Gurkhas, Gordon Brown & Football supporters - musings on a week in politics

As a Labour supporter I wasn't particularly happy at the Government’s defeat on Wednesday over the issue of residency for Gurkhas . Also the flurry of blog postings variously either defending Gordon Brown or calling for a new leader were hardly evidence which pointed to a 4th term in office.

That many of responses on these blogs were also dominated by nihilist trolls after this didn't help much either. We get a lot of talk among politico net newbies these days about "Internet memes" - well the one that sprang to mind on Wednesday was "all your base are belong to us" !

Or if you prefer football jargon : I felt like the away team had taken our end ! Put in plain English, a bad day for Labour.

It needn't be like this. Gordon Brown was until fairly recently, widely regarded as the best chancellor for years, but now in a world where global capitalism is thoroughly discredited who gets a bad time ? The Capitalists ? No – the Labour chancellor who spent year after year counseling against boom and bust economics – but now he's somehow responsible for the whole world's mess.

We're also in a period where Labour leaning blogs and websites are really stimulating sensible and informed discussion about politics - involving voters and politicians on more or less equal terms. It’s certainly connected with me in a way that I’d have never thought possible – the very fact that I’m writing this at all bears testimony to that. Three months ago I would not have.

Great times then ?

No - instead we get Labour lambasted (with some justification) because of "smears" in the McBride-Draper affair, but meanwhile the odious Guido Fawkes site still dominates headlines and pumps out it's infantile bilge. In a rare visit to the site yesterday I found the Prime Minister referred to as a "twat" – which is presumably a pithy high brow intellectual gem of wisdom that went right over my head. Other sites too have a similar level of discussion and if we’re going with the football theme, they’re not dissimilar to the kind of forums that say :

“Man U suck !”

“No they don’t they rule – Chelsea are crap”

“F*** off Man U are Sh***”

“No you F*** off – Chelsea are scum”

You get the drift – no logic, no debate, just childish vitriol – often not even connected with the events of the day or the comments under discussion. No room for any consideration of opposing points of view, or even any real acknowledgement of concurring points of view”

Commenters and bloggers of this kind should be like fish in a barrel - easy to shoot down - and yet they're continually making negative waves for the incumbent Government with apparent immunity.

To come back to yesterday’s defeat in parliament; giving greater rights of residency to Ghurkas should have been a feel good story for Labour. It has obvious public support potential and offers an opportunity to make pseudo-racist media grit their teeth and welcome some foreigners, all relating to a fairly inconspicuous bit of business. But clearly the proposals didn’t go far enough – and look what happened !

Did no one think to look on Facebook and see how many people were shouting up about the Ghurkas ? - the public support was certainly obvious to lots of other people. It’s an episode that gives an impression of the Government being out of touch with the public.

The other self-inflicted non-story which shouldn't be doing damage, but is, is the petition to get Gordon Brown to resign, on the Government’s own Downing Street web-site.

Again there are parallels with football – it reminds me of the web poll which suggested that Wembley Way be renamed after a Scottish footballer, and the other poll deciding that the new stand at Manchester City would be named the Bell End. Who is moderating the PM’s web site ? It's not restricting free speech to have rules that say "Don't diss the PM on his own site !" . The net result is that a fairly lame schoolboy prank, ends up making the Prime Minister look silly, and steals the headlines .

But sad to say I can't help but feel there are more banana skins in the pipeline. This week we had announcements from Harriet Harman on equality legislation hinting at positive discrimination (as has been already negatively spun by the Daily Mail), and also word from Jacqui Smith on internet service providers and phone companies having to keep a record of all web, email, and phone contacts (Daily Mail ). Leaving aside debates about these issues, it seems clear to me that both of the provide potential for controversy both inside and outside the Labour party – which frankly it could well do without just now.

Positive discrimination hands a free shot to the BNP in run up to the Euro elections. I haven't seen the details of the proposals and I suspect many haven’t - but when has that ever stood in the way of a nasty Daily Mail story ? Whilst I appreciate the difficulties that exist in some spheres, of promoting minority groups to take up a more realistic and greater representation of roles within those spheres, theres a very strong argument that says that discrimination in favour of one group, is discrimination against another. In the current climate, the press would (will) have a field day with this.

Similarly the internet & phone proposals will be seen to put the party that champions freedom of information, on the backfoot on that very issue. The Labour party is traditionally seen as one that promotes libertarian values, that doesn’t want individuals to be under surveillance and constantly checked up on – so this will be an area that will be exploited by opponents – and will inevitably get mixed in with the confusion on ID cards.

Note I’m not passing any comment on either of the proposals – I’m sure there are very good reasons for them, and pluses and minuses in both. Yet it’s so obvious what the media will latch on to : “powers to discriminate in favour of women and black job candidates” and “Yesterday's consultation document made no attempt to hide the fact it was considered the most 'effective' way of spying on our every move”

In the current climate these are weak areas for Labour to push to the forefront, amid a not very benevolent press culture. If they win the next election, then they’ll be able to debate the finer points.

So that brings me finally to the issue of leadership of the party – should Gordon Brown resign ? Should he be forced out ?

Well we’re back to football again – if the team’s not doing well : Sack the manager ! Well sacking the manager sometimes creates a long term improvement. Sometimes it creates a short term bounce, and sometimes it creates a short term dip. It always creates a difficult transition time – which any team/party could do without in the run up to an important game/election. I don’t think you should sack the manager if you can help it.

This manager/Prime minister though looks nervous. The much trumpeted faux pas yesterday on leaving the chamber too soon – trivial in itself, was indicative of a man under stress. He also looks nervous – odd even – on the videos on YouTube – which seem stilted. It seems odd that a man who could be on prime time television more or less any time he wants to be chooses to use a means of making his announcements more attuned to Al-Qaeda than to the British Government. I couldn’t help wondering if Osama Bin Laden were watching this in his hideout somewhere saying – “Well it looks like him, but maybe it was filmed a few months ago, and we think the audio has been overdubbed – it could have been filmed anywhere”.

But I’m not going to go calling for resignations. What I would call for is for the Labour Party to recognise the seriousness of the situation, and demonstrate the leadership and verve which brought them to power in the first place.

There are elections to be won – not lost ! – Does anyone really want to return to the greed and arrogance of the Thatcher years ? Does Gordon Brown being made fun of by a juvenile website make me forget that this high spot for unemployment in Labour’s tenure – was actually the low spot of unemployment for the Tories ? Do we really believe that the cure for woes inflicted by corrupt greedy capitalist bankers and financiers in the current economic downturn will be to elect the champions of the rich and selfish elite ?

I don’t think so – but then not everyone is as interested in politics as I am. Some will need more persuading. The time is ripe for some very strong leadership from Gordon Brown, and indeed the rest of the Labour Party : Cometh the hour – cometh the man ! (as they say on Sky Sports !)