Some of us have never needed Gramsci to call us to a broad social movement towards institutional hegemony, to a celebration of the “national-popular”, and to an organic and self-organising working-class culture that included worker-intellectuals.
And some of us have never needed Mao to tell us that the potentially revolutionary villages surrounded the cities both literally and in geopolitical terms, while the centres of BAME population in the West were internal colonies. On the contrary, some of us have been so formed and informed that we are able to synthesise and transcend the position of Gramsci and that of Mao.
For example, Newcastle or Sheffield has periodically elected Liberal Democrat Councils, has elected Conservative Councils well within living memory, has elected a Lib Dem MP in part of Sheffield until recent years and again now, and has elected Conservative MPs in parts of both cities less long ago than most people seem to assume.
But until 2019, there had been none of that in the pit villages of County Durham and of the mining belt of Northumberland, or in the pit villages of the rest of South Yorkshire; I repeat that these are examples, to which many more may be added.
Those were and are centres of national-popular celebration. And they were the centres of an organic and self-organising working-class culture that included worker-intellectuals. To the extent that anywhere has managed to remain so in the face of enormous repression and of enormous condescension, they still are.
At least from 1985 onwards, and precisely for that reason, they have also been internal colonies. Not the only ones in Britain. But undeniably examples of the type. Yet colonies of whom? Who is the colonial power here? It is certainly not the Conservative Party, which barely exists here. Richard Holden finds himself the MP for a constituency that contains no Conservative Councillors above Parish level, and not very many even there.
No, the colonial power here is the right-wing Labour machine, just as it is in, say, the Inner London Boroughs. The election of Conservative MPs for Blyth Valley, Bishop Auckland, Darlington, North West Durham, Sedgefield, Don Valley, Penistone and Stocksbridge, and Rother Valley (which has Orgreave in it), among numerous other places, was an expression of the revolutionary potential of the villages, and it was an act of their self-determination as internal colonies. Many more such will come on Super Thursday, 6th May 2021.
Not least, and after more than 100 years, Labour is going to lose overall control of the first local authority that it ever won, Durham County Council. And will the crowning glory be the capture of both seats in Chester-le-Street West Central by the person and by the very local running mate of George Galloway, a victory that would require one thousand votes rather than the well over a million that it would take to win Mayor of London? By all accounts, that is now up to George.
Meanwhile, mindful of which revolutionary villages of the internally colonised had given the Government its overall majority, the Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.
And some of us have never needed Mao to tell us that the potentially revolutionary villages surrounded the cities both literally and in geopolitical terms, while the centres of BAME population in the West were internal colonies. On the contrary, some of us have been so formed and informed that we are able to synthesise and transcend the position of Gramsci and that of Mao.
For example, Newcastle or Sheffield has periodically elected Liberal Democrat Councils, has elected Conservative Councils well within living memory, has elected a Lib Dem MP in part of Sheffield until recent years and again now, and has elected Conservative MPs in parts of both cities less long ago than most people seem to assume.
But until 2019, there had been none of that in the pit villages of County Durham and of the mining belt of Northumberland, or in the pit villages of the rest of South Yorkshire; I repeat that these are examples, to which many more may be added.
Those were and are centres of national-popular celebration. And they were the centres of an organic and self-organising working-class culture that included worker-intellectuals. To the extent that anywhere has managed to remain so in the face of enormous repression and of enormous condescension, they still are.
At least from 1985 onwards, and precisely for that reason, they have also been internal colonies. Not the only ones in Britain. But undeniably examples of the type. Yet colonies of whom? Who is the colonial power here? It is certainly not the Conservative Party, which barely exists here. Richard Holden finds himself the MP for a constituency that contains no Conservative Councillors above Parish level, and not very many even there.
No, the colonial power here is the right-wing Labour machine, just as it is in, say, the Inner London Boroughs. The election of Conservative MPs for Blyth Valley, Bishop Auckland, Darlington, North West Durham, Sedgefield, Don Valley, Penistone and Stocksbridge, and Rother Valley (which has Orgreave in it), among numerous other places, was an expression of the revolutionary potential of the villages, and it was an act of their self-determination as internal colonies. Many more such will come on Super Thursday, 6th May 2021.
Not least, and after more than 100 years, Labour is going to lose overall control of the first local authority that it ever won, Durham County Council. And will the crowning glory be the capture of both seats in Chester-le-Street West Central by the person and by the very local running mate of George Galloway, a victory that would require one thousand votes rather than the well over a million that it would take to win Mayor of London? By all accounts, that is now up to George.
Meanwhile, mindful of which revolutionary villages of the internally colonised had given the Government its overall majority, the Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.
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