Joining the Labour Party!

No, not really. I am not joining NuLabour.

But after a really rather good weekend I was feeling fairly pacified, and felt that perhaps this blog could turn more towards the reflective, reasoned posting of say Disillusioned and Bored or Dizzy Thinks fpr a while. But, alas, no, unfortunately reality has intervened, and I’ll be turning my attention to profane ranting at least the next couple of posts. One target on the list is the compellingly odious Terry Hamblin, who, via CoralPoetry (an interesting blog in itself and well worth checking out), I note took the occasion of Sally Clark’s death to speculate on whether guilt over actually having murdered her children forced her to commit suicide. But first I wanted have a look at my old friend, The Labour Party.

In particular, Mr Rob Henderson, who sent me a letter today asking me to rejoin the Labour Party.

Christ knows how he got my address, but I am guessing it came through some sort of breach of the Data Protection Act. After all, as we know, the laws of the land do not affect the Labour party. But I find begging letters from the Labour party staggering – I can understand why the Tories would do it, as I was once an activist. But why oh why oh why would Blair et al bother?

Henderson writes:

“I’m going to get straight to the point – I want you to rejoin the Labour Party.”

I’m sorry, but who are you? I have scoured my brains and realise I neither know – nor have ever known – a Rob Henderson. So why the fuck would I listen to your advice Rob? I often ignore the advice of my parents, and I have known them for 28 years! Why the frig fuck would I listen to the ramblings of some tit-wit who has just mastered the art of the mass mailer and the auto-signature? Your opening sentence is half-baked marketing bullshit, designed to get my attention. Instead it got nothing but my utter, lasting, contempt.

And I am sorry, rejoin? I have a relatively good memory, and never been a member of the Labour party. Sure, I had a flirtation with the student Labour party when I first went to uni, but soon ran away when I realised that the existing members were utter cockmonkeys with their naïve heads up their naïve arseholes. I never bothered to join, because that would have wasted valuable beer money. So quite where, as someone who recently left the Tory party because the Tories are too left wing, you get the idea that I would want to rejoin a party I have never ever been a member of is completely and totally beyond me.

But rest assured, Rob, you have *really* raised your credibility with an inaccurate and patronising first sentence.

Henderson goes on with his campaign to get me to fork out my hard earned cash on a party that I wouldn’t piss on if it was on fire by mentioning the Tories. Yep, 10 years on, and Nu Labour are still carping on about the Tory governments. Henderson writes:

“(Let me) remind you of how things were under the Tories – 3 million out of work, the miner’s strike, interest rates of over 15%...”

Let me remind you, Bob, of the fact that I am 27. I don’t remember the miner’s strike. I don’t remember 3 million out of work. I only have a faint recollection of interest rates of over 15%. You shouldn't remind me of stuff I don’t remember, because it makes you look like a total dick. Sure, I have read a lot about politics, not least because of my degree, so I will acknowledge the Thatcher and Major administrations were not flawless. But I will also point out that there were a lot of successes, such as the sale of council houses, the sale of some grossly inefficient government owned industries, (conditionally) the Falklands War and also the strong economy handed over by Ken Clarke to Gordon Brown – which, despite the sterling attempts of the latter to fuck it up, is still doing OK today. Maybe the fact that I don’t remember it all gives me a level of understanding you lack, Robbie, because I can put the Tory years from 1979 to 1997 into perspective and say, on balance, that they were a success.

But in fairness our *new friend* Rob realises that banging on about the Tories is not enough to win me over.

“Perhaps I could tell you about all the new hospitals? How we’ve built or started to build over 100 hospitals in the last 10 years…”

You could. I would point to Hazel Blears (Chairperson of the Labour Party and potentially Deputy Labour Leader and Deputy Prime Minister) protesting against hospital closures.

“Have you got children? Then I could tell you all about family credits, SureStart, paternity leave and trust funds.”

No, I haven’t got children. But damned good assumptions again there, Rob.

“But maybe that doesn’t fit in with you and your life.”

No, really?

“Not every issue or story resonates with every person, and just listing things that we’ve done is a bit of an insult to your intelligence.”

Not one of your issues resonates with me. In fact, I am not sure that any one of your issues has a basis in reality. But I would argue that sending me this frigging letter in the first place is far more insulting to my intelligence than the shite contained within.

But Rob is one step ahead of me again, and realises that statistics might not work. So instead he starts carping on about the cynicism of the modern age.
“These days it is so easy to be cynical about things- politics in particular. It’s easy to demonise people for one mistake, or to reel off powerful-sounding headlines about one new ‘crisis’ or another, without thinking about the bigger picture. It’s easy to isolate the negative…”

Hell, with the ten years of Tony Blair, you cannot help but trip over the fucking negative. It is everywhere. You want a detailed list? Not got the time. But some edited highlights:

The Petrol crisis, Ron Davies, Foot and Mouth, Peter Mandelson, David Blunkett, the Iraq War, David Kelly, Charles Clarke, John Reid, the Good Friday Agreement and Cash For Peerages.

Jesus, Major wasn’t great. But he is streets ahead of the fucktard Blair.

“What I’m trying to say, is that it can be easy to forget.”

Unless it comes to controversial Tory policies, Rob, in which case you have no problem in remembering.

But he goes on to say that people feel parties are not in touch with them, and only talk to them when there is an election in the offing. Well, yes, on some levels I understand and accept that parties will only talk to me when there is an election – after all, Sainsbury’s will only aspire to talk to me when I have some shopping to do. I have no issue with parties not listening to what I say – what I do care about it parties never listening to what I say but still going out and doing the wrong thing on my behalf.

Henderson does on to say that they are trying to take an interest, and that

“…those who criticise have to take some responsibility towards finding a solution.”

Uh-huh, and what does that have to do with joining the Labour party? The party who have utterly failed to find solutions for the past 10 years?

“For us to be effective, insightful grounded and ‘real’, we need your help. You need to tell us how to better, critically and constructively.”

Can do “critically”. Not sure about “constructively”. But here would be my three point plan for a better Labour party:

1. Blair resigns. Now.
2. Gordo takes over and calls a General Election.
3. Someone else wins that election.

“Change can sometimes be difficult, and it is easier to say I don’t care.”

Change is often difficult but, Rob, or which ever Labour party whore wrote this letter, what makes you think I don’t care? The fact I am not a member of the Labour party should be a massive indicator that I do care.

“Apathy doesn’t stand for election.”

Yes it does. It calls itself The Liberal Democrats.

“You can help to make change happen. You can chose our next leaders. You can set the agenda for the country, to make the policies and decisions that you want to see make our lives better. You can. If you want to.”

Yep. I can not join the Labour party, and I can vote for just about anyone else other than Labour at the next election.