{"id":18687,"date":"2015-11-28T11:36:35","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T10:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=18687"},"modified":"2015-11-28T12:50:28","modified_gmt":"2015-11-28T11:50:28","slug":"the-growing-despair-of-a-labour-loyalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=18687","title":{"rendered":"The growing despair of a Labour loyalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>&#8220;\u2026 what enrages Corbyn\u2019s critics most is not a doctrinal difference with the leader, but their assessment of the damage he is doing to the party. Their chief concern is over Labour\u2019s prospects of ever again winning the trust of the British people and forming a government. And they want a Labour government very badly. In other words, they despair of Corbyn not because they are on the right, as the leader\u2019s chorus would have you believe, but because they remain on the left.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u2026 when MPs or other Labour voices condemn Corbyn and his team, their chief motive is not ideological disagreement. It is their hardening conviction that, with each daily misstep, the ruling circle is making Labour unelectable and turning the Tories\u2019 lease on Downing Street into a freehold.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">&#8220;<\/span>\u2026<span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">\u00a0something has to move. There is less time than some in Labour might like to think. The party\u2019s reputation is declining with each passing day. Labour needs to rescue itself, not for its own sake \u2013 but for the sake of the country it once aspired to govern.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">These quotes, from <\/span><a style=\"line-height: 1.5;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2015\/nov\/27\/misstep-corbyn-terror-mao-labour-alienating-supporters\">an article<\/a><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\"> in today&#8217;s &#8220;Guardian&#8221; newspaper by Jonathan Freedland, certainly reflect my growing despair as a Labour Party member of 46 continuous years. I was there when Harold Wilson was leader, I was there when Michael Foot was leader, I was there when Tony Blair was leader, but another shambolic week by the current Labour leadership lets down the millions and millions who need an effective Labour Opposition and then a credible Labour Government.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;\u2026 what enrages Corbyn\u2019s critics most is not a doctrinal difference with the leader, but their assessment of the damage he is doing to the party. Their chief concern is over Labour\u2019s prospects of ever again winning the trust of the British people and forming a government. And they want a Labour government very badly. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18687"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18694,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687\/revisions\/18694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}