This
blog is dated as composed on 8 May 2010.
The extent to which it was right or wrong is left to you.
Quote:
The
present uncertainties arise for a number of reasons. Our new crop of youthful members of
parliament has grown up since the late 1980’s.
There are some remnant old stagers around as well as those on the Left
who burble incessantly about Mrs. Thatcher.
This seems to be their modern fetish in line with the worship of antique
pop groups.
Back
in the 1950’s I do not recall us wittering on about Ramsay Macdonald or paying
good money for 1920’s ballroom dancing melodies. As for dancing the Charleston, I mean my Dad
did that and well who wants to do that kind of thing?
For
all of her media dominance and thrust of her personality, Mrs. Thatcher still
presided over a party of many parts. It
was a coalition of one kind, unluckily because of the electoral system with
some bits missing that should have been there.
Old
Labour always was a coalition where the Methodists traded uneasily with the Marxists,
never mind the rivalries of the many trade unions.
Nowadays,
but not then, you will find the boilermakers in with the collective of sex
workers and a bundle of local government personnel and shop workers as in the
GMB, yes dear reader, I am a member of that union, it is a long and strange
tale.
Under
John Major the old Tory party began to disintegrate and despite the efforts of
its publicity people is still fragmented.
The difficulty now is that under the Great Leader concept of party
management the old checks and balances have gone and it is very messy.
New
Labour has abandoned its traditional base to build up a client base by huge
spending in the public sector. It has
created a new middle class who are not so much consulted as directed by media
and modern management techniques and whipped along by bonus payments and target
setting.
The
BBC is a case in point. The dictatorial
nature of Old Labour originates amongst the extreme Left groups that so many of
them belonged to whose intellectual inspiration was East Germany. The Liberal Democrat’s began as a coalition
of sorts, essentially the dissatisfied meeting the disorientated.
Bits
that might have remained have dropped off, as Greens and such, but they have
become a raggle taggle bunch of camp followers who can see only Europe as the
future and Britain as an off shore base for good intentions for the world who
will take no notice.
In
office New Labour took advantage of its position by the process of “creative
destruction” which has been very effective on the destructive side but very bad
on the creative. They have certainly
created unsustainable debt and expenditure levels but not much else.
The
only people with whom they have compromised are the money men and the big
spenders. For the rest of it they have
steam rollered Parliament, dismantled the old civil service, the Foreign Office
cannot even be civil to The Pope, and have created a web of entities and
activities too big either to control or to co-ordinate.
In
short none of the three major parties has any real experience of the nature of
discussion, manner or management of a real coalition situation and of their
members few have either grown up or been obliged to conduct any serious
business or work in negotiation to achieve the results needed.
It
is quite literally like putting not so much the lunatics in charge of the
asylum as the predatory animal packs in charge of the zoo.
Historically,
at different times and in different places similar situations have arisen
before and the results are not happy ones.
In some cases the political entities just disintegrate as a whole, in
others one form or another of absolute government occurs, perhaps after a
period of bloodshed and misery.
Occasionally,
the state concerned just staggers on from one disaster to another. Lastly and all too often the state goes off
the map as it is taken over by outsiders in one form or another.
Is
anyone taking bets?
Unquote.
Will
this be a winner or loser?
Winner.
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