Happy tweeting time - Blair, Coulson and Johnson

moridura Peter Curran

Alistair C. - can you offer me any advice on future media career, chat show possibilities, diaries, etc. Would bagpipes help? URGENT - AndyC

moridura Peter Curran

JOB WANTED: Experienced political PR man, good political and media connections, good with telephones and mailboxes. Refs: Cameron, Murdoch.

moridura Peter Curran

Ed Miliband will have his balls - or will Ed Cojones have Miliband Minor's balls? Stop it, Peter - enough is enough!

moridura Peter Curran

Ed Milband adds Ed Cojones to his shadow cabinet team - will it give Miliband Minor some balls?

moridura Peter Curran

What will the rich, privileged Home Counties clique surrounding Cameron that Coulson was a part of, living close to each other, say about it

moridura Peter Curran

Glib David Cameron tries to skate smoothly over Andy Coulson resignation. "Quick, place a call to Rupert - he'll tell me who to hire next-"

moridura Peter Curran

Poor English voters, forced to choose between Labour (Iraq & wrecked economy) and the ConLib Coalition. Scotland has a real choice - the SNP

moridura Peter Curran

Rose Gentle, mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle (RIP), a Scot who died in Iraq, cannot forgive the war criminal Blair after Chilcot today

moridura Peter Curran

What George Galloway called on QT "the Establishment stooges" of the Chilcot enquiry did rather better today in getting at the truth.

moridura Peter Curran

Does John Rentoul, political editor of The Independent, profoundly regret his suport for the Iraq War and his unflagging support for Blair?

moridura Peter Curran

@NoSaltSugarfree Ah, loyalty - see my blog on loyalty and the abuse of the concept http://moridura.blogspot.com/search/label/loyalty

moridura Peter Curran

Blair's trapped in Iraq Groundhog day -"WMDs,45m, deeply regret, don't regret, Saddam Hussein, George Bush, sincere belief, God, Christian"

moridura Peter Curran

Tony Blair belatedly "regrets deeply and profoundly the loss of life" He doesn't presumably regret that vast fortune he has amassed after it

moridura Peter Curran

Blair to Bush on UK's fatal involvement in Iraq: "You can count on us, George ..." But another George has nailed you, Antony Lynton Blair.

moridura Peter Curran

Andy Coulson resigns - Murdoch's man, Cameron's man. The wheels are coming off the ConLib Coalition. What about Tommy Sheridan's sentence?

moridura Peter Curran

Poor Alan Johnson - echoes of John Le Mesurier/Hattie Jacques's drama on BBC4. Alan can't do sums - but Labour can't do morality or honesty.

moridura Peter Curran

@JamiePolitics It will take more than Miliband Minor to airbrush Iraq (and the economy) out of history. George Galloway on great form on QT!

Harriet Harman ‘monstered’ by Labour colleagues

Has racist campaigning now become acceptable to the thing that used to be The People’s Party – Labour?

Or was it always endorsed with a nod and a wink, and only disowned once they were found out?

Jack Dromey: I have always believed in standing on what I call the moral high ground …

Really, Jack?

The People’s Flag and the Union Jack

 

THE PEOPLE’s FLAG c. 2010

The Union flag is deepest red

With soldiers’ blood from all the dead

The bodies came from far Iraq

And over them – the Union Jack

 

Oh, hear the mothers’ anguished cry

Who sent our precious sons to die?

But still the Butcher’s Apron flies

It flutters over Union skies

 

The Labour Party loved its blaze

And Tony Blair once sang its praise

But will new generations claim

The flag of death that brought him fame?

 

It once proclaimed an Empire’s right

To span the globe in all its might

And dominate with lethal force

But now that era’s run its course

 

For all its crimes it must atone

Let ancient nations stand alone

The Union Jack has run its race

The older flags fly in its place

 

More Megrahi nonsense from Menendez

Nobody came to Senator Menendez's kangaroo court in the US - a publicity stunt masquerading as a Congressional enquiry - so he had to make things up. His representative who came to Scotland - and failed to take notes at a meeting with Scottish Government officials - has total recall of a load of nonsense.

Fortunately our government officials did take notes. Of course, Holyrood's ****hole in residence, Richard Baker, predictably aligned himself with the US and Menendez. Perhaps he should have consulted his new boss, Ed Miliband, who if he has any sense will rapidly distance himself and the Labour Party from the Deal in the Desert/BP conspiracy theory - Jack Straw certainly did.

