What Ed Said: The NDP & "What's in a Name?"

It's no secret that I am no fan of Manic Jack Layton. As a national political leader I find him wanting. He's too churlish, too petulant, and his contrived outrage wears a little thin at times. Everything he says seems to be calculated. To be geared to creating a media stunt. He's just too damn slick by half and, sadly, often running on empty.

Yet, as a voter I pine for a day when the NDP will abandon its absurd machinations, preening pretensions, and ill-advised ranting outrage at media ops and finally say what it means, what it believes, and what it stands for and let the chips fall where they may.

This is a good start:

“One of the things that's irked me about this silly talk about changing the name of the party is we're not a democratic party, we're a social democratic party, the core value of which is equality.”

Too bad Jack will probably shy away from this sound advice from his elder. But Ed Broadbent is right. Its time this party stopped pussyfooting around, looked in the mirror and called a spade a spade: The NDP must become a true Social Democratic Party that stands for equality - for if it not that- then it is doomed to remain a perpetual nothing.