Old Labour Bites Back
The scandal of loans to New Labour that circumvent the party funding rules and apparatus set up by…. New Labour, is old, old news to any reader of Private Eye. The name of Chai Patel is well known to anyone who knows what to read, as is the fact that others making loans to Labour have recieved peerages, quango seats and other preferments. It’s been an open secret for years.
What is interesting is that it’s coming up now, and who’s bringing it up – Jack Dromey, former Grunwick trade union hero, spouse to Brownite Harriet Harman, and a loyal Old Labourite. He seemed genuinely shocked on BBC 2’s Newsnight ( 24 hr video link here), but how much of that outrage is real I really don’t know. I suspect much of the shock comes from realising that he may well find himself to be one of those found jointly and severally liable when the inquiry starts to roll. So he’s taking preemptive action.
Whatever Dromey’s motives, he is giving voice to what’s left of the rapidly-shrinking rump of the Labour Party, the part that came from nothing and will go out with nothing, that believes in rules, in fairness and in moral probity. Yes, they’re still there, the decent people, much fewer than before but hanging grimly on in the vain hope they can one day take their party back.
Despite Alistair Campbell‘s ( Labour’s Karl Rove) adroit astroturfing of the ‘We’re not hearing anything on the doorstep’ meme over all the local news programmes and phone-ins last week, ordinary people are mightily pissed off about Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and ‘estranged’ husband David Mills, and what their financial shenanigans say about the Labour party and its disconnection from reality. The world inhabited by Labour ministers – the world of high-flying spouses who use their husbands or wives’ influence for their own personal gain; the world of hedge funds and multiple mortgages of millions of pounds; the world of money sloshing around offshore accounts and cosy power weekends in the Cotswolds with bankers and socialites – this is not the world most Labour supporters live in.
What remains to be seen is whether Old Labour have enough strength to bring Blair down, and if so, who will replace him. Dromey certainly picked the right moment to attack – just when Blair had had to rely on the Tories to get a bill through because he couldn’t get a majority from his own party – and we know damned well that that support will be withdrawn at the most opportune moment for the Tories. But can Dromey et al follow through? They need to either deliver a coup de grace, or so wrap Blair in procedure and investigations that he’s tied down like Gulliver and has no other option but to resign. Can they do it? Time will tell.
Home SecretaryCharles the Safety Elephant was wheeled out harrumphing to damp down speculation on this morning’s Today programme , but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Revolt in the House, revolt in the ranks, and a lukewarm Cabinet – and I haven’t even mentioned Iraq, Bush or the ID cards bill yet.
For devotees of the continuing soap opera that is the UK parliament, this is going to be interesting.
Tags: UK Politics Parliament New Labour Blair
