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[daveofficer]

Originally Posted by Chris

While this is true to an extent, Labour still hasn't done much to really help the worst areas. Look at Glasgow East. 10 years of Labour and it's still a deprived shithole. That's probably what lost them the by-election more than anything else. Their party had been in power for a decade and their situation hadn't improved, so why should they continue to vote for the lie? They'd been told all their lives that Labour was their party and would help them but it didn't happen.

The minimum wage, new deal etc have helped many who needed it (I've been on new deal twice) but many of these schemes are still bypassing the truly deprived. There's always more that could be done.

actually, most reports were that labour lost the vote in the aspirational parts of glasgow east rather than the truly deprived areas. it probably didn't help that labour smuggled ministers in to campaign for only a couple of hours then smuggled them out again. that only gave the impression that they didn't want to be there and that the government was a liability for their campaign.

i'm sure minimum wage has helped those in deprived areas a fair bit though.

you're right though, labour had been the dominant force in scotland for 50 years and yet we still had the worst health record and some of the highest levels of poverty in europe. about time they got a shock and we tried a fresh approach.

[Pierre Von Mondragon]

Look at Glasgow East, indeed, nearly a century of hypothetically left-wing local government has done nothing for that place, as it exists(existED) in a hegemony, which appears to be crumbling. I repudiate the Labour Party utterly. (On the Guardian CIF pages, people refer to them as NuLab, which sounds about right)

[all_his_engines]

Dave: Thank you for an engaging response, which raises some good points. However, please allow me to respond to a few of them

Originally Posted by Dave

There are plenty of parties that either appeal to a particular social group or are devoted to single-issue politics. The Greens, UKIP, the BNP, whatever the successors to the Judean People's Front call themselves this week (Solidarity, Socialist Workers Party, etc etc.), Pensioners Alliance and so on. To suggest that all political parties employ a "catch all" philosophy is wrongheaded.

You are correct, there are many smaller issue parties around. As my point concerned parties seeking a parliamentary majority, I should have specified that it is only all parties seeking to win power that are "catch-all" parties.

Originally Posted by Dave

Look at what Labour's done since they came to power. They introduced the minimum wage, tax credits for working families on low to medium incomes, introduced employment rights for people in previously precarious and brought about a change in British society that made discussing politics in terms of class division irrelevant. Much of the "working" class have Sky TV, mortgages and disposable income these days. The debate has moved on from the parameters set by the class warriors of previous decades.

The debate may have moved on but I would argue that the divisons are still there, albeit perhaps slightly altered. Most of these initiatives aimed at helping people on lower incomes are the bare minimum of what is required to ensure that the gap between higher and lower earners does not widen too far in a time when the general affluence of higher earners increases. Let us also not forget that this is the Labour government whose recent alteration of the tax bands meant that - in crude terms - the poor will now be subsidising the rich.

Originally Posted by Dave

This is a charge that has been levelled against political parties since time immemorial. In fact, in the last thirty years we have seen two parties come to power, the Conservatives in 1979 and Labour in 1997, and both have introduced seismic changes in the political and social landscape of the country, And yet, while they were seeking election they were assailed by commentators accusing them of perpetuating the status quo and being ciphers rather than the agents of change. Both administrations proved their doubters wrong. I see no reason to think that the current generation of major party leaders should act any differently from their predecessors once they gain office.

This is a fair observation, but my point is just that political parties are NOT the same as they used to be. Could you give me some examples of changes made by the Labour party made since 1997 that you would consider to be "seismic", bearing in mind that all activities of a party must be considered relative to the social and economic context that they find themselves in? It could be that we have differing ideas of perspective.

Originally Posted by Dave

Ideology went by the wayside decades ago, and our country is better for it. Pragmatism and a sense of political reality replaced it and has been practiced by every politician who seeks election. And, to be honest, altering the balance of power in favour of the so-called "poorer people" is never going to be a vote winner, despite the fact that the poor in this country have a higher standard of living than almost any other country in the world, and that standard has been rising for decades. The poor will always be with us, the best our politicians can do is reduce their numbers by taking as many of them as possible beyond the poverty line. At the same time, however, they must consider the needs of working people, families, the elderly and those afflicted by crime and injustice.

It is, in my opinion, debatable to suggest that our country is better off without ideology. To abandon ideology is to abandon the suggestion that you can make important, lasting changes to the world we live in - and surely that should be why people want to get involved in politics. Of course, all ideology must be tempered with reality and practicality, but to cast it off entirely means that all you become is a government reacting to social and economic situations, rather than attempting to forge a path to a better future. The issue as I see it is that any ideology will alienate at least one part of the electorate, and as these parties are merely seeking the maximum number of votes, they abandon such lofty ideals as social change to the detriment of us all.

