Well sort of. Most of the time I feel that Polly Toynbee is a strange detached person whose views don't normally match up to mine. However, having read her piece in Saturday's Guardian I find that I agree with much of what she wrote. She is right to point out that the last Labour government was pretty illiberal given that they introduced the Human Rights Act. She is also right that we are entering a much more plural political scene and that this in the best interest of Britain. But the thing I really do agree with is that the Labour party shouldn't rush their leadership election.
There appears to be a huge amount of bad blood within the Labour party at the moment and this needs to be treated. The first step would appear to be an open and prolonged debate about the shape of party in the future. This must be driven by leader who has been chosen after a period of reflection rather than steamrollered through. David Milliband may the best person to lead the party in the coming years, he may not, but the last thing the Labour party needs right now is another coronation a la Gordon Brown. They need to take time.
Here's an idea. Why not put off the election of new leader until the new year. Harriet Harman can soldier on until then - there really isn't any rush. It is unlikely that current government will fall apart in the next six months, there are too many political dangers for the Lib Dems for that to happen. Even if it did the Labour party is in no fit state to fight another election, no matter who is the leader and will give them time to see how the coalition works. If it appears to be working then the Labour party could then look at ways of trying to put together a stable partnership with the Lib Dems after the next election. The worst thing is for Labour to assume that all they have to do is sit back and wait for all the Lib Dem voters to come running to them. They won't. You have to remember that coalition government is the way that the Lib Dems want to run the country and if they can do it with the Tories, their least favoured option, then this will make then a real force in the country. The hot air at the moment seeping out from both the Tory and Liberal parties has more to do with political careers thwarted as any real force.
There is no popular outcry for a against the coalition - after all as Dara O Briain put it "... We live in exciting times, where political pundits talk up coalition as if it was the most amazing thing that has ever happened in politics, even though it is the form of government used by just about every western democracy in the world...." . Perhaps people just want to see what is going to happen.
So don't rush the leadership election. Think hard as to where the Labour party is going to go and then choose the leader to take them there.
What is happening to me - quoting from Guardian columnists! It must be my inner SDP coming out - are those were the days.
Simon Marchini LRPS
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/@simonmarchini
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