What's A Decent (again)

I was very impressed by the erudition of the replies to my last post. There were a number of lacunae in Nick Cohen's Observer/CiF piece I left unmolested which readers addressed admirably.

I am intrigued by What’s a “Decent” to do? a guest post on Harry's Place. I'm making this an open thread because I'm gobsmacked. To paraphrase Margaret Mountford, "Oxford isn't what it used to be." I did think of commenting, but there's a sort of critical mass of comments after which - ahem - comment is superfluous. But:

And, as a result of reading Harry’s Place, I came to an understanding that there were enemies to the left as well as the right. And an understanding that the left could be wrong too. A revelation, to a certain extent, though I would not wish to overstate it. I had always considered Trots weird and wrong. But I increasingly came to an understanding that the Far Left and the Hard Left and even parts of the Soft Left were a threat to the values that I wanted to promote.

So this Ben "came to ... an understanding that the left could be wrong too" while having "always considered Trots ... wrong". Further, rather than hide behind the Oliver Kamm position (if you will) that Trots are actually on the right, he seems to believe that Trots are part of the left. So, to be clear, he's always thought that part of the left (the Trots) was wrong, but it took finding Harry's Place to convince him that any part of the left could be wrong. And this guy went to Oxford?

And so it was very easy to attack those on the left for the idiocies they promoted. Because they were utterly wrong. Their disgusting communalism. Their horrific defence of the most reactionary elements of Islamist thought. Their pathetic peacnick hippy shit. Their attacks upon our demonstrably relevant nuclear deterrent. Their opposition – with no hyperbole – to our very way of life, and to the way of life we wanted others to be able to enjoy.

I'm really not sure why communalism is 'disgusting'. I say this all the time, but I would like it if the people who madden me enough to sit down and type this crap - er, I mean critique - would give examples. I don't think that anyone on the left has defended the content of reactionary Islamist thought - only the right to express such thoughts. I'll hold my hands up here (hah!) I'm pretty much a pacifist. I'm not as good at it as I'd like, but I aspire to be a peacenik. Of course, I can't see who our nuclear deterrent is deterring since the end of the Cold War.

The reason I quoted the passage above is actually to do with the last sentence. I was reading (as we've all done; nothing to be ashamed of) about Cherie Blair's forthcoming book and I noted that she was annoyed[1] by Gordon Brown's refusal to take his entitled salary. So I thought I remembered that Margaret Thatcher had done something similar, but Google really wasn't helping. Being a lazy sod, my next recourse was to get off my arse and walk across the room and pick up a book - in this case Hugo Young's Thatcher bio. It didn't help either, but the blurb on the back cover kicks off with "Triumphant saviour of a disintegrating Britain - or wilful destroyer of the nation's fabric?" I'll quietly note that the first option (the pro-Thatcher one) puts everyone she was against as opposed to "our very way of life". I believe - still - in the second option (more or less; clearly we still are a nation, and "nation's fabric" still means something - if not very much - and I'm not certain about the 'wilful' bit).

I should let this go, and leave analysis to our much-wiser commenters. But the first comment opens with

I’m tempted to say,Ben that you should address this to those Labour MPs who thought that replacing Blair with Brown was a good idea.

Um. Oliver Kamm says the same but different:

The agreement between them in 1994 was unprincipled, and Blair should not have adhered to it.

I think Oliver is right here: the agreement (the Granita one, whether it was there or somewhere else) was unprincipled. At least, the notion of choosing a leader being in the incumbent's hands rather than the party's was against Labour principles. I'm less sure that Blair should not have adhered to a promise he made a friend. Contrary to Oliver, I think Blair loses by having made the agreement in the first place (a point Oliver altogether ignores) but gains by keeping his word. Both Oliver and H'sP commenter Tim regard to Brown succession as a bad thing, but they can't agree on how it came about. Oliver - correctly, I believe - thinks it was decided in a South Bank restaurant; Tim thinks it's the Parliamentary Labour Party's fault (though I think they should have promoted a rival, if only for form's sake).

God. I meant this to be short.

[1] There are more journalistic words, like 'incensed' but 'annoyed' seems right to me.