Secret Santa's Reply to Luke Akehurst's Jumped Up Christmas List

On Luke Akehurst's blog Secret Santa said...

Dear Luke

Your heart is very much in the right place young man but you really need to get off your tired New Labour high horse on some of this. Most of this could have been written by the little boys and girls from other political parties my boy. Has it come to that in this new concensus?

Let's negotiate.

1) The UK getting through the year without suffering a major terrorist attack

Who could argue with that? We might add something like "Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cana, Gaza City and Chechnya getting through the year without an escalation in the daily terroristic attacks from states, imperial powers, freedom fighters, and fundies not covered in the above".

2) Iraqi security forces starting to defeat the insurgents so that British troops can start coming home

Mmmm. Why don't the British troops simply get confined to barracks for the Christmas period and then start coming back on New Year's Day?

3) Parliament voting for the UK to renew its strategic nuclear deterrent

I'm not at all happy with this young man. Deterring what exactly young man? This asymmetric "in country" rather than "between country" warfare that is the stock in trade of the Might Makes Right brigades of all ideologies, politics, nations and creeds? Would that be what you were deterring?

I hope for a Parliamentary Labour Party which has the guts to try telling Daily Mail and Torygraph cold warrers to stuff it, talking properly to their party and their constituents about this, and then voting to "hold fire" at worst, dismantle at best. And also give a "no more lies" pledge on nuclear power debate.

4) Tony Blair to have a successful final six months in office, and leave at a time of his own choosing with people wishing he wasn't going

Tony Blair to have a successful final six WEEKS in power before setting the hounds running, to avoid being questioned under caution over the obviously-dodgy-even-if-it-is-legal loans for peerages gig, to land some hard blows on the Tories and Libs for their off shore backers, to leave the space for a poll boosting two months leadership contest with all sections of the party having candidates to choose from, and then marching on to an amazingly good performance in the May elections on all fronts.

I'm not sure whether I should do this but as a small concession to Tony's legacy I'd allow that he can stay as Leader until the 10th anniversary he seeks and take the credit for the election boost alongside the victorious new leaders' designate.

5) Hard Left candidates to manage to be nominated for Labour leader & deputy then get humiliated in the actual vote

Oh come come now. How old are you? I thought you promised to be a good boy and stop picking fights with the children from the other end of the street?

I'd hope for the left to see sense and hold some kind of primary process in the four weeks running up to Tony's announcement, reaching well into the centre of the party so that at least one of the dream ticket is from the first thirty 'Corbyns' in from the left, while the other must be more than 50 but preferably less than 139 Corbyns in.

6) Gordon Brown to hit the ground running as PM with initiatives on tackling poverty in the UK and globally that will be intrinsically important but also unify and re-energise the Labour Party

As something of a republican, an egalitarian and a democrat I'm uncomfortable with this personality led wish, but obviously cheered by the poverty amelioration agenda which must be souped up.

7) Labour to be relected in the Scottish and Welsh elections on 3 May

My recipe for this is above.

8) Regime change to democracy in Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma

And if the democrats in those places actually choose to have strong even revolutionary left governments are you going to be happy with that young man?

9) Global action to stop the genocide in Darfur

I'd have more chance of delivering this one if you could provide some SMART objectives and next steps on this one. Otherwise it's a tall order, albeit one that has universal appeal.

10) Real international action on climate change (as opposed to windmills on David Cameron's roof)

Though of course these things often do begin at home. If we insist on international agreement before we start then we're insisting on a 20 year hiatus rather than leading by example.

Please, please, please can we drop this marketisation of carbon, drop the scientific non sequitors of the most ignorant evangelists, and really make a difference.

For example by tackling the ridiculous grid losses on the National Grid which run at 80% whatever fuel we may use. Area heating schemes, local generation, even MRFs with local energy recovery. It may not be only Dave/ids rooftop, but it might be clean generation at the heart of every village, every suburb and every large building.

Yours

Secret Santa
(who may blog on this again amidst the seasonal cheer of personally distributing winterval cards to 2000 souls in three wards across a wide spectrum of party profile with not a jumped up sectarian among them)