ATM I see no sign at all that Lab under Miliband is going to be anything other than another manifestation of a right of centre, corporatist, neo-liberal apologists that NL were. The party has lost its soul, its meaning and its very reason for existence. I sincerely hope that Cashcroft's polling is correct and the tragic Torylition suffer their first electoral humbling, but until and unless Miliband can start to articulate some ideological alternative to this neo-thatcherism I, for one, don't believe things would be very different if he were PM. IMHO that's Labour's problem....I should want to vote for them
Yes, to some extent all the main parties are different shades of the same thing. I've become more of a pragmatist in older age and I believe that getting some progressive policies in place is better than nothing at all and being in permanent opposition, however noble and principled doesn't really help.
The whole premise of New Labour was to get into power under the current system which is stacked against left-wing parties. The consensus of rampant capitalism, consumerism and pursuit of material wealth and property is something that is now so engrained in the psyche that I can't see how that will change. Perhaps if the banks had been allowed to collapse in 2008, there could have been a popular uprising against the system, but now people have slipped back into their "normal" comfort zones.
Hmmm...but didn't Blair/Brown try that "one-nation toryism" and get kicked out? I really do think that Miliband's party need to start articulating some convincing alternatives that the electorate can hang onto. There is a rising sense of anger, betrayal, and injustice surrounding most of what the Torylition have wrought, and MiliLabour should be harnessing that to challenge the neo-liberal agenda. I hear little if anything that is convicing from this band of lightweights.
As for your acceptance of what the masses want, I'm not convinced that all is lost to rampant consumerism. I think many (former) Labour supporters do still retain values that centre around social justice, reducing inequality and the power of solidarity and community. Interestingly this 1959 quote from Bevan has been doing the rounds on some lefty blogs:-
"I have enough faith in my fellow creatures in Great Britain to believe that when they have got over the delirium of the television, when they realize that their new homes that they have been put into are mortgaged to the hilt, when they realize that the moneylender has been elevated to the highest position in the land, when they realize that the refinements for which they should look are not there, that it is a vulgar society of which no decent person could be proud, when they realize all those things, when the years go by and they see the challenge of modern society not being met by the Tories who can consolidate their political powers only on the basis of national mediocrity, who are unable to exploit the resources of their scientists because they are prevented by the greed of their capitalism from doing so, when they realize that the flower of our youth goes abroad today because they are not being given opportunities of using their skill and their knowledge properly at home, when they realize that all the tides of history are flowing in our direction, that we are not beaten, that we represent the future: then, when we say it and mean it, then we shall lead our people to where they deserve to be led!"
Dated, yes...and possibly a little messianic for our post-modern tastes, but a politician prepared to articulate some home truths.