want to be.
Please Maurice…explain how you can spend any time considering this utterly bankrupt individual?

The explanation of what, if anything ‘Blue Labour’ stands for makes me think of one of the catchphrases on the brilliant seventies American sitcom ‘Soap’, ‘confused-you will be.’

His view of the way the left presents itself seems to be a mass of contradictions, being ‘progressive’ is a bad thing even though with out aspiring towards progress politics is more or less pointless; the left is too ‘academic’ in its approach even though most of its adherents are ‘not serious and deep thinkers’.

The whole project seems rather too much like a New Labour smoke screen thrown up to keep Labour bogged down on the centre ground whilst the party hierarchy hunt around for a new leader who comes over well on television.

One thing is for certain ‘Blue Labour’ won’t advance the cause of building a fairer society that should be at the centre of left wing political activity one iota.

Great, so we have 3 main political parties and they all support various decrees of wing nutty politics. All now support sucking up to Murdoch, and the rich elites. They all support bailing out failed bankers. They all support oil wars. And they all want to sell off as much as possible to their rich elite friends.

No wonder so many people are pissed off with politics. We have a tory party, and a UKip party, and a Lib Dem orange party. A BNP party We don’t need any more fucking right wing parties!

“…they are not serious and deep thinkers or political strategists. They have too many principles for that. Many are deeply secular with no awareness of sin and the power they have, and the humiliating way they talk to people.”

Baffling. Has this been translated into Italian and back using Google translate or something?

Is he really calling for charming theocrats with no principles?

Oldpolitics @ 16

Supporting benefit claimants isn’t a vote winner, that’s plainly obvious. It might be the right thing to do anyway, at the expense of taking a more populist line on something else,

A slightly more productive line may be ‘this is a not a vote winner, we need to need to defend our position better and get the message across’.

Simply retreating through the previous battles lines means you end up in the original position that we started with, at the beginning at the last centaury.

Remember, when black people came here in large numbers after the Second World War, there were lots of people then who wanted nothing to do with them and wished they returned home at the earliest opportunity. Indeed, many Labour branches up and down the County that passed motions banning black people from membership. Similarity, with the gay community, homosexuality was actively disliked or treated with open hostility. Gay people struggled to find acceptance.

It was the Left that stood up for the oppressed then, even when these groups were deeply unpopular among the general public. We didn’t start with an agenda around ‘Well let us get stuck into these bastards’. Speak to older Labour supporters and activists, they stood up for the voiceless, even when being called ‘poofs’ and ‘nigger lovers’ and a whole lot more. Now we see that both overt racism and homophobia are deeply frowned on in polite society, to the extent that you can be openly Gay and still be a Tory or black and still be on the political Right.

This idea that we abandon the weak and the vulnerable, just because we are unwilling to defend mental illness as a legitimate concern is not ‘Red or Blue anything’, it is the politics of returning to Victorian values. If James Purnell and his henchmen are the answer then someone has asked a very, very wrong question.

@29 – absolutely, I could not agree more.

This [blue Labour] is the kind of toss you get handed when the party is co-opted by strategy wonks (“progressive, academic and middle class” – none of these words mean anything at all) and Westminster bubble-heads concerned about appealing to motorway man or Michelin man or whoever the fuck is flavour of the month this week.

It is pathetic and deeply dispiriting to see Labour’s so-called leaders yield further ground to the right whenever a controversial opinion poll is published, only to lurch back towards the centre to try to claim the “progressive” high ground days later.

These are all unprincipled slugs who should be in PR or selling guns to warring states with no regard for the consequences.

“They have too many principles for that.” Anyone who can say that is a crook.

Come on Purnell is a Pratt, who came up with the new medical test call it what you like for welfare reforms. He ‘s about as socialist as Blair, Cruddas well I have no idea again what this bloke is aiming for, easy not taking on anything .

I just think to many career politician aiming to run the party yet sound and look more Tory then labour

oldpolitics: “Supporting benefit claimants isn’t a vote winner, that’s plainly obvious.”

Well, it’s a vote winner if you accept public opinion as some kind of immutable and motiveless force immune to all argument and outside influence.

The fact is public opinion is moulded and shaped by argument in the media. The right has been extremely good at this over at least the last 20 years, and they’ve prioritised getting control of media outlets and making sure their agenda dominates the headlines and opinion columns.

In that context, accepting opinion polls on critical issues without the slightest objection isn’t being “in touch with the public”, it’s defeatism.

If Hazel Blears is the answert then I dread to think what the question is.

Though I disagree with Cruddas about most things he’s a good man and a very astute political thinker. It’s a shame seeing him get tarnished by association.

http://outspokenrabbit.blogspot.com/

@ 28: Is he really calling for charming theocrats with no principles?

Well, since that’s a pretty good description of Tony Blair, probably.

“The politics of paradox.”

Well such an easy-to-grasp message as that should go down well with the electorate – what are we looking at with that catchphrase at the next election – a double landslide – or a political tsunami? – Disaster either way..
Save us from these self-appointed political guru’s who arrogantly assume they know what is best for us lowly ones – take off the masks you blue humbugs – you are merely business consultants in socialist’s overcoats. Get knocking on doors you smug preachers and revealers of the true path – we know your pedigree – sell your politics of paradox to the gullible – if you can find any that desperate. When the Tory Big Society idea is in such laughable chaos – the best you can do is come up with this half baked Chimera? God help us!
They haven’t so much as had an idea – as discover a ridiculous and paradoxical sound bite – Blue Labour prophets appear to be determined to lose Labour the next election – send them back where they would be happiest – paradoxically – in the Tory party – you can be as blue as you like there.

Hazel Blears?

James Purnell?

David Sears?

Blue Labour is taking the piss!

Would any Italian speakers like to comment on the original? Because what I’ve seen in English is utter shite, and while everything I’ve heard about Blue Labour suggests that it’s because they talk shite, I’m willing to be generous and concede that it might be a poor translation for all I know.

(And this is the problem with being a monoglot).

Purnell – enthusiastic expenses fiddler who charged the taxpayer for fridge magnets

Blears – Vile ginger midget whose permanent grin is tantamount to a sign reading “please slap me hard”

For more on drivelling fool Glasman see the current Private Eye. The only thing Labour can usefully learn from Glasman is how to ignore Glasman

@ 24 Captain Swing

“Let’s get with the programme! Bashing benefit claimants, bringing back hanging and stopping all immigration are vote winners!! That’s all that matters!!!”

Straw man attacks are childish and boring.

11old politics wellsaid