June 19, 2006
THE PERFECT POLITICAL CLIMATE....:
Brown aide: we will lose next election: Labour must regain public trust or face 15 years in opposition, MP warns (Patrick Wintour, June 19, 2006, The Guardian)
One of Gordon Brown's closest aides has warned that Labour on its current course will lose the next election and be out of power for 15 years, since voters have lost trust in the party and will no longer listen to its message.The warning by Michael Wills, a former Home Office minister and the Labour MP for Swindon North, is the most public disclosure yet of the deep concern in the chancellor's circle that Labour may lose the election unless there is a radical renewal of the party.
Mr Wills said: "The trouble with the current approach is that we will go out of power and we will go out of power for 15 years."
Why only fifteen years? What is the dynamic that will get the parties of the Left to try the Third Way again given how much they've come to despise the guys like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair who forced it upon them? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 19, 2006 6:56 AM
Parties are machines made to generate jobs for politicians. While it is possible for parties, particularly European parties, to get lost in ideology, 99% of the time they will do what has to be done to get elected.
With the Democrats, the question is whether they'll be satisfied with running the east and west coasts.
Posted by: David Cohen at June 19, 2006 8:22 AM