THE RED FLAG 

The scene was set in last week’s blog The Labour Party’s health is in terminal decline – “Do Not Resuscitate”? about the demise of the once great British Labour Party.

There have been major players who should hang their heads in shame for bringing the Labour Party to its knees. So exactly who finally ‘did in’ the Labour Party then, who let it down in its time of need, who is guilty, indeed who is standing over the corpse?

Well the major names in the frame, particularly those from within the party, and the ones who must carry the can, are able to be exposed here and now. can’t they?

Even some forty years ago Labour was a power house including dedicated caring politicians of substance, and led by accomplished men like PM Harold Wilson – who won three general elections out of five contested (in 1964, 1966, & 1974). Now in the 2000s it is a damp squib, populated at the top by career politicians of dubious commitment and zero experience, and fronted by nobodies.

Let’s start with dour Scot and ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown albeit an outstanding Chancellor, but who has played a most recent dreadful part in Labour’s killing. In a vile spirit of jealously and spite, he set-out to arson bomb Blair’s legacy and scuttle the New Labour battleship ‘Blair’, built to allow Labour to sail on though rough seas and take on the Tories. Blair knew that Brown wasn’t capable of stepping-up and being a PM – and so it proved, didn’t it? Under him their politicians, activists and passengers stupidly disembarked from the Blair into the old rotten, battered, sinking, hulk of Old Labour and so their drowning fate was sealed, wasn’t it?

Then we might mention another Scot, Alistair Darling a competent charismatic ex- Chancellor, who unwittingly knifed between the ribs his Party in Scotland by sharing platforms with the nationally ‘obsessively hated’ Tories. He fought ferociously side-by-side as a mercenary for the despised Conservative government in favour of Scotland staying in the Union. He was the modern equivalent of the traitorous Lowland clans who fought for the English to defeat and butcher fellow Scots Highlanders at Culloden over a quarter of a century ago, perhaps? The consequences have been an unforeseen disaster: Scotland the last large landmass of Labour support was lost in a rout by the SNP at the subsequent General Election last year: Labour were unexpectedly defeated in their quest to return to government after 5 years of Tory LibDem coalition: the Conservatives achieved a majority and didn’t have to form a coalition administration and that allowed them to push through boundary changes that would further diminish Labour’s chances of ever winning power again: then subsequently Labour suffered the crass ignominy of the previously hated Tories beating them in the recent Assembly elections this year to become the official opposition to the Scottish Nationalists – the Scottish electorate apparently didn’t feel able to rely on Labour to oppose the Conservatives it seems (?): ongoing devolution of power to Scotland and Wales will to all intents and purposes ensure that Labour will never be able to win another UK wide election. Darling has achieved an unwarranted & unfortunate place in political history, hasn’t he?.

Let us turn also to look at the adverse contribution made to the Labour Party by ex-Foreign secretary David Miliband, another one whose pride, self interest, green-eyed monster envy, and jealously, delivered a poison pill to Labour’s electoral chances. He wanted to be the Leader when Brown went, following his electoral defeat, but was opposed by his younger brother Ed, who won. Did he hang around to help his brother reinvigorate & rejuvenate his Party? No of course not, he simply jumped ship in a fit of pique, and amply demonstrated that he didn’t care a damn about his Country, be bothered a sod about politics. or least of all give a fig for the Labour Party. He showed the electorate that Labour was now simply stuffed with career politicians who were in it for fun and self gratification, without any question of self sacrifice or public service – who was going to vote for a crowd like that, eh?

Then there is Ed Balls who was Labour’s Shadow Chancellor in the last Parliament who totally failed, through no real fault of his own, to convince the electorate that he could get a grip on the economy. The problem was that he was a ‘barrow-boy’ type character with the wrong image who would have better serves as a thug style Home Secretary; he was appointed by then Opposition Leader Ed Miliband, in one of his crass mistakes, who should have chosen Balls’ wife Yvette Cooper who was much better qualified for the job and also carried the gravitas required in the financial world.

