First Demos, which could politely be described as having a tangential relationship with the Labour Movement, being a Communist Party continuity organisation which ecumenically gave its founding Directorship to a Trotskyist who is now on for a peerage and Ministerial office under Cameron. And then Rawnsley, whose book Paxman hilariously could not name, presumably because it is now out of print.
Honestly, how is it news that much of Labour's money and many of its MPs come from the unions? Where did you think that they came from under Blair, who was sponsored by the T&G and therefore by Unite throughout his time at Westminster? The T&G stitched up a seat for him in the first place, to stop the Hard Left ex-Minister, and 1979 ejectee, Les Huckfield.
Ah, there's the rub. It was the unions that used to pack the PLP with working-class patriots and social conscience toffs, with temperance Methodists and traditional Catholics, whose priorities were the Welfare State, workers' rights, trade unionism, the co-operative movement, consumer protection, strong communities, conservation rather than environmentalism, fair taxation, full employment, public ownership, proper local government, a powerful Parliament, and a base of real property from which every household could resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.
Those commitments were fully and actively compatible with, and more than compatible with, a no less absolute commitment to any or all of the monarchy, the organic Constitution, national sovereignty, civil liberties, the Union, the Commonwealth, the countryside, grammar schools, traditional moral and social values, controlled importation and immigration, and a realistic foreign policy.
Then New Labour emerged from the sectarian Leftist fringes of academia and student politics. But now the unions are re-emerging. Bringing with them MPs such as the above? We live in hope. But we cannot risk dying in despair. Forget the Labour Party and organise such candidates anyway. Then, as much as anything else, demand of the unions why they fund New Labour instead.
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You may not like Rawnsley's book, but you do yourself no favours saying silly things like it has disappeared without trace and is our of print etc. It's actually the single biggest selling non fiction hardback in the charts at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI keep clicking on the link for your blog at The Telegraph but there's something wrong with the software because it doesn't update for all the articles you must have written since October.
ReplyDeletePlis, funny how Paxman couldn't name it. Charlie Wheelan said that Rawnlsey's last one deserved the Booker Prize for Fiction. Perhaps he will make sure that this one receives it?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I am quite busy enough standing for Parliament, setting up a think tank (watch this space), and maintaining this blog (which more people read than read my Telegraph one), all while trying to keep body and soul together.
So you're saying that the reason why your Telegraph blog isn't updated is you don't want it? Funny that Damian Thompson gave a different explanation, that you're "absolutely nuts". Do you know how many people in Durham laughed at you after you'd just been boasting about your "gig"?
ReplyDeleteNone who matter. They were too busy administering a good kicking to people who don't...
ReplyDeleteYou are wasting your time, Anonymous. I have seen some favoured sons in my time around this university but David Lindsay takes the biscuit.
ReplyDeleteA perfectly well-sourced story about him in an award-winning student newspaper led to several collegess seriously considering banning it from the premises and discussions at the very highest levels about disciplanry procedures against the authors and editors.
Not the worst thing to happen to them the week when it is true that Lindsay himself was in hospital, so he doesn't need to ask anyone to do this for him. They love him so much that they do it spontaneously.
He has no shortage of form when it comes to gettinmg rid of people or forcing them to sue for peace on his terms. Durham SCRs are not like Oxbridge ones, they are more like social clubs and you can be in as many as will have you. Students and academics come and go but the people who come in for dinner are here for ever, whispering in the ears of the great and the good.
He has at least two projects that are attracting attention at the very top of the tree at Durham and will contribute significantly to the place when you come on stream. He is to be thanked and congratulated for initiating and developing them entirely voluntarily. If Durham loves David Lindsay, then that is because David Lindsay loves Durham.
ReplyDeleteIf Anonymous is really at Durham, then he is nobody who matters here. He is probably a silly little student writer on that silly little student newspaper which prints any old drivel spoon-fed by Oliver Kamm and is then left wondering why nobody cares. Nobody of the slightest importance even reads your rag, you ridiculous little boy. If they did, you would be gone by now.
This thread is closed.
ReplyDeleteBut in those days the Labour Party (and presumably the Tories, though I have my doubts about the Liberals) were still interested in real politics in the real world.
ReplyDeleteI like Plis's idea that Rawnsley's book is non-fiction.