New Labour killed by socialism!

Might have spoken slightly too soon on the pact between the Sun and New Labour. The Sun's piss-poor political editor, George Pascoe-Watson, has written a hi-larious obituary detailing the death of New Labour:

"THE tragic death of New Labour has been announced in No 10, Downing Street.

New Labour passed away after a 14-year battle with socialism."

It seems that a 45p rate of income tax on those earning over £150,000 a year equals socialism, in spite of everything else. Perhaps Pascoe-Watson's more concerned with his own predicament: chances are he earns over a six-figure sum, as does his partner, the equally piss-poor Sky News presenter Kay Burley. Rebekah Wade, the Sun's editor, almost certainly does, as of course does little Jimmy Murdoch, Rupert's son in charge of News International's European and Asian operations.

As we could expect from a newspaper whose editor is a close friend of the former prime minister, he receives the customary arse-licking:

"Its heartbroken father, Tony Blair, was too upset to comment.

The former PM spent 13 years in charge of the party, fighting off Left-wingers’ demands to soak the rich with tax hikes."

Pascoe-Watson also has some bizarre ideas on why New Labour was so popular:

"It won three General Elections with huge victories by befriending big business and encouraging wealth-creators to set up thriving firms."

Surely by convincing the middle classes that it could be trusted to run the economy, whilst being as right-wing on social policy and crime as it possibly could get away with? The befriending of big business was just a bit part, which became all encompassing and helped in the economy's downfall when the light-touch regulatory system, established by Gordon Brown and indicative of socialism, turned out to be a completely non-touch regulatory system.

Of course, this is just another indication of the Sun's betrayal of its own readers. Very few Sun readers will be affected by this onset of "socialism"; the 2% of the population which earns £150,000 a more or year generally don't read tabloids, or at least not the red-tops. They in fact will be the ones that will gain most from the pre-budget report, with only the rise in NI in 2011 likely to affect the majority, and it's still not clear whether those earning under £40,000 will be too badly affected by that. True, the government could have gone a lot further in helping the poorest, but if it had the Sun would have doubtless decried that as even more evidence of socialism. Murdoch's business interests and the amount being siphoned off by the state in tax, at least when his companies actually pay it, are as always the Sun's real paramount concern.