Well I for one won't fofget that Spectator article in a hurry. Given that you did not quite cut and paste it all it might have been easier just to post the link.
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There are many clever people – pollsters, commentators, strategists – who say that Jeremy Corbyn’s past does not matter, that the voters do not care about it, and that his critics ought to move on. Recounting every Islamist he shared a platform with, every anti-Semite he rallied beside, every Irish republican he cosied up to is a waste of time. Corbyn has caught the spirit of the moment and his detractors are stuck in the past.
They may be right but let me try to explain to them why we care so much about these things. Thirty-four years ago today – at 2.54 a.m. to be precise – a bomb tore through the Grand Brighton Hotel during the Conservative Party conference. Anthony Berry, MP for Enfield Southgate, was killed, along with Muriel Maclean, Eric Taylor, Jeanne Shattock and Roberta Wakeham. Margaret Tebbit was left paralysed and Margaret Thatcher only narrowly escaped the blast. The device had been planted by IRA member Patrick Magee and the IRA released an infamous statement claiming responsibility: ‘Today we were unlucky, but remember, we only have to be lucky once; you will have to be lucky always.’
They did get lucky again, but the Brighton bombing was the closest they would come to assassinating a British prime minister. Neil Kinnock wrote to Mrs Thatcher after the attack to profess himself ‘horrified and outraged at this terrible atrocity’ and to describe the terrorists as ‘the sworn enemies of all the people of normal mind and reasoning politics’.
Labour MPs evidently do not grasp the significance of this behaviour, for they continue to sit behind this man and campaign to make him Prime Minister. And so I ask myself: What if, two weeks after Jo Cox was murdered, a backbench Tory invited members of National Action to Parliament? What if, while her murderer Thomas Mair was in court declaring ‘death to traitors’, that same Tory MP was outside at a ‘solidarity’ vigil? What if that Tory MP had been willing to get himself arrested for the pleasure? And what if he had written a cheery note to the organiser of the demo?
Now imagine that Tory MP ended up party leader one day. How would Labour MPs respond? Would they cut his backbenchers the same slack they cut themselves? Would they shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Oh, they’re just being loyal party people’ or ‘He’s doing well in the polls’? Would they empathise with the Tory MPs and members who said they were staying to fight for their party’s ‘soul’? Would they hell. They would be howling and marching and demanding every last Tory MP resign. And they’d be right.
Instead, Labour MPs have surrendered – those, that is, who bothered putting up a fight in the first place – and decided to go along with Corbyn and his moment. They reason that, yes, he’s a despicable man but he may get them back into government or at least get rid of this hopeless, rotten, callous government. Even those who do not believe this hang around and do their bit to put Corbyn in power because, however much extremism and anti-Semitism pain them, walking away from the Labour Party would hurt them more. This is how Corbynism corrupts the soul and tribalism poisons the antidote. They have more in common with Corbyn than that which divides them.
The clever people may be right. The Brighton murders have receded sufficiently from our collective memory to lose their visceral horror. It has been so long since we heard insidious apologism for the IRA that the thought of it can’t quite stir the same hot contempt. The generations that have come since may regard Britain as an illegal occupier, Ulster the West Bank across the Irish Sea and Gerry Adams an avuncular freedom-fighter. Among the semi-ironic alt-leftists who ‘stan’ Corbyn on social media – the Lmaoists and the Lolsheviks – political violence is a source of boisterous humour and vicarious thrills, just another level unlocked in Call of Duty.
But, however unfashionable it may be right now, the past matters. Truth matters. Jeremy Corbyn’s character matters. And the character of this country – and what would become of it if we made this man our Prime Minister – matters. It may not be clever of us, the voters may not care, but some of us
Well I for one won't fofget that Spectator article in a hurry. Given that you did not quite cut and paste it all it might have been easier just to post the link.
TLDR
Jezza won't be around for ever, but he is the only one who can break the current status quo. Otherwise it's a choice between Tory and Tory light (Blairites), and to be fair, the Tories aren't even proper Tories anymore.
I for one would prefer to have a Labour leader or PM , who has British values at heart . We're not perfect, but we're better than most, and we should respect that, before sliding towards extreme politics .
You guys will have to start building a new party then, as there is no other viable option out there right now.
I agree that politicians should be called to account for their previous words, actions and behaviours and Corbyn has a lot of form in that area. I also think that when you go down that road then you set the bar for all and there are enough politicians across he spectrum who might fail to reach the required standard. The article itself gets carried away with its own rhetoric and the writer's own perceived cleverness when chucking out his alt-left stan Lolshevik epithets in the penultimate paragraph and ends up looking smugger than necessary in making (a well worn) point. What about you?
WB, you continually put yourself above other people and explain how your thoughts and analytical processes are superior to other people's but you often blatantly mis-quote posters and précis their comments incorrectly. You very often see only side of an argument while painting yourself as even minded. Personally, I have given up trying to rationally discuss anything with you.
I can't see it happening anytime soon it seems to me this is about a leadership person issue and if Labour were to change its Leadership for a Kier type person it may make further ground on the Tories beleaguered position , however if say the Tories found a younger , modern , fresher , voice say Ruth Davidson it too would sweep ahead and probaly recover the centre ground anyway ,whereas Labour if it stayed left , may struggle , even with a new leader, the current Tory problem, is it looks and smells old .
As an offshoot comment , I heard on the radio the other day that the Conservatives are the most successful political party in the history of western democracy .
( not great news for middle ground socialist I guess, as even the successful Blair, is now deemed a Tory among some)
In what way? You just need people to vote for something that isn't the status quo. Could the average person do that? I doubt it very much, as they have been conditioned by the media to think that only two political parties could do the job. Is this true? Is your average MP really clever? Or do they employ advisors, experts and think-tanks? Once they formulate policy do they implement it, or do civil servants have responsibility for that? My cousin is a PA to a sitting MP, so I have my own thoughts about this.
PS why the continual personal attacks? You and your pals always attack the person and not the idea. Your debating skills are very juvenile.