So Peter Hain has finally done the decent thing and resigned from the Government, It is a sad end.
As someone once said, all political careers end in failure but his demise is particularly painful. Hain was once a radical campaigner, fought apartheid, and did a great job in Northern Ireland. In the long-gone days of Blair's dominance, he was even prepared to talk to disaffected Party members about their concerns . For all of those reasons ( and because there wasn't a proper left candidate) I voted for Hain for the Deputy Leadership.
The issue of his campaign funding has now been referred to the police - and he has had to go. Frankly, it's rather a shame he didn't reisign on a point of honour. Let's face it there have been so many opportunities - what with the draconian measures planned at the DWP to force people back to work. Not to mention the Remploy scandal.
Update: And sadly Hain has been replaced by the odious toady James "Photoshop" Purnell.....
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Look who is replacing him, the even more odious pole climber James Purnell, where has he come from? he looks, sounds and acts like a Tory, was he one? Imo, UK politics really is becoming a one party state.
Purnells's voting record
Voted strongly for introducing ID cards.
Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals.
Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees.
Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly against investigating the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.
Fom 'They work for you' profile
Think it is time that there was some serious downsizing of the money sloshing around British politics. No more of these silly scandals.
I was hoping someone interesting might be brought in in the reshuffle, but it's just the same old same old...where on earth is the next inspirational centre-left labour leader going to come from? You have to wonder...there seems a real shortage of talent at the minute.
"For all of those reasons ( and because there wasn't a proper left candidate) I voted for Hain for the Deputy Leadership. "
What? Cruddas was the left candidate. I know you had your beef with him and I fully understand that, but to deny him as the left candidate or to suggest that there was no such thing is utterly disingenuous imo.
No it's not disengenuous. The Cruddas camp utterly betrayed John McD - the only person having the guts to stand up against Brown -and therefore I did not support him.
So your lack of support for Cruddas (the most left wing candidate in the deputy leadership contest) was due to 'his camp's betrayal' of McDonnell...on those grounds you supported someone who was not as left wing and who was not as willing to further a left agenda? How far right would you be willing to go on the basis of your anger? Did the agenda and politics of the deputy leadership candidates play any part in your choice, or or did you choose solely on the basis of who was nicest to McDonnell?
The maths of that leadership campaign suggest that McDonnell, for all that he'd have made an excellent and appropriately left wing candidate for leadership, was far from able to achieve the necessary level of nominations. Cruddas supporting him would not have made a substantive difference to the result. That fact does not stop Cruddas being the most left wing candidate in the deputy leadership contest. This is why I suggest that your assertion that there was no left wing candidate to choose was a disingenuous one: you may not have liked that candidate, and indeed may have felt betrayed by him...but he was still the left wing option, whom you chose not to support.
Instead you chose to support the tan man, whose penchant for self-publicising led him to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on his campaign as he desperately chased Cruddas's leftwing agenda setting.
It was a damn shame we didn't get a leftwing candidate (Mc Donnell) on the slate to contest the leadership: what a shame so many leftwingers decided that having not got a left wing contender in the leadership, we'd abandon any hope of getting a left wing candidate in the deputy leadership too. A fit of pique that robbed of us of the chance to balance the books in any way.
Danni, it wasn't a fit of pique. Frankly, I'm astonished you do not see the illogicality of a "left" candidate supporting Gordon Brown - and denying thousands of us the chance to have a real say in the future of the Labour Party. Cruddas said he wanted to see grassroots members having a say. By voting for Brown, he was part of the problem, not any solution.In doing so,he lost all credibility,
And by the way what's the bloody point of espousing "left" policies and voting for the person who was going to do his damndest to ensure they would NOT be implemented.......
Probably about as much point as eschewing the most leftwing candidate in the deputy leadership contest because of what happened during the leadership debacle.
