Mutiny in the Labour Farm
By Aleksander Boyd
London 06.09.06 | Since I detest ignorant foreign people waxing philosohical on Venezuelan issues, as an alien living in this country I have kept my thoughts about UK politics as private as possible. Almost every person I have met since I got here in 2000 has expressed, weakly or strongly, its conviction that conditions have greatly improved since Tony Blair took power in 1997. Nowadays the man who brought the Labour party back into office is facing a rebellion; the same pigs that were utterly incapable of running the farm properly are heading a mutiny against its established leadership. Sometime ago I heard leftist radical Tony Benn saying that the Labour Party was yet to reach office, clearly alluding to the widespread belief held by the fringes of the party that Tony Blair did not represent Labour values. And they are right. 'Labour values' stood in the way to successful elections, in fact it completely blocked the way for 18 years. 'Labour values' arrested the development of this country until the great Margaret Thatcher decided to do away with it. However non-Labour values have taken this country into a new era, an era of progress. Every time I cross over to Europe my feeling that the UK is, by far, the best place around is reinforced. Talk to any French, Italian, Spanish, German, Greek... Apart from the food and Michael Schumacher, what can they feel proud about for? Suffocating regulations, useless bureaucracy and heavy taxation are in practice killing entrepreneurial initiatives across Europe. Blair realised early in the game that laisez-faire economics and free market tenets are the way to go, should a government be willing to redistribute wealth, which can only be created in environments were the government is an associate rather than an obstacle.
Unfortunately those who live by 'Labour values' are incapable of realising that their marriage with power will most definitely end, hopefully for another similar period, if and when Tony Blair is replaced by his lacklustre Chancellor, for Blair is, to this country's politics, a phenomenom, a politician who is in a league of his own. His brilliance stems from having adapted a conservative approach to business with a social agenda, so that both camps felt equally pleased with his policies. A firm free market stance allowed the former to produce and expand, absorbing the much needed taxation to develop the latter. This commonsensical principle has escaped, and continues to do so, most socialists. Originally based on Labour movements and unions, Blair modernised the party creating a much respected political platform that proved invincible in two consecutive general elections. Now his backward detractors are prep, ready and eager to throw all that away. What a shame...
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