Met up today with many old friends with whom we go back years and years and who were all active and loyal Labour party members for many years, one almost had a fifty year membership. What came out during a lot of conversations was the fact that none of us any longer are still party members. There is a lot of disillusion, and a view that what passes for the Labour party locally no longer understand or uphold the politics of the party and have completely lost touch with exactly the people that gave so much time and effort for the principles they believed in. Not one of us will ever vote Tory. Labour locally are anathema to most of us, they ignore the very people they are elected to represent, they smack of an arrogance that is breath-taking, and they have lost touch with the very people the Labour party existed to serve. |