Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Tim, over at Bloggerheads, in a Delia type moment says, Now, Bob's at it! Now, leaving aside the connotations (it sounds as if I've been receiving stolen goods or having a sly legover) what exactly is it that I'm at. I mean, Labour Councillor says Vote Labour is hardly a shock. If Tim means, by illustrating the fact that disillusionment with a Labour Government can lead to voter apathy or protest voting, as it did in 1979, and lead to a Tory Government... I plead guilty. But I don't want to be accused of threatening people with Howard if they don't vote Blair, because if that is what they want, that's democracy, that's the first past the post system, that's how it works.

I would want to point out that, if it is not apparent to regular readers, I don't want Blair either, but then, I never did, and voting Labour for me doesn't mean voting Blair, or even my local MP. I'm not a jump-on-the-bandwagon anti-war anti-Blairite. I disliked him from the start; I was suspicious when he was a CND supporting shadow Home Secretary, I think he has ripped the heart out of my Party, I resented his campaign against Clause 4 and his attack Ken Livingstone, whilst at the same time giving jobs to Kenneth Clark, Paddy Ashdown and Woy Jenkins, and his whole attitude to the trade unions. But it's not a boxing match 'Bruiser Blair v Horrible Howard' and what's more, it is not his Party. Labour is the only political party with integral links to the trade unions, and therefore the organised working class. That is why I'm a member, that is why I'll vote Labour and campaign for Labour... and if that means I'm at it, so be it.