Friday, November 19, 2004

Labor Leadership RIP

I reckon Latham will be the next casualty of the Labor leadership. Want to take a bet?

Recently reaffirming this line from the last election will sink him because it shows he has not learned from the last disaster - in my opinion "My ideology is about insiders and outsiders, about the dispersal of power and opportunity," Latham explained, also in an interview with the Herald."

Ned Kelly and Black Beard were all about 1700 to 1900's class struggle - long dead today - too many people have dropped out of school and risen to wealth from poor backgrounds in a capitalist system. The glass ceiling is broken in many places. If you are aspirational then you do not want legalised government robbery just when you step up the ladder.

I give Mark Latham a max 12 months. If the Libs want to shoe in the next election they will go easy on Latham to allow Labor to agonise without pressure for the next 12 to 24 months, as there are many in the Labor party that still can not see their next train wreck coming.

Likely long term successor is chief rooster Wayne Swan or his main opponent Kevin Rudd. That is unless Labor hard heads start to panic early or Mark Latham does what other political losers do and falls on his sword. In that case it is conceivable Labor will extract Mr Beasley from his own black hole to try and bring their party back to life.