An objective view of Labour

Morale was raised by the post below, which is reproduced with the generous permission of The New Adventures of Juliette , a blog always guaranteed to raise spirits.

Labour Pains

I'm about to make a fairly radical comment here

I can't stand Labour.

Whether it's Old Labour, New Labour or sort of Middle Aged But Young At Heart Labour, it gets on my bloody nerves. And it always has done

Normally, anyone who fancies themself as a bit on the intellectual or satirical side is duty-bound to say the exact opposite. Labour is my bestest friend. And Convervatives are stupid/boring/ ugly/unsexy/smell of poo-poo/have nits/can't play with us.

Well, sorry. But - while I'm no great pom-pom carrying cheerleader for the Right (and I still think George Osbourne is Central Casting's ideal choice for a Home Counties Patrick Bateman) - the fact is, I hate the Left a whole lot more.

There are many vices in this world I can happily tolerate.

However, hypocrisy is not one of them.

And the Left is absolutely crawling with the stuff. Exuding it from every sanctimonious pore.

Read the Guardian comment section, and its columnists are constantly warning of the hell that will await us under the Tories. Within months of Cameron acending to power, England will become a nightmarish dystopia of cruelty and evil. Peasants being whipped to death in the street for the crime of pulling a rickshaw too slowly. Babies starving in gutters as top-hatted capitalists whisk past lighting their foot-long cigars with hundred-pound notes. Serfs, vassals and droit de seigneur. People of England, you have been warned.

Well, I hate to burst their bubble, but - unlike the proles in 1984 - I do have a fairly reliable memory. And it tells me that day-to-day life under the Tories was pretty much same as it is now.

Maybe a bit lighter on Diversity Co-ordinators, Traveller Liaison Support Workers and Equality Support Strategic Development Co-ordination Czars.

But what the hell, we survived.

And yes, I know there are statistics showing that there's less crime, safer streets, happier pensioners, better healthcare etc etc etc under Labour. Thing is, you can prove anything with statistics. Literally anything. Especially if you threaten the people producing them with demotion or dismissal if they can't make the numbers go the right way. You can prove that Iraq is a safer place to live than Tunbridge Wells. Or that you're in more danger from a feather duster than a terrorist bomb. Don't believe me, watch The Wire some time.

IMHO, all politicians without exception are dodgy, thieving, lying wankers who care about exactly two things - getting elected, and getting rich(er).

The only difference is that the right are (very slightly) less hypocritical and annoying about it.

And while they're ripping you off, screwing the public for every last penny, not giving a tinker's toss about the poor and needy, crawling up the arses of any dodgy Russian billionaires that happen to bung them a few (milion) quid and scrounging freebies right, left and centre, they don't simultaneously expect you to bow down and worship them as the public-spirited holiest of public-spirited holies.

Here are my top reasons why the right-on left wing sucks...

1
Polly Toynbee

God, how I loathe this woman. How can I even begin to convey the depth of my hatred and contempt for her, and everything she stands for?

Here is my case for the prosecution.

Exhibit A - her smug, annoying, sanctimoniously smirking face - which acts much like a government health warning on a packet of fags, immediately warning you of what horrors lurk within. She has the most instantly dislikeable visage this side of Mark Thatcher.

Exhibit B - her relentless patronising air of holier-than-thou superiority, which she takes to a level that would make Lady Bountiful physically sick. Underscored by the certain knowledge that, for all her pontificating on the tragedy of inner city estates and what must be done to help their unfortunate underprivileged inhabitants, she lives about as far away from an inner city estate as it's humanly possible to get without the aid of space travel.

She is the sort of person who will earnestly use the phrase 'people less fortunate than ourselves'

The sort of person who will say 'it is tremendously important to understand the social context that compels under-privileged young people to demonstrate challenging behaviour and become involved in the justice system.'

But you can bet your left tit she's got a bloody good burglar alarm.

The only good thing about Polly Toynbee is that - if you read her column right before Body Combat - you'll go into that class like a young Mike Tyson on crack.

So from the narrow perspective of my health and fitness, I guess she's not a complete waste of space...

2
John Prescott

Yes, I know he's yesterday's man. But for me, his entire being summarises an entire breed - he's the sanctimonious Old Left incarnate. And highlights a rather awkward truth which the likes of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists somehow endeavoured to ignore.

People in power immediately become greedy bastards. Fact.

This applies whether they were born in a forty-bedroomed stately home with wall-to-wall housemaids and hot and cold running butlers, or in a cardboard box in t'middle of t'motorway a la the Monty Python sketch.

Far as I can tell, the only difference between old-left John Prescott and old-right Nicholas Soames is that Nicholas Soames a - knows how to hold his cutlery, b - isn't carrying something on his shoulder that's less a chip, more a fair-sized branch of McDonalds, and c - isn't a hypocritical cock jockey who thinks he's a man of the people despite owning five dozen polo ponies, eight mansions and a private army.