Iraq was a mistake: it was wrong. Ed Miliband as the new Leader of the Labour Party

At last – they have admitted to the crime of Iraq, and the frozen faces in Ed Miliband’s conference audience of those complicit in it said it all. Brother David, with a rictus smile on his face, is caught by the ever-vigilant BBC camera turning to Harriet Harman and saying “Why are you applauding – you voted for it” The ever-emollient and glib niece of the Countess of Longford smiles, and replied “I supported him …”)

Ed Miliband's speech - Blairite reactions

As Miliband the Younger criticised the Blair/Brown regime's record on the economy, - on civil rights, on freedom, etc. - the camera panning across the audience lingered hopefully on brother David. But just behind him sat Alistair Darling and Jim Murphy, both giving the powerful impression of sitting in an abandoned nest in their still-warm, but rapidly cooling excrement. Douglas Alexander looked much the same.

I didn't see Iain Gray, but then, no judgement could have been formed, since Scotland's would-be next First Minister always looks that way.

A defence of the PPE degree

I thought the following comment (and my reply) was worth bringing on to the main blog. It is a cogently-argued defence of the PPE and the political career route I described by an undergraduate who has chosen this path.

Stephen said...

What's the big problem with the PPE course, and with Oxbridge? It sounds to me like inverse snobbery.

I'm heading off this year to Oxford University to do the Politics, Philosophy and Economics course. This is because I want to enter a career of Politics, because I want to become a Politician. I want to be a speech writer and political advisor beforehand, because I want to know how politics is done. And then I want to join a political party which I believe can get me into power.

Why? Because that's what I truly believe is the right thing to do. I have certain political beliefs and convictions, and I know the only way they're going to make any difference is if I'm actually in government. If that's cold and calculating, then I'm sorry, but if burning convictions lead to shouting in the sidelines and being unable to make a real difference to real peoples lives, then that's something that needs to be done.

Your analysis and description of the so-called "machine politician" lacks the motivation behind the story, the drive and the passion, plus the intellectual characterisation and philosophical convictions that make us who we are. People like us, the conveyor belt politicians, are a necessary part of our modern day representative democracy.

I imagine in ten or twenty years from now, people such as yourself will be alienated from voting for me, a typical Oxbridge PPE educated candidate. I find that sad, that a life I'm trying to devote to help other people is being systematically demonised.

Tell me, that young kid who is about to embark on the PPE degree in Oxford, why I am any less capable of understanding real life because of it. I, who was state educated. I, who took up at times two jobs to ensure I and my family at times had enough money. I, who missed out on opportunities because of my background. I, of a one parent family, of a turbulent childhood.

Why should I be made to feel any less, when I have worked and struggled all my life to get to the point where I am today?

I admit that there are career politicians who do indeed treat it as something to be done for personal self-gain, and they are bad. But don't brush all Oxbirdge PPEists the same way please. Don't define us all as Asimovian. Cold and calculating as we might one day be, we're still human, I'm still a kid, and we all have a lot yet to learn.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Moridura said...

I don't have a big problem with the PPE course, Stephen.

Sometimes called Modern Greats, it is very popular with students, although some have argued against it from various standpoints - that it destroyed the traditional classics degrees, that it dilutes each subject: some even argue that it perpetuates the class system!

It is undoubtedly a strange hybrid, and can be seen as a degree tailored for the needs of the employer rather than for true learning, but that is a criticism aimed at a lot of degrees - and universities.

Having said all that, had it been available in the early 1950s, and had I had the resources to stay on at school and go to university, it is probably the degree I would have chosen.

My target is not the degree, but the new political class who chose it for political careers of the type I have described, e.g. David Cameron, Ed Miliband etc.

It originated in Balliol College, Oxford in the early 1920s and was aimed specifically at the civil service and the new breed of administrators that the British Empire believed it needed. It would be unfair to the degree to equate it with the progressive decline of the Empire that followed. Balliol of course is the heart of the perpetuation of the class system in Britain, hence its detractors on those grounds.

I believe the PPE degree is a strange but relevant hybrid in the 21st century, that it is a valid choice for students. It is not the degree itself, but the use of it by a narrow, self-perpetuating class that I criticise.

I wish you well with your studies, Stephen, and hope that when you graduate you will be able to make use of the breadth of vision and understanding it brings to you to make a productive contribution to our trouble world. The future is in your hands, not mine.

Best wishes,

Peter Curran

Monday, September 27, 2010

Ed Miliband – friend to Scotland? Dream on …

This is a lifelong Labour activist and supporter, Terry Christian, speaking in Manchester about Labour's record in power and about the likelihood of change under Ed Miliband. He puts Scottish Labour activists to shame with his courage and frankness.

