Often, Jeremy Corbyn supporters liken their opponents, particularly right wing Labour MPs, to Tories. But in Field's case the characterisation suits him more than most. Field is from the same sort of background as me, and one that too many labour movement people have a hard time getting their heads around: the Tory-voting working class. According to the potted biographies you can find knocking about online, Field was a Tory party member when he was a youngster. To his credit, and unlike the Prime Minister, Field was shown the door because he opposed apartheid in South Africa. Joining Labour he then subsequently embarked on a career in local government and in campaigns around poverty and low pay until entering the big house in 1979. This is work he continued once in Parliament, and folks who've served their time will recall that he was Blair's first social security minister charged with "thinking the unthinkable". Alas the dog's breakfast he served up proved too unpalatable even for Saint Tony.
The political problem with Field is he never outgrew the patricianism that is the true mark of the Tory. Readers may recall his voluntary stint as "poverty tsar" for Dave's Coalition government. During his time chumming up with the Tories (and scabbing on the party), he advocated stripping young men of all social security support if they "refused" jobs, believing it would "build character". This is no different to the Thatcherite critique of social security, which argued that a basic floor provided by welfare removes incentives to work and is responsible for locking people into cycles of poverty. In this topsy turvy world, it's not low pay and unemployment that causes poverty, but the relief for low pay and unemployment! Somewhat patronisingly, he felt one way of overcoming alienation among white working class people was the promotion of citizenship ceremonies. Problem families should be housed in metal containers. A proponent of national service, a stirrer of anti-immigration sentiment, and a true apostle of Westminster arrogance. Not the most awful Parliamentary record then, but one any Labour politician worth their salt should be ashamed of.
And yet Field, like the equally gruesome John Mann, are representative of a particular layer of the working class. A declining section to be sure, considering the recomposition of class politics, but one that has and always has had input into the Labour Party. To refer to it as socially conservative is to miss the mark: socially authoritarian is perhaps a more accurate description. That is a certain cut and dried morality growing out of the experience of being working class. One in which if I have to work, so should everyone else, if we have to put ourselves out woe betide those who laze about in bed. If someone's misbehaving or out of line, a clip round the ear 'ole will do. If someone falls foul of the law, more often than not they brought it upon themselves. This is a morality that prefers short, sharp, and possibly violent solutions to complex problems, and one that is often thin on sympathy because everyone has a bad lot. It's this authoritarianism, a negative working class politics glorying in all that is depressing and dehumanising about life as a wage earner that stains Field's politics. It is to Field's disgrace that he never once tried to break with this miserable outlook but sought to reinforce it whenever he got the chance by pretending its spurious authenticity.
While Field is no loss to the Labour Party, his resignation underlines one thing: how weak the Labour right have become. Rather than stand and fight, the flounce is the hot new move among Parliamentary elites. Jamie Reed, self-styled "Red Leader" of the "Rebel Alliance" packed himself off for a PR gig at Sellafield. Tristram Hunt went to the V&A. The 2017 general election saw unlamented no marks like Michael Dugher and Tom Blenkinsop vanish, and John Woodcock, and now Frank Field have thrown in the towel. Apparently Mike Gapes is thinking about resigning in exactly the same manner too. None of them have the stomach for political struggle because they haven't a clue. Faced with masses of new members with their own ideas and expecting MPs to account for their activities, they do not know how to manage, let alone win them over politically. Hence the bleating about anti-semitism, about "bullying", and the rest. There is no project uniting them, despite the overhyped centrist party silliness, and so just like the party members wedded to this obsolete and anti-working class politics are dribbling away, so do the MPs broadly representative of this trend.
Adios then to Frank Field. May we never see his like and those that would follow him ever again.
Over the three years since the leadership election in 2015 I have gone from disagreeing with your vehemently anti Corbyn position to largely agreeing with you. Likewise this post, I largely agree with you. However, I think the right do have a plan, the same as in 1983, to ensure we lose a general election by stealing enough votes in marginal seats and to then pose the simple solution, we need to move rightwards to be electable.
