Well, at least the Labour Party will actually be the Labour Party again. I wouldn’t necessarily write them off as unelectable just yet. There is a lot of time for the Tories to screw things up before the next election. Remember that John Smith would have been a shoe-in in 97. Whilst he wasn’t a die hard socialist, he was certainly much more traditionally labour than Bliar. The greatest tragedy for the Labour Party was selling its soul to the devil when there probably wasn’t any real need.
Let’s hope we get some pragmatism rather than dogmatism for a change:
Railways – huge % of overall cost due to underlying infrastructure that is old in many cases and in need of constant maintenance. Allowing private companies to cherry pick the small % of things they are interested in doing and leaving the tax payer to pay for the inconvenient bit just isn’t on. Nationalise.
Telecommunications – relatively small % of cost due to infrastructure, so the sector can be allowed to compete on the basis of innovation and price and give the best range of choices to consumers. Privatise.
Too often dogma gets in the way of doing the best thing.