Peter Hitchens always thought that Middle England would clutch its pearls if it knew about the Eurocommunist roots of New Labour, but in fact characters such as Geoffrey Palmer's Jimmy were a joke as long ago as The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and indeed a lot longer ago than that. Meanwhile, Mick McGahey was on Any Questions? and Question Time. The points on which he disagreed with the Euros were the points on which the characters from The Good Life disagreed with him. And with Hitchens, at least as he is now.
Corresponding to Eurocommunism on the ancestrally Trotskyist side was the Pabloism that vaguely formed such politics as Keir Starmer may be said to have, and again Hitchens expects it to induce fits of the vapours. But not even full strength Pabloism would frighten them in the golf club bar if they knew about Starmer's background as some of us always have, since it is only the theoretical systematisation of their own opinions. Starmer is one of them to the core, and his so-called Red-Greenery would strike them as "moderate" and "centrist", if rather highfalutin in its articulation of what was "just common sense". It was fully compatible with the Trussonomics that, having even so much as pretended to oppose only one measure in the mini-Budget, Labour alone had been all ready to go into the next General Election continuing to advocate. It is fully compatible with whatever tax and spending plans the Conservatives may have at that Election, plans that Labour has promised to match without having seen them.
But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.
To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.
“It was fully compatible with the Trussonomics”
ReplyDeleteNo it isn’t. Truss promised to scrap green taxes on energy bills and expand North Sea oil and gas drilling, and the green revolution is based on a leftwing economic regime. In the Netherlands, polluting farms are being nationalised, the first example of collectivisation since the Soviet era. Popular products such as traditional light bulbs, petrol cars and gas boilers have been banned by state decree. High taxes have been levied on oil and gas (75% rates on offshore oil and gas).
None of that Red-Greenery is “compatible with Trussonomics” or indeed with any conservative economic policy.
Well, Starmer thought that it was. He still does.
DeleteStarmer is nobody’s idea of a conservative.
ReplyDeleteApart from Middle England's. Or most Tory MPs', most or all Tory staffers', most Telegraph columnists', and most Mail columnists', at least in private life.
DeleteYou mean that he is not Peter Hitchens's idea of a conservative. But Hitchens is nobody's idea of a conservative but his own. He agrees with Jeremy Corbyn more than he does with any other writer on the Mail, and he agrees with George Galloway even more than that.
George is no Pabloist, but write up the preconceptions common to Telegraph and Mail readers, and the common ground between Pabloism and Gramscian Eurocommunism would be what you would get. They think that that is conservatism, and well, if they say that it is, then in the context, that must be right. So to speak.