ReplyDeleteIt worked in 1983 and in elections until 1997, what makes you think it won’t work again?
I don't mourn the passing of Field, however, I find your analysis both over-complex (reconstitution of class - well, up to a point) and simplistic (the working class Tory).
ReplyDeleteThe benefits system (particularly disability benefit) was exploited by successive Tory governments to conceal the impact of de-industrialisation on an entire class (the industrial working class) and did indeed not only create a culture of dependency (in particular encouraging an identification with illness) among a significant minority. This was recognised by I suppose what you would call "right-wing" Labour MPs in the successive Labour governments (which bore their own responsibility) but was too often lambasted by bourgeois commentators who made similar arguments to yourself - "moronic" arguments, as Umberto Eco would call them, purposelfully misunderstanding the complexity of the issue.
There is a world of difference between exploiting workers at call centres, Amazon or Sports Direct and promoting a culture of uselessness, hopelessness and low self-esteem. And it is not a binary choice. Weening generations of formerly working class people off benefit dependency does not mean forcing them into slave labour, and even if it does at least it draws attention to their antagonistic role in a hostile process rather than pacifying them like goose raised for fois gras.
Tom Watson:
ReplyDeleteMr Field’s departure was a “serious loss”.
He said: “This is a serious loss to the party and I deeply regret Frank’s decision. It reflects both the deep divisions in the party and the sense of drift engulfing us.
“It is a major wake up call. We cannot afford to lose people of such weight and stature.”
Deselect Tom Watson!
The self-centeredness of this from someone in a position of such privilege- a privilege that was given to him by party members.
ReplyDeleteFrank Field has resigned the Labour whip in Parliament but remains a member..for now at least. His reasons for doing so reflect the views of many thousands who have quit the party since Corbyn came to power which initself has upset the traditional balance of forces in Labour.
ReplyDeleteAs for his CLP the comrades there disgraced themselves by claiming that the training by the "Jewish Labour Group" (Ithink they mean the JLM) has been cancelled due to ties with ISIS and the Israeli gOvernment.
These are the 30 people who "no-confidenced" Field. I'd be more more worried about them if I were you.
Still there's always the posadists......
When I was at school I remember the arguments I would have with my Tory voting classmates (or shits as I liked to think of them), One of them later became a Labour party activist. I wondered what had changed him until I realised he hadn’t changed at all, the Labour party had!
ReplyDeleteBlairism is clearly more Tory than it is Labour, and the demise of Blairism can only have them scurrying back to their natural home, well eventually hopefully!
The left wing of the Labour party were simply the useful idiots (and kind of still are), there to give the absurd impression that New Labour was a broad church. That idiocy has been put to bed once and for all with the deranged and out of all proportions witch hunt against Corbyn and the Labour members. Broad church is about the opposite of what New Labour represent. It also allowed Labour to grab onto the traditional vote, because it gave the impression that Labour was more to the left than it really was. The debates at conference were well to the left of what actually got implemented by the Blairite Tories in charge of the party. The Blairite would just nod and surely be thinking, these people really are just idiots, don’t they know we will ignore everything they say!
If the Blairites did manage to topple Corbyn then surely only the most shameless and undignified leftist could argue to stay in a party that uses them as the useful idiot. The Blairite mask has slipped and only total idiocy can get it back on again, well that and 24/7 mainstream media propaganda.
Corbyn’s response to the witch hunt means the jury is out on whether labour will be a socialist party or simply a variant of Toryism.
Let’s play a what if. If Corbyn was killed tomorrow by Israeli agents two questions spring to my mind,
Would there be any media or political class outcry whatsoever that a foreign state had assassinated the leader of her majesty’s opposition? (I doubt it very much, in fact I suspect they would applaud Israel or play crocodile tears for a few days))
Who would replace Corbyn, a leftist or a Blairite? (if the latter then what is the fucking point)
Fuller, the Israeli apologist in chief, should recognise that labour has net gained members this year, during the height of the Anti Semitism witch hunts. That means more people have joined than have left. Actually what worries me is that more of these shits haven’t bothered leaving too, I dream of the day when the number of Labour friends of Israel = zero. Can these shits please take Fullers advice and leave right now!
