The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Who is it who:

has made an extraordinary contribution to the advance of this State in many spheres during his eleven years in high office.

Who…

played a phenomenal role in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland;

and…

presided over the best of the Celtic Tiger years which define Ireland’s position, strategically and economically, in the world today;

But not stopping there, who:

unified his party in the wake of the disastrous and damaging divisions of the 1980s; espoused consensus, not just in successive national wage agreements but on the greater European stage; and, excelled at the art of politics by embracing coalition and…

and?

…making Fianna Fáil indispensible to the formation of government for the forseeable future.

Whose…

achievements, to coin the phrase of the celebrity culture in which he lives, are awesome.

Wait a second. That’s Bertie Ahern they’re talking about… and it’s the Irish Times these words appear in. And not merely the Irish Times, but the Irish Times editorial. And this on foot of a multi-page overview, retrospective and biography of the man in the paper itself.

Such honeyed words, such praise… for consider the following…

Cumulatively, historians will judge whether they exceed those of any other Fianna Fáil leader or Taoiseach in their day. His place in Irish history is guaranteed. His electoral success, the real test of any party leader, comes closest to that of Eamon de Valera.

Of course this being the Irish Times editorial there has to be a bit of grit in the honey, the sort of grit that is impossible to remove without smashing the jar, discarding what is left and forgetting about the toast… for…

It could be argued that his performance exceeds de Valera’s in one important respect because he held office for three terms without ever winning an overall majority for Fianna Fáil.

Ouch!

But after this slight case of leaves on the tracks it’s everyone back on the praise train…

His lasting legacy is the achievement of the Belfast Agreement which led him to claim in his address to the Joint Houses of Congress in the United States last week: “I am so proud, Madam Speaker, to be the first Irish leader to inform the United States Congress: Ireland is at peace”.

His human qualities?

Unlike the eleven Taoisigh to preceed him, Bertie Ahern earned the respect of the people in the manner in which he grasped the opportunities presented to him. His support from the people was hard won by achievement in many different spheres. And, over-riding it all, there was an affection for his affability, his ordinariness, his common touch. He was always a man of the people. He struck a chord with voters: businessmen and Belfast men, trade union activists and members, women and separated families, culchies and North Dublin Dubs.

Then come these…

* * *

Praise over, down to the hard stuff? Well yes and no.

There is no doubt that his historic achievement was the successful negotiation of the Belfast Agreement and the bedding down of the peace process which, on his resignation, has a devolved, multi-party coalition government in operation in Northern Ireland controlled by the extremes of Dr Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party and Gerry Adams’s Sinn Fein.

See? They’re still not happy about the ‘extremes’ (although go read Jonathan Powells excellent point in this months Prospect which notes that it was John Hume who opened the door to Adams and Sinn Féin in the 1980s, and who refused to countenance any agreement without them - a very different proposition from that implicitly made by the Irish Times and others about the ‘moderates’ being shouldered aside) And then a masterfully ambiguous line…

This development may not have happened without the presence of Mr Ahern.

Indeed.

While other party leaders had the grand vision to dare imagine a possible solution - ….Mr Ahern was the man to deliver on the day. He was the right man in the right place at the right time.

Well, that’s history for you. Them’s the breaks. Still, the text becomes - shall we say - more double-edged in its assessment… consider the following…

He may not have had the vision of his predecessors to construct the framework for peace, but his particular skills came into play in the intense negotiations to follow.

The first part of that sentence is extraordinary. How on earth can we tell? Since he wasn’t Taoiseach in earlier times it’s unknowable.

He achieved the consensus to bring the peace process forward, not just in constitutional, administrative and political terms, but he built up a relationship with the unionists, a trust between Dr Paisely and himself, the likes of which has never been seen before. He has transformed the North/South and the Anglo/Irish relationship.

Some more of these…

* * *

And this time we have praise and criticism…

On the home front, Mr Ahern had hugely significant achivements also. He presided over the best of the Celtic Tiger years when this State witnessed wealth beyond our wildest dreams…But, there are two areas, in retrospect now, where he did not make progress: on the health service and on infrastructual development…

A bit of party politics…

In his years as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern brought politicis to a fine art. He inherited a deeply divided party after the Haughey years and made it whole again. He crafted coalition governments to suit the electoral mood of the day. He introduced the concept of the five-year term of office. He did the unthinkable by bringing the Green Party into the current coalition arrrangement even when their numbers were not strictly needed. In the process, he has made Fianna Fáil almost indispensible to government-formation.

No dispute there… but a shadow passes in front of the sun…

Yet, any honest attempt to assess the legacy of Bertie Ahern must record that there was another side to the man. He espoused a set of political standards for others that he did not live by himself. He had to resign, in the end, because of his handling of matters before the Mahon Tribunal relating to the controversial payments he received when he was Minister for Finance. He was caught by the culture of a former time. He breached a trust with the people today.

