Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
As I said in a previous post, I haven't voted Labour with any enthusiasm in ages and my politics are far more anti Conservative now than pro Labour - when I vote for them it's much more to do with a feeling of stopping a Tory win in my constituency than any great expectation of what Labour will do.
You talk about "perceived wisdom" and columns by Tory hacks about changing to adapt itself to changing circumstances, I prefer to see a party without principles shifting their position to cling to power at all costs. That said, have they really moved on from austerity? Much of the reaction I saw to the last budget suggested not. While I accept that the pandemic has changed things enormously, we've still set for the same pay freezes and cuts in spending that we had when "we were all in it together" back in 2020. Incidentally, austerity under the Conservatives didn't begin and end in 2010 - I wasn't quite accurate when I said ten years of austerity, but it was nine and a half years of it from May 2010 to December 2019, because I refuse to accept that the May Government had ditched that policy.
Therefore, we aren't talking ten years ago, we're talking less than eighteen months ago and now we have the Chancellor talking again of the need for cuts and yet, despite the zig zagging which saw them talking about using the sort of spending policies supported by Labour and other opposition parties in the second half of the last decade, their support remains constant.
After the Senedd election results, we're seeing the old claims about people voting for anyone or anything as long as they're wearing a red rosette given an airing and yet the irony is that, so often, the people who use that analogy feel the exact same way about anyone or anything wearing a blue rosette.