On A Personal Note

I have waited a very long time for this. The electronic communications illustrate what some of us have always known about the low intellectual and cultural level of the Blairites. You can imagine how they behave towards anyone who has ever read a book. And say what you like about the far from perfect Labour Left, but they read a lot of books.

Then there are the Blairites' dodgy employment practices. Again, this is not news to some of us. And here it is in black and white, with mates of the existing staff just turning up one day and being given silly money non-jobs that had not existed until they had walked through the door.

Labour expels members who merely like tweets by people whose profile pictures suggest support for other parties. What is it going to do about paid staff who diverted the party's money to losing a General Election on purpose? Nothing, it would seem. Well, of course not.

On a personal note, I have known NF since 1989 (we were both born in 1977), for many years he lived round the corner from me, for quite a few he was the Secretary of the Branch Labour Party that I then chaired, and for several he chaired the Parish Council on which I also served.

Including while he was on the staff of a Cabinet Minister, Hilary Armstrong, he used to call me a "mulatto". His racism towards Diane Abbott comes as absolutely no surprise to me. Just consider that someone like that was London Regional Director of the Labour Party. A man who calls mixed-race people "mulattoes", and who bangs on about the Angry Black Woman.

Why did I stay in the party when even in my own village it was in the grip of someone like that? I was in it before him, and at the time I had two school governorships that came from being in it, in both of which I did and do believe that I was doing good work.

But I have been out of it since 2006, and I wouldn't go back even if it would have me, which it wouldn't. The Budget of March 2020, together with the Government's response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, have ended the era that began with the Budget of December 1976. The Prime Minister calls the National Health Service "the beating heart of this country". The Centre is the think tank for this new era. Please give generously.