Tuesday 17 January 2012

Rod Liddle, Paleo-Labour's Mel Bradford

Two years on from the failure to secure the appointment of Rod Liddle as Editor of The Independent, and that incident strikes me as a key moment in the emergence, already on course to be very apparent indeed during 2012, of the paleo-Labour fightback against neo-Labour.

Just as Ronald Reagan's withdrawal of the nomination of Mel Bradford for Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in favour of Podhoretz's and the Kristols' William Bennett (although Bennett went on to campaign alongside the late, great C Dolores Tucker), was a key moment in the emergence of the paleoconservative fightback against neoconservatism. Bradford had expressed views on Abraham Lincoln that were tame compared to those now broadcast by the BBC out of the mouths of black scholars. But of that, another time.

Does the Fourth Estate honour by word and deed the equal citizenship of the many millions who knowingly or unknowingly identify with the alliance of the traditional Right and the traditional Left against the neoconservative war agenda and its assaults on liberty at home, including against any new Cold War with Russia, China, Iran, or anywhere else?

Does the Fourth Estate honour by word and deed the equal citizenship of the many millions who knowingly or unknowingly identify with the socially and culturally conservative, strongly patriotic tendencies within the British Left's traditional electoral base?

Does the Fourth Estate honour by word and deed the equal citizenship of the many millions who do or would recognise that we cannot deliver the welfare provisions and the other public services that our people have rightly come to expect unless we know how many people there are in this country, unless we control immigration properly, and unless we insist that everyone use spoken and written English to the necessary level?

Does the Fourth Estate honour by word and deed the equal citizenship of the many millions who do or would refuse to allow climate change to be used as an excuse to destroy or prevent secure employment, to drive down wages or working conditions, to arrest economic development around the world, to forbid the working classes and non-white people from having children, to inflate the fuel prices that always hit the poor hardest, or to restrict either travel opportunities or a full diet to the rich?

Does the Fourth Estate give any sort of voice to the North of England, considerably more populous than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together? Never mind to as many different corners of the country as possible: County Durham as well as Newcastle, the Marches as well Birmingham, Dorset as well as Bristol, and so on, including the less fashionable parts of London?

Does the Fourth Estate give us any sort of perspective from as many different countries as possible other than America, not out of anti-Americanism, but only for the sake of a more balanced view?

And where is the political party which does, where are even the individual politicians who do, any of these vitally necessary things? But then, for such is the inversion of the proper relationship, what, if any, hearing could any such party or politician expect?

But in the last two years, we have seen the emergence of Blue Labour, the defeat of David Miliband, and the rallying of the electorate to what it thought was a post-Blairite Labour Party. In the last two days, we have seen the patience of the well-upholstered trade unions reach breaking point with the neoliberal, neoconservative, neo-Labour oligarchy. The treatment of Rod was an important step towards where we are today. And towards where we shall be tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.

14 comments:

  1. Only a couple of months after your removal from Telegraph Blogs. The media closed shop's systematic exclusion of our position.

    Rumours of the demise of the MSM are greatly exaggerated, they still have unrivalled influence over policy-makers. Our view therefore has to be kept out.

    You talk of the rise of Blue Labour and the defeat of David Miliband, but the former is allowed the odd Comment is Free or New Statesman piece and that is it, whereas the latter's bitter, destructive partisans are everywhere, even on Telegraph Blogs.

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  2. Just read this under Hodges' latest effort. Yesterday he tried to tell us all that far from never having heard of his mate Bozier, we were pretending because we were so intimidated by such a high powered defection to the Heir to Blair! The fanciful little world that these people inhabit. Thanks for reminding us what we are missing. Keep up the good work.

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  3. Liddle has three weekly columns, in the Spectator, the Sunday Times and the Sun. I don't think this post is really about him at all.

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  4. I don't suppose we could start a paper these days, it's not the 21st century model.

    But something along the lines of the pre-Murdoch Sun or the old Daily Herald, with its Order of Industrial Heroism depicting Saint Christopher carrying Jesus on the medal: surely there must be some way of reviving that sort of thing today?

    Assume you saw that HJS boy on C4 News. Who could our Society be named after?

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  5. Actually, I do have an idea for that. But I am not saying it on here. That would set off certain people.

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  6. Magnificent post in the tradition of Chesterbelloc. Why is nothing like this published in The Independent or Prospect or the Guardian?

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  7. See the post and the comments, I suppose. But I rather like Prospect, actually.

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  8. But nothing like it is published there or anywhere else. You were deprived of your Telegraph blog. Why is this precious material being suppressed?

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  9. Not for much longer...

    Anyway, David Goodhart of Prospect is more or less one of us.

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  10. David Goodhart isn't editor of Prospect anymore, he's been replaced by Bronwen Maddox of The Times, which just confirms the problem. You are on this evidence the finest political commentators of your generation, so the establishment must suppress you. What other explanation is there?

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  11. Well, I can think of a few.

    But David is still at Prospect, and still doing good work there. Increasingly so, in fact. A recent piece on Blue Labour, Red Tory, and the spirit of the age was especially welcome.

    In any case, moves are afoot. Watch this space.

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  12. But you don't write for Prospect. The voice of orthodoxy and brilliant old Labour high Toryism isn't getting a fair crack of the whip.

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  13. I have written for Prospect at least once in the past. But honestly, this is all very much in hand. I shan't be going into detail until everything is ready to roll, though. 2012 is our year, all right.

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  14. We can all see who the joke is on. If Samuel were still in touch with anything more than the neo-Labour nostalgia industry, he would know that the brilliant voices of Old Labour High Toryism and similar tendencies are on course to become very prominent indeed during this year and next. He would never have tried this tactic, and you have bested him superbly.

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