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Which Way Is Forward?
Saturday, February 5th, 2005 06:00 pmThe Labour Party has finally agreed that its election slogan will be "Forward, not back." This fulfills the three requirements of a good campaign slogan: it is short, it sounds inspiring, and it says virtually nothing. It implies that the Labour government has a clear direction, and that it will progress courageously on its chosen path. It is the Blairite equivalent of Thatcher's famous "No U-turns" soundbite.
The difference, of course, is that the Thatcher government did have a clear direction it was taking the country in and from which it could refuse to turn. Admittedly, that direction was down the toilet, but everyone knew where it was. In contrast, it is hard to tell which of Labour's many directions is "forward". Does forward mean more privatisation of public services or less? Does it mean an ethical foreign policy (a phrase dropped quietly from the manifesto after the Kosovo war) or more playing America's pit-bull? Are we supposed to be moving forward to more democracy or more policing?
Patrick Wintour, writing in the Guardian, notes that "some Blairite MPs warned that the party's radical edge is being blunted." That he manages to get "Blairite" and "radical" into the same sentence without a hint of irony is quite an achievement. It also gives a clue as to where forward may lie. "Back" means back to the days when "the party's radical edge" meant people like Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone; "forward" is to where Gordon Brown counts as a radical.
The difference, of course, is that the Thatcher government did have a clear direction it was taking the country in and from which it could refuse to turn. Admittedly, that direction was down the toilet, but everyone knew where it was. In contrast, it is hard to tell which of Labour's many directions is "forward". Does forward mean more privatisation of public services or less? Does it mean an ethical foreign policy (a phrase dropped quietly from the manifesto after the Kosovo war) or more playing America's pit-bull? Are we supposed to be moving forward to more democracy or more policing?
Patrick Wintour, writing in the Guardian, notes that "some Blairite MPs warned that the party's radical edge is being blunted." That he manages to get "Blairite" and "radical" into the same sentence without a hint of irony is quite an achievement. It also gives a clue as to where forward may lie. "Back" means back to the days when "the party's radical edge" meant people like Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone; "forward" is to where Gordon Brown counts as a radical.
