To simply chuck Gordon overboard would be madness

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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By Jon Cruddas 7/06/2009

If you're a Labour activist or voter, then as a Labour MP I apologise. You've slogged your guts out for the party, stuck with us through thick and thin, and we've let you down.

The day before polling day last week I was knocking on doors. One bloke just laughed when I asked him to support Labour: "How can I vote for you lot when people in the Cabinet don't even seem to support Labour? It looks like a bloody Carry On film up there - what a shower."

Trouble is, he is right. When someone told me Hazel Blears had resigned the day before polling day I thought they were joking. At a time when our members were pounding the pavements, fighting for every seat, and facing down Nick Griffin and the BNP, marching out of the Cabinet was outrageous.

If you're willing to accept the trappings of high office, then you have to accept the responsibility to your party that goes with it. Full stop.

Yesterday I spoke to a councillor who has represented a ward for almost 20 years. Well away from Westminster, he's used every spare hour in loyal service of his neighbours. Lobbying for extra money so a theatre group can put on a new play. Getting the council to put in gates at the local playground. Making recycling easier.

These good Labour people, and the people they represent - they are the people who have paid a price for the games being played in Westminster. I am angry - and so are party supporters up and down the country.

We must face facts. Labour got a drubbing in the polls because we have been drifting, and now we must be honest about why - and about what needs to change.

In a way, it is a leadership question. But it is not about who leads us. It is about where they are leading us and why. The scandal over expenses means that reform is needed now. We must take tough action as a party, and make clear the standards we expect of our candidates.

We must empower local constituency parties to hold their MPs to account - and start applying the rules equally to all, not just the easy targets.

But we also have to look again at some of the Government's policies.

People see little sense in spending billions on replacing Trident nuclear missiles when they worry that our troops do not have the very best equipment or that our veterans do not get the treatment that their sacrifice deserves when they return home.

The Government's plan to sell off a share in the Royal Mail is not only the wrong policy but also one that runs totally against the common sense instincts of the British people.

We have made some welcome steps in making the tax system fairer but these must be the first steps rather than the last.

The housing market needs councils to start building again so we can provide decent homes for people as well as jobs.

We need to protect the people who stand to suffer most if the Tories win. Index-linking the minimum wage for a start.

When I was on the doorsteps the message was clear: "Get yourselves sorted out, or else."

Everyone knows our Government is in trouble. Serious trouble. But to suggest that we'll tackle those problems simply by chucking Gordon Brown overboard is madness.

We're now less than a year away from the election. We have no more chances left. We either pull ourselves together, stake out what we stand for, or we will be gone.

If we don't, the next Ministers to walk out of the Cabinet will find David Cameron and his friends walking in to replace them.

[NWpostie]

there is only one aswer, dump Gordon Brown.

to quote Oliver Cromwell

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

Address to the Rump Parliament (20 April 1653)

[eian687]

dump mandy too :mfo

[k979aaa]

there is only one aswer, dump Gordon Brown.

to quote Oliver Cromwell

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

Address to the Rump Parliament (20 April 1653)

Very good but may i add that "The public of this nation have spoken and we have our hart's in our heads and together we will win through. Because we have the very spirit and spark of life to defeat the wrongs and and right them all together we will win!.(k979aaa)!

[baldrick]

I don't think it's just a question of dumping Brown. It would be necessary to dump
most of the New Labour policies of the last 12 years, which Brown, Blair and the
rest of the New Labour tendency were responsible for.

[k979aaa]

I don't think it's just a question of dumping Brown. It would be necessary to dump
most of the New Labour policies of the last 12 years, which Brown, Blair and the
rest of the New Labour tendency were responsible for.

Yes i agree and why put one of his minions as the candidates it would be better for the left too take the baton and make the running and we may clear the hurdle in front of us all!.