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okay
I
welcome back to Sputnik orbiting the
world with me George Galloway and me
gatri the Electoral Kaleidoscope has
been shaken the pieces are in flux but
where will they land Britain has turned
blue or has it only 24% of the British
people voted for David Cameron yet he
now has un tremel power to do whatever
he likes and for five long years ever
more cuts and it andram of
privatizations a huge reduction in the
size of the state except the security
state that we are already promised will
get larger and more invasive than
anything seen in Britain in peacetime
today we've assembled two of the most
astute observers of the British
political scene first off the associate
editor of the Guardian newspaper Sheamus
Mill and Sheamus welcome to Sputnik it
looked like a landslide if you look at
the map gatri said Britain has turned
blue but it's not quite like that really
is it no it's no kind of landslide I
mean the the Tories have got a majority
of 12 which is a workable majority but
it's a small one historically and of
course as you were saying you know the
proportion of the population that voted
for the Tories is under a quarter they
even didn't manage to get 37% of those
who voted and the turnout was low um but
that's the rules of the game now I think
what made it for the went up what 0
something wasn't it 0.8% was their
increase in the vot and the labor the
increase in the labor vote was
1.4% um what made it look like a
landslide on the night was the
expectations which had been built up by
the polling in the previous two or three
weeks in particular um which had had
promised that there would be a dead heat
between the two main parties and that
would have meant possibly a a labor Le
government with a a Rainbow Coalition of
progressive parties behind it because
that was how the numbers would have
stacked up if that had been correct and
it wasn't correct and that night on the
night of the election when people saw
the exit pole across Britain they were
astounded because it was so out of
kilter with what had been suggested by
the polls and now people are obviously
digging into why that was the case but I
think in in relation to how it actually
is going to look for the next two or
three years it's going to it's a far
weaker government than has been talked
about in the last few days I think you
know that majority will start to erode
there are also well I've sat in many
parliaments with small majorities like
that and they don't survive first
contact with With the Enemy and with
reality and I mean the Enemy Within of
course uh John Major's government was
absolute hell for the Prime Minister and
he had more than 12 I think of a
majority uh and Europe of course remains
a big fissure in your excellent peace in
the guardian this week you highlighted
also the Scottish question uh which is
going to be uh very very significant in
this uh Parliament so why then has he
come out fighting quite so uh
aggressively I mean the early few days
were one announcement after another of
thatcherite policies that Mrs thater
might have bulked at well I mean it
makes sense for the from the Tory point
of view doesn't it because they've had a
buildup of resentment within the
conservative party in Parliament and
outside at Cameron's constant ducking
and Diving and compromises with the
liberal Democrats under the Coalition
there's the sense that these people
didn't get jobs who wanted them and uh
that that Cameron was never right-wing
enough for them that if he had been more
right-wing he would have won the
election in 2010 and now is the chance
to give them the jobs and show his true
tory metal and then the other point is
that if you want to get your radical
stuff in for any government it's best to
do it quickly because it become more
difficult as time go goes on the
majority will start to erode H and so I
I think from the Tory point of view it's
the right thing to do to be radical at
the beginning and they're certainly you
know rolling it out rapidly so we've got
one thing after another I mean one of
the most dramatic things which was in
the election Manifesto but wasn't hardly
discussed in the election is the plan to
make strikes as good as illegal by
setting thresholds for voting and
turnout which are just never met in most
um strike ballots because they insist on
a postling postal balloting system
instead of Internet balloting which
would be much easier for people to vote
in so there's going to be a battle about
that then there's the threat to
introduce new legislation against
so-called extremism which is as far as I
can see from what's been said a full-on
attack on freedom of speech in Britain
only a few months after we were all all
in the name of British values all in the
name of British vales it was just surely
but now it's no longer a British value
uh that people are allowed to hold views
and express them within the law that's
whaton part of that was held back under
