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What is the point of Labour ?


pawpar

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3 hours ago, KingRocketman II said:

I wonder if Douglas Alexander's view is shared by many within Labour........ 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/735dc7b0-ef5a-11e8-bea1-693d823de728

 

 

 

I actually thought it was quite an interesting article until I got to this bit :

Quote

On the other hand, he believes that Labour is the only party that can properly address the core issues that will confront Scotland over the next decade.

:lol:

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7 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Could someone C+P it please?

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When, in the early hours of May 8, 2015, Douglas Alexander stood on a platform in Paisley and watched as the returning officer declared victory for a 20-year-old nationalist who had never stood for election before, it brought to an end not just two decades of his political life but an era in Scottish politics that was changing for ever.

Mhairi Black is now the SNP member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. Mr Alexander, 51, sometime cabinet minister and long-serving MP, has embarked on an international career, lecturing at Harvard, working for a UN agency, helping to channel funds into sustainable development in third world countries.

It has not, however, lessened his interest in Scottish politics or the forces of change that brought about his defeat and the virtual annihilation of Scottish Labour.

Over the past year he has been travelling the UK, compiling a radio series on what has happened to the country he thought he knew. He believes that the election that swept him and his party from power contained the seeds of a far deeper change in attitudes among the people of Scotland and further afield. “It was a ‘wave’ election,” he says.

“I didn’t realise at the time that it anticipated the wave of nationalism, populism and xenophobia that’s since swept Europe and the USA. If you think back to the character of the independence referendum in 2014, the fake news, alternative facts and thought bubbles, it turns out we were experiencing all that in our politics for the first time.

“We were seeing a preview of a movie that was going to run not just in the UK but across Europe and in the US. We were a leading indicator, rather than a lagging indicator of the way politics were changing.”

He describes Brexit as “English nationalism wrapped in the Union Jack” and considers slogans such as “taking back control” or, in the US, “make America great again” as symptoms of the populism that has taken the place of conventional politics, because it harks back to an age when people believed that they were more secure in their identity and their sense of belonging.

“The most powerful word in both phrases are ‘back’ and ‘again’,” he says. “They speak to a profound sense of loss and belonging, which are two sides of the same coin. There is a yearning for a sense of control that conventional politics missed, and was tone-deaf to hearing and recognising.”

Given the possibility that in the European elections next May nationalists and populists are likely to make significant gains in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Sweden and France, why does he think that Scotland, so far, has held off the call of nationalism?

“We haven’t seen a significant shift towards independence in Scotland, despite the fact that 62 per cent of us voted to remain in the EU,” he says. “As Scots we understand that the answer to division, grievance and new borders is not more division, grievance and more borders.”

He thinks that the 2014 referendum was primarily a debate about the best future for Scotland, and those who voted “no” believed that they were every bit as patriotic in their instincts as supporters of independence.

“The decisive winning arguments were not just about Adam Smith but John Smith — sharing and solidarity as well as pride and patriotism, and there was passion on both sides,” he says.

“We intuitively understood that the emotion was not on one side of the argument. We trusted that the case to stay in the UK was being made by Scots with the best interests of Scotland in mind. That proved to be the decisive argument.”

By contrast, he says, the 2016 EU referendum was won by the Leavers because passion was one-sided.

“The Remain campaign all too often sounded like an argument within the Conservative family,” he says. “If you are confronting political opponents who bring passion and emotion to a referendum and you respond only with pragmatism and evidence, then you tend to lose.”

Looking back, he accepts that Labour failed to pick up on the change in attitudes that followed the great financial crisis of 2008. A pivotal moment for the party came during the 2010 campaign when Gordon Brown was caught by a microphone describing Gillian Duffy, a resident of Rochdale who had complained about the effect of immigration on her community, as being “a bigoted woman”. It was a remark he would live to regret.

“I was with Gordon in the hours following his encounter with Mrs Duffy and I know how mortified he was,” Mr Alexander says. “But it’s true that as the government in power at the time of the financial crisis we were slow to recognise the extent to which it changed people’s sense of how the world and the country worked.

“It trashed the public’s sense of confidence in the powerful. Not just bankers and business leaders but politics and regulators. It created the context in which Michael Gove could say in the Brexit referendum, ‘This country has had enough of experts’. It challenged their sense of confidence in the elite — if they’re so smart why didn’t they see this coming? And in the motives of the elite — why haven’t bankers gone to jail, why are we paying the price in austerity? There are lessons to be learnt by politicians who want to offer answers and not just anger.”

