Saturday, February 24, 2007
The same but different
So what exactly is the relationship between these two speeches?
In one Tony Blair tells the Wales Labour Conference: 'I think, over the past few years, when people talk about 'you've got New Labour in the UK and more traditional Labour in Wales', one of the benefits of devolution is you can take different paths to the same goal.
'When you strip away all the rhetoric and what goes in and out of the media 24 hours a day, what's left is something that unites us all in the Labour Party.
'It is a belief that we are the right people to handle the future and the modern world.'
In the second speech, to be delivered this afternoon, Rhodri Morgan will tell the same set of delegates that there is still clear red water between Labour in Wales and New Labour in Westminster. He will seek to distance himself and his government from Blairism and its most unpopular policies.
Whilst the Prime Minister is trying to cwtch up to Rhodri, the First Minister is discreetly pushing him away. What they have in common is that they both want Labour to cling onto power at any cost.
Rhodri's problem is that despite his efforts to concentrate solely on Welsh issues, the Prime Minister and his wife have now been in Wales campaigning for a Labour victory. The two of them are stuck with each other and Wales Labour is now fair game. It will not be able to escape demands that it answer for the disaster that is the Iraq war, loans for peerages and all the other issues that are dragging Labour down in the polls at the moment.
In one Tony Blair tells the Wales Labour Conference: 'I think, over the past few years, when people talk about 'you've got New Labour in the UK and more traditional Labour in Wales', one of the benefits of devolution is you can take different paths to the same goal.
'When you strip away all the rhetoric and what goes in and out of the media 24 hours a day, what's left is something that unites us all in the Labour Party.
'It is a belief that we are the right people to handle the future and the modern world.'
In the second speech, to be delivered this afternoon, Rhodri Morgan will tell the same set of delegates that there is still clear red water between Labour in Wales and New Labour in Westminster. He will seek to distance himself and his government from Blairism and its most unpopular policies.
Whilst the Prime Minister is trying to cwtch up to Rhodri, the First Minister is discreetly pushing him away. What they have in common is that they both want Labour to cling onto power at any cost.
Rhodri's problem is that despite his efforts to concentrate solely on Welsh issues, the Prime Minister and his wife have now been in Wales campaigning for a Labour victory. The two of them are stuck with each other and Wales Labour is now fair game. It will not be able to escape demands that it answer for the disaster that is the Iraq war, loans for peerages and all the other issues that are dragging Labour down in the polls at the moment.
Comments:
<< Home
Hot off the sticky satirical press:
Labour Party action quickly moved from Llandudno, where the Welsh Labour Party concluded its conference business, to Cardiff where a local film camera crew spotted Rhodri and his pals throwing a party at a KFC restaurant. KFC’s parent company said the situation was unacceptable and closed the restaurant until all the rodents were chased out. Local residents were shocked. One nervous resident said, “It is rare to see so many rats in one place.”
Labour Party action quickly moved from Llandudno, where the Welsh Labour Party concluded its conference business, to Cardiff where a local film camera crew spotted Rhodri and his pals throwing a party at a KFC restaurant. KFC’s parent company said the situation was unacceptable and closed the restaurant until all the rodents were chased out. Local residents were shocked. One nervous resident said, “It is rare to see so many rats in one place.”
# posted by 
: 3:13 AM
: 3:13 AM
That was a depressing speech by Rhodri Morgan. What it seemed to be saying was that Labour's promises are better than anybody else's promises.
And that attack on "Tories", as if New Labour was much different from Cameron's Conservative Party, came from an irrelevant past.
- Frank Little
And that attack on "Tories", as if New Labour was much different from Cameron's Conservative Party, came from an irrelevant past.
- Frank Little
'It is a belief that we are the right people to handle the future and the modern world.'
That hubris is the really scary bit about Labour and specifically Tony Blair. The belief that only they know what is best and whatever they do it is the best. Its basically old Tory paternalism...
At least us liberals realise we're not perfect and thus want to hand power back to the individual.
Post a Comment
That hubris is the really scary bit about Labour and specifically Tony Blair. The belief that only they know what is best and whatever they do it is the best. Its basically old Tory paternalism...
At least us liberals realise we're not perfect and thus want to hand power back to the individual.
<< Home