Going back in time we ought to mention ex-miners leader Arthur Scargill, who single-mindedly destroyed Union power in this Country some thirty odd years ago. Intellectually weak he led his troops into a disaster akin to the Charge of the Light Brigade. He was enticed into a devious trap by PM Maggie Thatcher, who had built-up coal stocks to circumvent any miners’ strike, and then she provoked such a strike action. Notwithstanding this, the general public supported the miners’ cause, but that support quickly dissipated because Scargill constantly refused to hold a ballot amongst his members to authorise such a strike and he simply decreed it would carry-on by his personal say-so – hence on his shoulders lies the closure of all our mines and the ultimate loss of the whole of the UK coalmining industry. The miners had been the most powerful of Unions , but it was left in ruins after a year’s futile strike, broken & demoralised by the power of the State, poverty & hardship, and the illegal oppressive actions of the Police force (for which they have never been held to account). Thatcher’s game plan to defeat Union power succeeded admirably primarily because of the idiocy of one man, and that has contaminated the Labour Party ever since.

Oh yes, Thatcher’s name had to be given prominence here, but she as a staunch Conservative Leader and Prime Minister of long standing, was quite entitled to smite Labour with devastating injuries if not indeed a fatal blow, wasn’t she?

Another left winger Ken Livingstone although an outstanding ex-Mayor of London has at the same time tarnished the image of Labour by courting controversy at every turn and providing an easy target for criticism of the Party – much of which sticks or leaves the electors with a bad taste in the mouth.

The final nail in the coffin is of course current Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn who has burst from obscurity onto the scene of national politics. He has only a bit part to play in the killing-off of the Labour Party, but he is certainly making a meal of it. It is a surprising situation as on the surface he is not a power hungry maniac, but a mad-hatter nevertheless. Why in heavens name he wants to be in charge of Labour goodness knows, but his haphazard incompetent approach is steadily turning off the British general voter.

Mind you Labour is its own worst enemy and in England they are ignoring the lessons of their demise in Scotland and are campaigning alongside the Conservative government to stay in the EU. Their policy is driven by an attempted smokescreen to obscure their total failure to protect workers’ rights in the UK by our own Parliament’s, so they are having to rely on that being imposed by the EU – that simply further demonstrates to socialist and working voters how useless Labour has been. Corbyn has toed the line on Labour’s EU policy but has displayed only a half hearted commitment as is his style, and that will be a further nail in Labour’s coffin however the Referendum turns out, wont it?

Then there is Labours stance on Britain’s nuclear defence with Polaris replacement. It is a proposal which some say will undoubtedly bankrupt the Country and will have dubious benefit to the UK’s defence needs. Moreover, Labour’s policy on that is not based on what is good for the Nation. is it? No, they are willing to back the massive expenditure and risks associated with remaining a nuclear power, simply to protect ‘Luddite-like’ a few thousand workers jobs employed in the nuclear industry – how idiotic is that, eh?

The Press, which is unquestionably Tory, and invariably owned by rich foreigners or non-UK residents, has also played a major part in Labour’s death, and the worst of the rogues is the American domiciled Australian Rupert Murdoch, who has been shown to be all but an honorary member of Cameron’s cabinet, eh?

It would only be fair to mention in passing, Alex Salmon MP and Scottish Assembly First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP, who have also played bit parts, by both destroying Labour’s credibility over the border and putting Labour’s nose out of joint by secreting 54 out of 59 Scottish MPs to Westminster, as well as constantly furthering their ambition for Scottish independence (yet bizarrely then wanting to immediately hand it over to the EU?).

The one Labour figurehead NOT to blame YET is ex-PM Tony Blair for sure, despite his disastrous liaison with President George Bush that got this country embroiled in the disgusting Iraq war, but nevertheless he will be at the graveside helping to lower the coffin. Blair won landslide General Election victories for Labour in 1997 and 2001, plus a third win in 2005. The seven year long awaited Chilcot Report on the Iraq war will finally be published in about a month’s time, and it is probable that it will further immerse the Labour Party in a pigsty quagmire, while the Conservatives, together with other guilty individuals, will hide behind that to escape their combined culpability, won’t they?

[As often is the case killers escape due process, justice, or retribution and so it will turn out no doubt for those who sucked the very life out of the Labour Party , won’t it?]