So is he contemplating a return to politics and, if he did return, how would he reverse the fortunes of the party he represents? “That is honestly not the focus of my life right now, I’m getting on with the work I’m doing,” he says. “It would be daft to rule it out but I’ve got no active plans.”

On the other hand, he believes that Labour is the only party that can properly address the core issues that will confront Scotland over the next decade.

There has, he says, been too much focus on constitutional issues in Scotland and not enough attention on the more important realities of life — education, welfare, health and the economy.

“The real challenge for Labour is to represent the politics of transformation, to provide better answers to the problems people are encountering today,” he says.

“It’s something I learnt particularly from my work at Harvard. The rest of the world is not spending decades arguing about their constitutions, they are getting on with very different conversations about things like the impact of automation on the ability of working people to earn a decent living or the educational needs of the workforce in the years to come.

“There are big live conversations that are happening elsewhere that are frankly being squeezed out of our conversation in Scotland, and indeed across the UK right now, given the overwhelming focus on Brexit and independence.”

One gets the sense that, were the hour to come, Mr Alexander might well want to step back into the arena, if only to counteract what he calls the politics of grievance and resentment.

“As for me,” he says, “I believe as passionately today as I have ever believed that our best future is based on solidarity and co-operation, not isolation and nationalism.”

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I see the little shit is still reading from the Tory party playbook in claiming that Scotland has to put up with everything Tory England does, and that it has no right to legitimate complaint. Any whisper of complaint about that treatment is to be condemned as “grievance* and resentment” (unless it’s him complaining, which is fine, because UK nationalism is a special exception to an otherwise evil ideology).

* “Grievance” was the BritNat mantra at the last election. Losing your EU rights? That’s just grievance. Killing yourself over Universal Credit? Bah, pointless grievance. What’s that, fishermen? Oh f**k off with your grievance.

In the UK Nat mind, there is nothing that can be inflicted on Scotland, no matter how horrific, that they won’t try and justify by claiming that arguing against it is just “grievance politics”. 

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When, in the early hours of May 8, 2015, Douglas Alexander stood on a platform in Paisley and watched as the returning officer declared victory for a 20-year-old nationalist who had never stood for election before, it brought to an end not just two decades of his political life but an era in Scottish politics that was changing for ever.

Mhairi Black is now the SNP member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. Mr Alexander, 51, sometime cabinet minister and long-serving MP, has embarked on an international career, lecturing at Harvard, working for a UN agency, helping to channel funds into sustainable development in third world countries.

It has not, however, lessened his interest in Scottish politics or the forces of change that brought about his defeat and the virtual annihilation of Scottish Labour.

Over the past year he has been travelling the UK, compiling a radio series on what has happened to the country he thought he knew. He believes that the election that swept him and his party from power contained the seeds of a far deeper change in attitudes among the people of Scotland and further afield. “It was a ‘wave’ election,” he says.

“I didn’t realise at the time that it anticipated the wave of nationalism, populism and xenophobia that’s since swept Europe and the USA. If you think back to the character of the independence referendum in 2014, the fake news, alternative facts and thought bubbles, it turns out we were experiencing all that in our politics for the first time.

“We were seeing a preview of a movie that was going to run not just in the UK but across Europe and in the US. We were a leading indicator, rather than a lagging indicator of the way politics were changing.”

He describes Brexit as “English nationalism wrapped in the Union Jack” and considers slogans such as “taking back control” or, in the US, “make America great again” as symptoms of the populism that has taken the place of conventional politics, because it harks back to an age when people believed that they were more secure in their identity and their sense of belonging.

“The most powerful word in both phrases are ‘back’ and ‘again’,” he says. “They speak to a profound sense of loss and belonging, which are two sides of the same coin. There is a yearning for a sense of control that conventional politics missed, and was tone-deaf to hearing and recognising.”

Given the possibility that in the European elections next May nationalists and populists are likely to make significant gains in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Sweden and France, why does he think that Scotland, so far, has held off the call of nationalism?

“We haven’t seen a significant shift towards independence in Scotland, despite the fact that 62 per cent of us voted to remain in the EU,” he says. “As Scots we understand that the answer to division, grievance and new borders is not more division, grievance and more borders.”

He thinks that the 2014 referendum was primarily a debate about the best future for Scotland, and those who voted “no” believed that they were every bit as patriotic in their instincts as supporters of independence.

