Monday, February 20, 2012

Quote of the Day

It may that those who see them on the news will find something distasteful in a minister trying to go about his business being booed, shoved and barracked by a collection of angry demonstrators, many of whom seemed to be untroubled by the pressures of full time employment.
Indeed.

That's the fault line in modern politcs: between squidy left of right of centre Tories on the one hand and faeces-flinging howler monkeys on the other. Liberals think the NHS is a winning issue for them, but with patients starving to death in hospitals, they may want to rethink their strategy of jamming their fingers in their ears and singing 'The Red Flag' every time someone critcises the system.

All the ideas for fixing the NHS are coming from the right. Then again, all the ideas for anything much are coming from the right. Progressives don't actually seem to want to progress anywhere, and instead the Labour Party has turned into the political equivalent of a Seventies bar.

All of which, as ever, proves Cameronism is garbage. There's the obvious point that the sleazy, split the difference, somewhere in the middle wheeling and dealing doesn't really work when your opponents are crazier than an LSD abusing hatter with post-traumatic stress disorder, but there's something deeper going on.

The Tories have, no matter how haltingly, pushed forward with a conservative policy, and the left has exposed itself as a bunch of screeching maniacs. Forget Special Ed's constant attempts to launch Even Newer Labour, these lunatics are the authentic face of the modern left and someone as smart as Cameron keeps telling us he is would be making sure the Labour Party own them.

To the point: liberals aren't having a meltdown because they can win in the marketplace of ideas. Conservatism wins every time it's advanced with conviction and vigour and to the extent that the left is now starting to lose ground on one of their core issues, it's a perfect rebuttal to the apologetic cringe conservatism of the 'respectable right'.

6 comments:

JuliaM said...

Notice the newspaper descriptions - in some, the main harridan is 'a pensioner'. In others - those a lot more honest - she's 'an ex-union official'...

Mr Grumpy said...

Well she is a pensioner, complete with railcard. So the party political for whichever Trotskyist sectlet it is she belongs to was a bargain indeed.

Rob said...

She's a far-left loon, Revolutionary Workers Party or suchlike. Have you read the transcript? She's batty as fuck.

"WHen are you going home?" Eh??!

Switch sides, and have a Labour minister barracked by a pensioner. The BBC and Labour would have smeared her before the broadcast hit people's TVs.

JuliaM said...

Her vehemence has apparently upset a few of the left. They don't like to let people see the true face of their side.

North Northwester said...

"...the apologetic cringe conservatism of the 'respectable right'. "

And how difficult would it have been for Cameron to say to his Cabinet, his MPs and party during the recent 'bonusgate' smokescreen campaign that was so successfully mounted by the Labour Party and the BBC (oh, did I write 'and? my bad) ,
'Say after me: "The bonuses earned during the building boom were earned under Labour. Labour set up the building boom and Labour were in charge of the bust and all they could think of was to bail out the banks with your money. Labour bankrupted Britain and your chldrens' futures, people, and a few mil bonuses to a handful of ageing yuppies compared to trillions of debt you and your grandkids will work all your lives to pay off is peanuits. Don't let the guilty Labour Party off the hook."
Cameron could have handed out little notes to his ministers and backbenchers and urged them to try to slip the truth into the few interviews they were granted.
But no; they actually tried to face the scapgoaters on their own terms.
And they say Cameron's a political genius for de-toxing the brand.

Rob said...

"ultra-leftist". Good description.

BTW, mention of her anti-Jewish marches prompted me to muse on where the anti-war marchers were, what with Syria shelling it's own civilians and stuff. Don't they get out of bed in the mornings unless there are Jews to bait?