left and right is old hat

[egb_hibs]

once more i agree with david a's theme if not on all the detail...


Forget red, blue and yellow. Now the choice is Progressives v Reactionaries

David Aaronovitch

OH, FOR CLEARER times when men were men and Tories were vermin. Each child born alive was either a little Red or a little Blue, with a few Cornish vacillators wearing the awkward yellow favours of the in-betweenies. Oceans of blood separated us. The Blues loved the Americans, we Reds (sotto voce) thought that the Russians got a bad press. They were for no taxes and lots of poverty, we were for massive taxes and no wealth. They were turned on by soldiers and the Bomb, we were turned on by women with peace symbols painted on their bare breasts. They were for Europe, and then against it. We were against Europe, and then for it. You could usually take someone’s opinion on a single issue, and from it extrapolate her entire world-view.

For years, of course, these allegiances have been breaking up, but the essential divide has been thought to remain. It’s there in the common-place that Tony Blair is right-wing for a Labour man, or that David Cameron is left-wing for a Tory. But the truth has been dawning on many of us for some time now that this way of dividing the political world is an anachronism. It no longer fits the facts. When I look at the candidates for Parliament in my own constituency, the Labourness, Libdemness or Toryness of them no longer seems to be the main question. What I want to know is whether they are a progressive or a reactionary.

Do I want a Labour MP who argues that there should be no private money involved in health provision and that the structure of the NHS should be the same in 2008 as it was in 1948? That there should be only one type of school? That the greatest enemy to mankind is the United States of America? Do I want a Conservative whose main concerns are to keep immigration low, to prevent house-building and to preserve the privileges of motorists? Do I want a Liberal Democrat whose central policy planks are to stop car clamping and prevent ID cards?

I am not starry-eyed about the history of the Left. It has its triumphs and its disasters. But it used to be about the future and how to improve the lot of humankind. Not any more. Liberation has been replaced as the key concept by Resistance. The word reproduces itself through modern left literature, like a Sylvanian family on fertility drugs. Globalisation is to be resisted, as is neoliberalism (flexible labour markets, movement of capital etc) as is neoconservatism. Tesco mini-stores are to be resisted, as are the Americans in Iraq. It is emblematic of that change that the Palestine Liberation Organisation is no longer the organisation of choice for fashionable leftists, having been replaced by the Islamic Resistance, better known as Hamas. And the new heroes aren’t those creating new societies, but those nationalists, like the populist Venezuelan, Hugo Chávez, who put two fingers up at the composite enemy, Bushanblair.

Over on the Right the consequences of change are creating a thoroughly enjoyable series of moral panics. Thatcherism, for a while, promoted an opening up to the world. But in her own late premiership the woman herself hardened into a reactionary, determined to protect a particular vision of middle-class England from the ravages of change. Too late. Or, rather, hardly possible. Now her self-styled successors play hunt the foreign rapist with every new edition of the Telegraph or the Mail. In the short term this is bad for Mr Blair, but in the long-term it’s difficult for Mr Cameron, because it isn’t where he wants to be, down among the Nimbys and the Keep-’em-out brigade.

That there is sharp division on what was once called the Right is illustrated by recent events in America. George Bush wants an amnesty for 12 million or so illegal immigrants and is being fought all the way by Republicans who believe that the country is full. Bush is comfortable with a company from the United Arab Emirates running some more American ports, but many Republicans oppose him on “security grounds”. They too seek common cause with sections of the Left over “ outsourcing” — otherwise known as the bloody cheek that these foreigners have in competing with us. So-called palaeoconservatives want out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan, out of everywhere and bring up the drawbridge.


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[part/time supporter]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

Forget red, blue and yellow. Now the choice is Progressives v Reactionaries

David Aaronovitch

OH, FOR CLEARER times when men were men and Tories were vermin.

Since when did Tories stop being vermin, likesay?

[Smurf]

David A for PM.