Been reflecting on yesterday's Autumn Statement and today's Pensions March ... and the more I think on it all, the more I'm convinced it really could be a very significant turning-point.
The first UK General Election I could vote in, was the 1983 poll and I remember only too well the sense of complete disunity on the left at the time and the worryingly low levels of overall public support for Labour's message --- and indeed, it took another 14 long years for that to be reversed ...
... politically, it feels (thank goodness, from my perspective) absolutely nothing like 1983 today. I sense, despite all the recent electoral difficulties, a unity in the sheer simmering anger at what's happening to ordinary working families across the UK.
Have a look at this Institute for Fiscal Studies (the IFS is not an organisation known for its left-wing tendencies!) analysis of the Autumn Statement from earlier today - take a close look at slide 10 in particular ...
... and ask yourself why virtually 10,000 people in each of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee marched today?
And if you can persist with this slightly academic piece, please do so --- read through its analysis (follow some of the links even); and read through to its eventual conclusions ...
... Labour needs to seize the moment, just be somewhat bolder, because for me at least it's now blatantly obvious that it really is time for the UK to change course.
I suspect literally millions of ordinary working people would welcome it, because they now know that the alternative are years (if not a decade) of complete stagnation for which the lowest paid, will pay the most ... and that's just not right :-(
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