Simply the worst
UPDATE: Thanks to Codepope in the comments for pointing out that the Guardian did a really crappy job of reporting Blair’s remarks. His actual speech, posted in entirety here, is vastly saner and less wingnutty than what had been reported. And ironically, the Guardian’s awful coverage of his speech goes quite a long way toward proving his actual point:
So – for example – there will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of them actually saying it. In the interpretation, what matters is not what they mean; but what they could be taken to mean.
At any rate, I’m leaving my crazed, profane rant intact in its entirety below, since I think it still stands as a fairly amusing rebuttal of what I thought Tony Blair was saying when he didn’t say it. If that makes any sense 🙂
Also, Blair is still a loser.
[END UPDATE]
Remember the days in the late ’90s when Tony Blair was considered hip and with it? Me neither:
British newspapers will and should be subject to some form of new external regulation, the outgoing prime minister, Tony Blair, said yesterday in a broadside that attacked the media for behaving like feral beasts and eschewing balance or proportion.
In a sweeping critique of the industry, Mr Blair claimed newspapers, locked into an increasingly bitter sales war in a 24-hour news environment, indulged in “impact journalism” in which truth and balance had become secondary to the desire for stories to boost sales and be taken up by other media outlets.
Now, I’m not one to refrain from slamming the news media. In fact, I think much of our elite press corps is shallow, inept and embarrassing. But what really struck me about Tony’s statement is this:
British newspapers will and should be subject to some form of new external regulation, the outgoing prime minister, Tony Blair…
You must, simply must, be shitting me.
Look, Tony-Toni-Tone, if Bradrocket ruled the whole em-effing world, he’d censor a whole lot of shit. The guys who write the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, for instance, would be convicted and jailed for high crimes of first-degree assholism. Most of the losers who write for the Washington Post’s editorial page would face a lighter, but still just, sentence.
But here’s the thing, Tony. I’m not a goddamn dictator. And I don’t want to use government force to control what people can and cannot put into print. I don’t give a shit if the Wall Street Journal runs countless op-eds supporting torture (though actually, they already do that): they have the right to say that shit. And similarly, I have the right to trash and make fun of them (a right that I exercise often and with glee). Similarly, I have just as much right to make fun of you, you miserable Bushpoodle.
Continuing (my emphasis):
He added that distinctions between comment and news had become so blurred that it was rare to find newspapers reporting precisely what a politician was saying. It was incredibly frustrating, he said, adding that politicians had to act immediately to rebut false charges before they became fact.
Mr Blair said he was describing “something few people in public life will say, but most know is absolutely true: a vast aspect of our jobs today – outside of the really major decisions, as big as anything else – is coping with the media, its sheer scale, weight and constant hyperactivity. At points, it literally overwhelms.”
The damage that can be done “saps the country’s confidence and self-belief“, he said. “It undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.”
What an asshole.
Tony, the press’ entire function is to act as a check on governmental powers. They are, by their nature and function, supposed to be skeptical of the powerful. They are not supposed to be the back-slappers and cheerleaders of whatever bullshit policy you decide is right for the country. They’re there to watch your silly ass and trash you when you make dumb decisions (such as, I don’t know, helping Bush invade Iraq).
Now, again, that isn’t to say there aren’t very good criticisms of the press. They often focus on trivial B.S. rather than substantial policy matters. But you’re essentially criticizing them for being skeptical of the government and “sapping the country’s confidence.” Well, duh. They shouldn’t be your sycophants, T-Blah.
Moving on to the regulation of newspapers, Mr Blair said changes were inevitable: “As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way.”
He also questioned whether papers needed some system of accountability that went beyond sales. He said: “The reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself.
The prime minister’s aides admitted he had thought long and hard before making the speech, but felt free to do so now that he was, in his own words, leaving office “still standing”. Ministers conceded privately that the regulatory structure of newspapers may change over the next decade, but did not believe it would lead to direct regulation. “It is possible we could end up with a kitemark that websites pass certain tests, but it is a long way away,” said one minister.
Tony, as a proud, red-blooded Amurkan speaking on behalf of his oppressed Bri’ish homeys, let me be the first to say: bite my shit. Just bite it, Tony. If you think the media are bad (and again, there’s a good argument to be made that they are), it’s the public’s fault for lapping it up. But being the red-blooded Amurkan that I am, I’m not elitist enough to tell people what they can and cannot read. I think the Weekly Standard is the biggest garbage publication on the planet, but that doesn’t mean I think its “viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told.” Nope, I think its readers are morons. But hey, it’s their right to be morons. I’m not about to have the government stop them from reading their preferred magazine and read Glenn Greenwald instead, simply because I think he provides a better objective yardstick.
