Vol. 27 No. 10 · 19 May 2005
pages 7-8 | 2195 words
What Blair Threw Away
Ross McKibbin
Labour has won its historic third term, by the majority (about 65) predicted by the much abused exit poll, and it has done so while receiving the lowest percentage of the vote ever won by a victorious party. The parliamentary majority is much reduced, as everyone has pointed out, but it is ‘much reduced’ only in comparison with Labour’s existing majority: previous Labour leaders would have regarded it as providential.
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Letters
Vol. 27 No. 11 · 2 June 2005
From John Calderon
Ross McKibbin throws away the party members (LRB, 19 May). They massively opposed the war, but were thwarted by the ‘Warwick agreement’ of the summer of 2004, when the unions promised not to challenge Blair’s leadership. It is quite right to propose that the cabinet is elected by the Parliamentary Labour Party, and legislation approved by it. But the struggle to rein in the Callaghan government in the late 1970s was waged by party members and union activists, not the mainly spineless parliamentarians who also voted this time round for the Iraq war and much illiberal legislation. It is fine to give the parliamentarians more power in choosing the leader and cabinet. It is essential, however, to give the party membership and affiliated rank and file trade unionists real influence with the parliamentarians.
John Calderon
London E5