Interesting. Not the issues themselves, but the ‘handling’… very interesting. Still, every cloud has a silver lining…

His departure marks the end of the Haughey era.

And even that is better than bad…

Unlike his mentor, … , Mr Ahern did this State considerable service over many, many years. He lived for politics. And when history comes to be written, Bertie Ahern will be remembered for the political achievments of a lifetime far more than the squalid stories about his monies.

Hmmmm… squalid stories you say? What an interesting, and almost detached phrase. No mention of the small matter that the Irish Times, and in particular its editorial pages has been at the forefront of discussing these issues. Still, perhaps even the IT worries a bit about the heavy and un-nuanced hand of history and after all, why spoil a beautiful early Summers day?

I can’t decide is this completely craven or of a piece with the statements in the Dáil a week or so back, where the great and the good turned their noses up at Caoimhín O’Caoláin for actually having the temerity in a fairly straightforward, and not ungracious, piece to point out some of the garments that the emperor appeared to be lacking (most entertaining was Stephen Collins inevitably sniffy remarks about C O’C in the Irish Times the following weekend, considering Collins approach to this matter over the years). There is something distasteful about the way in which bonhomie asserts itself in these instances. Either the situation is serious enough to require a serious response, or it isn’t. And I’m not talking about the scattergun approach of insulting Ahern personally that appears almost like a therapeutic process for some which has absolutely no purchase on the political realities, but a considered and collected engagement with these issues, warts and all.

Still, the biscuit is well and truly taken in a further piece by Harry McGee which seriously discusses his future prospects as either President of Ireland, or President of the council of Ministers of the EU. Sure…

The major stumbling block is how his ongoing dealings with the Mahon tribunal play to other EU political leaders.

But that these, a potential political life post Tribunal - are potential outcomes tells us a lot about both the process we have seen and the reality of political life. Because the nearly but not quite approach of the Irish Times is both reflection and exemplar of a dynamic whereby we mean it but we don’t really approach to politics and political life in this country. Afraid to strike, afraid to hold back. ‘Sure you’re an awful man…’ but what precisely do they mean? Or is it fingers crossed and let’s leave it to history to judge?

Well, now this I didn’t expect. Obama having an easy victory in North Carolina (remember how the Clinton camp, and the polls were predicting otherwise?) and doing remarkably well in Indiana by pulling more or less even with Clinton although she snatched the prize at the last moment. As the Irish Times put it:

In North Carolina, Mr Obama beat Mrs Clinton by 14 percentage points, moving him closer to the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination at the party’s August convention. The result was a heavy blow to Mrs Clinton’s efforts to overtake her rival in either delegates or popular votes won during the state-by-state nominating contests that began in January.

Indiana, where she was supposedly meant to do better again, saw (as reported in the Guardian):

She won Indiana by a slim margin, 51% to 49%. But that was outweighed by his 56% to 42% landslide victory in North Carolina.

To give a meta view of what is ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in this context consider Slate’s yardsticks…

Clinton won Indiana but as she pointed out repeatedly to Petraeus, individual victories—even a surge of them in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania—don’t change the whole story. The larger reality still holds. Barack Obama has the lead in elected delegates and the popular vote. Those leads increased Tuesday as he picked up five more delegates and roughly 200,000 more votes. For Clinton to move ahead in those numbers now, she must bring more states into the union.

Indeed. Since the latter event is somewhat unlikely it seems that Obama will be the standard bearer for the Democrats.

It’s strange though. As a spectator to these processes it’s difficult. Hillary Clinton has changed, and not for the better. I’ve defended her healthcare plan here as against that of Obama. I suspect her political inclinations were once, if not necessarily now, from the sort of progressive standpoint that many of us here would recognise, even identify with. And yet, this campaign has been a revelation. The way her accent has changed as she tours the US. The good ‘ol boy act. The sticking the boot in. To some degree it’s fair enough, this is a tough campaign, it was inevitably going to get tougher as it progressed. And yet, it’s also very much politics as usual, a zero sum game of winner take all, and in all that I just can’t help but feel that the goal has been lost sight of in the process.

The best so far?

Why what about this for shameless pandering… her latest thoughts (from the Huffington Post) about a holiday (for the Summer) from the gas tax. Now even if one supported such an idea, which one shouldn’t if one has any sense at all as regards trying to curb fuel consumption, what about this?

When asked this morning by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

What does that mean? Clinton is, as Jon Stewart noted on the Daily Show yesterday, one of the most highly educated and intelligent people to run for President of the United States, and yet she won’t ‘put her lot in with economists’.