the previous government by
libm ministers but not only there was
opposition from within the Tor party to
that because it was seen as
soberal authoritarian yeah so
authoritarian and there's a obviously a
faction within the Tory party that is
quite libertarian and doesn't like that
kind of stuff so I think that the
opportunities for a battle about many of
these things are going to be there both
inside Parliament and outside Parliament
so the demoralization that the majority
of Britain who didn't vote for this
government is feeling or has been
feeling in recent days I think that will
start to dissipate as people see the
opportunities for for taking the
government on and for changing some of
their Direction it's not just Muslims
though is it we were discussing this uh
this morning uh we're used to inured to
attacks on Muslim expression but the
wording of the new extremism agenda is
far wider than that it's threatening to
people on Twitter on Facebook it's
threatening to alternative of
broadcasters and so on because it's
actually the classic Cold War definition
of what they used to call subversion
which is undermining parliamentary
democracy something which can be
interpreted in any way uh the government
chooses and so if they want to clamp
down on all sorts of um political
activity uh against the government
against Foreign Wars um against uh uh
threats to indust the right to
Industrial to take industrial action
they can do it under this legislation I
mean it is a very very authoritarian
yeah and almost War like speak yeah it's
like like it was extraordinarily
belligerent I mean it was saying that
we've been far too tolerant uh prepared
to let people have their views as long
as they were within the law as long as
there was no violence but now we're
going to turn that page they're
explicitly saying they will clamp down
on things which are not currently
illegal not only incitement to violence
but incitement to hatred of you know an
religious or ethnic or or or other forms
of hate speech that's already covered no
it's not about that this is about
politics this is about people's right to
argue their case for political
Alternatives and they're planning right
now to clamp down it while clamp down on
it while on the other side of the world
they'll be denouncing governments
Elsewhere for doing exactly the same be
overthrowing them if they can let's turn
to uh to labor politics in your
excellent piece in the guardian this
week you talked about what labor should
not do that they should not uh turn back
to blism
essentially Tony Blair who only a year
or so ago looked set for a kind of
wintry Exile chill Cott and the rest
looming is now right back Center Stage
isn't he well they they were waiting for
this moment and they have been preparing
for weeks and months for labors defeat
so that they could try and retake the
party which of course they've never lost
control of completely at all but they
position was weakened after Ed Milan
became um leader and the moment the the
results came in they were out of the
traps first Peter mandon and Tony Blair
who were the architects of new labor and
then a string of ex- new labor ministers
almost all of whom became directors in
privatized companies that they'd
previously been handing out contracts to
um arguing the case for uh you know a
return to what they regard as the center
ground which is I think can be
interpreted best as um the centerr as
perceived from the city of London
corporations and the uh and the
corporate controlled media rather than
the actual centerr of where British
public opinion is um and for they were
attacking Ed millerand obviously as
being to anti- business two leftwing
wearing a red tie too often I saw one uh
one one report but I mean the the
reality is that their politics which was
successful in the
1990s um in a period when there was a a
city-funded credit fueled boom and uh
the Cold War had just ended since the
crash of that neoliberal economic model
and Ne economic system which took place
in 2008 and the recovery not only here
but throughout the Western economies
have still not really taken place at all
the economies are still crippled by that
terrible crisis the idea that you can
just wind the clock back and be
successful in that narrow sense again is
just not realistic we've just had an
election ction where not only votes uh
hammered off to the greens the Scottish
national party both of whom had
positioned themselves well to the left
of the Ed millerand Labour party but
also to the UK Independence Party part
of whose appeal is to workingclass
voters who believe themselves not to be
served by uh the labor party in the new
labor era and afterwards they didn't
notice enough of a difference and by
globalization and by globalization and
by the destruction of the industrial
base and the working and the employment
base in those areas you know the idea
that by appealing to them on the basis
of new labor politics of pro corporate
