The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Monday, May 12, 2008

You Too Must Find a Loin and Gird It

The Minister for Student Fees has given what one of the Guardian's staff telepaths calls a candid assessment of New New Labour's chances of winning the next general election. Apparently the non-assertion of a "God-given right to govern" will help: "we need that honesty, that humility", though obviously nothing so extreme as a change in policy. "We must avoid kneejerk responses." This is ministerial code for Get in line and stay there, and the Minister made the message plainer still by noting that "people don't vote for divided, disunited rabbles". New New Labour received its electoral mauling not because of anything so ephemeral as policy - that would be too kneejerk a response and too simple a solution - but because people disagree with Gordon. Oh, the 10p tax furore was an error, of course, and New New Labour should "admit and acknowledge" the inexcusable damage to its public relations; but "there is no quick-fix solution, no one or two policy changes which will suddenly overnight transform our fortunes". This is ministerial code for Nothing substantive will be done. As with previous battles against terror, drugs, teenagers, smoking, drinking, un-Britishness, privacy, Magna Carta and non-decent Muslimity, there will be "a long, drawn-out battle in the run-up to the next election. A battle where we convince people of our vision and strength and convince them as well that they still can't trust the Tories"; the vision being of the tunnel variety and the strength being that which comes of being united in spinelessness.

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