Why Labour is wrong and should reconsider!

Before the last General Election, and even though it was made perfectly clear where each stood in issues that concerned the country, both the Tories and the LibDems did not announce any detailed policies until the election was called, and they weren’t the first opposition parties to do so either. Why? Because they simply didn’t have to.

It is and has always been the rule, the norm, the general custom of oppositions and it’s more or less what most did throughout history. Because if the ideas and policies of those in opposition were any good they’ll get nicked by those who can implement them, namely the government, on the other hand, if they were rubbish they’ll then be used as a weapon to discredit the party – either way it was always best for those in opposition to keep their cards close to their chest and reveal as little as possible while out of office.

However, that was then, in ‘pre coalition’ politics when it was sensible to safeguard your priced assets, your bright ideas and polices from your opponents. But, in the current climate ‘post coalition’ where the whole country is putting aside personal gains, ideological differences and rallying together to do what’s best for the nation, it isn’t becoming to be the one that ONLY opposes yet offers no alternatives!

Unfortunately, that’s what Labour is doing, instead of offering solutions and alternatives, they are just criticising and ranting about everything the other two parties and the rest of the country are doing to salvage the current economic demise – which basically is a mop up operation to clean the mess Labour made, and then left behind it. This, in this occasion does not translate to opposition being guarded and careful but to Labour being selfish and unconcerned or worst bankrupt and clueless!

In this charitable season, my advice to the Labour party is to, first, stop the games after the fact – offering young people to join for 1p just after the Students’ Fees revolt – at best it’s capitalizing form a bad situation, which is opportunism of the sad kind and not genuine compassion and at worst it’s a good idea that came too late!

Secondly, stop hiding behind the gimmicks – we are starting with a Blank Sheet come help us fill it – screams we have no idea where to begin and need to buy some time and this sounds like a good distraction. Specially as we all know consulting the public is not in Labour’s DNA – remember Ken Livingston and the Congestion Charge Western Extension in London, lots of time and money was spent to put together a consultation but Ken disregarded all that work including the results of the consultation (which said NO to extending the zone) and did what he wanted to do all along (make affluent West Londoners pay for the privilege of driving around their own neighbourhoods)

Three, show some metal and prove that you care by putting county before party – come up with solutions and alternatives not just objections and claims that you could do it better, the public and the politicians on all sides don’t like or want these cuts – but the cuts need to be done – and if Labour has any logical workable alternatives then they should share them and bring them to the table, after all the mess is theirs’.

But before all of that they should admit their mistakes, not what they did or didn’t do during the last General Election as we keep hearing, but the disastrous mistakes they made during their 13 years in office – people do admire and highly respect those who own up when they do wrong!