Sometimes little incidents reveal much more fundamental truths.  This article from the Guardian on Tuesday September 09 which covered some of the fringe meetings at the TUC conference clearly demonstrates just how out of touch many of the New Labour careerists really are:

“One telling anecdote to emerge from the Compass gathering was when David Lammy, the schools minister, discussed his shock at finding one of his mother's pay slips, dated 1986. Lammy's mother, recently deceased, had worked both in the NHS and for London Underground. Going through his mum's things after her death, Lammy learned that her take-home pay 22 years ago was just £900 a month." 

So Peter Mandelson, the ‘Prince of Darkness’ is incredibly back in the government after having had to quit on two previous occasions. His is to take up the job of Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform - naturally.  People new to politics may wonder what all the fuss is about, not least since Mandelson has been hiding away in euro-bureaucracy land for the last four years as EU Trade Commissioner.

Labour is in electoral meltdown. The newspaper headlines are screaming ‘We’re all doomed’ on account of the world economic crisis. But they were desperately trying not to allow the real world to impinge on the surreal world inside Labour Party Conference. 

“The weirdest conference I’ve ever attended,” so said one experienced political commentator in reviewing this year’s Labour Party conference in Manchester. With Labour trailing badly in the opinion polls and having faced a series of bad to awful results in successive by elections, local council elections and the London Mayoral election, you might have expected the mood to be depressed and flat. And so for most it was.

The Forum took place against the backdrop of the disastrous by-election defeat in Glasgow East. This in turn was only the latest in a list of electoral humiliations over the past few months. The Henley, Crewe and Nantwich by-election defeats, the council elections and the defeat in London’s mayoral elections, are all a reflection of the utter frustration felt by the working class electorate after ten years of New Labour pandering to big business.

Put up or shut up!

“They’re tearing themselves apart, just like we used to do,” a senior Conservative MP said, beaming in the sunshine. “God knows why he’s done it now.” This is a quote from the Financial Times (31.07.08) about what the Tories think of David Miliband’s ‘coded leadership bid’.