Friday, May 8, 2015

Anti-austerity = epic win / Austerity-lite = massive fail




Look, I can't really put it much more simply than this:
Nicola Sturgeon's unprecedented electoral success in Scotland was a result of her crafting a very clear anti-austerity, anti-Tory message, not the result of a sudden post-referendum rise in nationalism. As the sheer scale of the SNP victory became clear Nicola Sturgeon was very careful to reiterate that the number one priority of the now powerful block of SNP politicians in Westminster would be to oppose ideological austerity. I believe that she is sincere because to make bold assurances like that on election night, then not follow through on them, would severely damage her hard earned reputation as a straight-talking leader that the people of Scotland can really relate to.

Ed Miliband's catastrophic electoral failure in England was the result of an appallingly confused economic message. The Labour Party can only have themselves to blame. Instead of doing everything in their power to expose Tory ideological austerity as the outrageous and economically incoherent con that it is, they presented a hopelessly confused austerity-lite message. The lunacy of this austerity-lite strategy became absolutely clear in January 2015 when almost every single Labour MP obeyed the party whip and actually traipsed through parliament to ratify George Osborne's ideological austerity agenda!..