Labour and the New Dark Ages

As SP predicated, the government took a drubbing in the local council elections last night thanks to the fortnight of scandals and atrocious headlines it has suffered through. Labour holds less seats now, in local government, than it did when my Labour hero Michael Foot was leader; and the world hated him. Blair's response has been surprisingly emphatic: he has sacked Charles Clarke--actually Clarke returned to the backbenches rather than accept another cabinet post--and stripped John Prescott of many of his responsibilities. But I'm mad at them all. Mad because of what they are courting--that is, the destruction, perhaps for another generation, of the Labour Party: Blair too, with his initial Thatcher-esque arrogance in the face of massive public condemnation when the Charles Clarke story first broke. Because of their work, actually, these people--Blair included--England finally, in 1997, came out of the darkest period in living memory, with mass unemployment, destuction of the trade unions, dismemberment of the Health Service, persecution of all alternative lifestyles, despoilation of the environment. Now they are threatening to dismantle everything they created and send us back into the Dark Ages of another Conservative Government. Have they forgotten? Or perhaps they didn't see the suffering I saw, back then, and will never be able to forget.