Like George Galloway before him, Robert Kilroy-Silk has done himself no favours by appearing on reality television.
But Liz Blackman's attacks on him were uncalled for.
Kilroy did at least fill the place in popular culture now occupied by The Jeremy Kyle Show, making it a true example of public service broadcasting.
And the man himself did at least make some effort to provide an electoral voice to people who had not sold out Gaitskellism and its broader tradition over Europe any more than over anything else.
That, I can assure you, is a risky business.
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How are you a Gaitskellite? You are in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
ReplyDeleteI am, if anything, a Lindsayite.
ReplyDeleteBut the Campaign for Democratic Socialism explicitly supported the unilateral renunciation of Britain's nuclear weapons.
The document 'Policy for Peace', on which Gaitskell eventually won his battle at the 1961 Labour Conference, stated: "Britain should cease the attempt to remain an independent nuclear power, since that neither strengthens the alliance, nor is it now a sensible use of our limited resources."
Unilateral nuclear disarmament did not cause the secession of the SDP, since it did not become Labour Party policy until two years and a General Election after that direct intervention in the British electoral process by a President of the European Commission as such, a true betrayal of Gaitskell, Bevan, Bevin, Attlee, the lot.
For that matter, numerous Tories with relevant experience – Anthony Head, Peter Thorneycroft, Nigel Birch, Aubrey Jones – were sceptical about, or downright hostile towards, British nuclear weapons in the Fifties and Sixties.
In March 1964, while First Lord of the Admiralty and thus responsible for Polaris, George Jellicoe suggested that Britain might pool her nuclear deterrent with the rest of NATO.
And Enoch Powell denounced the whole thing as not just anything but independent in practice, but also immoral in principle.
This doesn't work as a pun. Liz Blackman made a point in her (rather good, I thought) speech of mentioning that Erewash is pronounced "Erreywash", not "Airwash" or "Earwash".
ReplyDeleteAs long as it ends in wash.
ReplyDelete