ReplyDeleteIncidentally Labours staggering increase in members since Corbyn became leader isn’t because of the demise of UKIP, those arch racists have joined the Tories or not bothered joining anything. You know the Tory party that cesspit of racists who worry Fuller no tone jot. They are his kind of racists after all.
"That is a certain cut and dried morality growing out of the experience of being working class. One in which if I have to work, so should everyone else, if we have to put ourselves out woe betide those who laze about in bed. If someone's misbehaving or out of line, a clip round the ear 'ole will do. If someone falls foul of the law, more often than not they brought it upon themselves. This is a morality that prefers short, sharp, and possibly violent solutions to complex problems, and one that is often thin on sympathy because everyone has a bad lot"
ReplyDeleteI think the above sums up the outlook of the great majority of working class (as opposed to underclass) people, and most of the middle class also, certainly those who have emerged from the working class within the past one or two generations. The people who don't think this way are mostly either people whose middle class roots go back a lot further, or people who have studied social sciences like criminology.
There's no point just rejecting these ideas as pathological. You have to engage with them and either find policies that accord with them, or persuade people out of them through reasoned argument not insult.
My own family held much of the above attitudes, but not entirely because my dad (who started as an electrical fitter apprentice and ended up as a Director) always acknowledged that luck played a big role in his career, in addition to hard work and talent. In fact this is very much the Medieval and Classical outlook, in which all are bound to the "Wheel of Fortune". You might also look at the Book of Job which is all about this question.
The person who does fit your pathologising bill would be David Blunkett, judging from a brief look at his autobiography he is a man who was so damaged by his institutional upbringing that he doesn't even know what's missing in his personality- until he suddenly fell madly in love and didn't know how to handle it.
ReplyDeleteas for Frank Field, I always saw him as more of a decent Tory like Peter Oborne, until I read that he admired Thatcher, anyone who lived through the 80s and admires Thatcher has to be missing something morally.
The cloak of morality has been exposed for what it is, that of pure self interest. I have spoken to many Labour Members that feel the same way as I do very sad that some MPs always put their own self interests first.
ReplyDeleteHave (most of) you folks any idea how you look to a non-partisan person? You blatantly have no interest in anyone other than your own little group, use political phrases as signals to identify fellow travellers, not to espouse any actual policies or opinions, and are obviously in politics not to make anyone's life better but to grab power so you can persecute people who oppose you.
ReplyDeleteYou go on and on about members, membership numbers, members rights. A political party is not a golf club. It is not in existence to benefit its members, it is there to benefit the country at large. Your obsession with members not voters just signals how you will behave in power as a bunch of thugs listening to no-one but yourself and plundering whatever you can get your hands on.
Frank Field has spent his political life serving others. You lot are clearly spending your political lives serving yourselves. You are a collective disgrace.
Don’t these people who claim that the LP is institutionally anti-Semitic realise that it makes it more attractive to ..... anti-semites. Perhaps we’ll have entryism from ex-BNP members to worry about.
ReplyDeleteAh right, Chris Dillow's favourite troll Dipper.
ReplyDeleteWe are truly blessed :)
ReplyDelete"Have (most of) you folks any idea how you look to a non-partisan person? You blatantly have no interest in anyone other than your own little group, use political phrases as signals to identify fellow travellers, not to espouse any actual policies or opinions, and are obviously in politics not to make anyone's life better but to grab power so you can persecute people who oppose you."
Quite a blunderbuss statement from Dipper. These comments say more about the writer's anti intellectualism than about the deficiencies of the many contributors he clumsily castigates. It's a tedious rehearsal of the mythical tale of the 'non-partisan voter' who is easily duped/confused by those clever clogs with their fancy words, which they use only to secure an advantage only for themselves. I presume he has heard of the term rhetoric. It is the art of persuading others of the authority/truth of your position. It is the stock-in-trade of politicians and political commentators, although it is also well used by an infinite variety of snake oil merchants.
