On Courage, Quid pro quo, and Motivational Music

There was a time when one of the signal marks of the Labour Party - This Great Movement Of Ours - was comradely loyalty.

How suddenly everything can change.

It has dawned on Gordon Brown that this ungrateful country will defy him. Dismiss him from office. That he, the Rightful Ruler, will lose the power for which he plotted all his life, humiliated by the people who will turn their backs on him on the single occasion on which he asked for an electoral mandate; that he is responsible, personally, for his party losing office... to a bunch of fucking Etonian-led, fucking, fuck-fuck-fucking Tory fuckers. Still, never mind, eh?

But what has Labour come to, when their leader is suggesting that Labour's people abandon their own candidates. What better way to take the heart out of the party on the ground? One can really only stare, as the Leader of the Labour Party hands Labour's poor bloody infantry over to the enemy - the moment the fighting starts. Such courage, eh?

But is it so surprising? Anything to stop the Tories has always been Brown's personal motto.

On the other hand, so many Labour candidates have studiously avoided praising Labour's record in government, have frantically distanced themselves from Gordon Brown and the Politburo in their literature, that it seems only fair that their Dear Leader should ask their constituency electorates to, um, vote against them.

[holds breath - stuffs fist in mouth - wipes eyes - breathes deeply]

And now for a musical interlude. In the beginning, Labour sang The Red Flag:

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the red flag flying here. It suits today the weak and base Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place To cringe before the rich man's frown And haul the sacred emblem down.

Hm.

Then, in 1997, New Labour's chosen anthem, troops for the rousing of, was Things can only get better.

In 2010, Labour's leaders are singing this: