Ignore the flaws. For only Labour can beat the Tories

Polly Toynbee: Osborne’s strategy will bring ideological shrink-the-state brutality. We need to stop this however we can

Peter A Bell's insight:

What planet has Polly Toynbee been on for the last decade or so? Beside some interplanetary sojourn, how else might it be possible to be so out of touch with what has happened to British Labour? Perhaps a prolonged spelunking sabbatical?

Did Toynbee follow the logic of her “never mind the quality, feel the width” philosophy? If we are to ignore the “flaws” - for which read catastrophic deficiencies - of British Labour, why not the flaws of other parties? Why should we not blithely disregard the “flaws” of the Tories? After all, they are in no significant way different from those of British Labour.

All the British parties have converged to some extent on an agenda defined by a desperate need to appeal to the small number of voters who, in the context of the British electoral system, decide every election. The two “main” parties have converged most for the simple reason that they have most to lose by not doing so. As a corollary, Ukip has gone further than any of the other British parties because, in electoral terms, they have nothing to lose.

The entire British political system is sick and broken beyond repair. Why do you think there is so much bitterness directed at Scotland and such mindless, intellect-crippling hatred of the Scottish political parties within the British establishment? It is partly because of the threat that these parties pose to the established order and the structures of power and privilege which define the British state. But it is also because the distinctive political culture in Scotland stands in stark contrast to that which prevails in England, in a way that is profoundly embarrassing to the Westminster elite.

The people of Scotland have realised that British Labour offers no meaningful alternative to the Tories. The fact that we have viable alternatives to the dinosaurs of British politics, with their tawdry faux rivalry, has allowed us to see the British parties for what they are - a single corrupt, venal, self-serving clique beset by bungling incompetence and pathological control-freakery.

The sooner the people of England stop letting people like Polly Toynbee pull the wool over their eyes, the better. They need to learn that it’s THEIR politics. It is meant to serve them, and not the social, political and economic elites of the British state. It is time for them to wake up, and seize back the democracy that they have been cheated of.

See on theguardian.com



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