To sum up: Tony, you’re an enemy of freedom. Please go away and don’t come back.
Jebus what a dick. The “country’s confidence and self-belief” line sounds like something out of “V”.
It sure does.
Blair basically represents the worst impulses of some liberals, in that he’s not per se pro-worker or pro-minority or pro-women’s rights; rather, he just knows best how Things Ought to Be; i.e., don’t smoke, don’t read depressing articles, don’t eat trans fats. It’s not surprising that he made such an easy to neoconservatism, which basically takes the “I know best how to live your life” perspective and applies it to the whole world.
Ain’t it a bitch having history view you as George W. Bush’s personal lickspittle?
Hey, you gave it your best, Tony. You tried and you failed. In front of the whole world. Now get the fuck out of public life, and the mean old journamalists won’t bother your whiny ass any more. I promise.
Unfortunately there’s not quite the same tradition of press freedom or checks on government power here; as far as the British aristocracy — which, despite the label “Labour”, is still very much in charge here — is concerned, the average person has no inalienable rights, just a series of unclear and tenuous priveleges granted magnanimously by the ruling class on the unspoken condition that they can and will be taken away if the peasants get too uppity.
This sort of thinking is deep in the political culture here; among even the supposed libertarians of Britain I’ve often heard people hope that, should the government ever push things too far in the neo-fascist direction, the savior of Britain’s political freedoms will not be popular revolution, either in the streets or in the polling places…but the refusal of the Queen to give assent to the laws that government passes, or failing that her command of the Army. I think they just don’t get liberalism; they do not understand that you cannot use non-democratic means to safeguard your democracy any more than you can use a police state to guarantee your liberty.
Coming from kitchen cabinet Tony, the words “pot”, “kettle” & “black” seem apt.
From here-
http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2007/06/your_schtick_ha.html
While I don’t entirely agree with you, I’m genuinely sorry you’ve borne the brunt of someone’s mental breakdown in the midst of this tribal squabble. But please don’t confuse the efforts of Randall Byrd at SN! with a defense of you. He’s a concern troll, most likely from Six Meat, trying to continue to stir shit. I’ve no desire to create any new debates, I just don’t want you to credit someone unduly.
Posted by: brad | Tuesday, 12 June 2007 at 02:15 PM
Read the link, dumbass. SEK is not criticizing Randall Byrd. SEK is a grad student and academic, he has more important things to do than discuss online communication with a monumental 4$$HOL3 like Randall Byrd. Randall Byrd is on your team, Randall Byrd regularly reads this blog and occasionally drunkenly chuckles his shapely ass off. But Randall Byrd also feels strongly about online communication. Your inability to step up and say, “Attacking a persons career in real life for a blog post or comment is just fucking wrong”, D. Aristophanes’ attempt at shifting the attention to some other blog, Ratzo Melkin or whatever his nym is today blathering on about whatever it is he blathers about, makes you look like pussies. Your tribal politics are showing.
HTH.
If Randall Byrd is going to refer to himself in the third person, M. Bouffant thinks that’s as good a reason to ban Randall Byrd as any, including Randall Byrd’s inability to make any actual sense. Frankly, Randall Byrd is sapping M. Bouffant’s confidence and self-belief, as well as boring M. Bouffant limp.
I seem to remember that Mr. Blair was all in favour of a free-wheeling press corps, answerable to no man’s bidding, for as long as most media coverage of Tony Blair used phrases like “breath of fresh air” and “new paradigms” and “not John Major”. Even when the hummingbird attentions of the newserazzi flitted to fresher nectars, he bore the indignities of being labelled “Bush’s poodle” with… well, ‘dignity’ isn’t exactly the word for such a frantic public lickspittle, but at least he didn’t whine much on-camera. Or if he did, the papers didn’t tell us about it (maybe I just read the wrong papers).
On the other hand, to be seized by so public and scathing a fit of indignation just as he’s being hustled out of his current job by a party apparently eager to yank the remaining British troops out of Iraq before the Queen’s next birthday… Gee, do you suppose our Tony might be pantomining for a new post with Rupert “Him What’s Got the Gold, Makes the Rules” Murdoch?
