Sunday 17 August 2008

Dear Tom Harris MP...

...yes, the Labour Governments have, undoubtedly, done some truly excellent things and anyone who claims they have not is full of blind political tribalism.

You mention the minimum wage, which at the time I was extremely sceptical about? YUP! Cracking piece of legislation. And that's not the only thing you guys have done, not by a long way and on those things I applauded you well, and I am certainly not a Labour fan.

But your post is just ridiculous, it embodies what the Labour party, New or old, left or centre, has become. You cannot deny that Labour is 'not what it once was', but when the Labour Party's only campaign and argument is "Remember how bad the Tories were?", then you're really running out of juice.

Labour are the party that had the slogan "Forward not back", yet all Labour party does is either say "Look what we did 7 years ago" or "Look what the Tories did 20 years ago", and what a shite argument these have both been.

"Forward not back"? Your whole post focuses on a "Remember the..." mantra! Well unfortunately for you guys, you've been in office long enough to have your own "Remember the..." comedy of errors.

Here's just some of them

Remember the...
fucking up of the housing market
2p tax screw up which hit the poor
renewables announcements followed by plans to increase nuclear which was subsequently followed by announcements on new COAL fired power stations
doubling of inflation on Labour's watch
Home Office that wasn't fit for purpose
keeping of Sir Ian Blair after Jean Charles de Menezes
mess surrounding Northern Rock
high flying oil price
election we were all ready for but someone's leader didn't have the stones
time when the country came to a standstill in the fuel protests

FUCKING IRAQ WAR...

...in which some soldiers died SOLELY because of underfunding leading to lack of proper equipment
Government that converted politics into a media spun circus
introduction of PPP into our state education system
whitewashed the Hutton report
Millennium Dome...

...?

So when you talk about "all the things what those Tories 'ave dun", then answer all of these questions before you open your mouths, or shut the fuck up, talk about the future, what you plan to do and impress us that way.

You cannot rest on past successes when you are asking us to vote on how you should run this country in the future. So yes, you've done some great stuff IN THE PAST, but you've also fucked up, royally, in the past.

Nottingham Forest no longer consider themselves to be part of football's European Elite, but under your rationale, because on May 30, 1979 they lifted the European Cup, we should all be calling them powerhouses of the beautiful game. Following your under-used "Forward not back" idea though, you might just realise that they are washed up, not as good as they once were, with a crap man leading the line.

Sound familiar?

So look forward and just fucking do something (and if you can try make it something good, that'd be a start).

(I've spent 45 mins trying to resize that font and it just isn't happening so my apologies)