Tagged with Guardian

On narrow parliamentarianism

ParliamentarySocialismOn Saturday 6th August the Guardian carried an article by house-journalist Jonathan Freedland entitled ‘Corbyn can’t dismiss the importance of MPs. On Brexit, they’re centre stage.’ The aim of the article was to expose the absurdity of the anti-Parliamentary stance of the “Corbynistas”. On the slightest examination, however, Freedland’s argument falls apart exposing the vapidity his idea of parliamentary democracy.

Ralph Milliband (father of Ed and David) wrote, in his book Parliamentary Socialism, that of parties around the world calling themselves socialist, Labour was the most dogmatic. That dogmatism, he explained, was not about socialism but about Parliament. Labour thinking has always been captivated, and captured, by Parliament. The same is true of our liberal commentariat. The primacy of Parliament has the status of holy writ. To question that is to cross the line between sane political reasoning and the madness of political sects. Continue reading →

Who are you calling a braindead Trot?

Press-FreedomRecent weeks have seen Jeremy Corbyn ridiculed as ‘the political equivalent of a child’s invisible friend’, ‘ugly, dispiriting, and out of touch’, ‘the bearded Messiah’, ‘dangerous’, ‘puerile’, ‘completely unfit for any kind of senior political office’, ‘a malevolent clown’, ‘an extremist who has spent a political career embracing nasty causes’, ‘a gormless Marxist’, and ‘a tinpot meddler’ prone to ‘engrained political pathologies’.

Those with the temerity to back him have been branded ‘Trumpton revolutionaries’,’pig ignorant lefty click activists’, ‘psychotically furious about everything’, ‘terribly well-orffff, doncha know’, ‘infantile and possibly mentally impaired’, ‘petulant children’ and ‘gibbering perpetual adolescents’. Continue reading →