Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party

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Lewis Goodall. Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue. Longbridge

My dad, many, many times

Chapter 1. What Went Before: New Labour and the Left

Tony Blair, A Journey

Mark Corrigan, Peep Show, 2008

Barbara Castle, 1998

NEW, NEWER AND NEWEST LABOUR

OUR SURVEY SAYS …

1945 AND ALL THAT

DIDN’T THEY DO WELL?

HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

LET’S SEE WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON …

Chapter 2. The Curious Case of Jeremy Corbyn

Tony Benn, diaries, June 1994

Tony Blair, 1994

Almost everywhere I went, summer 2017

HOW IT STARTED

So to demonstrate our desire never to win again, Islington’s Jeremy Corbyn is now a Labour leadership candidate. 11:07 AM – Jun 15, 2015. Quite a number of Corbyn supporters saying to me that principled opposition is better than seeking an electoral majority. The elite speak. 11:32 AM – Jun 15, 2015

THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF MR MILIBAND

Good to see @jeremycorbyn as part of @UKLabour leadership race – we welcome your strong anti-austerity voice in UK politics Jeremy. 11:05 AM – Jun 15, 2015

@TheGreenParty @jeremycorbyn @UKLabour 1. We would love Green Party members to become registered supporters and vote for Jeremy – J(@SetSpeed) June 15, 2015

Jacky Burdett @trivychatter @jeremycorbyn well done – now the really difficult stuff – bonne chance X. 11:08 AM – Jun 15, 2015

THE LONG MARCH OF MILIFANDOM HALTED: 2015

Chapter 3. What is Corbynism?

Maxine Peake, 2017

George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937

Sir Isaiah Berlin, 1972

CORBYNISM AT HOME

CORBYNISM ABROAD

Chapter 4. The ‘A-Word’

Jeremy Corbyn

THE PECULIAR CULT OF JEREMY CORBYN

A 19-year-old Momentum activist, talking about Jeremy Corbyn, York, summer 2016

Chapter 5. Corbyn the Culture Warrior

Laura Pidcock MP, August 2017

Jeremy Corbyn, quoting Shelley at Glastonbury, 2017

Placard, anti-Trump protest, 2017

Hey Dad what did you think about the blue passports story? Do you want blue passports back? Son the blue passport was a English/British passport it gave us individuality so yes I voted brexit so blue passport for me. But why does it matter Dad? because we were a blue passport nation before the common market the red or burgundy when we entered europe and now we are leaving we should go back to blue we are British by birth but english by the grace of god. Serious note we had blue passport prior to the common market so let’s go back to blue it’s our heritage

@FromPaperchase. We’ve listened to you about this weekend’s newspaper promotion. We now know we were wrong to do this – we’re truly sorry and we won’t ever do it again. Thanks for telling us what you really think and we apologise if we have let you down on this one. Lesson learnt

THE RISE OF THE GRADUATEOCRACY

TECHNOLOGY AND LOST ‘SHARED CULTURE’

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Chapter 6. A Class Apart

Michael Frayn on the Festival of Britain

Chapter 7. The Takeover

Bernard Donoghue, The Downing Street Diaries, 1977

Neil Kinnock, 2010, upon hearing that Ed Miliband had defeated David

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

THE PYRRHIC VICTORY OF THE PLP

BREXIT BEHEMOTH: LABOUR AND THE EU

‘WE GOT THE BIG MO’!’ The Corbyn footsoldiers

Haringey: Planet Corbyn

Chapter 8. Fear and Loathing in the Labour Party

Jeremy Corbyn, 2015

David Lloyd George, 1923

Lord Alfred Tennyson, ‘Lady Clara Vere de Vere’, 1842

JEREMY AND THE JEWS

POWER IN THE LABOUR PARTY

Chapter 9. The Night Everything Changed: The 2017 General Election

Boris Johnson on Jeremy Corbyn, 26 April 2017

Theresa May, 22 May 2017

Gary Lineker, Twitter, 9 June 2017

Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former joint chief-of-staff, 8 August 2017

WHAT HAPPENED?

WAS IT AUSTERITY WOT WON IT?

@David_Cameron. Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice – stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband. 11:26 PM – 3 May 2015

REVENGE OF THE REMAINERS

A HALF-FINISHED REVOLUTION

DID CORBYN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?

JEREMY CORBYN DID NOT WIN THE 2017 ELECTION BECAUSE HE WAS A RADICAL

SO … HOW GOOD WAS IT?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR LABOUR?

Chapter 10. What Comes After: The Next Election and the Future of the Left

Jean Jaurès, French socialist, 1914

Jeremy Corbyn, 2017

THE TASK AHEAD

AN EXPECTATION PROBLEM

A BREXIT PROBLEM

THE BISHOP AUCKLAND PROBLEM

A SCOTTISH PROBLEM

A YOUTH PROBLEM

MARGARET THATCHER WOULD BE PROUD OF US

A NEW PARTY PROBLEM

THE POLLS PROBLEM

A GOVERNING PROBLEM

MITTERRAND: LE PREMIER CORBYNISTA?

THE CLASS CONUNDRUM

Postscript. Grandad

Mr V. Reynolds, engineering tutor, North Birmingham Technical College, writing on my grandad’s final apprenticeship assessment, June 1960

Notes

About the Author

About the Publisher

Отрывок из книги

Title Page

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So in every direction by the 1990s, whether it was economic, social or ideological, the world seemed to have given way beneath social democracy’s feet. The postwar social democratic settlement seemed to be increasingly unobtainable because the pillars on which it had been constructed were vanishing. Callaghan could see what was happening better than anyone. When polls indicated he might be doing a bit better in the run-up to the 1979 election than he might have hoped, his aide, Bernard Donoghue, ventured to suggest he might win after all. ‘Bernard,’ the old warhorse replied, ‘I’m afraid to say I think there’s been a sea change and it is for Mrs Thatcher.’

It is sometimes spoken of as if Blair and Brown ‘abandoned’ socialism all on their own. That’s putting the cart before the horse. By the time New Labour came along the process of abandoning the trappings of the old Attlee settlement (which many people then took, and today continue to take, as the quintessential socialism) was already well underway. Because New Labour was not only an attempt to broaden the party’s sociological appeal: it was also an attempt to respond to a world where traditional methods of social democracy and socialism had been deemed bankrupt, in a metaphorical and a real sense; and many of the people who declared them so were – guess what – the social democratic politicians of the day.

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