I'm astonished that you do not see the illogicality of not voting for the most left wing candidate in the only contest left to us to participate in. The very fact that McDonnell didn't get onto the leadership slate made it imperative that we support the most leftwing candidate for deputy leadership. Given a choice between not having a leftwing option for leader, but having a left wing deputy and not having a left wing leadership contender OR a left wing deputy, I'd suggest that the former would have done us more good. As it stands, we have yet again cut off our nose to spite our face.
It is arguable that Cruddas might have won had some on the left who did not vote for him done so. Would it have made any actual difference to the Brown Government ? I don't think so. In the event he had a platform for six weeks where council housing, Iraq ( for which don't forget he voted) and trade union rights were on the agenda. That was as much as could be hoped for, frankly. My second preference vote went to harman who also posed as "left" but the minute Brown realised she had won he abolished the post of Deputy Prime Minister.
The only way a Deputy leader could have had real influence was a) in the Cabinet and b) as deputy PM. Cruddas said ( and I don't doubt it) he wanted neither of those roles.
In the event, the Govt came up with a Housing Bill which is far from the agenda laudably suported by Cruddas and other supporters of Defend Council Housing.
And if we're talking about cutting off noses to spite faces then Jon Cruddas is certainly guilty of that too because he nominated Brown when he already had, er, 300 nominations.
Since the leadership debacle Cruddas has certainly supported the left on various issues and that's fine. But no, I don't regret voting for Hain. I don't think it would have made a a scrap of difference if Cruddas had been deputy. Brown has rendered the post largely irrelevant
We're getting into counterfactual history there though Sue. We cannot know what might have happened had Cruddas won. What we do know is that of the candidates on offer in that Deputy Leadership contest, Cruddas was the most left wing. Had the most left wing candidate won, that would have sent a message to the leadership that there is large scale grass roots support for left politics and politicians in Labour. What effect that might have had on Gordon's style of governance, we cannot know (though of course we can guess/surmise).
My objection is that you consistently characterise that contest as having no left candidate to choose: I disagree with that assertion. Cruddas was the left candidate, a candidate you did not support because of what had happened during McDonnell's campaign. To make the assumption that it wouldn't matter anyway because Brown's not going to listen to the winner, is defeatism (regardless of how prophetic or not that view might have been).
In terms of the position of deputy leader/deputy prime minister: I completely agreed with Cruddas's idea of separating those. I wanted a deputy leader for the party, who'd be there for us: the members, not someone who would just sit in the cabinet with the rest of them, nodding along and tangled up in collective responsibility for every disastrous decision or direction taken. Outwith the cabinet the Deputy has the potential (imo) to push the agenda within the party and bring pressure to bear on the leadership from the membership body. I notice that Harman has singularly refused to take on that role.
What possible good is a Deputy Leader of the party who is also a Deputy PM ? Gordon's right arm is not going to raise itself against him.
I think the leadership is well aware that the grassroots of the Party is well to the left of them. That's why they went to such lengths to keep John McD off the ballot paper.
I am sorry but there is no getting away from the fact that Jon Cruddas was instrumental, not just an innocent bystander,in there not being a contest. I have explained precisely why in a separate e-mail to dave.Yes, I would have voted for cruddas had that not been the case.
I also think the fact that he ruled out being in the Cabinet or Deputy PM was aa mistake. Tony Benn managed to be in the Cabinet and be left - by staying outside , that does not strengthen the left . We now have arguably the most right-wing Cabinet in Labour's history. And we are a long way from the agenda propsoed by either Cruddas or McDonnell. The left has to unite - I have no problem with that.
But I still say that the reason we are in this current mess is partly because we fell apart at the first hurdle in May last year. That must not happen again.....
The deputy leader is the one Cabinet member we appoint rather than the PM - I can't see why we'd want to ditch that last vestige of party influence on the government. The role you are asking for is an elected party chair: something I agree with entirely but should exist in addition to the deputy leader.
I think we'll have to agree to differ on that one Doctor Dunc. Thus far the practice of combining Deputy Leader and Deputy PM hasn't produced shining results.
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