Back Towards The Locus

Better grab a cup of coffee; it’d be more worthwhile than reading this.

Good luck to LabourList on their official launch. They’re on course for failure, but it seems a nice thing to say.

I’m feeling bored and ranty, and so I’m going to rant, boringly. First, Labour is a terrible party with terrible leadership and it’ll take a lot of reform before that changes.

(One exception is Claire Hazelgrove PPC. After reading tha Don’s fisking of her 25 Things About Me (for fuck’s sake), I’ve become her no. 1 fan and am convinced that she can do no wrong.)

However, LabourList – while constrained by limits of the party – is terrible independent of the party, and so I won’t make this too political.

Tedious Partisanship

Labourlist does not like Tories. In fact, judging by the impression that he gives, I’d rather stick my arm down a Rottweiller’s throat than introduce myself to Draper as a true blue. The problem is that, yes, the Conservative Party leadership are a band of inane, opportunistic losers with opinion polls for hearts and weathervanes for brains, but Labour should be presenting themselves as the appealing alternative, not the last resort.

In fact, they shouldn’t be presenting themselves as they alternative, they’re in office for Christ’s sake, they should be explaining to us why, unnoticed by the majority of the population, they’re really doing a fine a job.

Draper, bless him, seizes on the slightest potential embarrassment to his foes and trumpets that “people’s perceptions of the Tories [are] as a bunch of lightweight charlatans“. Well, now that you mention it Degs, opinion polls have them at nearly 15% more popular than your party, so what does that make you?

What LabourList could do is discuss the advantages of Labour policies. After all, if they won people over to their side they wouldn’t have to worry about the opposition. The problem is, though, that they don’t have the confidence for that, and so here, for example, Ed Balls drivels on about the fiscal stimulus, and yet assumes that the first thought of yer average voter isn’t going to be “Well, how does that help me?” but “Ah, and what do the Tories think about this?“

Well, people don’t really give a shit what the Tories think. They care about what’s happening and going to happen to them, and Labour doesn’t seem to have the cojones to even try and enter that debate.

Tedious Content

The contributors to LabourList appear to believe that they’re landing hit after hit on the Conservatives. Sadly, though, they only really remind me of this…

Man: I’m sorry, Mr. Burns, but I must object. This Simpson is not qualified!

Burns: I see. Well, you know, fellows, I look at the admissions board a lot like a baseball team. You all like baseball, don’t you?

[Everyone assents]

Burns: Yes, well, to have a successful baseball club, you need teamwork, [Smithers hands him a baseball bat] not some hot-dog admissions officer playing by his own rules!

[Burns starts feebly hitting the man on the head, with almost no force]

Man: Er, excuse me, what are you doing?

Burns: [straining] I’m giving you the… beating of your life!…

Derek Draper has had a series of OMFGLOLZ “scoops” that are irrelevant to all but a little part of his subconscious. First, there was the weird campaign to inspire sympathy for Iain Dale and today there’s been the fantasically unexciting revelation that there’ve been a few edits to wikipedia from CCHQ.

In Inaugaration Week – a pivotal moment in historeee, n’ all – the most interesting thing that LabourList could find to say was “OMFG, Da Tories supported McLAME!“. While this stands up as a minor example of Conservative lunacy, it’s a bit ironic coming from a party that’s been Bush’s bestest buddy on, well, just about everything for the past eight years.

What the contributors have to realise is that this shit is only interesting to them. They’ve gotten so ground into opposing the Tories that any potential embarrassment is of tremendous consequence to them. Trouble is: noone else cares. They’re worried about their homes, they’re worried about their jobs and they’re only concern with Tories inasmuchas they’re not sure how appealing an alternative they present. Sneering and hurling shit only serves to affirm the prejudices of die-hard Labourites.

Hell, at least Sadie and Olly are funny when they go Tory-bashing.

Tedious People

Several Labour politicians – inc. Campbell, Mandelson and Blears – have posted articles, and even comments, but it’s pretty general, platitudinous stuff. Sunny praises them for trying, which is fair enough, but ultimately they’re not Samuel Johnson’s dogs, and we shouldn’t throw them biscuits just for making a display.

What seperates Tom Harris from other blogging politicians is that he’s tried to defend governmental policy. Sure, he’s failed, but it shows greater honesty for him to try and convince others than to side-step the issues and do a little dance. In contrast, when George Monbiot called out Hazel Blears over her cowardly record, she, and a blundering Blunkett, didn’t even try to put up a defence. Again, it screams of a lack of confidence; suggests that even they don’t believe in what they’ve done and what they’re doing.

If Labour List carry on with more of the same, we’ll slide further into a boring, bickering, partisan ruck, where the once-powerful flaunt their egos for the sake of the still-powerful. Still, as Daniel’s wisely noted elsewhere, “It’s only the Internet“.

Other bloggers are more measured and concise…

Sunny Hundal – “Epic Fail (But Thanks For Trying).”

Matt Wardman – “Well, They’re Doing Okay For A Bunch Of Devious Liars.”