um middleclass orientated politics alone
the idea you're going to win them back
is just laughable nor for that matter in
the Tory labor marginal seats where
labor hardly made any progress at all
you you you can't ignore the large
workingclass disaffection with with
labor they either because those votes
often went to ukip or they didn't vote
at all and we're just getting the
evidence now to show that actually
Labor's problem was bigger with
workingclass voters than it was with the
uh middle-income voters that the
blairites and new labor politicians of
yester year are saying that should be
the focus of everything so that's
clearly not the answer but they have
huge support in the media who want to
still present them 25 years later as
modernizers in a rather bizarre uh
formula but they supported obviously by
the corporate interests in the country
by the city of London by the corporate
own media and that's giving them a big
wind and obviously because Labor's been
defeated and it didn't make uh much
progress electorally under Ed millerand
uh after a period in which not only did
he not position the party in a way that
was clear enough uh to most of the
potential voters but also didn't uh
discredit the Tory claim that labor had
been responsible Labor's overspending
had been responsible for the crisis
which is laughable economically but was
repeated ad nauseum in the medium by the
Tory politicians but obviously labor
didn't succeed and so in those
circumstances it's a golden moment for
the failed politics of blism and new
labor who oversaw a loss of 5 million
labor votes between 1997 and 2010 to
make a comeback but it's obviously not
the the answer not only for labor party
but for people in Britain who want an
alternative government it's got to be
something different but it's it's going
to be a difficult struggle I think the 5
million
labor voters that'll be the question uh
or ought to be the question uh but may
not thanks very much Sheamus Mill coming
up after the break more on the new blue
Britain with RT's crack political
analyst Neil Clark don't miss
it welcome back to Sputnik David Cameran
is now the most powerful Tory prime
minister since Margaret Thatcher and he
seems to have found a long lost
appreciation for The Iron Lady indeed he
getting ready to venture where she might
not have dared but how much of a mandate
for all this does he really have and
what will become of the once proud labor
party will it turn right back to Blair
or will it turn left back to real labor
that's the question we'll now put to one
of the shrewdest of Britain's political
analysts crack commentator Neil Clark
Neil let's deal with this issue of the
Mandate first M um we know that less
than a quarter of the British people
voted for them yet they got an overall
parliamentary majority we know that only
half the Scottish people voted SNP but
they got yes seems like
99% of the seats isn't one of the first
things that's thrown up here is the
peculiarity to say the least of the
British electoral system oh absolutely I
think it I think the British electoral
system uh is fundamentally undemocratic
and you don't have to be a ukip
supporter to to to really appreciate how
badly done they've been because they
pulled I think it was uh just under four
million vot and they get one MP and the
greens get 1.1 million votes which is a
great Poll for them and they get one
seat so I think that uh uh reform of our
electoral system really is up there on
the list of things progressives need to
be campaigning for because it's a block
on Progressive politics in this country
yeah uh and it forces within the labor
party certain choices that otherwise be
there I'll come to that in a minute ukip
would have had more than 80 MPS under
proportional representation and yet we
can't get proportional representation
unless the big parties agree to it
there's no chance of the Tories agreeing
to it they're the beneficiaries of it
any sign that labor might be rethinking
his position well I hope so I hope so
because I've just written an article for
the RT website on how it happens that
the EST the pro most pro-establishment
party always wins British elections and
in fact that's been the case since 1974
Harold Wilson in 1974 was the last time
a party that wasn't the establishment's
number one choice won election in
Britain and the electoral system plays a
big part in this uh in preventing
Progressive parties from being elected
and so I think the labor party now
really ought to reconsider it its
position because because it's lost out
and I think that uh you know if you look
at it it's not just about the votes we
talk about the greens got 1.1 million
how many more people would have voted
green had they belied if it counted and
so I think that uh a lot of people as we
know the scare wronging in this election
was absolutely outrageous people were
were scared into voting a conservative
and I think that uh electoral reform is
the is as I said I think it's what
