Stop going on about women's rights, Prescott tells Harman
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John Prescott has unleashed an outspoken attack on Harriet Harman and blamed a lack of talent for Labour's failure to communicate a clear message to the public.
In a frank interview on the eve of Labour's crucial annual conference in Brighton, the former deputy prime minister said that a lack of direction from the top had left the party wallowing in defeatism.
He told The Independent that the Government had no clear campaign strategy which left it reliant on somehow producing a desperate "knock-out punch" in the "last round" of the fight to win the general election.
He warned that Gordon Brown was being poorly advised and that Lord Mandelson was the only major figure left organising the Labour fight behind the scenes. "There is no direction in campaigning – we are drifting," he said. "You ask yourself, why did we get in the Gurkhas situation? That would never have happened before. So there's a feeling in the party that, somehow, we're not getting a grip on it. There is something lacking."
He accused Ms Harman, his successor as deputy Labour leader, of spending too much time championing equalities issues. "I think the deputy leadership role is for going out and campaigning," he said.
"I suppose, if I was being honest about it, I think too much of the emphasis has been on female rights, which I have supported all my life, and we're not getting other messages across. Most of it is about the equality issue. It is very important, but it is not our biggest campaigning issue, whatever they say about it."
Ms Harman and Labour's election co-ordinator, Douglas Alexander, were not motivating the party and accused the leadership of "hiding behind a lack of money" to fund a campaign strategy, which meant that David Cameron was "not being challenged". "Those who have responsibility for campaigning – it is not reaching out to the depths of the party," Mr Prescott said. "I don't believe, neither will I accept, it is simply about money. We've got a whole bank of MPs who should be out there, doing that job.
"I worry somehow that we've been in a 15-round fight. We're just losing the other rounds when we shouldn't and it's almost getting to the stage where we have to win with a knock-out. There's got to be leadership and there's got to be a message. If we don't get that, then we won't get the knock-out punch in the last round. And we are in the last round."
A lack of experience within Labour's team of special advisers was "an increasing problem", he said, but MPs needed to do more. "We've got a whole bank of MPs, but everybody seems despondent. There's too much defeatist thinking. There's no central direction to campaigning.
"Look at the European elections. We decided we were going to lose it, so we did nothing. My main worry is, are we about to do the same thing again?
"What I cannot understand about our position is that I don't know of any other Labour government that has got as superb a record as this one. Given all its blemishes, given all its difficulties, whether it's on the economy, public services, hospitals or the minimum wage, we can talk about how we turned things around since 1997."
Mr Brown was the right man to lead the party into the general election: "We can still win because we've got the man with the big, clunking fist. But it cannot be just one man making a speech. It has to have direction. I was hoping that would happen last September, but it didn't. And I do worry that it might not happen again. But we don't have any options left."
Labour lacks strategists of the calibre of Alastair Campbell, Philip Gould and Jonathan Powell, who led the party to victory in 1997: "We would have a reply within minutes of a story coming out. Alastair had a good smell for that. These people were exceptional. I don't think the same talent is around today."
Mr Prescott said that Lord Mandelson, who has become the de facto deputy Prime Minister under Mr Brown, was the "only one making a real campaign" for the Government.
"Peter was always the core of that team. We've got individual ministers saying things about their departments, but there's no overall message."
He criticised the former pensions secretary James Purnell and the influential backbencher Jon Cruddas for spending too much time with think-tanks, rather than knocking on doors: "They're a bloody party of whiners, when what we want is a party of campaigners."
Mr Prescott said that he believed Rupert Murdoch had turned decisively against Labour, comparing The Sun's treatment of Mr Brown to its campaign against the party's former leader, Neil Kinnock. The day of the 1992 general election, the paper ran a headline declaring: "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights".
"They have decided that is what they're going to do," Mr Prescott said. "They've gone back to that. They want to be able to say, 'We led the change'."
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Comments
Harriet is more concerned about the emasculation of mankind and has used her position of power to advance this goal!!!!
Well, it does take Labour a VERY long time to notice any thing, usually far too late. If prezza had done his job rather than doing his assistant he MIGHT have noticed.
While they were enriching themselves, the very same Labour MP's failed to ensure that the Labour Party finances were in good order, the party is now running on empty with a massive overdraft and no money to fund election campaigns. The anti-union policies of the Labour Party have lead to their main paymasters reviewing their funding policies, individual donors were driven away by the cash-for-honours scandal and the volunteers who normally work for the party during a general election are so disgusted by the performance of the party in general and MP's expenses in particular that they will not participate in the next election campaign.
Instead of blaming Harriet Harman, Prescott ought to be addressing the leadership shown by Gordon Brown!
I would never vote for a Labour Party in which she has so much say.
She cares nothing for women, just the imagined chips on her shoulder.
Maybe she should get out and work for a living like most women have to instead of living of the nation as she does. Try looking after your own children Harriet, that's a start!
I agree with his comments about Harman, but I don't recall Prescott being a particularly effective Deputy Leader either. Wasn't he preoccupied with filling both his pockets and his secretary?
In the final analysis Labour died with the last people to know real poverty and deprivation and mass unemployment when people needed to stick together; Bliar was a honey-tongued manipulative little man but he forgot the rule in politics- always look after your own
Maybe you should let them run your affairs, it would improve things it seems.
