re: lefty guardian exposed as fraud 2 Cowards of the left Our...

re: lefty guardian exposed as fraud 2

Cowards of the left

Our so-called liberal elite stands back and lets IraqÕs fascists fight freedom with terror

Nick Cohen
Sunday January 9, 2005

The Observer

I live in an area which isnÕt so much a place made up of streets on the map and people on the electoral register as a curse on and shorthand for all that is wrong with Britain. I live in Islington. If you believe most of the politicians and journalists you will hear in the run-up to the general election, ÔIslingtonÕ and the Ôliberal eliteÕ who slurp their lattes in its cafes are responsible for depraving the morals of the public and sapping the strength of the nation.

The limp-wristed are surprisingly strong. In the past few months, Robert Kilroy-Silk reported with rage a survey of the Ômetropolitan media eliteÕ which found that they are Ôinvariably left-wing, live in north London - Camden and Islington - [and] read the Guardian.Õ

The Daily Telegraph described the decision of Islington council to change the name of St Mary Magdalene School because the ÔsaintÕ was divisive as a Ôsymptom of something very sickÕ. Other cuttings show that the liberal elite is responsible for drug addiction, crime, yobbishness, sluttishness, incivility, insolence and ignorance.

Tony Blair asserts that Ôpeople have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensusÕ. New Labour will appeal to Ôhard-working familiesÕ in the election campaign with some good promises on childcare and the usual Ôeye-catching initiativesÕ on ID cards, asylum seekers and the rest. Launching the Conservative pre-election push on Tuesday, Michael Howard said that he wanted to talk to the abandoned Britain, the slighted Britain, the hard-working, law-abiding Britain of the Ôforgotten majorityÕ. IÕve been dissecting this humbug for so long I can do it in my sleep now. To take it from the top, the scandal about BritainÕs television stations and many of its other cultural institutions is not that they are run by people who are motivated by anything so high-minded as converting the public to a political philosophy, but that they are run by well-educated and very well-paid men and women from the upper-middle class who protect themselves and their privately educated children from competition by feeding the masses mush - the favoured policy of aristocracies down the ages. That they do none the less read liberal newspapers and pretend that their pursuit of profit and market share is a radical blow in the anti-elitist class struggle is merely a sign that they have fooled themselves along with everyone else.

Until a few months ago the Telegraph newspapers were owned by a man accused of embezzlement who may be going to prison and its writers are not yet in a position to talk about the sickness in society.

The decline in British morals and civility took place under a succession of old Tory and New Labour governments united by their common contempt for bleeding-heart liberals.

BlairÕs and HowardÕs Ôhard-working familiesÕ and the Ôforgotten majorityÕ are intentional echoes of the appeals of Bill Clinton to Ôthe forgotten middle classÕ and Richard Nixon to Ôthe silent majorityÕ.

ItÕs standard populist politics to run as the outsider who speaks up for the decent people who are betrayed and done down by degenerate metropolitan sophisticates.

Although in the case of the British first-past-the-post system, the plain people of England turn out to be a few hundred thousand feckless swing voters in the 80 most marginal seats, who are anything but ÔforgottenÕ by the political class or, come to that, a ÔmajorityÕ.

Finally, and unforgivably in the view of my neighbours, our anti-liberal populists canÕt even get Islington right. Most of the borough is miserable. The usual causes of poverty - unemployment, non-union jobs and single parent-hood - combine with high London prices to make it wretchedly poor. The few gentrified streets did once house members of the leftish intelligentsia.

But since the property bubble inflated, the old Islington middle class is being steadily replaced by partners in City law firms, venture capitalists and Spectator journalists with their harems of mistresses.

A family home is now as far beyond the means of a lecturer at one of the London universities as a house in Summertown, Didsbury or Moseley is beyond the means of lecturers at Oxford, Manchester or Birmingham universities.

If you want to find victims, itÕs tempting to turn populist rhetoric on its head and share the pain of the poor, persecuted liberals.

Those clever, modest and misunderstood people of principle are libelled by the hypocrites of Fleet Street and beaten as a useful scapegoat by Blair and Howard.

Surely they, the supposed elitists, are the ones who deserve our sympathy and solidarity?

If only it were that easy.

Last week occured an event which was scarcely reported but which further called into question the notion of a principled liberal-left, let alone one coherent and confident enough to form an elite.

Hadi Salih, international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was tied and blindfolded and tortured by Baathist ÔinsurgentsÕ loyal to Saddam Hussein before being forced to kneel, strangled by electric cord and shot.

I shouldnÕt be shocked that there hasnÕt been a squeak of protest from the anti-war movement at the killing of a brave socialist, but I am. Two years ago I believed that after the war people who opposed it for good reasons would vow to pursue Blair and Bush for what they had done to their graves, but have the intellectual honesty to accept that SaddamÕs regime was fascist in theory and in practice and the good nature to offer fraternal support the Iraqi socialists, democrats and liberals in their deadly struggle.

More fool me. The Stop the War Coalition, which organised one million people to march through the streets of London, told the kidnappers and torturers from the Baath Party and al-Qaeda that the anti-war movement Ôrecognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessaryÕ. Its leading figures purport to be on the left, but have cheered on the far-right and betrayed their comrades by denouncing Iraqi trade unionists as ÔQuislingsÕ and ÔcollaboratorsÕ.

There have been a few honourable protests: Mick Rix, the former leader of the train drivers union, walked out in disgust saying that the anti-war movement was putting the lives of Iraqi trade unionists at risk. (Its denunciations of better and braver men and women than the British pseudo-leftists could ever be were reported in Arab newspapers which circulate in Iraq.)

Rix was joined by Unison and Labour backbenchers, but thatÕs been about it. Not only the Stop the War Coalition but the bulk of liberal-left opinion in the country and on the planet, is at best indifferent to the fight to stop the return of tyranny and at worse wants to spite the Americans by having the bombers stop elections. If you doubt how widespread this malign impulse has become, ask why it is that the BBC has never covered the story of the totalitarian nature of the leaders of the anti-war movement when it would have had kittens on air if, say, the Countryside Alliance had been a front for the British National Party.

You could write a book on how the left has gone right. Now I come to think of it, I have: Pretty Straight Guys , available in all good shops. The death of socialism, the crimes of the disastrous Bush presidency and the desire for an easy life are all in there. But the fundamental point is that it no longer makes sense to talk of a Ôliberal eliteÕ when what it means to be a liberal or on the left is being riven by basic disputes of principle.

Many donÕt want to acknowledge the breakdown. Times when old certainties fall apart are unsettling. They force people to decide what they believe in: Do you want priests to be able to control ÔtheirÕ people? Are you for fascism? If you answer ÔnoÕ to both questions, you will undoubtedly find when the battle is joined that you will have to spend as much time fighting the left as the right.