Seumas Milne remains on the staff of the Guardian and Observer while Labour pays him to work as its director of strategy. As a colleague on leave, he has the right to be treated with a gentleness journalists would not usually extend to spin doctors who do not enjoy his advantages. I therefore write with the caution of a good corporate man and the cheeriness of a co-worker when I say Milne could not do a better job of keeping the Tories in power if rogue MI5 agents had groomed him at Winchester College, signed him up at Oxford University and instructed him to infiltrate and destroy the Labour party.
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Samizdata quote of the dayJuly 17th, 2016 |
 10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Then we can only wish Comrade Colonel Milne the very best in his efforts at making Labour an electoral irrelevance.
Splendid chap that Milne fellow, worth every penny!?
A strange article. Cohen is anti-Milne, virulently anti-Corbyn, and anti-far left in general, but is clearly a Labour supporter. I guess he just wants a “kinder, gentler” Labour, one which is a bit more pragmatic in its tactics but is still aiming to achieve its socialist goals.
@Laird, yes, that probably is it. However, the things he despises are the true colours of socialism. The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.
A self-revealing quote in the article is where Nick says that, “When his supporters believe that all they need do to oppose austerity, the bankers, etc, is to say they are against them, then, by definition, their opponents cannot have honest objections, only evil intentions. Like sin, they must be purged.”
Yes, that is the definition of the left. A libertarian and/or right-winger can agree with the (supposedly-Churchillian) aphorism that “He who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart. He who is still a socialist at 40 has no head.” By contrast, the left has always believed there are obvious solutions – not unavoidable trade-offs – so those who oppose them are deeply stupid or very prejudiced or simply evil. Honest intelligent disagreement – even honest mistakes of non-idiotic people, to be cured only by decades of experience in all those not humble enough to draw on the experience of others – is philosophically difficult for the left at a very deep level. Allow yourself to doubt that solutions are easy and obvious, and you will soon find yourself wondering whether state intervention can achieve them at all. From there to looking back on your socialist self at 20 from the vantage point of a less arrogant 40 is but a step. Deciding to stay left means refusing to become this person, refusing to review the experience that is trying to make this person..
A second revealing quote was his claim that millions need an effective Labour opposition and “They need it now when the right has taken the opportunity the far left has gifted them to go on the rampage.” I fear what he calls a rampage I will call a walk in the park – a very sedate risk-free walk in the nearside of the park while the hoi-poloi look over the ha-ha wishing for a bit more respect from the elite. But those millions need not look to Nick or Labour to provide an effective opposition.
All of which leads to the third revealingly-absent quote. We are a two party system. If one dies, another replaces it. “When one faction perisheth, the remainder subdivideth.” Nowhere does he name that party.
The concept that the “ruling party” needs an “effective opposition” is nothing more than making a sour case for your own existence, we do not need an opposition any more than we need a ruling party. If parliament was honest, members would vote with the needs of their constituents in mind, but like all political retards, they quickly forget their real reason for being there once they step though the door of the Palace of Westminster and bow down to naked unashamed primal tribalism.
Labour is no different, it’s members are as blind to the wishes of the electorate that gave them their job and pay for it, like every other partisan carpetbagger. Trying to rope in an argument for democracy is vacuous when the very existence of a exclusive politically aligned club seeks the vestiges of power solely to act on its dogmatic whims and completely disregard the voters who placed their trust in them.
Cohen, Milne, Corbyn and the entire GMG, are all part of the problem. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to see them wallow in the mire of their own making. The fact they are leftists and they have utterly failed to capitalize on the golden opportunity of a major meltdown by the Tories is just a few extra buckets of popcorn during the show.
I don’t believe the major meltdown is by any means over, either. I would bet that many of the party members won’t forget being denied a vote in the leadership contest.
would bet that many of the party members won’t forget being denied a vote in the leadership contest.
And I would bet they’ll have forgotten after the next 10 years on the gravy train of power, for that is ultimately the greater desire, they didn’t all make peace with each other for the sake of jolly old Britain.
Wrote a comment at the Guardian the other day that was solely a short list of statistics from the Dept of Justice and other government sources regarding crime in the US.
It was deleted. Math is banned at the Guardian apparently.
Chip: “Math is banned at the Guardian apparently.”
Math is banned there because it is not understood. Remember the dude on the plane getting reported for writing differential equations on the flight? Same same.