It’s great, but it gets better…

She continued the line of attack, criticizing more generally “this mindset where elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans.”

One has to love the entirely artificial introduction of ‘elite opinion’ (I mean, c’mon, former First Lady, husband now George Bush Snr’s bestest bestest friend - that’s not part of the elite?). But more pernicious is the idea that ‘disadvantaging’ the ‘majority’ of Americans is counterposed in this fashion. I can’t help but think that this is an echo of the Boris Johnson, shift to the right in the UK. Don’t, whatever you do, tell some hard truths to people about the way they live their lives. Don’t tell them that the future is uncertain and may well demand sacrifices, significant sacrifices, in order to safeguard the broad brushstrokes of their way of life. And here is the gap between reality and rhetoric in contemporary political debate, particularly in the US, but also here and in the UK, whereby the easy, obvious option is always taken rather than the more difficult alternative. Where it is somehow (and this is purely for political gain) ‘better’ to talk about ‘elites’ when suggesting pandering political ideas that are aired simply to solidify support. Where all the Churchillian rhetoric that is rolled out with tedious inevitability on the war on Terror, or whatever, is always used when and where it won’t impact on voting populations to any significant degree, for perish the thought that we might actually ask of people not what we can do for them, but what they can do for their own societies. The point about Churchill, for his faults, was that he actually had some grasp of the sacrifices that had to be made during a very specific historical period and was unafraid to articulate it. These people? Nah.

This pseudo class war rhetoric sits uneasily, doesn’t it? But note a further quote from the HF piece:

Clinton aide Howard Wolfson put it as clearly as the campaign has on a conference call just now. Obama, he said, is “somebody who just doesn’t seem to understand that middle-class families are hurting, working-class families are hurting, that they need relief. He would rather side with the oil companies over the interest of middle-class families.”

Now, I’m sorry, but this idea of the Clinton campaign as an advanced guard of a class alliance between hurting middle-classes and hurting working-classes is risible stuff, and the further modish dig at the ‘oil companies’ is simply nonsense. She says she will raise taxes on incomes over $250,000. Very good. But this a program of a serious redistribution does not make.

And here’s the thing. It’s not as if Obama is a flawless candidate. Quite the opposite. His program is anaemic and built on rhetoric, but that’s not what Clinton is going after. Instead she is pretending that there are easy answers, that tomorrow will necessarily be brighter than today. That’s not just pandering, that’s patronising. And it’s wrong.

Is this going any much further? All the way to the Convention? Perhaps, but the point was aired on the Slate Gabfest podcast at the weekend, that the real problem is that a Clinton imposition (now more unlikely, but still not impossible) over Obama will do greater damage to the support base(s) of the Democrats than the other way around.

Clinton doesn’t ‘put her lot in with economists’? I don’t believe her. I don’t believe she believes that for one moment. And I don’t think anyone else should either. Indiana and North Carolina certainly don’t appear to have.

On a side point, apparently, and again according to Slate, Catholics tend to view Obama with some suspicion due to the Wright issue. I find this puzzling, having not merely attended Catholic Church, but at one point for some years as a teenager sung in a folk group there. This despite a constant cognitive dissonance (or what we used to call ‘disagreement’) at the time as regards aspects of the RCC line on sexuality, social policy etc. Now granted, I had another string to my bow in the shape of the Church of Ireland, but the situation was hardly better there. Some of the views expressed were fairly scary, to put it mildly - not quite the reasonableness expected by the liberal imagination as regards the nice CofI. But my point is that in subsequent years - although no longer involved - I have been at christenings, weddings, funerals and such like, and sat again through sermons of varying worthiness, and in some cases none. I’ve never had, and never did have, the impulse to walk away, not least because however much I might disagree with the rhetoric in both churches I’ve rather liked the people who have produced it. They’ve been central to familial, domestic and other events and crises. This is how the world of actual relationships between people works, where even with those we have profound political and other differences there is still space to get along, even to have strong affection or look for solace. Their humanity at times of great upset was a genuine comfort even if I don’t and couldn’t share their beliefs on many matters. That this sort of engagement is somehow given as evidence of unworthiness on the part of Obama surely paints us all as hypocrites. And perhaps we are, but I think that’s just human as well…

Fascinating comments by Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minster of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. In a response to Unionist demands for the IRA to be dismantled in order to speed the way towards transfer of policing and justice powers he is reported in today’s Irish Times as follows:

McGuinness has stated that he does not know whether the IRA army council remains in existence.

That’s entertaining and to the inevitable follow-on he responded that: his focus was on Government in Northern Ireland. Excellent. He continued:

“The IRA have left the stage, they are totally and utterly out of the equation.

“Any attempt to drag them back on to the stage is a big mistake.”

