the wrong people were voting Labour

in 1997, apparently. Neal Lawson says so, and it's in the Guardian, so it must be true. A little light fisking to begin with.

 Oh and Nealie babes, open letters are Always Wrong.

"Dear Tony,

You seem to be suffering an unusual bout of the dithers as 2014 ends and the year of the general election begins." Really? Having a say is dithering is it? Oh unless Tony says what the Guardian wants to hear. Silly old me.

"First you argue that Labour will lose if Ed Miliband rejects the third way. You fear a situation “in which a traditional leftwing party competes with a traditional rightwing party, with the traditional result”. " Yep. Spot on Tony. As even you seem to understand, Neal...

"But then you say you have been misinterpreted. " He was. Because he didn't say he didn't support Dead Ed, but was reported as having done so. "The words, though, seem pretty clear and you were always so good with words. And, apparently, at winning elections." Not apparently. He won three consecutive ones. No other Labour leader has done so.

"But we both know it’s not quite that clear or that simple. The truth is that any Labour leader could have won in 1997 – by then the nation was heartily sick of the Tories. It was time for change. Your great fortune was that the leadership came up just when most of the Labour party was desperate enough to accept victory at any price." Clearly you spent no time in Labour circles in the 1990s Mr Lawson, or you would know different.

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"If he had lived, John Smith would have won in 1997 – not by as much as you, granted – but then your majority was too big, wasn’t it? " Was it? How big is too big? What would have been the correct figure? One that excluded the south of England? " I well remember crunching my way up gravel drives past BMWs in Enfield the day Stephen Twigg ousted Michael Portillo – oh, how we cheered later that morning. But in hindsight the wrong people were voting Labour. The tent was too big and you spent the next 10 years trying to keep the wrong people in it: the very rich, for example. What meaningful project includes everyone? " Any meaningful project does. You govern for all the people or you do not meaningfully govern at all.

"You remark, almost with pride, that the population hasn’t shifted to the left – well, what exactly was your job as a political leader supposed to be about then?

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Had you not been so disdainful about anything remotely old Labour there would probably be much less support for Ukip now. True, you sneaked in some transfers to the poor in the shape of tax credits, and you introduced the minimum wage. " yes, you may well sneer about the minimum wage Mr L, your Guardian-reading dinner-party companions have no need of it, hein? "But never with a political flourish, never with a sense of moral purpose. It was all stealth and no one knew why they were better off" so- with more soundbites everything would have been better would it Neal?

"British politics is now crying out for a real choice. A society that is more equal, sustainable and democratic." Maybe so Neal, though I have my doubts that those notions are what most people are crying out for. Housing need and zero-hours contracts are their concerns, more like.

Extracts from this Guardian gem inside quotes. My remarks outside them. #thewrongpeoplewerevotingLabour - tell that to the people who were, and are, proud to be wrong. Now I must go and put some coal in the bath. Because that's what Labour voters do, isn't it Neal?  Can't have nice clean Guardian readers in their leafy homes doing, can we? Because then we'd have Labour governments, and that would never do, would it?

An artificial water war

David Aaronovitch, writing in today's Times (£) expresses concern at recent statements and lobbying by the Angling Trust and (allegedly) other organisations promoting angling. Their stance, he writes, is that other river users, and specifically canoeists, are damaging the riparian environment for anglers. This may of course be true, though it does seem to me that it is not canoeists who leave tangled lines on riverbanks which cause injury and death to water birds and other animals. I therefore took the opportunity to cast a cursory look at the document Aaronovitch refers to, namely 'Conflict on the Riverbank', published late last year by the Angling Trust. My attention was drawn to these words:

Angling Trust National Campaigns Coordinator Martin Salter said:
"The Angling Trust has been challenging the claims being made by militant canoeists that they should have

a right paddle up every river, stream or brook in Britain irrespective of ownership or the impact this has on wildlife or other people's enjoyment. The rights of navigation are clear in law and there are thousands of miles of navigable rivers and waterways to which canoeists have legal access. We also have well worked voluntary access agreements in place which allow canoeing on some rivers such as the Dart and the upper Wye at times of high water when fishing will not be affected.

"They should have a right paddle"? Who edits this stuff? John Howarth?

Be that as it may,there are voluntary agreements in place in respect of various of the rivers of England which aim to secure harmonious use of the rivers by various users - walkers, including dog walkers, cyclists, anglers, canoeists, and, oh I don't know, hang-gliders and aficionados of naked riverbank yoga for all I know. So it's surely possible for everyone to play nicely together. And as Aaronovitch points out, even if canoeists do damage the experience of fish-torturing that anglers enjoy, those canoeists have precisely zero influence on the leisure experience of walkers, runners, cyclists and (probably) naked riverbank yogis. So this is anglers trashing canoeists. Now I am neither an angler nor a canoeist, but I am a user of the riverside, as an occasional walker and cyclist there, and in the past few months I  have become a gardener on a riverside plot in my home country of France (where the rules are a bit different - let's not go there). I see canoeists and anglers apparently happily coexisting on my local rivers.

Anyway Aaronovitch's piece (he declares an interest as a sometime canoeist but is fairly even-handed on the whole) is helpful in drawing the nation's attention to this piece of meretricious bollocks.
The rights of navigation are in fact not very clear in respect of a great many rivers and other water bodies in England. Where they are they tend to favour canoeists, as Mr Salter knows, perhaps because canoeists have no effect on the wildlife ecology, as Mr Salter should also know. Banning canoeists from rivers, including school groups and children's holiday clubs, would be SUCH a popular cause in an election year, hein?

And "We" have well worked agreements? Who's "we"? This is a manufactured and artificial conflict. Mr Salter has form on this, going back to his time as Labour MP for  Reading West, and before. First it was "Trash the Cormorants!" (He urged mass culls of cormorants by shooting, attracting the ire of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, among others). Then it was "Trash the Otters!" (Little Tarka Must Die!) and, at least as worryingly, it was "Trash the East Europeans!" (who apparently don't torment fish for pleasure as True Englishmen do, but often fish just for some dinner (perfectly legal on most English rivers most of the time)). Leaving aside the question of how he could tell when it had been East Europeans doing Bad Things (did the fish report that a Nasty Polish Man Did It And Ran Away?), this last attracted the enthusiastic agreement of Joe ("Send 'em Back!") Baker of the Reading  Anglers' Association,  so I think we know whose vote was wanted there.

As the election approaches, what do the candidates where you live think about banning canoeists, otters, cormorants and East Europeans from the rivers?

Victoria's secret

Victoria, pic accompanied a business website interview

Victoria Groulef has been selected as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Reading West, which is, as the estimable Mark Bennett puts it, a seat which should not have been lost by Labour in the first place.  But that was then, and we move on.  Should be a pretty good election for Labour next time, but 2015 is some way off.  It appears to me that this was the right decision.  So, boys, don't try and bully this one, OK?  That kind of carry-on loses elections, as I hope you have finally understood.  Best wishes, Victoria, do it your way.