Shut up, and go away

February 25, 2017

Recently, we have seen the vultures circling over the heads of both Brexit, and the Labour Party leadership. Just in time to turn the political milk sour in advance of two by-elections, that well known rent-a-mouth, Tony Blair, reappeared to make one of his ‘impassioned’ speeches about the referendum result. We didn’t know what we were voting for, according to him. We were too stupid to understand the implications, according to him. We need to reject the vote, and get behind a deal to stay in, according to him. It’s not too late to overturn the result, and refuse to accept the will of the people, according to him.

This is the man who supposedly turned his back on politics, after losing the 2007 election, then resigning his seat in a safe Labour stronghold. He embarked on the usual round of ‘pretend jobs’, book deals, and very lucrative speaking engagements. But he obviously misses the power and prestige that comes with being the British Prime Minister, and there are even suggestions that he may well return to the political arena. In the meantime, he continues to pop up and mouth off about things that he could have influenced, had he chosen to remain in his previous job instead of leaving to become a multi-millionaire. Showing his true contempt for ordinary people, and telling us that he knows what is best for us, so we should listen to him.

Then we get David Miliband, pontificating about what a bad leader Jeremy Corbyn is, and how he will destroy the Labour Party. This from a man who lost the leadership election for that party, to his own less-effective younger brother. In 2013, he resigned from politics, to accept a lucrative job as head of the cartoon-sounding International Rescue Committee in New York, USA, where he now lives. Yet this grey man, former adviser to Tony Blair, and fellow-traveller in the politics of appeasement, feels justified to comment on the current situation here, adding fuel to the fire of Labour’s spectacular defeat in the safe seat of Copeland this week.

It seems that both men still crave positions of influence in British politics. They are also happy to back-stab their former political party, with agendas bordering on the suspicious. They are both losers, and bad ones at that. And they both represent a time when the Labour Party was hard to separate from the Conservative party in ideas, policies, or physical appearance. Corbyn may well prove to be a man who cannot lead his party to election victory. Political trends are changing the world over, and the right-wing resurgence is taking its toll on traditional Labour areas too. But what we will never need are the spiteful or patronising statements from the likes of Blair and Miliband, which are totally destructive, and will do nothing to help Labour become anything other than a middle-class Conservative clone.

They need to just shut up, and go away.

Written by beetleypete Posted in Politics Tagged with David Miliband, Labour Party, Tony Blair