Will Labour rage, rage against the dying of the light?

In the same week Jon Cruddas argued that Labour needs to reconnect with its roots or suffer a “catastrophic” defeat at the next election, Derek Simpson, general secretary of UNITE, said in an interview with The Guardian:

Labour has got to be more clear that it is on the side of working people, rather than give the impression it backs big business. You save the banks, invest in the banks, relieve them of toxic debt, leave people running them that ran them before, don’t act incisively on the bonus culture and see 10,000 ordinary bank workers made redundant. What conclusion do you draw from that?

That’s all well and good, but isn’t it a bit late in the day? It was the precisely the calculation by New Labour strategists that their core supporters amongst the unions would back them no matter what, which allowed them to move so far to the right. With noteable exception, this has been the case, and despite Simpson’s criticisms, his decision to back Brown regardless of whether Labour takes them on board, is a large part of the problem. Labour’s on its last legs, the sun’s setting on Brown’s reign and it’s too late to expect any radical shift in policy. One can only hope that the next leader of the opposition is willing to move in a new direction. Brown will just go gentle into that good night.