And he added:

Referring to Dr Paisley’s recent visit to Cork, he noted how he was picketed by members of Republican Sinn Féin. “Specifically talking of what Ian Paisley has done over the course of the last year, who is doing more to end division on this island, Ian Paisley or the so-called Republican Sinn Féin protesters? I say give me Ian Paisley any time.”

Of course, the thought strikes that the good Dr. will have left the stage soon. Perhaps the words he meant to say were… given the choice between Peter Robinson and Ian Paisley… Well, on the other hand it is RSF, so maybe not.

militant-79

This issue of Militant from October 1979 provides an interesting contrast with the previous one posted in the Archive. The concentration on economic issues is more marked. Granted the previous issue which appeared in 1972 was specifically a special Irish edition, but the tone is significantly different. The conflict had, of course, become entrenched. Many players had left the field, and perhaps the sense that there might be rapid (or revolutionary) change had finally dissipated.

That said it is a little jarring to read an editorial about the British Labour Party conference. That this was close to the heart of the ‘Marxists’ (aka Militant) is undeniable. But, it indicates a certain focus unlike, arguably, any other formation on the Irish left during this period. That it is followed by a further editorial about Sile De Valera is only odd if one doesn’t recognise it for the full frontal attack on Fianna Fáil. That said, there is a certain quaintness about the language which talks of ‘cynical attempt to pretend to young people who desire to change society, that Fianna Fáil represents their interests). The ‘young’ people. Always something of a disappointment…

Joe Higgins writes about the traditions of Labour in Cork. We read about the Pope, and how ‘the money spent on [his visit to Ireland] is a pittance in relation to the overall wealth of the Vatican’. We learn that polling in the North indicated a reservoir of support for an ‘intervention’ by the Labour movement and hostility towards the traditional parties - who almost inconceivably some thirty years later remain dominant. Who would have guessed? A crisis in the USA, ‘Mass Politics, Not Individual Terror’ on the North, a letter about the unionisation of McDonalds, and bevy of Letters on union matters… It’s strange how nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. And, of course, no mention of another rival on the left, Official Sinn Féin,. Indeed no mention of any other left forces beyond Labour and the Trade Unions.

As ever with Militant it is worth noting the strong visual presentation of the paper. There is a professionalism here (although in fairness to OSF, they were pretty good at that too) and the paper is used to push a coherent and consistent message. One may question some of those messages, although not their sincerity. Impressive.

Last night, just prior to Lost as it happens, I happened to catch Livin’ with Lucy. Lucy Kennedy, for it is she, is a presenter whose chosen task is to go and live with a celeb of one sort or another for a couple of days. We are not told really whether she moves in lock stock and barrel, despite the fact that she is seen in the closing moments lugging a suitcase (somewhat overly large) away from her new domicile. The blurb on RTÉ claims:

In a six part series, Lucy will travel to her guests’ houses and literally live in their spare room, eat their breakfast and follow them around during their daily routine - all with a camera crew in tow. Over the course of 48 hours, Lucy will leave no stone unturned as her quick wit, natural charm and complete lack of tact means her questions will go where Pat Kenny fears to tread.

If only. If only. Although one has to love the ‘literally’. What if she didn’t literally live with them? The list of future interviewees inspires… well nothing close to confidence. Behold ye mighty and despair at the following list:

Samantha Mumba, Brian McFadden, Jade Goody and Senator David Norris.

Anyhow, this week it was Senator David Norris, next week it is Brian McFadden of… of… remind me again… Nah, on second thoughts don’t.

Lucy is typical of a certain sort of meeja person, visible not merely in Ireland, but also the UK. Larger than life, hearty laugh (mostly at her own ‘jokes’) and an occasionally sensitive side carefully calibrated so that it shines intermittently between the jokes. Pensive looks once in while. A serious tone in the voice. It’s not just laughs you know.

But wait. It is, y’know. For “her quick wit, natural charm and complete lack of tact” means that she asks the difficult questions. The hard questions. The questions about sex. Oh yes.

Which means that the further question as to whether we learn anything from her sojourn with Senator Norris is moot. Well we discover that he has in his bedroom whips and from a reasonably careful study of the footage what appears from a distance to be a fine collection of icons (Russian, Byzantine - who cares? They’re not commented on, that wouldn’t constitute ‘questions [that] will go where Pat Kenny fears to tread‘. Nor is his rather lovely house and contents, a place that appears to have a fine collection of items that transcend materialism. It’s not that kind of a show… the provenance whip is the source of great fun and frivolity. A souvenir from Texas should you be curious). She enquires as to whether the Senator has had a threesome… I didn’t catch the answer. Prurient interest or crucial information? You decide.