What’s the proper British terminology for what we call the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer?
M. Bouffant said,
June 13, 2007 at 8:58
If Randall Byrd is going to refer to himself in the third person, M. Bouffant thinks that’s as good a reason to ban Randall Byrd as any, including Randall Byrd’s inability to make any actual sense. Frankly, Randall Byrd is sapping M. Bouffant’s confidence and self-belief, as well as boring M. Bouffant limp.
If you are going to play the sycophant role, probably best to start your comment with ‘General Sir’.
Just sayin…
PS- the current preview thing is cool. Nice work.
Boring, Randall.
“He added that distinctions between comment and news had become so blurred that it was rare to find newspapers reporting precisely what a politician was saying.”
Why? Does Briton not have the equivalent of C-Span? Or calling up office/campaign of Politico X, and saying, “Could I get a copy of the speech they made?”
Laziness on your part does not constitute an unavailability of what you want.
“Mr Blair said changes were inevitable: “As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way.” ”
What? At first it thought that maybe, by using “television”, he meant the entertainment programs and shows, as opposed to the actual medium, or noun.
But no, he seems to just be ranting incomprehensibly. That’s about as good as Rep. Stevens’ “intertubes”.
There IS a third party check system for newspaper, Limey. It’s called “the internet”. Yes, a vast, even worldwide, network of information and sources, allowing instantaneous information to transverse the entirety of humanity for mere pennies. A limitless well of resources and knowledge that anyone can access anytime, anywhere.
The information is there. People who want to find it will find it. People who don’t find it don’t care. What he’s proposing is about as sensible as suggesting government mandated “sea serpent” insurance, for sea-farer’s who traverse to close to the world’s edge.
OT, but would it be maybe possible to stop the auto play on that Graduation guy who thinks academia is communist evil? Tis mildly annoying.. maybe that’s just me, though…
“British newspapers will and should be subject to some form of new external regulation, the outgoing prime minister, Tony Blair…”
Sadly, Nope…..
“And there is inevitably change on its way. The regulatory framework at some point will need revision. The PCC is for traditional newspaper publishing.
OFCOM regulate broadcasting, except for the BBC, which largely has its own system of regulation. But under the new European regulations all television streamed over the internet may be covered by OFCOM.
As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way.
How this is done is an open question and, of course, the distinction between balance required of broadcasters but not of papers remains valid. But at some point the system is going to change and the importance of accuracy will not diminish, whilst the freedom to comment remains.
It is sometimes said that the media is accountable daily through the choice of readers and viewers. That is true up to a point. But the reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6744581.stm
If you are going to damn someone, damn them for what they said, not what the Guardian interprets what they said.
I think he’s mad because the press is calling him on his bullshit. Plus the whole Bush’s poodle thing.
This is not very surprising, the very nature of Blair and his government is anti freedom. Blair and NuLab have this great belief that in dealing with a problem like terrorism or in this case ‘external regulation’, a new law needs to be created, however as the police will tell you they already have enough laws.
‘New’ Labour’s DNA is woven from the blood of ex-Trots, ex-stalinists and hard-left leninist types. One suspects that they’ve retained their suspicion of ‘liberal’ reformist ideologies and retro-fitted it to the reigning ideology. Boiling it down it means many ‘New’ Labour types have no natural sympathy for liberal or libertarian ideas and this means that their natural reflex is to command and control. to democratically centralize is the natural impulse. The recent anti-terror legislation is an example of this. This also dovetails in with ‘New’ Labour’s and Blair’s obsession with controlling and massaging the message.
Also Blair is batshit insane, a deluded tosser of the first order.
He also questioned whether papers needed some system of accountability that went beyond sales. He said: “The reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself.
If there was true external accountability, the Poodle would have taken the ‘long drop’ by now, and I ain’t talking about blinds, earrings or toilets.
Codepope- ta. I’ve added an update at the beginning of the post.
But think of all the fun you’ll be missing. You won’t have Tony Blair to kick around any more…
Whoa, whoa, hold on there. Tony-tone has never been a Stalinist, Trotskyist or far-leftist of any stripe. Whilst there are a couple of New Labourites with Communist roots far, far back (our dear Dr. John Reid, authoritarian extraordinare is one of them), most of Nu Labour was previously part of the Labour Right (somewere in the breakaway SDP in the 80’s) or if they were on the left in the beginning, were the kind of student New Lefties from the 60’s that we all know and love, which makes their fall from grace even worse. Tony-tone was never even liberal, which was why it was so unamusing to hear Americans praise Tony-tone before he started bombing the shit where Bush told him to.
