I think it’s time we’re all encouraged (forced) to explain what we mean when we accuse people of belonging to specific ‘wings’. For instance what does “Momentum” actually mean when it says it regards Tom Watson as rather right wing?
One used to think of your archetypal right wing person as heard-hearted, disciplinarian, pious, moustachioed, buttoned-up and bristling with repressed sexuality and overt racism. Not very nice, in fact.
Your left-winger was more attractive. Cool; relaxed, tolerant, devoutly sympathetic to the lame and disadvantaged and open to new ideas. Progressive. In summary, a good egg, and champion of the unconventional and the avant-garde to boot. These ideas are old-hat, though.
Now I’m right wing! Me, the free-spirited child of unconventional parents. Me, an art-school graduate, even though, at the time, I didn’t take any much notice of the tuition on offer, for what it was worth, (which, one could argue, was a sign of an independent spirit.)
Really, I assume I’m labelled right-wing because I haven’t joined the left-wing alliance with Islam and I don’t subscribe to the deceitful concept that Muslims are the new Jews.
Of course the Conservative party itself has been confused for some time. Both the government and the opposition have been sidling to the left, inch by inch.
The Telegraph boasts of its conscious editorial decision to move to the left, and there’s many a lefty piece in the Times. When left-wing Jewish writers contribute to the Guardian some people call them “house Jews’, which is not at all nice; but the fact is that when their actual Jewishness is exploited to shield the newspaper from charges of antisemitism, they literally become useful idiots.
No. I’m right-wing purely because I defend Israel against the media’s outrageous bias against it.
Well, not purely because. I have other right-wing attitudes too, so I’m led to believe, but I prefer to think of them as belated signs of maturity. For example mothers being encouraged to dump put their offspring in low-cost daycare so they can pursue their real careers. I didn’t think much of that as an aspiration and I still don’t.
While we’re at it, let’s say something about the Labour manifesto too. As Matthew Parris says in The Times, (from which Laura Perrins quotes at length) what we are lacking is any credible opposition from the Conservatives to the incredible opposition provided by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
We need Theresa May to articulate loudly and clearly why some of the utopian-sounding ideas and attractive-sounding handouts in Labour’s manifesto aren’t the answer, and warning of the unintended consequences that would ensue should they be implemented, sure as night follows day. And if Theresa may is too aloof to ‘debate’ with Corbyn, the BBC should step up to the plate and give the voting public something nice and gristly to chew on.
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Jeremy’s journey
How can people be allowed to get away with saying that Jeremy Corbyn is an honest man and a man of integrity. It’s upsetting to hear people heaping him with undeserved praise for the very qualities he lacks, especially when they do so in front of people who obviously know no better. It needs to be challenged by people who do know better.
There must be someone in the BBC who’s aware of Corbyn’s murky past, and if so they should inform the audience even if it’s only as a preamble to one of their fanciful tales about his ‘journey’