He is on his own admission a Senator who happens to be gay, and apparently the first openly gay politician in the world. That I kept watching was a tribute to his own good humour and nature rather than any intrinsic quality to the documentary. So much left unsaid. What of his seemingly long-suffering partner? We are not told, other than that he (the partner) doesn’t like younger men. Good stuff. But personality is a bit more than that, isn’t it? Does the partner find the spotlight difficult? Or a blast? Again, we are not told. He too appears good-humoured, and from the array of camera people (or men, since it was all men), he’d certainly want to be.

Indeed as an insight into what makes Norris tick it was shallow to the point of evaporation. There was some talk of the Hirschfield Centre, but not enough. We learn about his plans for his funeral, or at least what he told her. I’m not buying it, but then I’m a cynical soul. Little enough of activism over the years, or causes close to his heart. We see him at an awards ceremony, I didn’t catch what it was for. And that was sort of the style of it. Dip in, dip out. Giggle about gayness.

Oddly there is something to be said for that, in so far as it provides a normative example. There will be many who will give three cheers for his cheery optimism, his uncalculated openess. Or is the openess calculated? Is it a facade which allowed him to smoothly place himself within the general affection of the nation. Despite or because of? I cannot tell. We do not know. That he is a good thing is unquestionable, both personally and in societal terms, but we’re not getting any real insight as to why he is, or how that came about.

And Norris in person is a genuinely lovely man with an enthusiasm and appetite for life that would put people half his age to shame (64, should you be interested). He’s actually considerably more political than you’d guess from this with a strong and continuing interest in various issues, not least of which is a nuanced support for the cause of Palestinian independence. Being gay in Ireland. Being a representative for Trinity College Dublin in the Senate. Being David Norris. These are big issues in a society like Ireland that has transitioned to a very open social environment relatively rapidly across his lifetime.

But none of this was addressed seriously, or even unseriously. What of his cultural life? We see him tapping away rather well on a piano. More than that? Uh-uh. His accent, a most fascinating creature, which somehow comprises an underlying Dublin tinge despite the Church of Ireland on poppers overlay would be worthy of investigation in itself. Are we told? We are not.

So, not so much living with David, as dropping by for a cuppa. Not enough. Not half enough.

Thinking about Boris Johnson as Mayor it struck me that my feelings were not dissimilar to those I had when John Major swept into power in 1992. Not so much that I loved Livingstone as that I loathed his successor. It’s not identical, beyond politics some good stuff is happening which ameliorates it hugely, but, on the political level there is now, as then, a certain sick feeling that history had gone awry. There are many, no doubt, for whom Kinnock represented all that was wrong with Labour, but, having lived on and off in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s my only sense then (and now) was that Labour in power was vastly superior to the Tories in power. That election night was probably the worst I have ever sat through. The subsequent hangover exacerbated by the reality of, at least, five more years of Conservative rule.

A few years later when John Smith died there was a further sense of loss, a sense that once more a response, emotional, societal, left, progressive that had been shaped was pulled away. In retrospect I cannot but feel that Smith, again far from unproblematic politically, might well have been able to maintain a slightly more leftward tilt to the Labour party than that we subsequently experienced under Blair and Brown. Whether we would be where we are today is a fascinating, but essentially unknowable question. Would the responses to a myriad of domestic and international issues have been the same, or would we have seen a transition to a Blair-led government around 2002? With not dissimilar results?

And Brown? What next? What does he do to counter the events of this week? Because his task is monumental. A resurgent Cameron able to tour the country, a sort of pseudo-Blairism of the right somehow connecting with the British people (or more likely a weariness with New Labour) despite the reality of the genuine article over the past eight years. And here’s a thought, seems to me the British people liked Blair considerably more than they admitted, and considerably more than his party. There is relatively little time for Brown to staunch these troubles, many of his own making. For him time, the crucial element of political activity, is running out. He is unpopular, his party is unpopular, their lack of ideological clarity now hostage to precisely the same attacks that New Labour made upon Conservative territory in the early and mid-1990s. The ‘moderation’ of Cameron is the front end of a formidable party which has survived through many different periods by tacking one way or another. But its project is grounded in reaction. It is that simple.

And what of London, and more broadly the British people? I’m intrigued as to how this might impact on Scotland, indeed on the devolutionary project more widely. Yesterday it seemed possible that this might have negative effects upon Ireland, but counterintuitively it might also serve to further emphasise the distance between Scotland and London. And nationalism is a funny old thing. The political winds shifting might underscore the necessity for greater autonomy, if not quite independence. That could be quite a headache for a future Cameron administration. Good.

