" I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can't pay. I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor can't afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work – when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don't earn, they don't spend. When they don't spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet – when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort – with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound – when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less – when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.
"I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old."
And look who has brought it all to pass Mr Kinnock.
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11 comments:
Nice one, HG
how demoralising right now to be ... well, just about any member of the Labour Party
we can only sit back and enjoy Polly Toynbee's anguish
Sentimental pseudo working class Lawrentian crap culture benefit enjoyers, supporting stalinoid power-grabbing elites, topped off with psycho-fabian overtones.
Grrrrrr
Polly has to win an award this year. Can't think what it might be, but watching her catch up with the rest of us has been huge fun. I fell about laughing reading that CiF article. She really is a jewel in the corn of journalism, bless her.
At the risk of repeating myself (have posted this to some blog, but can't for the life of me recall which. Or be bothered to. But this piece of Pollery is quite recent
"Twice a year Gordon Brown fills his party's sails with pride. His tornado of facts and figures magics up images of untold national wealth and success.
Standing at the dispatch box, the towering superiority of his brain makes intellectual pygmies of his opponents."
Hmmmmm.
Brian Appleyard is funny on the death of Brown.
When Dave Bowman disconnects Hal in 2001 the computer suffers a slow mental breakdown. Just before he expires, he sings Daisy, Daisy. The dying Hal came to mind when I was watching Gordon Brown being interviewed by Andrew Marr. Large parts of his brain had clearly shut down and the bits that remained where just chanting familiar words taught his by his programmer - 'change', 'vision', 'Daisy, Daisy...'. This morning he is lying in a bath of coolant undergoing a hard reset in preparation for his press conference. But can the junta's cyberwonks stop him saying 'change'? It keeps raising the awkward question: change from what to what? Perhaps he intends to wallpaper the UK in a fetching pink stripe or set it on fire. Of course, he originally used the word to signal that he was not Tony Blair - remember him? But politicians in general use 'change' because they know most of the electorate is discontented most of the time. In this they are encouraged by those newspapers that, daily, tell us we are discontented. But there is a higher form of discontent, based on the certainty that 'change' changes nothing and that contentment is not bestowed by politicians. Their job is to stop things getting worse. It's hard and it's boring, but nobody made them go into politics. Meanwhile, I have an exclusive copy of the Brown statement at his press conference - 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...'
I thought this myself after hearing him repeat endlessly ‘change’ and vision’ like some sort of mantra
Why are New Labour New Dawn so fixated on being clever Elby? Most people are perfectly intellectually competent. Curiously those who are cognitively and emotionally incompetent are so often found mouthing off for NuLabNuDawn.
I do wonder if they are committed to the belief that knowing facts and figures is better than being able to think straight, that recall is a substitute for response.
There are academics who argue seriously that having a brain deficiency can be beneficial in the pursuit of an intellectual goal, and justify social and emotional incompetence by raising the value attached to mechanical, machine-intelligence style tasks.
I've found always that high intelligence is invariably associated with emotional warmth, responsiveness, intuitive quickness, turn-on-a-sixpence direction awareness, no -need- to- shoutiness.
And intellectual humility - none of which apply to any of these self congratulatory New Dawn Labour/Fabian clever clogs.
HG: I understood "Grrrrr", but I need a bit more elucidation on the rest.
Elby: I can't wait to switch to Polly-unsaturated. I don't think I ever met her (though she went to Monmouth School for Girls, close to ours), but I knew her brother and met her father; not sure I can say what I think here.
S, you are most welcome to say whatever you like here.
Unravelling my cri de coeur about the false consciousness and myth about the sturdy sons of toil and workers indulged by some political groups may take longer.
Elby, that Daisy Daisy simile is outstanding !
HG, you will be amused to learn that I re-posted the Ballad of Polly & Gordon, aka The One-Eyed Yellow Scotsman on CiF under her recent essay, but it only lasted 10 seconds before the Thought Police intervened
not quite as broad-minded over there it seems
(and the Graun has essentially purged its regular letters page, there have been almost none on the Great Leader's recent travails)
Your 'The Ballad of Polly and Gordon' is now out there though, isn't it ND?
Angels gave it pride of place but we do stand on the head of a pin.
Had Newmania gone on with his magazine it could have given the poetry section such a kick start.
What can be done to get it to come up on google? It's unsurprising the CiF thought police had it down in a trice. The miracle was it went there at all so presumably can still be found? Humourless, that's always a problem with authoritarians.
Bottom line, HG, is that they hold us in contempt; why else would they believe they have the right to dictate how we live. And soon, how we think. A plague on all their houses.
I do think it is coming undone. News today of Blairites getting their poking sticks ready. We earnestly hope and pray. As the saying goes, I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. Not unless I could piss petrol, that is.
HG, there may be other places to post it, perhaps with a few asterisks substituted, for the protection of the innocent ...
(and then scamper off cackling into the night)
Mockery is the key !
Yes Nick, "Mockery is the key !"
AKA "Una risata vi seppellirà"!
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