A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Friday, June 30, 2006

By-election woe

Blaenau Gwent continued the dismal run of MPs it has elected ever since pre-WW2 days with yesterday's by-election. What did one constituency do to deserve to be afflicted with, in sucession:

Nye Bevan - serial rebel and national hate figure who kept Labour out of power for most of the '50s with his sectarian antics. (Mitigating factors: set up NHS and belatedly pro-nuclear)
Michael Foot - Labour's least effective leader ever, kept Labour out of power for most of '80s with anti-nuclear stance (Mitigating factors: promoted careers of Kinnock and Blair, intellectual giant etc)
Llew Smith - even more leftwing than his predecessors but without the stature
Peter Law - betrayed Labour on unprincipled grounds that seat was his personal sinecure and him being an MP was more important than increasing the number of women candidates
The new bloke elected yesterday - agent of the above

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lib Dems winning here.

(in this blog, not by-elections, obviously)

10:31 am, June 30, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Lib Dems about the only people not to have had a go at me yet!

11:03 am, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's because of your support for electoral reform ;-)

12:20 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Or could be because there are none left in Hackney (Ok 3) after my efforts in the last 2 sets of elections.

12:31 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Surely they'd have more reason to hate you then?

Or maybe they fear the wrath of Akehurst...

12:58 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At least both Davies and Smith looked better during the declaration and the speeches than those Drama Queens of Neill and Abbotts in Bromley!

1:43 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Blogger Manchester University Labour Club said...

Luke Nye Bevan is a labour hero, our 19 000 majority before the last election was his legacy.

6:27 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you want to blame ssomeone for loosing Blaenau Gwent, Blame New "Labour" and Tony Blair

6:56 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think I've disproved that hoary old chestnut, that somehow Tony and New Labour were to blame. See my article on the responsibility of the Monster Raving Loony Party for Labour's defeat in Blaenau Gwent.

7:50 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, after reading your blog, I think you should join the Monster Raving Loony Party, although they might actually be a bit too sensible for you, maybe the Tories or UKIP are more your style.

Disproved it how?, nothing I've read here shows you disproving any "old chestnut"

Not only that, but you decide to launch an attack on one of the heroes of the Labour Party, namely "Nye" Bevan, who many, even in New "Labour" seem to hold in high reguard, and by the way Since when was Bevan a national hate figure by the way?

You also decide to attack a man (Peter Law) who left the Labour Party over the way all women short list being imposed on them, and the people of Blaenau Gwent voted in large numbers, both times against the policies of Blair, and New "Labour"

The question I ask you is this one, is this blog serious?

10:03 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Blogger Manchester University Labour Club said...

If we'd have gone into the Bleaneau Gwent as a bunch of essentially Bevanites we would not have lost that by election.

11:46 pm, June 30, 2006

 
Blogger Tom said...

Nye Bevan (redeeming feature- invented the NHS)

Tony Blair (Sold it.)

12:16 pm, July 01, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Nye Bevan may be a hero for most people in the Labour Party but not for me. My heros from that era would be Hugh Gaitskell, Herbert Morrison, Hugh Dalton, Ernie Bevin (founder of NATO), George Brown and Clem Attlee.

2:21 pm, July 02, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Ternster said...

"This post would be fantastically funny if meant in a tongue-in-cheek way but alas it isn't and thus spectacularly misguided at best."

Well you can talk. You run a website with the banner headline: Principles without power and power without principles are useless. If that isn't tongue-in-cheek I don't know what is. Ha ha, very funny.

7:59 pm, July 02, 2006

 
Blogger Manchester University Labour Club said...

He may not be your personal hero, but Nye Bevan is an iconic labour hero.

11:35 pm, July 03, 2006

 

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