Labour lets itself down

From about the age of 15 I realized, if I may be permitted an over-simplification, that Labour stood for people before profit, while the Tories stood for more or less the opposite. And when I worked that out I began leaning to the left, a position I have maintained ever since.

But the disgraceful events following the vote on Wednesday night have disaffected me profoundly to the ways of what we might call the "Stalinist left" within the Labour party.With people voting to attack Syria being issued death threats, this reminds me of the people who are prepared to kill doctors and nurses who work in abortion clinics. They love life so much, apparently, that they're prepared to kill to preserve it. And here we have people against the bombing of civilians threatening to kill people who support it.

 Even Ken Livingstone, someone for whom I have had the greatest respect for the longest time, has reverted to Stalinist mode when he suggests the war supporters in Parliament should be de-selected. Where's the love of diversity the Labour party has always stood for? I would have voted against extending the bombing, on the grounds that in almost all cases, bombs do not solve problems- rather they tend to create them. I anticipate a terrorist outrage in London within three months as the "price tag" IS will exact for our decision; meanwhile little if anything will change in the troubled region whose troubles we helped create. Strangling IS economically makes more sense, actively exposing the hypocrisy of states like KSA, Qatar and Turkey, all of whom have, either tacitly or openly supported IS or bought oil from them. But I'm not going to threaten the lives of people who disagree with me. That's not my way, and it shouldn't be the view of anyone on the left.