It was great waking up this morning to hear the by-election result in Glasgow North East. Given the national polls and economic difficulties this was a stunning victory for Labour.The New Labour MP (in the literal sense of the word) Willie Bain described it as a “fantastic victory for Gordon Brown and Labour”. Willie also put the success down to voter’s memories of the “Last Tory recession”.
Which I am certain is very true. We need to keep the faith for 2010. Despite our frustration and disappointments with the Party we know in our heart of hearts that there is no alternative for ordinary working people to Labour. Tonight on the 6pm news I saw Glasgow pensioners at a local community club tucking into a good (and no doubt healthy) meal while describing why they remain loyal to Labour. To them it is still the only Party for working men and woman.
While I suspect that the recent completely vile and despicable behaviour of The Sun “Newspaper” somewhat helped contribute to the Labour victory. I do think that this triumph was in part due to the “it’s the economy stupid” prospective. While there was a mistaken pandering in the past by Labour to neo-liberal Economic arguments which are now clearly the main cause of this current recession (thankfully we did not deregulate as much as the Tories wanted); the Tories are ideologically opposed to the Labour Government measures to save jobs and protect people from the recession while also fundamentally opposing the expansionary financial measures needed to bring us out of the current mess. I think that people are beginning to recognise this. We need to roll this message out nationally.
This morning UNISON colleagues from Scotland I spoke to on our course were not only pleased with the result but also ecstatic that the BNP had lost their deposit. Glasgow North East has a very high number of asylum seekers in the constituency yet voters had rejected the politics of Nazi hate and discrimination.
BTW - There was the usual, dismal and utterly pointless performance by the various Heinz 57 trot lost deposit brigades.
3 comments:
The TV interview of voters was not really convincing. People saying "I vote Labour because I am working class" is not a convincing reason for voting Labour. Did n't Labour do anything in Scotland?. It seems very similar to Newham. People voting for Labour just because they always have. But sadly, in Newham Labour have taken voters for ride.
Hi anon
Maybe read the post properly. A whole host of reasons to vote Labour.
Not least the horrible experience that people had with the last recession under Tories.
Bizarrely I keep getting Japanese spam on this post so comments closed.
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