Repent at leisure. It’s a terrible phrase, at least in terms of its inherent meaning. The sense that events occur which require us to deal with them, that we have to endure them and that somewhere further on there is no guarantee of better. Odd really that some of those of us on the left in an Irish context should feel this way, since we’ve been perpetually denied a seat at the table, our projects permanently left on hold as our ‘betters’ shape the society to their own ends. But, perhaps that is a function of seeing some virtues, some improvements, whatever about neo-liberalism, the failings of Blair and so on and so forth in the left project(s) on the island to the East.

People live political lives vicariously, particularly on the left. A hint of the progressive and we’re in there, rooting for one candidate or another. I’ve sat on aircraft scanning columns of election returns in the Guardian about Italian general elections (this is back when such coverage was a fair bit more detailed in print than it is today), in cafes weighing up the respective worth of candidates for the Mayor of New York, fretted watching Channel4 News (and isn’t that getting just a tad tabloid these days - consider their coverage of the Austrian case) over the situation on the left in Chile. Who to give allegiance to? Even at three thousand miles? The larger left party or the smaller Marxist one? Or both? Or, rarely, neither? And the big paradox, as ever, is that while the heart may be with those smaller battalions, the splinter parties, the further left, the disciples of Lenin and Trotsky, the post-Marxists, the Green movement, and each seat gained is a triumph wrung in the face of adversity, that is not to deny that the victories of the larger left parties still mean something, still indicate some hope in a gloomy political world.

John Sullivan had it right when he suggested that:

In sum, political sects provide a refuge which many people need, either permanently or temporarily. They are the heart of a heartless world, and will disappear only when that world begins to change.

These days it’s not just the sects, is it? My biggest fear is that we will wind up in a world where the left isn’t crushed or annihilated, but is merely an irrelevance in the face of a centre and right wing hegemony. As significant politically as those who would argue for the restoration of the Scottish monarchy. A sort of US situation where the very terms of the debate are structured in such a way as to shut out the left. And the events of the last week assist that process incrementally, and the left space contracts just a little. Sometimes it’s good there’s more to life than politics.

Why yes, yes it can…

…Richard Barnbrook, the British National Party candidate, came fifth with 2.84%. Barnbrook, who was elected to the London assembly, sparked a walkout by the main mayoral candidates when he took to the podium to speak.

A quick follow-on from the piece on the Fleshtones a couple of weeks back. I wrote:

There’s a book out about them by Joe Bonomo. It’s called Sweat:The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band, which seems appropriate. And while I tend to avoid such things (some hideous crimes against the English language have been committed in what are laughably termed ‘music books’) this is one I have purchased

It arrived. I have read it. And mighty enjoyable it was too. Written by Joe Bonomo it’s a far cry from the usual run-through of bands. This was very much warts and all, with a critical - yet appreciative - appraisal of their career. Anyone who has read and enjoyed Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain or We Got the Neutron Bomb : The Untold Story of LA Punk by Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen will find that it covers much of the same period but from a slightly different angle. And why not? The Fleshtones were on the ground floor, as it were, with many of the other luminaries from this period.

Do they come out of it well? Yes, but in truth that’s hardly the point. Most of the time reading it one is amazed they come out of it at all, and it’s not just the personality issues, epic quantities of illicit substances and the continual indifference by commercial radio and others to their charms. And their strengths, a dogged commitment to the music and their audiences, and their weaknesses, an inability to transmute the gold of their performances into a coherent sequence of albums allied with a unwavering loyalty to a musical style which faded in and out of popularity, are honestly recorded. It’s well written, interesting, affectionate, honest unlike many such books, and by turns scarifying and illuminating… It eschews concentrating on the music, because the music is ineffable, instead we learn about the personalities.

There are plenty of anecdotes, tales of arriving in small towns and playing to equally small groups of people, but managing to enthuse them to the extent that they built up a remarkably tenacious fanbase, and a history littered with media attention moving towards them and then away again. All this while holding down blue-collar jobs and managing to get on with - ahem - interesting personal lives. They’re also part of that web of relationships that developed in the punk and post-punk era. Some unexpected names crop up, from the Cramps to Gene Simmons to Jason and the Scorchers… they’re all here.

For anyone interested in human persistence or punk, post-punk and garage, and as importantly the roots of that music in soul, r’n'b and rock, more than worth a read…

And after all, any book which includes in the acknowledgements the following has something special:

No thanks to Debby Harry for hanging up on me…

Depressing to see that as the BBC notes:

Early results from the election count suggest Conservative candidate Boris Johnson is ahead in the race to become the next mayor of London.

With 22% of votes counted in each of the 14 electoral areas - Mr Johnson has the lead in 9 while Labour’s Ken Livingstone is ahead in five.

