News / Politics

Labour need new direction

Sunday, 10 May 2015 6:02 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 10 May 2015 8:02 PM ]

Former leader of the opposition Labour Party Ed Miliband. © AFP

Lord Mandelson has called for a move to the center ground after Labours crushing defeat.

The result that devastated the Labour party. The poor showing for Ed Miliband led to his resignation and now the party is set for a new leader and a new direction.

Lord Mandelson said, “We were sent off in 2010 on a sort of giant political experiment in which we were sent out and told to wave our fists angrily at the nasty Tories and wait for the public to realize how much they had missed us. They weren’t missing us. They didn’t miss us. Instead they ripped the stripes off our shoulders.”

During the campaign Tony Blair for the former Labour Prime Minster, praised Ed Miliband for showing courage under savage attack after the Conservatives held a quite negative campaign but after the Labour loss Blair wrote that “The route to the summit lies through the center ground.”

The frontrunners for the new Labour leadership are, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umanna. But the former business secretary Lord Mandelson feels now isn't the time for a leadership contest, he said, “Far from embarking on a short-term beauty contest of leaders what we really need is a very, very thorough debate in the party of the sort that was denied us in 2010. We were sent out and told to say things and to make an argument, if you can call it an argument, that said we are for the poor, we hate the rich ignoring completely the vast swathes of the population who exist in between.”

The number of high profile Labour MP's that lost their seats in this elections has scared the party into acting fast but Mandelson and many others feel the importance of developing a new strategy should come first.

Now, a London-based political commentator believes that the Labour party is now at a crossroads and needs to change direction to avoid “being out of power for decades.”

“The problem for the Labour party now is that it potentially faces the possibility of being out of power for decades if not indefinitely and the reason for this is Labour has lost its support base in Scotland and it will be very difficult to get those seats back. Labour has one seat in Scotland,” Marcus Papadopoulos, Publisher & Editor at Politics First told Press TV on Sunday.

MW/HA

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UK ELECTIONS 2015