Labour's Terminal Crisis

Well, that's the title of a piece by Kerevan in the National on 26th September. And I think it's deserving of a bit of scrutiny as Kerevan is no fool. One could quibble with the title of course as Labour are now the largest political party in Europe, but few could argue that the additional text - "crisis is shared by social democratic parties across Europe" was inaccurate.

Kerevan nails it (no marks for orginality but it's bang on) -

The central cause of this international eclipse of traditional reformist parliamentary movements lies in global economic change – and the failure of mainstream social democracy to adjust. In the last quarter century, manufacturing jobs shifted to Asia while the dizzying rise of financial capitalism in Europe and America created a need for hordes of well-educated service workers. As a result, the industrial working class base of the traditional mass social democratic parties was destroyed.

What is astonishing about the rest of the article is how quickly it runs into sand. It goes absolutely nowhere. Rather, he just want to delight in the 'demise' of Labour (a bitterness somewhere in that psyche?).

He states that a new progressive voting alliance could have been sought by the traditional social democratic left ....   and bingo....  just such a movement was created very successfully in Scotland, by the SNP.

Well no one is going to argue that the SNP aren't a successful voting alliance. An alliance of people who want to do something but they're not sure what. Once George has marched at the head of the flag waving gang to the top of the hill, what's going to happen?

Here's a clue - Blair and Brown’s Faustian pact with the bankers and neoliberalism has led to electoral doom – a fate shared by most Western mainstream social democrats. Now the global neoliberal model is on life-support, held together only temporarily by quantitative easing.

OK, no more Faustian pact! The SNP are a Socialist Party. Real Socialism. State control. Funny that they keep that quiet. I think I'd like to hear more of this programme. Should I submit a FOI request?