Beyond that the level of attrition of the Labour Party is, whatever way one cuts it, a deeply disturbing harbinger of future elections. Labour is a deeply flawed left vehicle, but, in terms of attaining state power it is the only one available to leftists of all stripes in the UK at this point in time. Not least because it is the single largest reservoir of leftists available out there. Now they may well have compromised too many times, but they exist still.

Reading the following it is evident that Labour will be dramatically weakened in the future.

BBC research suggests Labour won 24% of votes cast in England and Wales, behind the Tories on 44% and Lib Dems on 25%.

So far Labour has lost 253 councillors and key councils like Reading. Tory gains include Bury and North Tyneside.

Worse again it indicates that the Conservatives have shed much of the residual aversion amongst the electorate from the Thatcher years. Now there are many reasons for this, but it’s arguable that primarily in times of economic good fortune the electoral pendulum ultimately swings. Personality is also a factor. Brown has simply not connected with the British electorate. Still the dynamic is not entirely cyclical and there is no absolute reason why Brown might not win at the next election (although all of today’s results indicate that his task is becoming increasingly difficult), but, just as in the early 1990s the Conservative project appeared, quite frankly, knackered there is a similar sense about Labour today.

That it isn’t the party of our dreams is problematic. But while those toiling away in other formations are worthy of some degree of admiration, it is the only show on the road for even vaguely leftwing progress in the near to mid term. Which leaves those of us who believe in a more red-blooded leftist approach in a quandary. Our broader project will fail increasingly badly if Conservatives re-enter power, however poor Labour has been across a range of areas. So, in or out? Difficult. And in the absence of a sense that a catastrophic event is going to shape our future political structures as some of the further left appear to believe, then the dangers of renewed Conservatism are all too evident. Let them in again and it will potentially be another decade of the unalloyed right in power. That is the immiseration of a generation of people. It is that simple. The response by the left is crucial as to how that prospect is dealt with. And as ever, there are no right answers.

Over on Socialist Unity Andy has noted that the BNP vote is down. Well, in a way that’s no surprise. The dynamic that was always apparent during the 1970s and 1980s was that generally speaking the Conservatives were able to mop up those who leaned that way when they were doing well, and not when they weren’t. If anything the shrillness of the far right has been indicative of the rupturing of the Conservative project during the Blair years (and yes, there are other elements at work there). State power, or the hint of same, has its attractions for everyone. A reinvigorated Conservative party, whatever Cameron’s facade (and after all just consider what Johnson represents in terms of reaction - this is new Tory?), provides a place to put a vote for all manner of people.

Another thought of more local resonance. What shape a continuing peace process overseen by the Conservatives? Their support often conditional (whatever the cant about being bipartisan), their sympathies explicitly partisan in the media they control. Their approach to the state in Ireland dismissive. These aren’t small things. They have an existential impact on life on this island.

The results of today may well have more importance than we thought. Losing Livingstone may be the least of our troubles. Now that’s sobering.

Incidentally, sorry to see as reported by Andy that the Independent Working Class Association has lost two seats in Oxford (albeit to Labour)…

There’s a country
You don’t live there
But someday you would like to
And if you show them what you’re made of
Oh, then you might do  

Morrissey - “The National Front Disco”

 
Oh that Morrissey.  He certainly doesn’t make it easy for a serious, conscientious lefty to like him, does he?  Not content with displaying a rather venal - not to mention “devious, truculent and unreliable” - character during the court action over the distribution of royalties from The Smiths and a rather ambiguous attration towards the aesthetics of skinheads, he now intends to perform at a music festival in Tel Aviv.  No doubt angry letters are already winging their way towards the NME.

Of course, the greater shadow hanging over him is the question of racism: is he or isn’t he?  It’s dogged Morrissey since the demise of The Smiths over twenty years ago, with the questionable lyrics of songs like ‘Bengali in Platforms’ on his fist solo album, Viva Hate and his flirtation with National Front iconography at the Madness reunion concert in Finsbury Park in the early nineties.  However, while many of his statements and lyrics over the years are rather ambiguous, allowing him the benefit of the doubt, his infamous interview with the NME late last year, where he expressed sentiments like “The gates of England are flooded. The country’s been thrown away” and “These days you won’t hear a British accent in Knightsbridge” when speaking about immigration into the UK are far more direct and, as a consequence, far more troubling.

Perhaps more damning than the sentiments themselves is Morrissey’s reaction to the accusations of racism.  In the statement he released after the NME interview was published, and while also issuing writs against the magazine, he stated:

If Conor (McNicholas - NME editor) can provoke bureaucratic outrage with this Morrissey interview, then he can whip up support for his righteous position as the morally-bound and armoured editor of his protected readership - even though, by re-modelling my interview into a multiple horror, Conor has accidentally exposed himself as deceitful, malicious, intolerant and Morrissey-ist - all the ist’s and ism’s that he claims to oppose. Uniquely deprived of wisdom, Conor would be repulsed by my vast collection of World Cinema films, by my adoration of James Baldwin, my love of Middle-Eastern tunings, Kazem al-Saher, Lior Ashkenazi, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and he would be repulsed to recall a quote as printed in his magazine in or around August of this year wherein I said that my ambition was to play concerts in Iran.