Progressive should be campaigning we
don't have a state uh run media in this
country but then we don't need one no
absolutely the the the privately owned
media does the job uh
unbribable the only thing certain about
British elections is who's going to lose
them yes Absol the working people and
that's been true uh arguably always
let's talk about ukip for a minute they
are something of a phenomenon they uh
took they did far more damage to labor
than they did to the conservatives they
only ended up with one MP who looks like
he might be uh on his bike uh out of
ukip uh if recent coverage is anything
to go by
how do you analyze ukip and its voters I
think it's very interesting to to to
analyze the rise of ukip Because if you
think about it back in 2012 and 13 they
got a very positive press the media was
all behind them at the time of the
European elections last year when they
did uh very very well yes and the talk
was what a threat they posed to the
conservative party but I think yuk and
themselves have been manipulated too by
the likes of Rupert Murdoch and and the
media Barons because it's quite clear as
you said that you keep seriously damaged
the Chan of Labor in this election labor
lost an awful lot of votes in England uh
to ukip and I think that uh you know
where uh they've got one one seat and of
course there's a lot of anger among ukip
supporters now I think that uh millerand
I think Ed Mand and I wrote about this
several times made a key mistake in not
agreeing to an EU referendum I think he
he I'm not saying that all the people
who voted ukip move from labor was
because of that issue but I think that
was an important issue it's easy to
imagine that you
voters are thoroughly reactionary from A
to Z but that's not true uh on economic
questions for example on issues of uh
globalization the remorseless March of
inhuman capitalism on public ownership
National ownership that's an interesting
point yeah absolutely they are actually
blue collar labor well when I set up my
pressure group The Campaign for public
ownership which is a pressure group to
campaign for the rationalization of the
railways and the other util ities the
first inquiries we got were from ukit
members and ukit members have been very
supportive and so I think on economic
matters the average ukit voter is very
much to the left the taking old labor
positions uh anti- globalization for
public ownership and I think that that
is another reason why labor has perhaps
lost votes to ukip if they haven't been
strong enough in opposing globalization
and supporting public ownership and I
think this the sort of the way that you
as I said the ukit voters are betrayed
is the very right-wing uh people they're
not I think on economic matters they are
on the left which is why I think another
reason why they've done well in England
taking votes off labor so Labor's got to
look at that and the idea that that that
labor can recapture voters and can win
elections by going back to blism well is
absolutely ludicrous when you think of
where they've lost votes to yuk voters
the last people they're going to vote
for are Blair right that's the very
point I was about to raise with you the
idea that say Conjuring chukaa out of a
hat as a kind of new Blair new Obama new
Blair yes uh is perfectly absurd how
would turning back to blism win back
labor voters who voted SNP in the
elections when the SNP were running a
vibrantly anti- austerity left-wing uh
campaign how would it win back green
voters and how would it win back ukip
voters uh from their positions of old
Labor uh on uh on economic matters yes I
think by any objective assessment The
Logical conclusion is Labor's got to
move to the left now because it's been
outflanked on the left from the S&P and
by the greens and on economic Matters by
ukip too which is taken a very populist
economic uh message out to voters and so
yet we've got this wave of Blairs coming
out now in the media saying no we've got
to actually go back to this ludicrous uh
this mythical Center ground yeah uh but
a center ground is by definition a mid
point between left and right cha is not
the centerr in British politics not at
all if if you take the greens the SNP
and ukip how does blism end up as the
center ground well it only do the
conservatives we've got to mention
Rupert Murdoch here because I think he's
played a massive role in the election
again and not only that not only has he
played a massive impact had an influence
on the result a massive influence he's
now his papers are now seeking to tell
us who should be the next labor leader
yeah and I think we've got to examine
this Murdoch uh uh link to this cancer
in British politics and I go as far to
describe it as that that every every uh
uh election since 1979 the party that
the sun has supported has won uh the
election some of us thought that this
days of Murdoch power were on the Wayne
and that the new social media would
change things but the depressing Point