He’s just a straight-out neoliberal, with all the contempt for democracy and the veneration of globalised technocracy and market worship that creates, and that’s who’s leading the Labour Party now. And it’s shit.
Well, update or no I have seen the grip tightening on UK culture in just the two years I’ve lived here thanks to “New Labour”. More surveillance cameras are being installed all the time, including “talk back” cameras in high density urban zones that essentially have a human watching your every move and if you step out of line you get reprimanded via the handy speaker system; biometric ID is in the works and will probably be in place in the next couple of years; and my favorite, the new immigration department. John Reid insists he needs broad new powers to keep the UK safe from the scary Islamic menace.
I’m just applying for “Right to Remain”, which is essentially permanent residency. I own a home and a car, I am self-employed, I pay my taxes, and participate in my community (I’m chair of the parent council for my son’s school). Still, now that the new “Border and Immigration Agency” is in place, I now must pass a “Life in the UK” test which was previously required only for full citizenship applications. It used to be that all visas of this type were handled by the Home Office either through embassies outside the UK or by an internal diviison for people who are already here like myself. The division has now split, and the new agency has all kinds of nifty powers to crack down on “illegal” immigrants, including dawn raids. My application has two full pages of questions like “Are you a terrorist?” “Are you now or have you ever been affiliated with a terrorist group?” “Have you ever committed crimes against humanity?” tick the appropriate box, etc. Like, if I was an undercover terrorist, uh, I think I might lie about it. Just sayin’…
Also, they have DOUBLED the application fee – the equivalent of around $1500 (I don’t know about you but I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around). This is putting all kinds of pressure on people applying for Right to Remain. I learned all of this 8 weeks before my entry clearance expires (when I contacted the old office last fall they simply said I should look for some documents in the post to fill out and return. When none arrived I made a call and was told of this new system – and I couldn’t even get in to take the bloody test for almost two weeks!) With luck I’ll get it all sorted in time, but let’s just say I’ve been a little stressed out.
My favorite bit was on the cover of the application: “BUILDING A SAFE, JUST AND TOLERANT SOCIETY” (i.e. just as long as you toe the line). Reminds me of that old joke: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not watching you.
Oh and Blair is a total wanker. Don’t expect much better from Brown though. The most interesting news is that the SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) won power by a slim margin in Scotland and part of their platform is a referendum on independence from the UK within 10 years. Could be interesting…
A fair amount of the comment on his speech in Britain has focussed on why he chose to pick out The Independent as having “views rather than news” – while he ignored the truly feral Rupert Murdoch papers (to whom he shamelessly genuflects, and releases his policies through – another reason why Parliament is reported less – the Labour government doesn’t bother informing it about anything new). This is because The Independent was roughly a New Labour-supporting paper when Blair came to power, but has been the heaviest critic of the Iraq invasion.
And there’s a nice bit of irony, reported in The Independent:
There are link to The Independent’s replies to Blair there too.
Freshly Squeezed Cynic s: Whoa, whoa, hold on there. Tony-tone has never been a Stalinist, Trotskyist or far-leftist of any stripe. Whilst there are a couple of New Labourites with Communist roots far, far back (our dear Dr. John Reid, authoritarian extraordinare is one of them), most of Nu Labour was previously part of the Labour Right (somewere in the breakaway SDP in the 80’s) or if they were on the left in the beginning, were the kind of student New Lefties from the 60’s that we all know and love, which makes their fall from grace even worse. Tony-tone was never even liberal, which was why it was so unamusing to hear Americans praise Tony-tone before he started bombing the shit where Bush told him to.
He’s just a straight-out neoliberal, with all the contempt for democracy and the veneration of globalised technocracy and market worship that creates, and that’s who’s leading the Labour Party now. And it’s shit.
I never said Tony Blair was a Leninist, but it is true that most cabinet members are former Trots, Leninsts and other assorted far left types.
case in point John Reid, a former Leninist and a former drinking buddy of the the Bosnian Serb mass-murderer Radovan Karadzic.
Please go read this link – NuLab: Hot to Trot, you will be surprised how many former Trotskyites and Stalinists are in the cabinet.