Missing the point entirely, and failing to address the statements he made which raised concerns - he falls back on some of the most tired and well-worn clichés used when someone is accused of racism: the “Some of my best friends …” argument

Worse yet is his approach to far milder discussions of his attitudes towards race.  In March, David Quantick wrote a review of Morrissey’s latest ‘Greatest Hits’ collection in Word.  It’s scathing stuff, displaying a rather intense dislike on Quantick’s part for Morrissey’s recent output - both musical and political.  However, with the possible exception of the suggestion that his views on immigration might be hypocritical given his provenance (to my mind, the child of an immigrant is just as entitled to a racist opinion as someone who can trace their ancestry to the Magna Carta, or to the Battle of Clontarf) it’s all fair comment.  Morrissey’s reaction?  Call in the solicitors and force Word to settle in court.  Billy Bragg’s view of the legal action against the NME is worth recalling all the more in this context:

Had Morrissey claimed freedom of speech in his own defence, I would have supported his stance. Instead, we have the unedifying possibility that a man who once skilfully wielded his dazzling wit to confound his detractors and delight his audience has been reduced to relying on a writ in order to stifle his critics.

In my view, there’s no strong reason to think Morrissey is a racist, even if his support for anti-racism campaigns does seem a little pro forma.  However, given the sentiments expressed in the NME interview, I think there’s little doubt that he’s anti-immigration and has a rather xenophobic streak.  The only thing that surprises me is that anyone should be surprised by this.

The emotional landscape of Morrissey’s lyrics, from the earliest days of The Smiths, has always been characterised by an intense conservatism.  The nostalgic obsession with 1960s icons like Sandy Shaw, Viv Nicholson, the Carry-On crew and the Krays suggests a yearning for a Golden Age of Britishness (which indeed the very act of nostalgic recollection helps to define).  Quantick is right, to an extent, when he says that “once Morrissey made music that talked about the underdog, the victim and those in the minority”.  However, it should be stressed that Morrissey only ever spoke to some underdogs, some victims and some minorities.  Is it really that strange that such an Anglophile, and an Anglophile of such a particular type, should be less than welcoming to those he thinks are taking his England away from him?  And should Morrissey really be given such an easy ride when he expresses views which - by any standard - are reactionary compared with the kind of reaction which one could envisage if, say, Boris Johnson and Simon Heffer made the same comments?  Indeed, perhaps the greatest criticism that could be levelled at Morrissey is that the views themselves are pretty indistinguishable from what one might expect from Heffer or - worse - Richard Littlejohn (like Morrissey, a rich ex-pat who likes to talk about the decline of England).

Perhaps the real question that could be asked is whether any of this should make any difference to our appreciation of Morrissey’s music.  If he really was a racist, would it mean that songs like “That Joke Isn’t Funny Any More”, “I Know It’s Over” or ”Every Day is Like Sunday” are any the worst for it?

There’s nothing to suggest that progressive political opinions of the part of any artist necessarily translates into good art, or that reactionary views diminish the work.  If one looks at some of the great writers of the twentieth century - Yeats, Proust, Stuart, Pound, Céline, Waugh, Larkin - you find anything from snobbery and racism to outright fascism.  In each case, the reactionary politics are not incidental to the work.  In fact, they’re integral to the writer’s entire outlook.

On a lighter note, I’m a big fan of the Flashman series of novels, by George McDonald Fraser who died earlier this year.  However, much as I might admire the writing (in some of the books more than others, admittedly), and enjoy the satirical presentation of the British Empire, it must be conceded that there is a very questionable political undercurrent running through them, particularly in relation to the depiction of the natives of the lands Flashman visits.

By the same token, while it’s undeniable that Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philantrophists is a hugely important book both for its depicition of working-class life in the nineteenth century and for its pedagogical value, it’s also a rather turgid read, smacking in places of the worst kind of Dickensian senimentality and, aesthetically, doesn’t compare to work of Eliot, James or Conrad.

Morrissey’s action against the NME is unlikely to be heard for some time yet, and it may well prove to be his undoing.  He didn’t come well out of his previous appearance in court and, like David Irving,  he could find that he’s made a huge mistake in voluntarily putting his opinions under the microscope of judicial inquiry.  Whatever the outcome, however, I don’t think it should make any difference to how we listen to his music in the future.