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Leamington Letters #89: the countdown

3/2/2015

8 Comments

 
In the every smith household, we are counting down the days to the wedding of the year. In the Red Sox Nation, we are counting down the days to pitchers and catchers. And throughout the UK, we are counting down the days to the general election.

It was to the latter that I turned my attention last Friday, when I found myself at the Irish Club in Leamington to hear Tom Watson MP give a rallying cry to Labour activists in the constituency. I confess I felt something of a fraud, because by no stretch could I be described or even describe myself, as an ‘activist’. Lately, especially lately, my contributions to the political debate have been merely despairing rants about the decline of real democracy on a national and particularly local level, and the failure of our elected representatives to address the issues which actually concern us.

But that was before I met Tom Watson.
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Tom is the MP who famously and forensically destroyed the Murdochs, famously observing when James Murdoch once again claimed to have no knowledge of wrong-doing, that he (Murdoch) was “the first mafia boss in history who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise”.

Arriving early, I was able to meet him personally and discuss politics and football and the state of the nation with him individually for a few moments. And my conclusion is that if every voter were able to have this kind of one-to-one conversation with the man, Labour would win by a landslide.

This was confirmed when he spoke formally to an audience which had grown to about a hundred people. He told us that “so many public institutions were failing on a huge scale”, and that the fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS was only one example of the way in which the government was systematically destroying the country.

Nevertheless, he was “optimistic about the 7th May”, because he believed in the empowering state, citing not only the NHS (“the jewel in the crown”) but also Labour achievements such as the Open University and the CEGB.

Of course, he was speaking primarily (though not exclusively) to Labour supporters, and the questioning was largely concerned with potential “rebuttals” of arguments from Greens and Tories. As for the leadership, he told us he had “a huge belief in Miliband” which surprised me because he went so much further than a conventional expression of loyalty, but which was reinforced when, the following day, I was discussing the talk with a director of a major PLC who had worked with Miliband during the last government. He also expressed his admiration for the man.

I am still not sure. Although I agree that the Tories want to turn the election into “a referendum on the last government”, although I accept that Ed has been the target of an unpleasant press campaign to discredit him, I have several ideological differences with him and the current Labour leadership.

But they are insignificant compared with my major ideological differences with the Cameron-Clegg coalition, the Ant and Dec of party politics.

Which is why I have now joined the Labour Party – yes, again – and why I intend to become an ‘activist’ in the next 90-odd days.

As we say in St Quentin la Poterie, “Soyons combatif! Soyons optimiste!”

Today from the everysmith vault: For the second day running, the 35 minutes of Shadows in the Night. Bizarrely beautiful.

8 Comments
Nick
3/2/2015 03:04:17

Fine words. Look forward to the actions.

Reply
Hugh
3/2/2015 03:15:51

My worry is that Labour has lost it already. It lost it when it allowed itself to be taken over by Blair. It lost it when it gave power over interest rates to the Bank of England. It lost it when it collaborated in Blair's wars. It lost it when it introduced private companies into the NHS.

It has been a top down organisation for too long. It needs to rebuild from the bottom.

Can you - public school and Oxbridge - contribute to this? Really?

Reply
Ellie
3/2/2015 04:22:58

Huge admirer of Tom Watson. He could convince me to vote Labour - with no illusions as you would say - but need thousands more like him to get me knocking on doors. Good luck!

Reply
RichardC
3/2/2015 04:32:58

Ed supports the Sox. You should support him! Go Sox! Go Labour!

Reply
Allan
3/2/2015 04:53:30

About time! It's important. PS do they really say that?

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PaulB link
3/2/2015 08:20:18

This is good. The country needs everyone to put an end to Osborne's class war economic policy. The priority is to use politics to make changes in what is clearly becoming a vicious attack on the way we have lived and worked for a generation. Give them a second term and they will tear us apart.

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Tony
3/2/2015 11:50:52

The problem has been of one of naïvety on the part of the real Labour Party, confusing electoral success with ideological acceptance. The fact is, Labour betrayed Labour. and it was these guys, who never worked a serious day in their lives, who went along with Blair and Brown. They are the same people who screwed us before. And you are joining them?!

Reply
Mike
7/2/2015 02:44:26

After the performance of Balls the other night, you're going to have a hard sell.

Reply



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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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