Will Murphy’s Law apply in the Labour Party?
I wonder if you caught the latest episode of Old Mandelsonians versus The Ed Miller Band this morning. It was once again on the front page of The Rearguardian, and involved a ‘story’ clearly planted again by Lord Reargunner on behalf of the dwindling Blairites.
Yet again, a candidate who might challenge Ed Miliband-out-of-Mad-Hattie-and-Black-Jack, James Murphy, was the subject of the ‘story’. Far from being a story, the entire piece was pure confection from start to finish – a blancmange based unsteadily on Murphy’s ‘brave’ stance in saying that Labour needs “a credible defence policy”. As opposed, presumably, to a Footist bonkers Livingstonian defence policy.
Could James Murphy be the saviour Britain needs? In a word, no. Or in five words, are you kidding or what?
Murphy went, at the age of eighteen (after a childhood in nasty South Africa) to study Politics and European Law at the Strathclyde University. He was elected President of NUS Scotland in1992, and served a term of office until 1994. In the event, he did not take a degree. Or put another way, he got the taxpayer to entirely subsidise his start in politics, and then flunked the final exam. In 1994, Murphy took a sabbatical from failing his degree to serve as NUS President, an office he enjoyed until 1996. During Murphy’s NUS presidency, he was condemned by a Commons Early Day Motion, signed by 17 Labour MPs (including Ken Livingstone), for “intolerant and dictatorial behaviour”. This firmly cemented his ‘revisionist’ credentials among the Peace & Unelectability Camp.
Murphy ran out of State-funded time with the NUS in 1996, but at the 1997 Blairslide he was chosen and elected as MP for the Scottish constituency of Eastwood. By 2001, he was enjoying minor power on the Public Accounts Committee, and only a year later more pernicious influence as a Whip for Scottish Labour MPs. On his watch, a blind eye to naughty expenses claims began, during which occurred some of the worst excesses of Mcowboy spivs.
After Labour’s second re-election, he was promoted in May 2006 to Employment and Welfare Reform, during which period nothing whatever was reformed. He held a special responsibility for child poverty, which got worse during his term in office.
Amazingly, by now Murphy was a big enough force in the Party not to be entirely cast out into the darkness by Broooon, who gave him a job as Secretary of State for Scotland. And even once the Dromey-Harman axis had ‘elected’ Ed Miliband as leader, the rising Scottish MP was still unfirable….scooping a job as Shadow Defence Minister – perhaps the best thing Ed’s controllers could come up with as a hospital pass. And there he ruminated silently until Fondlebum persuaded The Rusbridger Rocket to turn him into the new Blairite Hope this morning.
In the 2011 Sottish Parliamentary elections, Labour went down from 46 seats to 37, losing some of its most senior figures. Jim Murphy soon afterwards announced that the Scottish Labour Party was to undergo its “biggest overhaul in living memory”, under reforms unanimously agreed by its executive committee. The plans included ‘fully devolving itself from the UK party on all Scottish matters’ – aka classic Blairite thinking: we’re losing here guys – let’s adopt the opposition position.
So to sum up, James Murphy is yet another example of the syndrome we have come to know as ‘professional politician’, aka Never Had a Proper Job and completely unknowing amateur in the business of life. He is a substance-free TonyMandy from head to foot: a man who stands for nothing except the achievement of power. And yet somehow – with zero experience of anything the rest of us have to deal with – he is risen to dizzy heights. Heights so dizzy that, in the context of a Claymation puppet crowned Labour leader, he may yet be hailed as The New Tony.
The last thing we need is a New Tony – or a new anything. What the UK needs is an original – somebody of either gender who has come through despite the system…not because of it. I find it deeply disturbing that Kremlinology has been transferred to Britain when it comes to contemporary politicians. We are reduced to looking for inflections, signs and hints….when what we should be able to discern is a clear and honest set of policies designed to make for a better UK – as opposed to another newly-moulded robot from the factory that should’ve gone morally and financially bankrupt following the fall of ‘New’ Labour.
Anything in politics calling itself ‘new’ anything should be rejected on principle as protesting too much, while in reality offering nothing. A Labour Shadow Defence Minister criticising Tory defence policy (while telling the Blairite faithful that he is their man) should be ignored by anyone of any Party looking for anything worthwhile.
The Slog 