Apart from that, they're two smug greedy fat peas in a particularly ugly pod (think the horrible great slimy things in Gremlins...)

3
Virginia/Harriet/Jacqui/Margaret/Hazel/Thing

Aaargh! It's a multi headed political monster in horrible flat brown lace-up shoes, and it's trying to bore us to death! It's bombarding us with heavy-duty jargon at machine-gun pace! Multi-agency-working! Robust strategic partnerships! Outcome-focused patient-centric services! Use the Farce, Luke. Use the Farce!

4
The Observer On Sunday Magazine Section

Lost. Will to live. Answers to the name of Fluffy.

5
Polly Toynbee

Yes, I know I mentioned her before. But I hate the pious old bag so much, I just had to give her a second reference.

So it's another mention for the intrepid people's champion, with a real intuitive grasp of how ordinary British citizens live, think, work and feel. Daughter of rich literati. Great-niece of billionaire philathropist. Alumnus of Badminton School and St Anne's College, Oxford.

Anyone know where I can buy a decent voodoo doll round the Liverpool Street area?


6
The Right-On Teachers Of My Youth

If a teacher attempted to brainwash kids by reading them right-wing propaganda, there would be an uproar - and rightly so.

So how come, in my youth as now, it's perfectly okay to do the opposite?

Today, the offending books would almost certainly have been the staggeringly over-rated works of Philip Pullman - whose entire philosophy could be summarised as follows. Brainwashing kids to be conservative or religious is vile and unforgivable, and CS Lewis was a wanker. It's quite okay to brainwash them to be liberal atheists, though. Hey kids, God is dead, gay is good and anyone who says any different is evil and deserves to die.

Back in the day, however, it was a book series named The Borribles by a man named Michel de Larrabeiti. Which was read out to our primary school class, in not-particularly-eagerly-awaited instalments, by some Thatch-hatin' commie twat of a teacher called Mr Wilson. He had a guitar, too. And wore jeans. If he'd been any more of a cliche, he'd have been removed from the first draft of his own life by an eagle-eyed editor.

For some inexplicable reason, the Borribles series has fallen into obscurity. But here's the story in brief, if memory serves. Kids (who are good) run away from home and from grown-ups (which are bad), and form an anarchic tribe of their own called the Borribles (which is good). They survive by stealing (which is good) from adult businesses (which are bad). But they only steal food, and not money (which is bad). Their enemies are the police (who are bad), who try to catch them and make them become respectable law-abiding citizens (which is bad).

The police are led by an evil man named Inspector Sussworth, who is short and dark-haired with a toothbrush moustanche and a passion for order. The author doesn't actually give him one bollock or a German accent, but you get the impression it was a close-run thing.

It was the most most glaring attempt at childhood brainwashing since Swastika Press released their children's classic Jenny Lives With Adolf and Eva.

Although actually, it didn't work. Because even at the tender age of nine, I privately considered Mr Wilson to be an annoying cock monkey - and hence believed the exact opposite of anything he told us.

To this very day, I still think the police are better than shoplifters.

Sorry, Mr Wilson.

I'm voting Conservative next election, anyway. And at this point, I'm going to come right out and tell you the shocking truth.

I voted Conservative last general election, too.

Hey, sue me...

J x

A couple more points discovered here about Blessed Saint Polly. Failed her 11-Plus, so couldn't stay at Badminton. Went to that exemplar of egalitarian comprehensive education, Holland Park, emerging with one A Level. Got a scholarship to Oxford, but left after 18 months and didn't complete her degree.

A great role model.

An Odious Little Speck

Much erudite comment has been written over the last couple of days regarding the elevation of J S Bercow Esquire to the dignity of First Commoner in the land. I shall resist the obvious cheap shot.

Not that I am a fan of Mr Bercow. While I have never met him, nothing I have learned of him is endearing, although I am sure he loves his wife and small fluffy animals.

But every time I see or hear him, he reminds me of the odious speck at school who would frequently be seen emerging from the Head’s study, face a picture of smug self-satisfaction, having sneaked on one of his fellows. Perhaps his favourite small fluffy animal is a weasel.

Some might describe him as self-satisfied; an unattractive trait. His performance on Monday, during his speech and subsequently, did nothing to allay this perception. Conceit appeared to ooze from his pores. But perhaps that is just his manner and such judgement harsh.

There is no doubt that Mr Bercow is a trimmer. His weaving political voyage puts one in mind of a drunken sailor returning to his ship. But I do not believe his to be a random journey, since Mr Bercow is shrewd and calculating.

Like many small men his lack of stature is counterbalanced by the size of his ego. Knowing that his trimming would be unlikely to earn him advancement in his own party, and that crossing the floor would, at best, gain a shadow brief, perhaps he saw the Speaker’s chair as the only route to the advancement he believed he deserved.