As Mr Officer has already pointed out, poverty is relative. But it shouldn't matter if a policy is a "vote-winner" as long as it's the right thing to do. Of course, then the point can be made that if a party doesn't pay attention to what wins votes then they won't be in power to affect such noble changes. We're also in danger of approaching a discussion about "what is right", which is a whole other can of worms....

I'm interested to know what you think.

[Dave]

Apologies for the delay in responding to your replies, I've been concentrating on other matters. Anyway, here goes;

Originally Posted by all_his_engines

The debate may have moved on but I would argue that the divisons are still there, albeit perhaps slightly altered. Most of these initiatives aimed at helping people on lower incomes are the bare minimum of what is required to ensure that the gap between higher and lower earners does not widen too far in a time when the general affluence of higher earners increases. Let us also not forget that this is the Labour government whose recent alteration of the tax bands meant that - in crude terms - the poor will now be subsidising the rich.

I can't really argue with that. The debacle over the abolition of the 10p tax band and the current administration's reticence over introducing measures that would genuinely aid the very poorest in our society are certainly the defining factors of their current malaise. However, I would stand by my assertion that the methods used by Tony Blair's government to alleviate poverty, such as the tax credits and minimum wage have helped a great many people, although sadly not enough, it seems.

Originally Posted by all_his_engines

This is a fair observation, but my point is just that political parties are NOT the same as they used to be. Could you give me some examples of changes made by the Labour party made since 1997 that you would consider to be "seismic", bearing in mind that all activities of a party must be considered relative to the social and economic context that they find themselves in? It could be that we have differing ideas of perspective.

It may well be a perspective thing. I became politically interested and active in the dying days of the Major administration, and I remember feeling the very real sense that Britain wasn't working as a healthy political and social model. I understood what the Conservatives were trying to do, but they failed to remove the mote from their own eye while attempting to seize the plank from that of their massed opponents. Put simply, they did not have the moral authority, nor indeed the political will, to make the changes that were necessary in the country. The political reality was that the Conservative Party had a tiny parliamentary majority, and in order to maintain that majority it was necessary for the leadership to balk to the right on most occasions.

Labour came to power at the exact point that the country had pretty much come to terms with the fact that central government was incapable of making any significant changes to the way the way the country was run and its institutions governed, and managed to completely turn that assumption on it's head by introducing radical constitutional changes (devolution, the Social Chapter) and finding the money to bring health and education into the 21st century. There's no way that anyone can deny that the very fabric of our schools, hospitals, GP surgeries and Universities have changed drastically, and in most cases for the better, since Labour came to power.

Likewise, we have seen massive shifts in the political spectrum due to devolution and closer ties with Europe. There's no denying that the (unwritten) British constitution has changed beyond recognition since 1997. Perhaps it has not all been for the good ( I stand firmly in the sceptic's camp, due to my belief that the reform of institutions such as the House of Lords and the devolved assemblies was rushed and ill-considered), but they stand as further examples of the massive change brought about since 1997.

In terms of social issues, such as employment, human rights and relations between the various groupings within our society, I would argue that nothing less has occurred than a paradigm shift in terms of the population's relations to employers, the government and, indeed each other as individuals. There are perhaps too many examples of this change in attitude of the citizenry (or more properly, subjects) of this nation to adequately express this transformation, but again, this is maybe a result of differing perspectives. I can only draw on my own personal experiences of life before and after Tony Blair and his government.

Originally Posted by all_his_engines

It is, in my opinion, debatable to suggest that our country is better off without ideology. To abandon ideology is to abandon the suggestion that you can make important, lasting changes to the world we live in - and surely that should be why people want to get involved in politics. Of course, all ideology must be tempered with reality and practicality, but to cast it off entirely means that all you become is a government reacting to social and economic situations, rather than attempting to forge a path to a better future. The issue as I see it is that any ideology will alienate at least one part of the electorate, and as these parties are merely seeking the maximum number of votes, they abandon such lofty ideals as social change to the detriment of us all.

I personally think ideology is a poisonous and restrictive concept. Better to use reason and pragmatism to express oneself than to remain bound to the concepts and prejudices of others. We have seen, in the most successful leaders of the modern age (Thatcher, Blair, Macmillan and Churchill) how ideology is formed not from an adherence to the ideas of others, but instead in the practice of good governance and leadership. The failed and near-forgotten leaders of recent times (Wilson, Heath, Eden, Major, and shortly, Brown) allowed themselves to be carried in the wake of their predecessors and offered no real standard to which would-be acolytes could flock to. Once the progenitor of a particular ideological standard has fallen from power, that standard becomes obsolete and to gather towards it in the aftermath can bring only ruin.

I was going to respond to Chris and Dave's excellent points, but I feel I've written enough tonight, and I think they've more or less gone over the ground I was going to cover already.