It anyone forced the Scots into the Union it was the Scots themselves because of their own poor decisions.
Scots law was not 'combined' under the union.......
Do you wish to proceed or just find a history book?
If simple things like this are not noticed, how can you comprehend todays world?
Study history, it tells you about people!
Life for the Scots and the English is better for all people since Labour came to power. Failures in recent years, caused by American banks, cannot be blamed on the wrong folk.
Scotland signed the act of union (1707) because it was broke after the failure of the Darien Scheme, and needed English money.
Having said that, I don't see how all this is of direct relevance to the block grant, which was the subject of my original post.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....
As in the seminal lyrics of Dudley Moore "Laugh, I nearly shat.."
I saw the crash of 1987 coming. I fact I predicted the Stock Market crash a month before it happened. I new there was going to be a crash last year. It was obvious (Brown didn't see it coming however...). And it wasn't simply caused by American banks but began by the socialist manipulation forcing banks to lend to impoverished minorities under Clinton's watch.
Yep, life is great just now isn't it Mr. dullman?
And as for fatty Prescott delivering is Billy Bunteresque views, bring it on!
A fat loser hung like a chipolata by all accounts who dumped is squeeze at the first sign of scandal. No wonder he's not into equal rights to women.
Remember when he apologised to the Labour Party conference?
He apologised to the delegates....but not his wife.
Fat twat.
Sack her!
The horse's mouth? Surely JP talks with the certainty of another of the horse's orifices located beneath the beast's tail.
There is now rampant discrimination being officially sanctioned towards white males of UK origin in the Civil Service, Police, Fire Service etc at all levels. All in the name of a twisted form of positive discrimination.
I know what I'm talking about because I believe that I've experienced it, first hand! I applied to the Met Police, to fill the position of PCSO and after filling out all the forms, having background checks carried out etc, I had full day of assessments at the Police Training College Hendon. About 6 weeks later, I found out that my application had been rejected because there was a possibility that I may have said or done something that could be deemed as racist but no evidence was provided.
With regards to the results of my assessment, I "smashed down the door" so to speak, in written English I got 100% even though the minimum pass is only 33% but that doesn't matter to the equality zealots because they have their own agenda. I'm sorry, I forgot, this isn't about merit, we're talking about Ms Harperson's equality or from my perspective inequality. Even if a Polish male who had only just arrived in the country and had applied for the same position, he would have been ahead of me on points right from the start, without having to lift a finger. As an indigenous male, the Police can check my record for any misdemeanour's going right back to childhood, what checks do they carry out on foreign nationals that have only been here a short time?? Probably non.
Gloucestershire Police recently admitted that they deselected 100 police applicants those only crime was to have been white and of UK origin. At least that police force had the guts to hold up their hands and admit that they behaved illegally. I'm sure that non of those guys were out of work and were desperate to get back into employment were they?? I know I was! Maybe I should write to them asking for copies of the letters that were sent out to those guys (under the freedom of Information), in order to find out if any of the letters were identical to the one that I received from the Met Police?
The Avon and Somerset Fire Service even banned white males from attending a recruitment day because it was trying to boost its levels of ethnic minorities! I feel like voting for UKIP or even the BNP why not?? I mean if any of the other parties had any real meaningful message I would reconsider but they don't. It's that simple. And lets get this right, the BNP are called racist but our Government isn't???
Please, don't make me laugh.
I feel so disillusioned with this country that given a chance, I would emigrate tomorrow, I jest not.
The working classes in this country have been defecated on by this government but the government is either too stupid or arrogant to admit it. I predict that Labour will be out of power for at least 15 years, They don't deserve to govern any more. They are not only incompetent but they also conspired to maintain the "status quo" with regards to the "all expenses paid club" while saying "yes times are hard, we are all tightening our belts."
Talk about patronising, well lets admit it, we're just plebs who should keep our mouths shut and vote whoever fools us into believing that they will help us. I feel sorry for the few MPs that really want to make a difference, people like Frank Field that wanted to reform the benefits system but had the door slammed in his face by Blair and Brown. He has also published all, yes all, his expenses online for quite sometime. How many MPs could say the same??? You could probably count them on one hand!
END OF RANT!
As for Hattie clenchbottom, actual feminists and real women like Campbell, Mowlem, Dunwoody and Erin Pizzey have been nothing but righteously contemptuous
http://sites.google.com/site/workwebg/b
Never laugh at anyone as someone is laughing at you.
It takes two to form a cabinet and kichen
Tea is water and balck leaves of tree
If one lacks direction get a GPS and guide
If you don't both of you will sink it requires you help the sailor and captain to reach ashore.
But who am I telling?
Hurray for Press coat and the laundry man but who is Harman?
I like Baroness Vadera who was born in Uganda but her family fled Idi Amin's regime and came to Britain when she was 15. She attended Oxford University and then joined UBS Warburg, where she worked for 15 years before being headhunted to the Treasury.
"She is an excellent minister. Her expertise in this area is such that there is no one better to do this job," he said. You see and she is a woman. Is Harman a woman? Okay we toss.
Vadera will not draw a salary but the experience will allow her to command a high salary in the private sector
Any one with me? or I go alone to vote for her?
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Firozali A. Mulla
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http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co
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is that round six? Good. no? Yes?
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