Mr Miliband — Ed, mate — Refounding Labour: it’s been done before. Tony did it. New Labour; scrapped clause IV, which formerly committed the party to, er, socialism, thus making Labour a Conservative wannabe. Where were you? You didn’t notice? Refounding Labour didn’t help then. You’re sounding as clued-in as David Cameron. Are you going to reinstate clause IV?
And for re-founding things in general, aside from the linguistic atrocity that entails, it’s a very tired idea altogether. Vid:
We trained hard … but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralisation.
— Charlton Ogburn (not Petronius, as it turns out, but may as well be.)
Supplement, 2023: And now SIR ‘Keir’ Starmer is trying to re-invent the Labour party, though his re-invention looks and smells very much like the Blairbour party. And while I’m on the rant, Blair had the Iraq war and Starmer is supporting genocide in Gaza. Instead of reforming, Labour needs to get real.