Major is a Labour attraction
Manchester Labour party has invited former Conservative prime minister John Major to be the special guest at a cricket themed summer social.
The event takes place on Monday August 25 at Blackley Cricket Club, Tweedle Hill Road, from 1pm.
Teams of eleven can enter for £50. Admission for individuals is £5.
The leaflet for the City Labour Party fundraiser features a picture of Major in his cricket whites.
It says: “With special invited guest: The Rt Hon John Major (TBC)”.
Tickets and more information are available from Councillor Mike Amesbury.
UPDATE: The Facebook page for this event says: "The invite to John Major was a joke, but he did write a very nice letter back declining our invite."
posted by Action @ 06:45
14 Comments
14 Comments:
I don't belive it.
I presume it is a cry of anguish and some sort of comment on the nature of the Labour party these days.
It is bizarre that, as the party meets to work out why no-one likes them, the very same party announces plans to make murder easier. The same minister had earlier announced plans to legalise discrimination against working class men. Can anyone see a link?
You sometimes have to see yourself as others see you...
Perhaps the thread should be called "Murder is a Labour attraction".
neil, at the risk of defending Harriet Harman - I'd rather choke on broken glass - the proposals you refer to rather broadly as "legalising discrimination against working class men" are aimed at addressing some fundamental inequalities in workplaces.
They stipulate that, where an employer can show that a certain group of people are under-represented at whatever level (let's face it, it's usally the more senior levels), it MAY be appropriate to favour a candidate from one of these groups PROVIDED all other measures are deemed equal and the candidates are otherwise of equal merit. This is a deliberately tough test to avoid the kind of discrimination you seem to fear. Incidentally, why are you only worried about discrimination against white working class men? What about black working class men, or women (white or black?).
sorry neil...I'm sure I read "white working class men" in your post. My mistake. Though my point about working class women stands. The gender pay gap, I'd argue, is evidence of how deeply entrenched discrimination against women is in this country. Which is why Harman's proposal should be supported.
Rich,
I would happily have said 'white working class men'. There, I've done it.
Why is that racist - which is what I suspect you are implying.
Yes, women or blacks or whoever may have suffered discrimination. Why should that disadvantage me when I am sat awaiting a job interview? Why should I not have an equal chance of the job because of my background? I have never discriminated against anyone - or supported such discrimination.
Such discrimination is what Harriet Harman suggests. EVERYONE should have the right to an equal chance in life - which is something she does not support.
The Labour Party is simply repudiating its traditional supporters who are repaying the favour in spades (there I go again!). It is formed of little more than an isolated elite who have little understanding who care little for the simple people they think are below them. There is a huge and growing gap between governors and governed - a fundamental matterof cultural hostility.
neil, oh dear, I hesitate to bother to answer your hollow Tory response, but anyway, I've nothing really better to do at the moment.
Equality is not an absolute that can be spoken into being. As if we can just say: as of...NOW...that's it, we're all equal now, nothing that happened before counts, we start from now, that's it.
I didn't call you a racist, you merely imagined it. I asked you a question. Though, I now suspect the lady doth protest. I knew I shouldn't have bothered. Gah, I hate Tories.
...actually, I've read your post again, and I've changed my view slightly. You will probably vote Tory at the next election, but I suspect you have conversations which include phrases like, 'it's no wonder people vote BNP'.
Hmm. Such benighted views, completely divorced from reality, explain why Labour is alienating its natural support base.
Don't take my word for it - you won't! - just look at election results.
I wonder why you assumed I had referred to 'white' working class when I had not said so. Is it in your subconscious? A very interesting thing, I'd say.
And why shouldn't people refer to 'white' if they want to? It is not racist to do so.
I wonder how you think you know how I vote. By your lights, probably 80 per cent of the population are Tory or BNP - and they clearly are not.
Why should people have to be so narrowly PC to be progressive? That was my original point - attitudes like yours are alienating well-meaning people who are actually less racist than you think. People are not simpletons - they know when they are being patronised!
Let's not call it subconscience, let's not call it prescience.
When the Labour party was formed, it's fan base may well have been white working class. But times and the country have changed. And so should we.
It's not about being narrowly PC - it's not the pillar of progressive politics on which all else rests. The alienation of Labour voters has got nothing to do with equality legislation.
It's to do with: continuing the Tories' vicious attacks on the working class through even more privatisation than Thatcher ever dreamed of, and refusing to repeal anti-trade union laws; introducing markets to, and undermining accountability in, the NHS; prosecuting a devastating war in Iraq - a policy so eye-wateringly unjust, unnecessary and unpopular that a more successful piece of foreign policy you couldn't hope to come up with if losing your core support is what you're after; selling off state education to used car salesmen and global corporations; not only not closing the gap between rich and poor quickly enough, but actually widening it; abolishing the 10p tax rate introduced as a way to help those on lower incomes...
I think we all know I could on.
The Labour Party has never had, and has never sought, a 'fan base'. It does have people whose interests it represents.
Those people care little about the PC obsessions of others. In fact, they despise them - but they tolerate them so long as they believe the party is standing up for people like them.
The PC types, in turn, despise the working class - but they realise they need them because they have no other popular support.
When people believe the paty is no longer on their side - indeed, is hostile to them - the withdrawal of support is very sharp and even catastrophic.
That is the stage that the Labour Party is now at. It may collapse completely - and, if it does, it will be the party's ruling and isolated elite that will be to blame.
neil, I quite agree, but for different reasons, as I stated above. We agree the betrayal of the working class is the crisis; we appear to disagree on its manifestation. The question, as ever in politics, is what do we do about it? Elsewhere on this site, I have posted what I believe is the solution.
The Labour Party has betrayed the working class - it sounds like both the enthusiastic & vitriolic commenters would agree with me on that.
I think part of the reason for arguments like this is a desire for an explanation as to WHY.
There is a layer of labour movement activists who remember better days. They ask what has changed. One of the things that has changed is that women and ethnic minorities are a much more central part of our class - and so to our movement. They have fought to put their specific issues high on the agenda, alongside those we all have in common.
Sadly, some in our movement wrongly connect the increased profile of equality and the weaker state of our movement as cause & effect.
It has always been common for sections of our movement to latch on to reactionary explanations for real problems if they lack better ones.
To justify their position, they even have to re-write our history - as if equality hadn't always been a central demand of our movement rather than something imposed from without.
This layer will either have their minds changed and hopes rekindled by a revival of the movement or they will continue their trajectory of destructive and divisive opposition to the newer components of our class.
In terms of what we do about it - I think it's a combination of arguing for more sensible explanations for the defeats of the last 30 years and doing everything we can to accelerate and deepen the current recovery. I also think the centrality of women and migrant workers to the new wave of workers' struggles that appears to be beginning will do wonders to undercut these ideas.
Neil: "Why should that disadvantage me when I am sat awaiting a job interview? Why should I not have an equal chance of the job because of my background?"
Because there IS such thing as society.
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