Miliband the Younger a friend to Scotland ? - dream on, working-class Scots. Pull your forelocks, bend your knees to the UK and vote Labour in May 2011. May God help you all if you do ...

Scottish Labour voters - listen and learn to Terry Christian and hang your heads. Your English brothers don't share your enthusiasm for the thing the Labour Party has become. If you can bring yourselves to vote Labour at the Holyrood elections in 2011, at least be aware that you are not voting for protection from the ConLib cuts and the wicked Tories.

Labour are now the Tories Mark Two

And any trades unionists with the lingering delusion that Labour is on their side had better wake up - and fast. Your unions may have voted for this Metropolitan, Oxbridge-educated professional political career man, but only as the least worst alternative.

Trades unionists facing the apocalyptic ConLib cuts - if you thought you had elected a friend - you haven't. This man is Middle England with a vengeance, with a metropolitan bias to the South East to boot.

But Scottish trades unionists have a real alternative - the Scottish National Party. Vote for your ain folk and for Scotland. The Labour Party you once knew has been dead for over 13 years - and so are a lot of young Scots, thanks to Blair and Brown.

And then there was Ed …

Once upon a time, a young man with the aspiration to make his mark – and the means to do it - got a good degree, perhaps Oxbridge, but maybe a provincial university, then went off and had a career doing something real, a profession, business, or the civil service, achieved something substantial in that chosen career, got some real understanding of life, then in his late thirties or early forties considered a life of public service in politics.

On entering the Commons, he had some understanding of the life of the nation, its people and its problems – he had a broad perspective and perhaps even a modicum of wisdom.

Not these days, they don’t …. Oxbridge is a must, and the degree must be that strange hybrid designed especially for the aspiring politician, the PPE – Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and the career chosen is politics from the start. And so the Asimovian new breed of politicians have their gestation, and walk straight off the Oxbridge assembly line with shining, metallic, inhuman certainty into the seat and the heart of government as a political assistant, as a speechwriter to a Cabinet Minister, as a special adviser.

Of course they have to select a political party to join to achieve this, and this selection is made, not on the basis of experience of life or burning conviction, but on a mix of family tradition, contacts, and cold, calculating assessment of which party offers the best route to power and influence within a short timescale, typically four or five years.

At some point, a sabbatical allows them to work or study in the United States for a year, where they meet senior US politicians and absorb effortlessly the idea of Britain as a junior partner, fully committed to a compliant and subservient role in foreign policy to their US masters.

At the earliest opportunity, with the backing of the established politicians they have served, they seek a nomination as a prospective parliamentary candidate, ideally for a safe seat. But occasionally they may have to undergo trial by fire in fighting a lost cause, in a contest which nonetheless bloods them and provides essential media coverage.

From the start, these strange creatures, custom-designed for politics, are strangers to the true life of the nation and its people, destined to rule them, but locked into the assumptions of a closed world that ensure that they can never properly serve them or serve true democracy.

Sooner or later, they have the right to take the state to war  - with the approval of the United States – and they can assist the US in the pressing of the nuclear button.

They themselves will never be placed in harm’s way by military service, nor will their children, but they will sacrifice the children of others with relative equanimity, and with the glib words of regret and condolence they have learned to parrot at the feet of their mentors, words that they perhaps actually crafted for those who preceded them, in phrases liberally spattered with references to heroes, comrades, Queen and country, never forgetting and eternally grateful – variants on the old, old lie, Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

(It pains me to mention that we have a version of this career path in the Scottish Parliament, where some candidates seem to think that proclaiming their ability to “find their way around the Parliament” - i.e. familiarity with the systems, procedures and political levers to push  - constitutes an election address and gives them credibility with the electorate, rather than experience of life as it is lived in Scotland today, with some tangible experience and achievement within that reality . Frankly, if that is all they have to offer, it is not enough – for me, anyway.)

And so we have Ed, although it was a close run thing – it could have been David. Does it matter which overall? Yes, a little. Does it matter to Scotland? Probably quite a lot, at least in the spring of 2011, since it will influence the Labour vote in a contest which will be a straight fight between them and the SNP.

We might usefully remind ourselves that this new Labour leader has a special understanding of Scotland. He was deeply involved in Labour’s manifesto for the 1999 Holyrood elections, and in fact resigned as Special Advisor at the Treasury to devote himself full-time to that campaign, and Labour’s rebuttal strategy. He will be a formidable foe of the SNP.