yeah old media is still very strong and
old media continues to drive the agenda
there no doubt about that what's going
to be different about the conservatives
this time I've been surprised by how
Brash how uh belligerent even their
first few days in power has been well
the shackles are off now aren't they
really and in a sense that's a good
thing because there's nobody else they
can blame you know they they they they
very successfully blamed uh the
unpopular majors of the Coalition on the
Liv Dems and I go no brief of the Liv
Dems whatsoever but that was a you know
that was the Tory tactic they can't do
that anymore they've got a majority they
can do what they like really so I think
that's a POS postive in some respects
and I and I and I think that the most
important thing now for progressives in
Britain is not to become too demoralized
because uh if we allow ourselves to
become demoralized then I think we're
beaten there's an awful lot of very uh
reactionary policies which are going to
be coming through now which the majority
of the British public don't support as
you said only 24% supported Cameron and
out of those how many actually knew what
the policies were how many of those
voted for Cameron because they were
frightened uh by the so-called Scottish
scare the Scottish scare mongering about
the s P how many actually looked at the
manifesto and I think so there's going
to be a growing anger about this
government in the months ahead and
that's our opportunity uh to build a
very strong Progressive opposition to
this on several fronts we have to do it
on several fronts speaking of Scotland
um in the last government Cameron saved
the union so-called how's it going to
look like this this government well I
mean that the big problem here is you've
got the Scottish people have voted the
majority of them uh well you know snps
had a landslide there and they voted for
a party uh that rejects everything that
Cameron really stands for they're a
Social Democratic party there to the
left of Labour in Scotland and yet we've
got a government in Westminster that's
committed to austerity that is a proar
neoconservative government we've got a
lot of issues like Trident are going to
come up if the British government tries
to take us to war against Syria the
people in Scotland quite opposed to that
kind to those neocom policies so I think
that's going to be uh an enormous uh
recipe another referendum Scotland on
its way out yes which would be therefore
a very pic victory for David Cameron yes
uh of the conservative and unionist
party to preside over what looks now
almost inevitable the uh partition of
the country the loss of half of the land
mass of the state that he was elected to
be prime minister of last word uh are
mardock and KW going to succeed in
imposing their kind of labor leader on
the labor party well I think that uh
there is one school of thought which
says that progressives can't be elected
or can't be allowed to be elected as a
British government unless you got the
support of Rupert Murdoch and I think
that's that and I noticed a tweet from a
leading Murdoch uh uh journalist who was
saying basically the Tweet was that you
know served Ed B ban right he tried to
take Murdoch on that would happened to
him so there's a kind of warning people
will look at that Labor uh challenges to
the leadership candidates will look at
that and may fear and the imated labor
membership May well uh yes so that is a
big danger but something's ought to be
done about this we it's it's it's out I
I think that unless we analyze the role
of Murdoch and the media in this and
work out solutions to this we aren't
going to get the kind of uh progressive
labor party that we all want I'm an ex-
labor party member as you are yes we all
are and we won't go back we want to see
socialist policies policies that the
people want and yet we got this m
Murdoch trying to dictate what policies
our party has well we'll see about that
Neil Clark thanks as
always and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's rling G great
response on the election results Andy
Hearn says about Labor that they went
into an election with a leader that
didn't look like a BM and carried a
message that wasn't clear well that's
absolutely right uh you you had to be a
graduate in politics to pick up the
Nuance of Ed Milan's radicalism and well
as to what it looked like I thought the
stumble on the eve of the election on
the question time said it all I know I
pity him and we receiv received this
fantastic picture from Barbara quoting
Mark Twain saying if voting made any
difference they wouldn't let us do it
very good well that's all that we've got
for this week which alas means that's
the end of the show stay in touch with
us on rtor Sputnik on Twitter and on
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Russia today it's goodbye from me gri
and from me George Galloway it's been
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marvelous