by
Les May
I
RECENTLY described how Labour MP Chris
Williamson
had been given a platform for his ‘Democracy
Roadshow’
and
was
given a standing ovation at the end of his talk.
My
assumption was that an attempt had been made to deny him a platform
at the recent
event
to remember those
killed
at St Peter’s
Field
in August 1819 for
much the same reasons that are detailed in the Wikipedia entry at;
These boil down to the fact that
some Jewish groups object to him speaking.
Having
listened to him speak I am more inclined to accept that the only
other reason mooted, that he is ‘divisive’,
may have some merit. Although
he made it clear that he is a supporter of Jeremy
Corbyn
and
I accept he was
‘singing from
the same hymn sheet’,
I was not convinced he was singing quite
the
same tune.
I
see
Corbyn’s approach to domestic issues as being in the same mould as
Clement Attlee,
someone
who was never mentioned by Tony
Blair.
Williamson’s
concerns seemed more in the mould of Tony
Benn
with
some vague ideas about worker’s co-operatives and some ideas about
finance which did not seem to have been worked out.
He
also found time to criticise Denis
Healey’s
Chancellorship,
Ed Millibrand
and shadow
Chancellor
John McDonnell.
(The
Wikipedia entry on Healey’s stint as Chancellor is well worth
reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Healey)
Many
of the Fleet Street
scribblers are old enough to remember Labour in the days of Tony
Benn, but too young to remember what the Atlee government did for
people like my parents, and hence for me and my siblings.
So
it’s easy, very easy, for them to frighten voters into accepting
the story that Corbyn is part of the ‘extreme
Left wing’
of the Labour party.
When
I sat and reflected
upon what he said
I came to the conclusion that Chris Williamson was trying to convince
his audience that the socialist millenium was just around the corner,
if only we followed his nostrums. I don’t think it is. The
pressing issues I want Labour to put right before we start thinking
about anything else, including arguing over Trident,
are
the obscene
inequalities in income and wealth in this country, the lack of
council houses with affordable rents, the rise of the ‘rentier’
class, lack of job security, the no pay/low pay cycle which means the
‘poor’
stay poor. As Denis Healey pointed out in the 1970s these have to be
paid for, and it’s the very rich who are going to have to do some
of the paying. And they are not going to like it.
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