Leftwing policies have mass appeal \u2013 what\u2019s needed is a figurehead who can bring back alienated voters and dodge culture wars<\/p>\n
Tony Blair\u2019s devotees always had a stock response for their leftwing critics, and it went like this: your desire for political purity will render Labour unelectable, and the poorest will pay the price. A Labour party led by \u201csensible moderates\u201d may not be your first choice, but it is the only hope for the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n
As Labour imposes poverty on at least 250,000 people through cuts to disability benefits, according to estimates<\/a> by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, this argument is submerged under a tidal wave of misery. The government has already robbed many pensioners of their winter fuel payments, and not only voted to keep a Tory two-child benefit cap that imposes squalor on hundreds of thousands of children<\/a>, but suspended those Labour MPs who opposed it<\/a>. A Labour party that knowingly imposes hardship on disabled people, pensioners and children has filed for moral and political bankruptcy.<\/p>\n Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leftwing policies have mass appeal \u2013 what\u2019s needed is a figurehead who can bring back alienated voters and dodge culture wars Tony Blair\u2019s devotees always had a stock response for their leftwing critics, and it went like this: your desire for political purity will render Labour unelectable, and the poorest will pay the price. A … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}