The New Radicalism

Michael Merrick writes:

"The worst thing Labour could do is to ditch its “metropolitan elite liberal values” purely because it is being bullied by populists who love to bandy that phrase around."

One of many that could have been chosen from this by Lynsey Hanley, who seems to think that because she grew up on a council estate she can therefore indulge in a little Carman-esque dumping on the people who live on them. The misanthropy is staggering, but no more than one would expect from a metroliberal.

Still, politics being what it is, sometimes appeal must be made to the great unwashed, since the vote of even the vulgar is the same value as the vote of the enlightened. Terribly inconvenient that, since it means that Hanley and her ilk can’t just pontificate about how horrid everybody but her and her friends are, and how everyone should just shut up and fall into line with what her and her friends say, because her and her friends are not paranoid, or suspicious, or mistrustful, or misogynist or racist like poor people are.

And to think, they said universal suffrage was a good idea.

Meanwhile those with even the remotest sympathy for Blue Labour, or the impulse that it represents, will be delighted, since the same swill that makes the guardianista gallery jump for joy is the brass-necked egotism that will rally further converts to the new radicalism known as social conservatism.

Politically, Hanley is the equivalent of an alcoholic turning up at AA and declaring drink is the cure, not the cancer, and she is joined by many on the metroleft who are quite frankly appalled by the kind of people who used to vote Labour before they came along and generously imposed enlightenment upon them.

And you can bet that Ed and the Gang know it. The divorce between Labour and the Guardian continues apace.