Idiot Wind: Corbyn’s Fake Refuseniks
- January 07, 2016
- by
- Matt
If my inadvertent involvement in last year’s media onslaught against Stop the War taught me one thing: it was the incredible mendacity, political dishonesty and sheer venality of Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents inside the Labour Party. It’s possible – within limits – to respect one’s political opponents when they uphold genuine principles that they sincerely believe in, when they themselves have the decency to consider opposing arguments and actually think about them.
None of these conditions were present amongst the Labour politicians who entered December’s debate over Stop the War. From the outset Corbyn’s opponents...
Waterland
- December 30, 2015
- by
- Matt
As a child I once lived in Guyana in a house built on concrete pillars. This was a useful and essential precaution in a tropical country where a heavy downpour could flood the ground floor in a single afternoon. Many years later I visited Inle lake in what was then Burma,...
Lord Snooty’s Christmas Message
- December 24, 2015
- by
- Matt
It’s the season of goodwill, when custom and force of habit should incline us, however temporarily, to take a more charitable view of the intentions of our fellow men and women, even those who happen to be our political enemies. But there can never be a Christmas truce with Lord Snooty and His Pals,...
Hellhounds on my Trail
- December 08, 2015
- by
- Matt
I wasn’t going to write about the Stop the War/International Brigades fiasco again. In fact I had hoped that it was all beginning to quieten down and I could return to normal and write about something else. For the time being at least, normality is no longer possible, and so I feel I...
Apologies
- December 07, 2015
- by
- Matt
Some last thoughts – from me anyway – on the International Brigades debacle. As I have tried to make clear since I wrote my piece about Hilary Benn last Thursday, I never meant to suggest any moral equivalence whatsoever between Daesh and the International Brigades. I continue to believe that the overall context of the...
Open Letter to Tristram Hunt
- December 06, 2015
- by
- Matt
Dear Tristram Hunt MP,
You have probably never heard of me, and there is no reason why you should. But I felt moved to write to you because a rather freakish and unusual series of events has brought our names into the same orbit. Today, while driving home, I heard on the radio that you...
Recent Comments