The Labour party typically disembowels itself after an election defeat, but this time it hasn’t waited to be beaten.
The Labour party typically disembowels itself after an election defeat, but this time it hasn’t waited to be beaten. The party which gathers in Brighton next week is already at war, and many of its brightest prospects have already left the field. The likes of John Hutton and Alan Milburn have despaired, and are quitting parliament altogether. The trade unions, who have long dreamed about capturing Labour, may soon buy it for scrap.
This magazine sheds few tears for the demise of a party which is now as bankrupt morally as it is financially. But it may fall to us to deliver a brief elegy, a tribute to what Labour got right. Its failures have been so spectacular and costly — from our defeat in Basra to Gordon Brown’s staggering economic incompetence — that it is easy to forget the sporadic but significant successes.
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