New Labour trivialised politics beyond measure

The leadership contest in the British Labour Party between brothers Miliband — Ed and David — was rather unusual, and it turned out to be interesting as well. The one thing that the contest between the brothers showed is that fierce competition was all that matters and politics is not about issues and ideas anymore. It is a friendly sporting contest and let the better brother win.

The younger brother, Ed, emerged the winner. After the electoral defeat in the summer after 11 years in power, the change in leadership was inevitable. Ed in his acceptance speech hinted that it is time to reassert the old Labour values and possibly bring back the trade unions.

New Labour is out and Old Labour is waiting to be born. Critics have already pronounced the verdict: Labour will not be able to win the next election under the new Old Labour even if the younger Miliband manages to carry through his agenda. There were others who said that he was being insincere, even intellectually dishonest, because he is an inveterate New Labour groupie.

It is too early to speculate about the future of either Miliband or his defeated party. What is certain is that the Tony Blair-Gordon Brown-Peter Mandelson New Labour act is done and over with. It is the right time to look at the pseudo-modernism that these three self-serving politicians and their camps brought to British politics and how they managed to succeed as well for quite a while.

There was no doubt that Labour Party had to reinvent itself after Margaret Thatcher made the Conservative Party almost invincible in the 1980s. But Blair-Brown-Mandelson have done the smart thing by freely borrowing Thatcher's market credo and getting rid of the trade unions which had been decimated by Thatcher in the early 1980s.

The New Labour made in the image of Thatcher's Conservative Party was not a genuine political revolution. It was all soundbites, intelligent manoeuvres and an attempt to make Britain appear to be a world player of some influence and importance. Blair managed to do this by hitching his star to that of Democrat Bill Clinton and then Republican George W Bush at the White House, giving the false impression that Britain was once again an important player.

The 'sexed-up' dossier on Iraq was a pathetic attempt to conjure the casus belli. It had to fall apart. Fluff cannot stand the test of reality and New Labour thought that they could get away. The Iraq war was just a conspicuous example of all that was wrong with New Labour. It showed how the counter-culture generation of the 1960s and 1970s took over the political reins in the 1990s and succeeded in making politics a frivolous affair.

Miliband does not promise to bring back seriousness to politics even as he looks in the direction of Old Labour. He remains a man without convictions, who is using his intelligence to sense the mood in the party and in the country at a time of economic crisis. It is true that Gordon Brown won brownie points in skillfully managing the immediate fallout of the recession but people did not believe the good work he did because of the lack of seriousness of New Labour.

One of the dubious contributions of New Labour to British politics is that of a spin doctor — that it is enough to put a gloss on deeds that do not withstand rational scrutiny. New Labour has trivialised politics and Miliband's challenge should be to get rid of the bad mental habits associated with it.