´óÏó´«Ã½

Last night, as I reported here, there were big Labour beasts coming to College Green to be seen and heard objecting to the idea of a Lib Lab pact. It wouldn't last. It was unedifying. More importantly it was simply the wrong way to go.

The Labour member for Merthyr is an MP who comments only when he wants to and when he has something to say. Now is one of those times and Dai Havard wants it known - in the strongest and most colourful terms possible - that he wants no dealings with the Lib Dems.

"This policy decision is too important to be left to party managers and apparatchiks. The Affiliates; MP's and Members of the Labour Party need not just to be activated for a Leadership election but to be involved now in the discussion of the future collaborations the Labour Party should have and the vital business of deciding how to progress and organise for Constructive Opposition and renewal.

The current sight of two millionaire public schoolboys squabbling over the future of the welsh valleys and discussing the relative sloth of Public Sector Workers and their future employment is bad enough. The idea that the future is to institutionalise such a post hoc, after the event, system is unacceptable. To collaborate in it establishing a Labour led version of it is not only wrong but politically damaging for the Party and the country.

The ideas of New Labour died before the General Election and its corpse needs disposal following the funeral rights administered by the people last week. More 'managerialism' and a 'cosy consensus' or so-called 'Progressive Alliance' is a misreading of history and an insult to the electorate not a benefit".

"Progressive alliance" - a term Dai Havard, who saw a 16.9% swing to the Lib Dems in his constituency, would never, even want to see used without those vital inverted commas. It is an alliance Dai Havard would not want to see at all.

It's starting to feel in Westminster as though he needn't worry for very much longer.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?