Jane Kennedy - Not To Be Confused With a Socialist
The sound of Jane Kennedy spluttering and stammering her promises yesterday to compensate the poorest paid in this country - after Gordon’s Browns theft of an even greater percentage of their earnings, gave me pause for thought. Kennedy’s empty rhetoric – all New Labour acolytes are skilled this art – was as vague and non-committal as you would expect:
“Financial secretary to the Treasury, Jane Kennedy, told MPs the government was looking to help households on a low income ‘in the next few days and weeks.’
But she refused to be drawn on the issue of backdating the compensation, insisting the package was still being worked on.”
Indeed Jane Kennedy was for a short time my MP, before I moved to another area of the city. As she droned on in that somnolent New Labour manner, I remembered how and why she actually sitting on the Labour front benches. She defeated Terry Fields way back in the 1992 General Election, after Fields was kicked out of the party for believing in things like socialism.
I met Terry a couple of times and I remember sharing a drink with him at a Liverpool pub on the day he was released from jail for non-payment of the Poll Tax. He was one of the few Labour left-wingers who was actually prepared to go to jail for his beliefs, and his actions, alongside those of many others, defeated the dreaded tax. He took a worker’s wage too, as I remember the Militant slogan from that period proclaimed all socialist MPs should. Jane Kennedy’s snivelling, backtracking on behalf of her boss yesterday showed why the party is over for Labour. And when Frank Field is leading your rebellion, you know your party is dead in the water. Good night Labour. Will the last Labour lefty switch off the light on the way out; your historical necessity is over.
See Shiraz Socialist on a similar ex-MP who is standing for election in Coventry.
Past Post on this particular state of affairs.
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2 comments:
I wonder what will happen to the Labour left after the local and mayoral elections? Perhaps they're thinking is this: they can sit New Labour out. A lot of NL MPs have marginal seats which could swing to the tories at the next election - not really the case for the Campaign group, they're biggest threat being a manipulated deselection process.
Sorry so late getting back, Charlie, but life in the form of a new baby has taken over our existence at the moment. The prospects for a left-wing Labour revival is remote at best. Neo liberalism will continue unchecked (in parliament) through both Brown and – when he eventually calls an election – Cameron. The unions have a big decision to make over the next decade or so. Do they look to a new party/movement to best forward the interests of the working class of this country or do they continue to subserviently keep supporting the party which no longer share its interests?
Yesterday’s election results make a tory landslide seem virtually inevitable.
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