Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-27 Thread Richard Baker
Gautam said: Do you feel that _compared to the electorate_ that voted (overwhelmingly) for Labour in the last election that Labour MPs are very much more Old Labour? Not party members, but ordinary everyday voters? Yes, Labour MPs are more Old Labour than the electorate, but less so than

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-27 Thread Marvin Long, Jr.
On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Richard Baker wrote: It must be nice to live in a country like the US that can have two seemingly reasonably competent parties at the same time... Yeah. Let us know when you find one, will you? :-) Marvin Long Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter Ashcroft,

Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Richard Baker
Those of you following the Iraq situation might find this interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2799377.stm In short, Tony Blair just suffered a gigantic rebellion by his backbenchers over war with Iraq. I've just been watching coverage of the House and it was pretty dramatic, and

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Dan Minette
- Original Message - From: Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 1:42 PM Subject: Labour revolt Those of you following the Iraq situation might find this interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Gautam Mukunda
--- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What do you think of Gautam's argument that a swift military victory in Iraq will turn the support numbers around, like the victory over Argentina did for Maggie? Dan M. I should note that I think that's true for the British public, but not

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Richard Baker
Dan said: What do you think of Gautam's argument that a swift military victory in Iraq will turn the support numbers around, like the victory over Argentina did for Maggie? I think that it's possible, but on the other hand this situation is very different to that one. The Labour Party has

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Richard Baker
Gautam said: I should note that I think that's true for the British public, but not necessarily for the Labour MPs. Tony Blair is New Labour, but there aren't that many of them in the actual Parliament, most of which is made up of Old Labour. I think that Labour MPs are much more New

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Gautam Mukunda
--- Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think that Labour MPs are much more New Labour than most of the Labour Party though. Quite a lot of town and county councils seem to have an awful lot of unreconstructed Labourites (some even verging on actual Marxism) sitting on them. (Or at

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Jon Gabriel
From: Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Labour revolt Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 13:04:50 -0800 (PST) --- Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think that Labour MPs are much more New Labour

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Richard Baker
Gautam said: It would not surprise me in the least if (as you say) a lot of town and county councils had members of Old Labour running them - but it would surprise me a great deal if the _rank and file_ of Old Labour was more extreme than the Parliamentary representatives. Is that correct?

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Gautam Mukunda
--- Richard Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: With the disclaimer that I have no hard evidence supporting anything I'm about to say and I'm certainly not an expert on the Labour Party, I think that the rank and file of the Labour Party is indeed more extreme than the leadership. Here's how I

Re: Labour revolt

2003-02-26 Thread Andrew Crystall
On 26 Feb 2003 at 20:16, Richard Baker wrote: Gautam said: I should note that I think that's true for the British public, but not necessarily for the Labour MPs. Tony Blair is New Labour, but there aren't that many of them in the actual Parliament, most of which is made up of Old