Saturday 6 September 2008

Why Didn't You Slay These Dragons, George?

On George Galloway's talkSPORT programme last night, regular caller "the legend that is Carl from Plaistow" berated Sarah Palin for being against abortion. Galloway, a pro-life Catholic with a very consistent voting record on these matters, added nothing more than the standard (and, I might add, correct) line about how these people think that the sanctity of life begins at conception but ends at birth.

I can accept that from George, though not from many others. And he should still have taken on Carl about why he would (presumably) refuse to vote for George if he lived in his constituency, and why he wishes to abort, contracept and sterilise out of existence the world's conscious, organised working classes, not least in this country.

Carl accused the National Rifle Association of being "right-wing", but in fact it is full of registered Democrats or people who would be again if only the Democratic Party would let them; it is very much like pro-life in that regard. George, who no doubt knows this, didn't correct him, and didn't ask why he wanted the only legal weapons in America to be in government hands. The NRA co-operates closely, and increasingly, with the AFL-CIO, the American TUC. But that, too, was unmentioned.

Carl attacked Palin's "secessionism", but, like George, he is an English-based Scot, and I suspect that, whereas George is a known opponent of Scottish independence (and of Marxism - what is he doing in Respect?), he would rather like the idea of some sort of Marxist Republic of Scotland, although of course nothing could be further from the position of the SNP.

And Carl denounced Palin's sympathies towards the oil industry. Well, better American oil for America than Arab oil for America, or for Britain. George has become a vocal opponent of nuclear power since he stopped being sponsored by what was then the T&G, one of its leading advocates. He and Carl should both consider that it offers to secure high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs for the working class, and independence from Arab oil and Russian gas. They should consider that (as they would no doubt agree) so does coal in Britain. And they should consider that so does oil in America, including Alaska. Drill, baby, drill.

2 comments:

  1. drilling for oil is merely postponing the peak oil problem and sending out all the wrong psychological signals.

    Nuclear is expensive, unsafe and far from the long term option. It would also need sourcing from various locations, none particularly near Britain.It is also deeply deeply unconservative if you care even slightly about future generations

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  2. "all the wrong psychological signals"

    Like what? And to whom?

    "Nuclear is unsafe and far from the long term option."

    Why? The safety arguments against nuclear are at best 40 or 50 years out of date, and in some cases downright superstitious.

    What are we supposed to depend on, wind farms? The wind turbines near me might as well be giant works of art, for all the turning that they do. And they are on a hill in the North. (There is a village there. It used to have a pit.)

    The most efficient wind farm in the world is in Shetland. Its efficiency is fully twenty per cent.

    In the words of Ken Capstick of the NUM about the green lobby:

    "Their general view of energy is very naive. They say they are against nuclear and all fossil fuel. So how will they explain the blackouts to the people if we stop using these sources? They aren’t taking on board any serious assessment of our energy needs."

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