Hurrah For The Blackshirts Etc

[poliphilo]

Own goal? Possibly. I understand the social media are awash with scans of Viscount Rothermere's article "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" and the photograph of him and Hitler dividing up the world between them. You dig up our dead and we'll dig up yours.

The Mail was counting on its readers having a visceral reaction to the words "communist" and "Marxist" and "socialist" but Britain  isn't the USA (and never was) and the Cold War has been over for a generation.

Did Ralph Miliband hate Britain? No, of course he didn't. He made his home here and enjoyed a successful and honoured career and (a little hypocrisy here, perhaps?) put his kids through Oxford. He was exasperated by aspects of our society and wanted to see change. Who doesn't? If the system were perfect why would anyone- left or right- ever bother to get involved in politics?

Ed Miliband will probably be our next Prime Minister. The real issue isn't who his father was but whether he himself is up to the job. I must say he's doesn't look it, but who knows? Meanwhile The Mail has handed him the role of pious son rising up to vindicate the honour of his father and he's hoping to shine.

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

It has also been pointed out that Lord Rothermere loves Britain so much he's a non-dom tax exile.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But a Tory donor, right?

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I loved my father. My father greatly admired both Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. I cared for neither, but allowed my father to have his opinions while I had mine. Had I become President of the United States, I would not have followed either my father's political views or those of the people he admired.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My mother is still a paid up member of the Conservative party.

I took the line as a kid that if my parents were for it, I was against it.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

It goes like that.

Grandad was a Marxist.

Estranged Dad's a right wing Tory.

I'm a left wing Socialist..............

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My forebears were Tory as far as the eye can see- which isn't that far. My sister and I are lefties and our kids are a mixed bunch.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's to be expected as you come from a somewhat posher background than I do. Common as muck, me! Now where's that forelock, or am I supposed to curtsey? :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My grandfather grew up in Erith- near the docks. Last time I looked there was a redundant nightclub occupying the site of the ancestral corner terrace.

His mother kept a boarding house and I've always suspected that his father(my great grandfather) was a passing sailor.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that the timing has rather knocked the Tory party conference off the headlines this week, which was surely hardly their intent.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, it meant Miliband got to dominate Cameron's conference as well as his own.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I can't say I'm taken by Miliband. He seems cut from the same cloth as Cameron and Clegg, with no awareness of how the great majority of people have to work within their modest budgets, and no particular political conviction. In particular, I remain deeply unimpressed with how all three openly support the abhorrence of workfare, wherein the unemployed are forced onto useless jobs - but wait, they're not jobs, as those would be covered by the Minimum Wage Act! Instead, it's a fabulous wheeze that executes an end-run around it, letting the non-employers be paid for their serfs, whilst the workers continue to receive the princely sum of £70/week, which might even cover their commute costs and food.

Why the hell we should be paying the likes of Tesco and Asda to take on people in dead-end roles, I have no idea. And yet, here we are, with a scheme Labour instituted and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats openly support. Wretched.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We're looking at a political class that has very largely lost touch with the rest of the nation. It's a state of affairs that can't go on indefinitely.