Labour have been forced to shift to the right or they wouldn't have been able to stay in Government
Is this, strictly speaking, true?
I'm not a Brit (obviously) but if memory serves Thatcher got nowhere near 50% in her first election, and the real story for Labour was that it split apart, thus handing a crushing victory to thatcher the second time around. she actually got less votes after argentina than before it thanks to "moderate" labourites who destroyed the party because their guy didn't win.
easy to facilitate a shit to the right when you've been stabbed in the back. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
the rest of europe got a left-wing make-over around then, we had a real left government in france (at least at first) and also in spain if memory isn't failing me in my dotage.
britain get's its one chance at seeing proper socialism in an electorally legitimite guise and i guess the lily-livered crowd couldn't handle it.
i think it's genetic, and explains a lot about amerika, too. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
to facilitate a shit to the right
You mean: to bring in Tony Blair? ;)
It's reasonably well ingrained. So Labour had to change tack somewhat to provide a means of framing their policies in a way that would attract those leaning to the right but unhappy with the Tories and not totally repel the traditional Labour voters.
I am bitterly disappointed that Labour moved so far away from their roots in carrying on with chunks of Thatcher's agenda - given the length of time in Government, the policies and implementation of them should have been able to shift back towards the left. There has been time to reverse some of that rhetoric but it hasn't been done in England. Tony Blair was a master of persuasion which saw him come in on landslide win. He could have used that to convince the public to shift their way of thinking back to the left and in doing so encouraged the working classes to have faith in Labour and keep turning out to vote.
I don't see how the reversal of the damage the tories did could have been achieved by keeping a hard left line from the beginning - in England anyway. In Wales (and Scotland) the Left were stronger in a more traditional way, certainly for Wales with a strong history of the Labour movement, unions and the legacy of coal mining and heavy industry. As such through devolution we do have a socialist Government here, with progressive social policies.
I have a friend who thinks Tony Blair is great, he really admires him and I just can't see it. He thinks Tony Blair was pragmatic in dealing with the legacy Thatcher left. I think he sold the Party out. Ad astra per aspera
