Perhaps not everywhere and not in every intellectual argument. But the left is losing - perhaps for the first time in fifty years - the cultural battle. And it's losing because too many of its adherents are nasty.
I am not saying that the political Right is immune from petty name-calling and self-importance. However, looking at my social media accounts alone, I lost count of the number of times I saw the words “moron” and “scum” used in reference to Conservative or Lib Dem voters. I didn’t see anything of the sort emanating from the political centre or the Right.
There has been a lot of talk of late of “shy Tories” being responsible for the electoral outcome. Is it any wonder that people had to be shy about their voting intentions when any admission of Tory solidarity would have resulted in the social media version of public stoning?
Enormous effort is invested in explaining how anyone not suitably "progressive" is motivated by evil, self-interest, greed, arrogance and a lack of compassion. All accompanied by that preening prattle about "values", "morals" and "ethics".
Out in the big bad world there are a lot of ordinary folk. People with jobs, mortgages, children to feed and school, and the regular trickle of painful bills to pay. The left - the Labour Party in the UK - offers nothing to these people except lectures about values, judgemental sermons on behaviour and the sanctifying of people those ordinary folk view as exploiters of our compassion and good nature.
The Labour Party will continue to lose support - and fans - until it offers something to these workers, stops demonising profit, ceases portraying the private sector as a bad place peopled by sharks or thieves and above all packs in with insulting those who disagree with them. We're not morons, we're not scum and were not without care or compassion. Today - and the Labour Party better get used to this - we are the party of workers, of those people with regular private sector jobs, mortgages and a desire for a better life.
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2 comments:
If that's the case, explain the rise of the SNP (Scottish Nasty Party), whose vilification antics make the Labour Party look like a Methodist tea-room.
But considering the Labour Party was born in Methodist chapels you'd think they were better brought up.
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