I spent most of yesterday in the town of Budva, on a beach that in high season hosts wealthy Russians but in April we had mostly to ourselves. From the view in Montenegro, the machinations of the Labour Party look even more ridiculous than they do from my usual ringside seat in Westminster.
John McDonnell was asked about the problems the party was experiencing in the polls, and about the dire predictions regarding local seats come May. The shadow chancellor had this to say:
“What’s interesting is when you poll the issues and our policies, they are extremely popular, so what’s preventing people translating that into strength in the polls?”
Hmmm, that’s a tricky one, John. The antics of Paul Dacre? What? Rhymes with “Shmereby Shmorbyn”? I give up.
Emily Thornberry is up next in the ridding me of the will to live sweepstakes:
“Look, in the end, the only solution to Syria is for there to be peace talks and a political settlement. So does this attack help with that political settlement or does it escalate it?”
What the hell do you think the US state department have tried for the last six years to achieve? Obama was desperate not to get militarily involved in Syria, to find a “political settlement”, and what did it get him other than the Russians taking the almighty piss, bombing hospitals and then blaming it on the Vikings? On Emily went on Syria:
“What I think we need to be doing is we should have had a fast response from the United Nations looking at and bringing evidence before the Security Council to show, to prove that Assad was responsible for this so that the international community could act together on evidence.”
A quote like that makes me wonder if she’s playing Labour members for suckers or if she is genuinely thick. The Security Council would never come to a consensus that the Assad regime was responsible for a chemical attack whatever happened because Russia is a member of it. You know, I can’t tell you how refreshing I would find it if someone like Thornberry, as opposed to spouting all this meaningless crap about the UN Security Council and political solutions, said something like this instead:
“You know what? The Middle East is a mess and I really don’t care about these people and their problems. Let’s leave it to the Ruskies to do whatever they’re going to do and concentrate on the NHS.”
While morally apprehensive, at least this approach would actually find favour with some segment of the British electorate beyond Labour’s current chosen selectorate of uni students who never vote.
Seen from the Balkans, Labour’s current leadership looks even more hopeless than they do up close. The thing they most remind me of now is a sort of politically correct, anti-patriotic version of UKIP. And given being politically incorrect and patriotic are all UKIP have going for them, that basically adds up to nothing at all.
What amazes me is that nobody has yet tried the obviously-winning message, ‘Poor people! Vote for us because your kids are fat!’
Lady Nugee has such a way with words. Labour are so lucky to have her.
Other political parties at other times have been in a similar position. Basically, the die is cast, Labour representatives are duty bound to mouth the positive gloss, knowing full well that they are sinking remorselessly. Momentum has a death grip on the party and Brexit adds further fissures. With most of their elected representatives, MPs and councilors, diametrically at odds with the leadership, only stagnation beckons.
To Nick Tyrone: it cannot be much fun for you either, since the stagnation obliges your observations to carry an inevitable déjà vu. I am sure you yearn for political movement, yet almost all of UK politics seems to be set on increasingly precarious fixed rails. You can see there will be a crash, but are unable to estimate the damage.
Perhaps you will write about how you feel on your return, re-entering the UK.