Don's Column

It’s about the future of Britain - stupid

I find it absolutely amazing that during these difficult times for so many hard-working families in Britain that many in the Labour Party seem more concerned about the leadership than about governing.

Egged on by the media, they can’t wait to get in front of a TV camera to deliver weighty statements about the future of the Prime Minister and the government.

I have to say that no one has stopped me on Blackwood High Street and said they can’t sleep nights worrying about Gordon Brown!

Many are concerned about jobs. Housewives worry about food prices and blokes who need their car for work are angry about rising petrol prices.

Many working families face difficulties with mortgage repayments.

When supermarkets, oil companies and energy suppliers announce record profits at the same time as putting up prices and paying massive bonuses to senior executives, people who have had a small or no pay rise at all feel that Britain is less fair.

Can we blame them? Labour, if it is anything, must be a crusade on behalf of hard-pressed families. It is all well and good to say we understand their pain and that we are on their side but we have to do something to show that.

These are the bread and butter issues we need to address as a government.

I know Gordon Brown well having been his parliamentary private secretary, and I know he will spend every waking hour trying to solve these problems and guide Britain through the economic downturn we are facing.

But he needs the support and unity of the whole party.

Labour’s internal wrangling and arguments that began last October have made the party lose sight of just why it is government.

In short, it is time for us to talk about Britain’s future and not that of the Labour leadership.

Over the coming months the Labour Party has to prove it is on the side of hard-working mothers who see food prices go up every time they shop.

Labour must be on the side of those who need their cars for work and have faced rising petrol costs.

Labour must be on the side of families with mortgages who did not benefit from the cuts in interest rates last time round.

In Gordon Brown we have a Prime Minister who understands those issues and is preparing a series of measures to help out.

For the Labour Party to engage in civil war while the country needs a Labour government more than ever would be a betrayal of the British people.

The Tories look on with glee; we are doing their job for them.

By wasting energy on internal party battles, we have given the Tories an easy ride. Have we forgotten that divided parties turn off the voters?

The Tory Party has opposed the minimum wage, opposed Pension Credit and the Winter Fuel Allowance, opposed support for families through tax credits and still will not commit to any real pledge on child poverty, yet they make wild claims about being the party of fairness.

They get away with it because we seem more interested in bickering among ourselves than exposing the opportunism of the Tories.

I think that we would all do well to remember that we are in politics to serve the British people and nothing else. If we forget that for a period of destructive self-indulgence then the British people will rightly punish us at the next election.

We would do well to remember the long years of opposition, watching helplessly on the sidelines as our communities were ruthlessly destroyed by an uncaring and unfeeling Tory government.

We run the risk of allowing the Tories in through the back door.

For the millions of hard-working families whose lives have been improved by a Labour government and who look to us to see Britain through the present economic upheaval, it is a risk we cannot afford to take.