a 'NET' loss

I found Labourhome this afternoon, Labour's answer to Conservative Home a forum "for blogs, discussion and debate in which supporters can meet and consider issues of common concern and interest outside the party", set up early June I think. Now here is a good example of a why David Phillips is absolutely right when he argues that anything posted anywhere on the web can later be potentially embarrasing (all Facebook users particualrly beware!). Browsing the archives I found a beauty!

Commenting on Harriet Harman's Newsnight performance, JR makes a statement that could easily be used by Labour's or Harman's opponents to undermine the party's next election campaign. Perhaps said at a time when her victory seemed slim and of course it could be seen as fair comment; but the implications... The full text is below:

by far the biggest shambles of the night was Harriet Harman. After desperately clinging on to her Cabinet position for all these years, now Blair is going, she decided to stab him in the back and reject all the principles which she herself had backed for a decade. Amnesty for illegal immigrants? Taxing the David Beckhams of the world until their hair stands on end? Going on about people buying £10,000 handbags? She's lost the plot. So Harriet, tell me, by denying somebody the right to spend their hard-earned money as they choose, why does that make the poor better off? Hitting the rich will not improve the lives of the poor - it simply gets peoples backs up that deluded government ministers are attacking them for wanting to earn a good wage and wanting the freedom to spend it how they see fit. She seems to be on a one-woman mission to kill Blairism and everything that New Labour has built up in it's decade of success. It's not an unfair comment to say that she even outflanked Cruddas on leftieness, so much so that even Cruddas himself couldn't help but lavish praise on her. And of course, then we had the charade where she quickly tried to change her second-preference to Cruddas in order to scoop up more leftie votes, but she couldn't quite manage it because she still wants to make out she can win us votes in the middle-class South. Sorry Harriet, but you've failed there spectacularly. No self-respecting middle-class family would give their votes to a party that espoused your views.

At the start of this campaign, I originally considered giving my vote to Harman as she seemed pleasant, was generally loyal to Blair and was moderate enough to win us the middle England votes. She's destroyed all that and now she's going second-bottom after Cruddas. Congratulations Harriet Harman, you've managed to scare stiff about half the British population into thinking Labour is going back to the Michael Foot era - I'm sure that's really going to help come election time against Cameron's 'heirs to Blair'.