Yes they have embraced neoliberalism but that doesn’t mean they have abonded their authotrarian past, its till there only now glossed over.
Tony Blair is another kettle of fish
he has always lived a very insulated life, protected and promoted by his patrons, cloistered at Oxford very much the traditional career path of an aspiring PM. Blair has never struggled and never suffered financial disadvantage his whole life has been politics of which he has been very good at. However he lacks the raw smarts of Brown and surrounded himself with the ‘true believers’ the Blairite ultras. This has served to further insulate Blair from wider reality and promote the self-delusion that he is actually politically popular.
He actually believes in what he is doing, its not an act, he truly believes what he is doing is right.
[…] last night, I wrote an angry rant about Tony Blair’s alleged desire to clamp down on the free press through state regulation. […]
Perhaps he should check with Terry Gilliam. I’m sure he has some extra “Ministry Of Information Retrieval” signs laying around.
Blair was a good leader and good man until he met Bush,After he met Bush everything went wrong for Blair..He lost fair amount of support in his own country…and Media’s are often interpreting the news, it’s becomes very common in this days…
AA Breakdown Cover
I’m more surprised that the former Trotskyites and Stalinsts are willing to work together if they’ve adhered to basically anything of their free-wheeling youth politics. Y’know, given that the two wings spent decades hating each other. Still, to this day, in fact.
As regards the ‘freedom of the press’ in Britain, hasn’t there been some Official Secrets Act in the UK since forever to ensure all the filthy underhanded shit the government does doesn’t get anywhere near the public? If I’m right in recalling that, should it really come as any surprise that the governmental official responsible for the most recent filthy underhanded shit wants to remind the press the government can do that to them?
He also questioned whether papers needed some system of accountability that went beyond sales. He said: “The reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself.
I had this weird idea once about putting regulatory restraints on the term “news” much the same way any other product labeling is subjected to regulation. Something like…
— Your content over the course of the past year must contain a minimum percentage of political coverage, economic coverage, etc.
— Said content must contain a minimum percentage of factual reporting (as opposed to opinion columns and polling data)
— Factual content must be be properly sourced, and sourcing can be subject to review by a panel of independent experts
— Consumers can request documentation of specific factual reporting content, and you have to provide that (the indepent experts panel could provide a buffer for anonymous sources…this gets tricky, but we do it with grand juries, so I think it could be done)
— There would be a defined procedure for challenging factual reporting, and any corrections must be prominent and directly tied to the original reports
— Assertions made in opinon columns may be challenged, also, if they are considered to contradict factual reporting
If you pass the annual review, you have the right to use the word “news” to describe your content for the next year. If you don’t pass the review, you can still say whatever you want, but you can’t call it “news”.
There could even special certifications for Local News, State News, National news, topic-specific news, and the hardest to get, “Independent news”–which also considers your editorial choices for what to report (i.e., 80% good for the GOP vs 20% bad for the GOP wouldn’t be independent, even if it’s 100% factual) in addition to whether or not it has factual support.
We have to maintain documentation to justify every single word we use in our advertising, and some words have specific definitions restricted by the industry (check out the different types of ice cream, for example, or “wi-fi”). I think the term “news” could be defined as a marketing description and subject to restrictions, too. we’re not allowed to lie to our customers–how come Fox gets to?
Faux sued for that right.
“As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television…”
So true! I was reflecting on the blurriness of today’s media as I flipped the channels on my newspaper this morning.
Please go read this link – NuLab: Hot to Trot, you will be surprised how many former Trotskyites and Stalinists are in the cabinet.
Ah yes, the Liberal Review; the first place I go to when I want a history lesson on left sectarianism… Heh, sorry, couldn’t keep a straight face.
Oh wait, it’s a link to an Independant article, how cute!
Let’s see, what reasoning do they give for calling them fully paid up revolutionaries, enemies of the bourgoisie, truly the great political leaders of the Stalinist movement?
Jack Straw – student lefty (ooh, scary, truly a man of great political influence and experience in his bedsit drinking watery beer and eating supernoodles), embarrassed Chilean dictatorship (that dastardly sort, doesn’t he know that they were our friendly bulwark against democratically elected Marxists?)
Charles Clarke – student lefty (they get everywhere, don’t they?), campaigned for higher student grants (obviously, it will bring around the political education of the proletariat, don’t you see?), strongly opposed US foreign policy (I guess that makes HTML here an accursed Stalinist as well).