“The decisive winning arguments were not just about Adam Smith but John Smith — sharing and solidarity as well as pride and patriotism, and there was passion on both sides,” he says.

“We intuitively understood that the emotion was not on one side of the argument. We trusted that the case to stay in the UK was being made by Scots with the best interests of Scotland in mind. That proved to be the decisive argument.”

By contrast, he says, the 2016 EU referendum was won by the Leavers because passion was one-sided.

“The Remain campaign all too often sounded like an argument within the Conservative family,” he says. “If you are confronting political opponents who bring passion and emotion to a referendum and you respond only with pragmatism and evidence, then you tend to lose.”

Looking back, he accepts that Labour failed to pick up on the change in attitudes that followed the great financial crisis of 2008. A pivotal moment for the party came during the 2010 campaign when Gordon Brown was caught by a microphone describing Gillian Duffy, a resident of Rochdale who had complained about the effect of immigration on her community, as being “a bigoted woman”. It was a remark he would live to regret.

“I was with Gordon in the hours following his encounter with Mrs Duffy and I know how mortified he was,” Mr Alexander says. “But it’s true that as the government in power at the time of the financial crisis we were slow to recognise the extent to which it changed people’s sense of how the world and the country worked.

“It trashed the public’s sense of confidence in the powerful. Not just bankers and business leaders but politics and regulators. It created the context in which Michael Gove could say in the Brexit referendum, ‘This country has had enough of experts’. It challenged their sense of confidence in the elite — if they’re so smart why didn’t they see this coming? And in the motives of the elite — why haven’t bankers gone to jail, why are we paying the price in austerity? There are lessons to be learnt by politicians who want to offer answers and not just anger.”

So is he contemplating a return to politics and, if he did return, how would he reverse the fortunes of the party he represents? “That is honestly not the focus of my life right now, I’m getting on with the work I’m doing,” he says. “It would be daft to rule it out but I’ve got no active plans.”

On the other hand, he believes that Labour is the only party that can properly address the core issues that will confront Scotland over the next decade.

There has, he says, been too much focus on constitutional issues in Scotland and not enough attention on the more important realities of life — education, welfare, health and the economy.

“The real challenge for Labour is to represent the politics of transformation, to provide better answers to the problems people are encountering today,” he says.

“It’s something I learnt particularly from my work at Harvard. The rest of the world is not spending decades arguing about their constitutions, they are getting on with very different conversations about things like the impact of automation on the ability of working people to earn a decent living or the educational needs of the workforce in the years to come.

“There are big live conversations that are happening elsewhere that are frankly being squeezed out of our conversation in Scotland, and indeed across the UK right now, given the overwhelming focus on Brexit and independence.”

One gets the sense that, were the hour to come, Mr Alexander might well want to step back into the arena, if only to counteract what he calls the politics of grievance and resentment.

“As for me,” he says, “I believe as passionately today as I have ever believed that our best future is based on solidarity and co-operation, not isolation and nationalism.”

And is this is exactly why he got embarrassingly emptied by a wee lassie. Get it round him. p***k

 

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11 hours ago, AUFC90 said:
On 24/11/2018 at 17:45, ICTJohnboy said:

Self serving guff from an Alexander sibling

And is this is exactly why he got embarrassing emptied by a wee lassie. Get it round him. p***k

You've taken that too far

Edited by sophia
gift autocorrect would have worked
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On 02/12/2018 at 09:28, doulikefish said:

I see the Aberdeen nine are to be allowed back in.Good to see the coalition partners together again.

never in any doubt. The only concern was when to announce it so it could largely be buried. the Brexit shambles coming to a head as best a time as any.  Labour and Tories free to align themselves in coalition as they see fit - as if anyone would be surprised at such an arrangement.......

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, over the last few months it has come out that Labour are working with The Tories at council level, working with the DUP at national level whilst supporting Tory cuts elsewhere......that can’t be right surely??

I never left the Labour Party, this is more proof that the party left me!

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2 hours ago, BB_Bino said:

So, over the last few months it has come out that Labour are working with The Tories at council level, working with the DUP at national level whilst supporting Tory cuts elsewhere......that can’t be right surely??

I never left the Labour Party, this is more proof that the party left me!

Whit?

The SNP had a supply agreement at Holyrood and snuggled up with Annabel Goldie for years but that seems to have been airbrushed from history.

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