I have heard it mentioned, more than once I must add, that Polly Toynbee lives in a little world all of her own. Not true, I say. This is a woman who knows only too well that ‘dark forces’ are gathering on yonder horizon and they are attacking not just politicians but (shudder!) the institution of government itself:
This approach is in danger of making the country nearly ungovernable: were Iain Duncan Smith to win power, his government would get barely more respite these days. Journalism of left and right converges in an anarchic zone of vitriol where elected politicians are always contemptible, their policies not just wrong but their motives all self-interest. Those on the left should take this very seriously indeed.
Taking it seriously is one thing. Doing something about it is quite another.
The right is individualist, anti-government, anti-tax, anti-collective provision.
Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?
Undermining the idea that government is a force for good is its ideological aim, alongside the mad militias of Idaho. But the left, which purports to believe in government, should be wary of joining the same all-governments-are-rubbish camp. This anarcho-individualism is a very British mindset – and it is not compatible with social democracy.
Idaho is in Britain???!!
Still, she is right about individualism being incompatible with social democracy. She also has some robust ideas on how governments (or left-of-centre governments I suppose) can fight back:
It is time to shed the third way triangulation that strangles clarity of message. Trust comes with a sense of purpose, direction and clear belief, unmuffled by trying to please the enemy. So when some newspapers continue to distort, cut them off and denounce them bravely. Making enemies also makes friends.
No, I don’t think that’s going to work. The trouble with social democracy is that it doesn’t light any brushfires in the mind. It’s boring. The narcolepsy-inducing details of Keynsian pump-priming will simply not lend themselves to set jawlines, steely-determination and blood-curdling battle cries. If your aim is to turn the whole world into Sweden, you’re going to have to find an altogether gentler horse to ride it around on.
Once more into the breech, Ms.Toynbee.
The right is individualist, anti-government, anti-tax, anti-collective provision.
Man, what “right” is she looking at? Why can’t I seem to find them? 🙂
This is true in a broad sense, but even then it’s only to a certain degree. Otherwise, the American Right would have stood up and tossed Bush out of office on the (de)merits of his government’s spending habits alone.
She’s using “right” to mean “nasty people who disagree with me”. Rather like TB’s “forces of conservatism”. (And compare the BBC’s Teheran correspondant who described the attack on the UK Embassy this week as attributed to a “right-wing” group.)
To my mind, Toynbee has recently got much harder to read. There’s no real point to any of her articles, just a series of tautological rambles on the need for more tax, more government, more collective provision. One expects that sort of thing from an amateur production (a blog, say) but not from a professional journalist in great newspaper. Is she well? Is the Guardian?
Guy,
Don’t forget Hillary’s right wing conspiracy! I joined as soon as Hillary put me on to it.
“So when some newspapers continue to distort, cut them off and denounce them bravely.”
Cut them off? Just what does THAT mean?
A guess: boycott them.
Being only a little older than me, PT will have lived through a period of idiocy when student common rooms and local authority libraries refused to take any Murdoch owned newspaper because he had defeated the print unions. Maybe she thinks government advertising should be withheld from papers that criticise the state. Maybe she’s going to refuse to write for the Daily Telegraph. And snub Charles Moore and the sainted Boris at parties.
I rather think that Polly had in mind some good ol’ lefty moral righteousness as her alternative rather than the economic minutiae of Keynesian pump-priming.
The left are never so open about their means or motives any more because it simply causes too much squealing.
No, far better to bore the populace into submission with third way dribble, while making tiny but relentless inroads towards their goal.
The thing about Marxists and their fellow travellers is that everything is political, and though Toynbee might be getting more woolly minded, this aspect of her character still shines through. Last night she was a guest speaker on Front Row (BBC Radio 4 daily arts-review programme), talking about “Calendar Girls” (title correct?) in which Helen Mirren (aaahh!) et al get their kit off for the WI. Amongst other criticisms, it seems that the film fails for PT because of its “lack of social commentary” and its being “soft around the edges”, charges that could never be laid at the door of anything by e.g. Ken Loach, of whom I imagine PT strongly approves.
student common rooms and local authority libraries refused to take any Murdoch owned newspaper because he had defeated the print unions
The b*****ds stopped us from watching Sky for the same reason, even though the Union president had got a decoder and subscription free for the bar.
Boycott for yourself is fine. Boycott for others is called censorship.
“If your aim is to turn the whole world into Sweden, you’re going to have to find an altogether gentler horse to ride it around on.”
Turn the world into Sweden? That would be really bad. Besides, socialism isn’t working much better here than anywhere else – this country is going down the drain thanks to it. Who ever said socialism in Sweden works? Myths and propagande, that’s all. There’s just a bunch of people too indoctrinated to see that it really isn’t working…
Johan:
Why don’t you write something more substantial on this? We are always having the Swedish social-democratic model pushed in our faces by the centre-left. It would be good to read an expose / analysis from the inside and you sound as though you are perfectly placed.
Cydonia
David:
And there was me thinking that PT is the silliest women in England. Unusually for Toynbee, her analysis this time is pretty much spot on – which is excellent news for us!
The more, politics and politicians are rubbished and distrusted, the better chance there is of a move towards less politics and less government
Cydonia
“The more, politics and politicians are rubbished and distrusted, the better chance there is of a move towards less politics and less government
Cydonia”
The more pessimistic among us think, here we go again, a tyrant (and given the place and times, his adminstrative tyranny) will rise to “save” us.
Fred
…Once more into the breach, Ms.Toynbee…
Had David seen fit to spell that as “breech“, one could then insert Ms. Toynbee into the nearest cannon and insert her into her proper orbit around whatever planet is her real abode.
Idaho is in Britain?
Pity, I’d move there if it were no further away than Scotland and with Idaho’s existing tax and legal status. In fact I think I can confidently predict that a lot of Samizdatistas would.
Somehow I don’t think that Mr Brendon Fearon would pay me a nocturnal visit there.
…”Somehow I don’t think that Mr Brendon Fearon would pay me a nocturnal visit there.”
He might arrive, how he exits might be a totally different matter.
Foir many moon now I’ve thought of starting a website called Talent Redistribution that aims to help the useful escape from countries espousing tax slavery. I just cannot think of a destination…
When y’all are done with Idaho, could you bring it by the apartment? If we’re not at home, you can just leave it at the leasing agent’s office, we’ll pick it up later.
kthx!
Thanks to Jeannie above for pointing out my blooper. Now corrected. My bad.
Toynbee,that caloused handed daughter of toil has never really had a proper day job,straight from student essays to columnist.It would have been better if she had spent some years pulling a plough.
I’ve re-read her article in the context of messages emanating from the government in the last few days and I have a new theory about what she means by “cut them off”. She’s saying that media that don’t treat the government with respect should be denied lobby briefings, leaks, interviews and releases and have to get their information second hand.
A number of Labour (and LibDem) politicians have popped up in the last few days to plug the idea that the media and especially the BBC should show more deference in our new spin-free climate, now that government press-relations are safely back in the hands of career civil-servants.
Steve –
I moved up to Idaho from Houston a few years ago. Come on up the weather’s fine. No sign of militias yet, but there are plenty of former Californians.
Keith Johnson