Mr Bercow is of modest origins. He has that in common with some of the finest Speakers of recent years. But unlike them, he clearly has little regard for the dignity and history of his new position. He appears to typify the “me, now” generation and fails to understand that he is now the incumbent of a post that is steeped in tradition which he has a responsibility to uphold.

It is not his place to tear asunder that tradition on a personal whim. If he had a whiff of modesty or judgement about him he would at least have taken counsel from his Sovereign. But his performance on ITV last night showed not one whit of modesty, but an arrogant, abrupt school bully.

However, PMQs today brought some little cause for optimism. If he has the courage to translate into discipline his warning about trailing legislation in the media, entertaining times await. Mr Hain seems to think otherwise, and since flaunting the primacy of Parliament is so engrained in Labour’s psyche, it is likely we will enjoy the delight of a Minister before the Bar.

Labour’s contempt of Parliament in backing Bercow brought the politics of the schoolyard to our legislature. Infantile and puerile, their only aim was to score a cheap point. It is illuminating that only one of his 15 proposers came from his own party.

Mr Bercow is on probation. He has 11 months to prove that Parliament’s interests, not his own, dominate his agenda. He may confound his doubters, but I suspect that this leopard will remain very spotty.

The Conservative party should be very careful if they wish to remove Bercow once they gain power. They have lost much of their reputation as the nasty party, and talk of removing another Speaker might lose them ground.

They should play a long game; Mr Bercow will make it easy for them.

Brown's Brave Boys (and Girls)

In his excellent diary, Ian Dale reports that he has heard that over 20 Cabinet Ministers were invited to appear on Question Time this evening (not all at once, I hope) and they declined.

I wonder if the Prince of Darkness has decreed that they are only to speak in the benign environments of Westminster and the media, away from the rough and licentious peasantry.

Or could it be that the Rt Hon Members actually realise that the line they are being instructed to take is so transparently false that when they espouse it before the public, they are likely to be ripped to shreds. On the evidence of the last three editions of Question Time, I suspect this to be the case.

Due perhaps to her stunning lack of any contrition over her expenses, Margaret Beckett was reduced by the audience to a caricature of a rabbit in a lamp's beam just before the trigger is pulled - and this is an individual hotly tipped to become Speaker. Lord help us if she was to face a turbulent day in the Commons.

Ms Flint, in an unedifying swansong as Europe Minister, resorted to bullying interuptions of other panelists in an attempt to dominate the programme. Eventually, the penny began to drop as the audience refused to accept her gospel, and her face became a pleasing vision of sulky, incomprehending anger.

Last week, Peter Hain was reduced to a gibbering poltroon, his face radiating confusion. His gem moment came when Tsar Alan's possible conflict of interest was being debated. Suggesting that other politicians' TV work created a precedent for the Tsar, he cited Michael Portillo who, of course, left Parliament in 2005. Peter needs a long lie down.

So we will have the charming and suave Lord Falconer on the programme tonight as it is little wonder that the Cabinet prefer hiding in Brown's Mitty-world bunker. The reality of public opinion would be too much for what little remains of their sanity to bear.

Still, things can only get better.

Goodbye Mr (you've had your) Chips

There are not many who will be sorry to see Michael Martin leave the Speaker's chair. But in their hearts, will some MPs see beyond his hapless tenure as Speaker to the man himself, and what shaped him, and feel a pang of conscience? I doubt it. He, and a few like him on the Government benches, are dinosaurs; relics of a monocular socialism that saw little beyond the class struggle, unable to adapt to the expectations of a changing society, and often representing and reflecting constituencies where political opinion is shaped by bitterness, tradition and intransigence.

Martin's departure brings to mind three issues:

The British trait of hypocritical sanctimony has, once again, been hard at play in recent weeks. Yes, many MPs have behaved disgracefully, have betrayed the taxpayers who fund them, and were the catalysts for Martin's fall. But perhaps in a nation with a staggering record of "sick" days, benefit fraud and workplace minor theft, there are some who should consider pots and kettles before becoming too hysterically self-righteous.

Be careful what you wish for. Martin may have been seen as inept, but the indicators are that he will be followed by an even less attractive incumbent, installed again by Labour, not in the interests of the dignity of Parliament and the need for reform, but in the spirit of petty spite that typifies that party. Is it any wonder that the qualities that once exemplified Britain have vapourised with their faux leadership?

Martin was not entirely disingenous today when he reminded Brown that he and his party had rejected parliamentary reform over a year ago. Indeed, Brown did not even feel moved to vote on the matter. Where were Labour MPs when they could have supported Martin, rather than their own interests, and how shamefully two-faced was their outrage when he was forced to stand down? I am reminded of an old joke about Harold Wilson. "I can't stand two things about Wilson". "Really - what?" "His face". Labour doesn't change.

I am no supporter of Speaker Martin, but I wish him health and peace of mind.

His greatest tragedy is that the Labour Party could not look beyond party prejudice to the requirements of the appointment when they elected him. His undoing is their shame.