great article from Blair in guardian

Labour need to allow people to have ambition and reward them

 

Good old Tony and his meritocracy. Let's forget about the interests of everyone as a collective so we can clamber up over their heads and 'better' ourselves. Sod those who don't do the same, idle gets deserve nothing better.

Looks as though Labour are gonna return to the Blairite way of thinking as they seem to believe that's their only hope.

 

Arms dealers, people traffickers, terrorists ? That sort of people ? All done very well thanks to Tony.


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When have they tried to stop them?

 

Simple.fact is that for the current policies to be attractive you need a victim and to create.victims you stiffle ambition.

 

He's right. It is their only hope. The people who want to better themselves are the economic foundation of the country and are the ones who create the wealth so other people can be employed and we can all live in a better society. Its human nature that people want to better themselves and until Labour recognise that and don't see such people as the enemy then it is fecked.

 

But for that system to work, you inevitably demonise those who can't become 'successful' because they have to do the donkey work on low pay so others can. By all means, wealth creation should be encouraged, but it shouldn't mean the people at the bottom end of this should see their interests neglected, and treated as though they have 'failed'.

It angers me that this mindset leads to the undervaluing of jobs that are some of the most important in society. How crucial are hospital cleaners to the good of the country, yet the way they are valued in economic and social terms is disgraceful.

 

Hospital workers at all levels are crucial

That's why it's so frustrating when drive psst and see money been spent on big silly signs instead patients and staff

 

I don't think you will find too many people would disagree with your suggestion that in a fair society the people at the bottom should not have their interests neglected. Labour's primary purpose is to make sure that society works for these people as much as everyone else. But it is failing in its duty to these people if it demonises people who don't fall into this group, sees wealth creators and the "aspirational middle class" as the enemy and ultimately stifles or drives out wealth creation, because that it not in the interests of the people at the bottom, or anyone else.

In the same way that the tories are denounced if they are perceived to be only looking out for the interests of people at the top, the labour party deserves the same derision if it sets out to only look after the people at the bottom. We will only succeed when a party looks out for the vast majority who falls into the middle of those extremes.

 

I really don't think you can say that Labour have only set out to look after the people at the bottom at all. In the last five years, everything they've said has been aimed at exactly the kind of middling floating voter you speak of. It's only in the last few months that they've come out with concrete statements to attack the Tories' more aggressive policies that exploit and hurt people at the bottom. And even within that, I don't understand how what they have said would alienate anyone 'in.between the extremes'.

 

Fook ambition....gi me 2k a month and I will never work again.

Hth

 

I think you'll find the electorate as a collective has just disagreed with you on that. And quite a few Labour top brass have come out over the last few days and said the same. Did you see Lord Hutton's interview? Pretty much said the same thing.

The problem is, it is as much about what they didn't say as what they said. There was a general sentiment that is now quite widely acknowledged that, whether it is right or wrong, Labour's rhetoric sounded anti business and anti aspriation. Some of their policies amounted to 1970s socialism that have never ever worked anywhere in the world. And given that they said they would reduce the deficit every year, but without giving us the faintest clue about how on earth that was going to happen, the only sensible conclusion anyone can draw from that is that there would numerous hikes in tax in different places to pay for it. We know they are idealogically opposed to making cuts, and the SNP would have pushed to ensure that was the case, so it is the only conclusion that can be drawn. If they had been a bit more honest with people then we could perhaps have drawn more informed conclusions. But when pushed on how labour would reduce the deficit the best he had was that he would take the winter fuel allowance off some pensioners.

 

A lot of the views here are buying into the current myth that wealth creation at the top trickles down to those at the bottom. It did once upon a time, but no more. The people that create the wealth and make the economy 'grow' give the Government the headlines they need to stay in office, but then fight tooth and nail to keep every last penny of that wealth, through tax avoidance, **** wages and zero-hour contracts, knowing full well the Govt will make little effort to bring them to book.

 

How would any of the people you're talking about have been worse off under Labour's manifesto than the Tories? Plenty of people who want to better themselves are left wing.

 

Laughing. Socialism and Labour? I know the media have portrayed him as Red Ed but it's absolute nonsense. They surrendered the argument on economic competence to the Tories, not challenging the frankly wrong argument that they caused the economic problems (well actually they did by behaving like the Tories and deregulating the banks, not by investing in public services)

 

Labour, Scotland aside, actually increased it's share of the vote as they were one of the beneficiaries of the collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote. Why they failed to make traction in the key marginals was down to the numbers that voted for UKIP candidates. I suspect that the 'soft' UKIP voters were the ones that drifted back to the Tories probably seduced by the 'Vote Labour, Get Sturgeon' message whereas the ex-Labour voters who were attracted by the UKIP anti-immigration message stayed with UKIP.

I would argue that New Labour, as espoused by Blair, was responsible for the situation that Labour finds itself in right now both in Scotland and with the rise of UKIP. Take your core vote for granted as they did and they'll drift away especially if someone else comes along offering a more seductive message.

 

Policies without power is useless, and the Labour Party has been here before and does not appear to learn. To achieve power the Party needs to be acceptable to the majority of the country. This is where Blair got it right, more than once.

 

Tony Blair is a war criminal and should be tried as such. Good friend of Rupert Murdoch, Godfather to one of his kids, received payment from numerous banks and financial institutions who have profited from the so-called 'war on terror'.

Forgive me for not taking a blind bit of notice what that lovely person has to say.

 

I do not agree with many of the things associated with Blair, but by god he knew how to win elections.

 

So did Adolf Hitler.