A little of the old-time religion

As a hard left socialist, I've always seen the Labour Party as a bunch of class traitors, especially in the last twenty years, during which they've essentially packaged and sold the working class to the corporate masters: everything they do is inspired by Thatcher.

Now there are stirrings of class-based politics. Not because New Labour believe it: it's hard to sing The Red Flag from the wheel of your 4x4 on the trip to collect your kids from their selective boarding school, paid for by the fruits of banking or futures trading. No, it's because they've realised that the voters are angry.

So they've released this video, pointing out - justifiably - that Labour has done good things for the poor. Only to stop them revolting, of course, but it helps. Let's not mention Ramsay MacDonald, the acquisition of nuclear arms, betraying the miners and the unions, the Iraq war, reducing child benefit, refusing to extend workers' protection, taking a bribe from Formula 1, shutting down the BAE Systems weapons corruption case, instigating the biggest loss of civil liberties ever seen, and all the other grubby deals done along the way. These are real achievements.

Evil, cynical genius

In the old days, politicians would appeal to your political interests. Now, it's just a matter of selling you a lifestyle. This is both the best and worst political broadcast I've ever seen. Want policies? Tough. The message is, nice girls don't boff socialists (she cries because she's just slept with someone who has filled in an application for the Socialist Party of Austria). But that doesn't matter. It could just as easily sell holidays, insurance, the Nazis, whatever. Hollow… so hollow that it doesn't need dialogue.