The results of the local elections are in so now the mud can really fly between the warring factions of Labour. As always, the left will argue that the party need to be more radical and the centrists will retort that it should be more Tony Blair. Who would win in a contest between the Tony Blair of 1997 and Boris Johnson today? A lot would depend on the support of Rupert Murdoch who is fond of telling us that he backs winners. It is one thing to back the relative newcomer Blair against Michael Howard who famously gave his own party colleague Anne Widdicombe the shivers but quite another to make the comparison with the almost cult personality status that Johnson has. Tony Blair was the right person at the right time but the political landscape has changed. Indeed, one of the most significant changes is that left wing voters are a lot more suspicious of slick talking, spin doctored politicians. It is a depressing failure of imagination to see his victories presented as the only...
I say this as a life long left leaning voter: the Labour Party of today is too much like hard work. Not because of the endless internecine squabbling between the left and the centre ground although, God knows, that doesn't help. If they want to get back into the reckoning they are both barking up the wrong tree. It has always been a bit of a puzzle to me that the dominant political force of the UK go under the unambitious name 'Conservatives'. Before they have uttered a word, the name is saying 'vote for us - we won't change anything!' Its uninspiring but clearly persuasive looking back at election results. I was thinking about this in the light of this week's local election and the Hartlepool by-election results and I had an epiphany: Michael Gove was right. That ranks pretty high in the list of things that I never thought I would say or write. In 2016, while he was campaigning for the Leave vote in the Brexit campaign, ...