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January 01, 2007
First Disagreement of the New Year.
I think the twentieth century would have been happier if Labour had had more years in power.
MacDonald, Atlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Blair. Something of a roll call of glory, don't you think? We would really have had a happier century if they'd been in power for even longer?
January 1, 2007 | Permalink
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Comments
Well that is a rather rosy view of things. I am guessing the country would be a third-world basket case if there was not Thatcher.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge | Jan 1, 2007 2:01:29 PM
I'd love you to list maybe three PMs you approved of,more or less, Tim. If there are none, then how should the government be run? As a loose confederation, do you think? By the way, welcome to the new year.
Tim adds: 20th cent.? Campbell Bannerman, Thatcher, Salisbury.
Posted by: james higham | Jan 1, 2007 3:08:49 PM
The Tories through that post war period were no better. Macmillan and Heath were Labour in all but name.
Posted by: Kit | Jan 1, 2007 3:19:10 PM
Labour are awful when they are in power. They're even worse when they are in office.
Posted by: dearieme | Jan 1, 2007 4:51:48 PM
It's almost an entertainment to contemplate the downstream consequences if there had been more Labour governments in the 20th century.
Had Labour won the general election in November 1935 - the last time in the 20th century when the winning party, the Conservatives in this case, won a general election with more than 50% of the total votes cast - there would have been a quick and sure end to rearmament, started by the Tory prime minister, Baldwin, because George Lansbury, the Labour leader at the time, was a declared pacifist and opposed rearmament on principle.
Presumably, Hitler would then have had fewer problems taking over mainland Europe. By being better able to concentrate German military resources on the Soviet Union without the looming threat of an invasion of western Europe mounted from Britain, he would have had a better chance of permanently gaining territory in eastern Europe to establish lebensraum there. Very likely, there would have been no WW2.
What of the election in June 1983 when Tony Blair was first elected to Parliament? Had Labour won, Michael Foot would have become prime minister. Leading commitments in Labour's manifesto for the election were to negotiate Britain's withdrawal from the European Common Market, extend state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy and unilaterally give up Britain's nuclear deterrent.
"Tony Blair's youthful enthusiasm for radical socialism and his admiration for socialist theorist Karl Marx are revealed in letter written in 1982.
"In the 22-page letter, the 29-year-old Mr Blair tells then Labour leader Michael Foot how reading Marx had 'irreversibly altered' his outlook.
"He also praises Tony Benn, agreeing with the left-winger's analysis that Labour's right-wing was bankrupt."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5081798.stm
Marx's prophecy for England could perhaps have been realised. As Engels put it in 1886 in his preface to the first English edition of Marx's Capital:
"Surely, at such a moment, the voice ought to be heard of a man whose whole theory is the result of a lifelong study of the economic history and condition of England, and whom that study led to the conclusion that, at least in Europe, England is the only country where the inevitable social revolution might be effected entirely by peaceful and legal means. He certainly never forgot to add that he hardly expected the English ruling classes to submit, without a 'pro-slavery rebellion,' to this peaceful and legal revolution."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p6.htm
Posted by: Bob B | Jan 1, 2007 9:20:55 PM
I fear for the 21st century though, not been a great start has it. Labour 7 Tories 0.
Posted by: cityunslicker | Jan 1, 2007 9:38:20 PM
The Abolition of the UK starts in earnest in March 07
http://eutruth.org.uk
Posted by: Myrddin Wen | Jan 1, 2007 10:45:05 PM
What was wrong with Macdonald? I'd always heard of him as something of a laissez faire hero in his response to the '29 crash.
Posted by: James of England | Jan 2, 2007 10:46:49 PM
