THE RED FLAG 

It is a very-very sad time for British politics as the Labour Party is now in its death throes and cannot ever be saved – it can never ever win another UK General Election. It has alienated itself from those who could support it and vote for it, hasn’t it? Oh yes, it may have been on the cards for decades, but the decline has been much more rapid in more recent years, as adverse events have erupted, which will deny its ongoing survival, eh?

This follows-on from the lest dramatic demise of the liberal democrats’ stupid self destruction caused by the toxic cross contamination with the Tories. Their role in national politics of influencing the power exercised by others without ever holding ultimate power themselves has gone – because they tried to step out of that role and again play at government – and it is highly unlikely that the people will ever offer them that ‘holding the government of the day to-account’ responsibility again to the same extent, will they?

The problem for Labour is that the valued socialist values of the original Labour Party as formed by the Unions, have been swallowed-up by UK society’s development over the past century and the Party has been left well behind, They didn’t move with the times and got stuck in the time warp of the ill-educated, but honest, dedicated manual working man, in the fields, down the pits, at the mills, in the shipyards, on the docks, quarrying, stoking the blast furnaces, working the lathes, manning the assembly lines, and the like.

In the old days the deserving poor were with us far and wide, but since then, apart from Britain becoming a multi-cultural society, there has been a vast improvement in the standard of living of ordinary people and manual workers’ numbers have declined rapidly, so since the Second World War there has been a steady swap and movement of people from working class to middle class (those who nowadays account for fifty-five percent of the population – and increase from twenty percent in the 1900s).

In those bad old days when Labour first emerged from its cocoon, and the core voting Labour working class became central, some quarter of Brits lived in poverty and substantial numbers were at or below the subsistence level, so couldn’t even afford an adequate diet. The main cause of such poverty was low wages – certainly there was no affording of ‘luxuries'(?) like newspapers or public transport, eh? But all that has seen rapid change with the so-called ‘sweated industries’ gone, decent wages paid, unemployment benefit for workers gained and many other things. Most significantly, the days of mass unemployment and poorness has long gone with absolute poverty almost disappeared: our economy previously struck by deep depressions is now history, the power and oppression of the working man by employers has been mitigated by governments’ reforms – hence the new recent ‘austerity’ hardly more devastating than a boil on the backside, is it?

However, major change has certainly overcome our British economy, with the decline of farming & fishing and the de-industrialisation of textiles, coal mining, steelmaking, shipbuilding, electronics, car/ bus/ train/ plane making, and indeed much manufacturing – replaced with service industries including tourism, education, retail and finance. Our heavy industries have simply haemorrhaged jobs and the tradition manufacturing of the East Midlands, the West Midlands, the North East, the North West, the South East, have shrunk like a deflating balloon, haven’t they? Indeed the driving force of the Country’s prosperity since the late 1700s has been manufacturing, but nowadays it contributes only in single figure terms to the percentage workforce or output. The heart of the UK’s economy nowadays rests in London, but that is somewhere which now has practical little manufacturing, does it? The change in job profiles has left the Labout Party marooned as it has remained rooted to a desert island.

[Textiles: 350,000 Jobs Lost; Car Manufacturing: 330,000 Jobs Lost; Steel Making: 315,000 Jobs Lost; Coal Mining: 158,000 Jobs Lost; Farming: 142,000 Jobs Lost; Ship, Train And Plane Manufacturing: 138,000 Jobs Lost; Tin Mining: 52,000 Jobs Lost; Fishing: 9,000 Jobs Lost]

Much of the population now enjoy significant disposable income, so can make more choices in terms of their lifestyles and that includes their politics, doesn’t it? Soon there will be no one left for Labour to champion, will there?

With industries decimated, and the redundant workers redeployed, Labour’s heartland of Britain’s industrial areas have shrunk dramatically, so Labour’s support is being steadily being wiped-out and is heading for extinction, surely?

The blunt truth is that Labour has failed to move with the times and have abandoned the future to live in an era past. Tony Blair, notwithstanding his exposed major faults, must be given credit for trying to drag Labour onto the central ground in the modern world of UK politics of the 21 century, where its potential supporters had moved to – but the diehard luddites quickly rained on his parade to turn back the clock, didn’t they?

With great glee the hoard of wayward new recruits to Labour, were suddenly allowed in to overrun lifelong fully paid-up wise supporters to elect a politically obtuse leader who has zilch experience or zero capability to run anything, let alone a political party heading for the knackers yard? Oh make no mistake about it Jeremy Corbyn is a caring, honest and genuine socialist of the old school – but what does he bring to the table? In a word PAIN. He has amply demonstrated his incapacity to LEAD. he has already shown unbelievable INCOMPETENCE in holding a wavering Government to account, despite open goals – not least at PMQs whence PM David Cameron now gets a full night’s sleep on a Tuesday night with no worry that a punch will be landed on him the next day: he is blatantly OUT-OF-TOUCH with today’s voter, as shown by lack of credibility on the campaign trail and inadequate results in the recent elections. Can he be an electionship winner? Never, in a month of Sundays, eh?

[A linked blog titled The killers of the UK Labour Party – exposed? will follow and be published for you to read in a few days]