Aristotle (like Dipper) was concerned enough about the way words were used (in his day by Sophists) to spin the truth that he wrote a study of rhetoric. He identified its three components: logos; pathos; ethos. (btw, using groups of three is a rhetorical device) To convince someone of the truth you need to not only use fancy words but emotion. And, you should have a biography that triangulated with what you are saying. In other words, you need to 'walk the talk'.
Frank Field was always on the right of the Labour Party. In his early days at the Child Poverty Action Group, he was authoritarian and keen to see the lack of agency of those on benefits as more to blame than the structural causes. (Apologies for using in-house social science concepts). He is now clearly out of step with the recent direction of the Labour Party and he did the right thing by resigning the whip. He should also call a by election, and if he wishes, stand as an independent. Then, we'll see if his non-partisan constituents will vote for him?
“A political party is not a golf club. It is not in existence to benefit its members, it is there to benefit the country at large. “
ReplyDeleteIf this is the case why do we even need political parties at all? Surely if politics was about the benefit of the country at large there would have been some understanding what this meaningless shit actually meant by now and there would be no political parties just some sort of administrative centre.
The fact is benefit the country at large is just meaningless twaddle along with the rest of Dippers post. And isn’t this how the establishment treat the so called non-partisan person, as if they are total and utter unthinking morons? Dipper’s comment is dripping in utter and total contempt for the non-partisan person he pretends to be championing!
"These comments say more about the writer's anti intellectualism" ... and who would the intellectuals be? Would that be you Hurry up Harry? Do I take it from this that you think "intellectualism" has some kind of value? Because the one thing all screwed up despotic plundering oppressive regime have in common is that they all have a cohort of "intellectuals" giving some kind of credibility to the hate-filled philosophies that guide these madmen. So I don't see your "intellectualism" counts for anything.
ReplyDeleteTheonlysanepersononPlanetEarth- feeling better after that? Is a translation into English available for that last paragraph?
"Chris Dillow's favourite troll Dipper".
I prefer "spirit-guide."
"We are truly blessed :)"
indeed you are.
Ah! So, Dipper is an anti-essentialist?
ReplyDeleteAlways a treat to read the comments at the end of a post. (I don’t think I’m including myself with this one.)
ReplyDeleteHarry The Dog - "Ah! So, Dipper is an anti-essentialist?"
ReplyDeleteA small comment that says a lot. I've managed to get quite reasonably through life without knowing what essentialism is, ever hearing the term, or being aware that I am an anti-essentialist.
This is just politics by labels, a process whereby left wing "intellectuals" walk round slapping labels on people with terms that are coded ways of saying "good" or "bad". Any discussion that takes place is not to advance understanding but simply to determine whether the interlocutor should receive a "good" label or a "bad" label. It is an immune response carried out by a group to expel those they don't want in their coalition.
Do you folks still think you are the good guys?
"Always a treat to read the comments at the end of a post. (I don’t think I’m including myself with this one.)"
ReplyDeleteTerribly sorry, old bean, but you're being quite unsportingly dull. Have you considered posting a 5,000 word rant about Western foreign policy that idly throws around the word 'imperialism' as if it's still 1917?
5,000 words is a bit of a stretch for a rant, but I’ll try my best.
ReplyDeleteIn reply to the first Anon;
ReplyDeleteIn 1983 the new centre party looked like a new thing that was worth a try but in the next election it will look like an old thing that has failed.
Its the inability to acknowledge the need for a re-think that dooms them.
Dipper,
ReplyDeleteWe're coming for you, Dippy, my good mucker. We neo-Bolsheviks are after you, and come the revolution, we're going to shove you straight in the gulag forewith and collectivise all your possessions right down to the computer or whatever electronic appliance you used to type your spiel.
Get ready.