I used to have an interest in the theory of "Cultural Marxism". After all, Gramsci and Lukács, Adorno and Marcuse, were real enough people, even if it is rather unlikely that Suella Braverman has ever read any of them.
But the whole thing is a cop-out, a concession that there is no longer an economic debate. And there is. Of course there is. It is global capitalism, not "Cultural Marxism", that has destroyed family life, and local communities, and national sovereignty. The New Left cultural thing is part of that, but the real action is where it has always been. It is no surprise that Braverman does not want us to mention that.
In any case, with which part of the New Left cultural thing does she disagree? It was always also the New Right cultural thing, and we all know which of those was in power in London and Washington when it really took hold, in the 1980s.
Resistance to that was weakened by the all-women shortlist system, of which the present MP for North West Durham is a beneficiary, and which has done more than anything else to turn the Parliamentary Labour Party from 50 per cent Broad Left in 1994 to 85 per cent Hard Right today.
The changes to the British economy since 1977, when the Callaghan Government turned to monetarism, have turned into the ruling class the public sector middle-class women who dominate the PLP. Meanwhile, the wars waged since 1997 have barely affected them, having largely been waged for explicitly feminist reasons, albeit to no good effect for the women of Afghanistan, and to catastrophic effect for the women of Iraq and Libya.
As much as Braverman, those MPs are Thatcher's Daughters, unable to understand the rage against deindustrialisation and against the harvesting of young men in endless, pointless wars, and probably unaware of a growing number of young men's closely connected discovery for themselves of the various schools of heterodox economics, and of the traditional Great Books that, for ostensibly if questionably feminist reasons, have been excluded from school and university curricula.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
Resistance to that was weakened by the all-women shortlist system, of which the present MP for North West Durham is a beneficiary, and which has done more than anything else to turn the Parliamentary Labour Party from 50 per cent Broad Left in 1994 to 85 per cent Hard Right today.
The changes to the British economy since 1977, when the Callaghan Government turned to monetarism, have turned into the ruling class the public sector middle-class women who dominate the PLP. Meanwhile, the wars waged since 1997 have barely affected them, having largely been waged for explicitly feminist reasons, albeit to no good effect for the women of Afghanistan, and to catastrophic effect for the women of Iraq and Libya.
As much as Braverman, those MPs are Thatcher's Daughters, unable to understand the rage against deindustrialisation and against the harvesting of young men in endless, pointless wars, and probably unaware of a growing number of young men's closely connected discovery for themselves of the various schools of heterodox economics, and of the traditional Great Books that, for ostensibly if questionably feminist reasons, have been excluded from school and university curricula.
Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.
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