Trevor Phillips – student lefty, led demonstrations, went to Cuba once (shock, horror.)
I’ll give you Reid and Mandelson, although with the reservation that one can always have for Peter “we are all Thatcherites now” Mandelson.
Alan Johnson – was “close to the Communist Party” in his youth. Great, so have I been on various marches and protests, made good friends in the CPGB. Doesn’t mean I am one, or that I’d like to be one.
Gordon Brown – wrote a PhD thesis on James Maxton. …words cannot express how piss-poor an accusation that was. Seriously, is that all you’ve got? His academic work makes him a closet Trot? (Not to mention that just because Stalin claims an organisation is Trotskyist doesn’t make it so, and the ILP was very much its’ own organisation.) So if I wrote a PhD thesis on Hitler, I’d be a Nazi? What if I wrote about the Khmer Rouge, or maybe the history of the Cultural Revolution, would I be tacitly supporting those activities? That’s poor, even by the standards of this article.
Alan Milburn – owned a bookshop (those traitorous bookbinds of the bourgoisie!), was in CND, talked about “struggle” a lot, whereas we should just sit down with multinational corporations who are exploiting the poor world with a nice cup of tea and tell them that it’s just not on.
Paul Boateng – called on people to struggle against Thatcher, that well meaning, liberal, tolerant woman who just wanted everyone to get along and was undermined by those awful Trotskyists.
Denis MacShane – was a left-winger in the journalist’s union (note that now no actual concrete suggestions of membership of Trotskyist organisations are coming up now, unless you want to suggest that the NUJ is Trotskyist, in which case I will laugh in your face), stood next to Scargill once (and all the evil rubbed off, no doubt). Lead a big strike (truly the most henious sin ever committed by a trade unionist, and proof of his latent Trotskyism)
David Blunkett – was left-wing leader of a left-wing Labour council (but was he in a Trotskyist organisation or upheld Trotskyist viewpoints? Sadly, no!)
Margaret Hodge – Lenin bust is a bit posturing, and the “socialist republic” jibe is made about any area in the world that’s to the left of the Lib Dems, but I’ll be charitable and give you this one.
That piece was woeful; full of innuendo, smears and broad generalisations against left-wing groups (you’re all Stalinists, y’hear? STALINISTS!). Like I said, most of the people mentioned weren’t fully paid-up hard Marxists, with the exceptions of Reid, Mandelson and possibly Hodge, and they were all either pretty much all student lefties, the bog-standard Labour left, and militant trade unionists, and I’m the last person you’ll find apologetic for the Blair Government. Scary people if you’re a British Liberal, but not with anyone who doesn’t clutch their handbag to their chest at the mention of issues of class and inequality.
Thanks for reminding me why I don’t buy the Independant any more, by the way – Johann Hari’s the only decent columnist on it now he’s suitably contrite about his lack of judgement on the War in Iraq, and I can read him online anyway.
Freshly Squeezed Cynic you completely miss my point again!
I’m just saying that members of the cabinet are hostile to liberal and libertarian ideas, because of they authoritarian nature, yes they have left their hard left roots behind but the DNA is still there and informs their decisions.
Often the worse types are those who were on the left but turn right, they become complete arseholes, they zealously take to the new order.
I find many left wingers annoy me however here in the UK – democratic centralist Trots…a la the SWP, Social Democrats, bit too wishy washy for my taste
Mainstream political thinking is very stale in the UK, its either a choice between state socialism or state capitalism. Lack of knowledge of ones political history as well.
Worth noting that not all socialism is statism – The Myth Of Socialism As Statism, also worth reading – Kevin Carson and Ken MacLeod
Your point was that there are, and I quote: “most cabinet members are former Trots, Leninsts and other assorted far left types.”, intimating further that they were all remnants of the authoritarian left.
I proved that that was an gross exaggeration, based on a very shoddy, innuendo filled article.
You still continue to say that they were all hardcore authoritarian Marxists, something unsupported by the evidence available, Comrade Reid aside.
I’m perfectly aware not all socialism is statism, incidentally, which is why Ken MacLeod is one of my favourite authors and why I am not a member of the SWP, and perhaps the reason you find so much authoritarian socialism in Britain, so “staid”, is that you’re expecting it. It certainly seems the case here.