We are - according to an article by Fergus Shanahan in the Sun today, anyway - ‘letting Labour’s Nazis walk all over us’. If I hadn’t promised to take Daddy’s Little Princesses ten pin bowling this morning, I’d probably subject it to a hatchet job. But in truth, the content is so gobsmackingly banal it would hardly be worth the intellectual effort.
Yet what most shocks me most about the piece is not so much the tone of ridiculous strident hyperbole but the sheer plagiarism. Shanahan’s deranged outpourings are little more than a hastily dashed off re-write of a recent Richard Littlejohn article in the Daily Mail.
Discussing Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith, Uncle Rich maintains that ‘Jackboot Jacqui’s a Nazi piece of work’. Nazi piece of work! Nazi piece of work! It’s a pun. Geddit? Oh, never mind.
I mean, Jackboot Jacqui? Seriously?!? Let’s just say I cannot think of a woman Max Mosley would be less likely to pay £500 to dress up in a Luftwaffe uniform in order to pursue his distinctive proclivities than Ms Smith.
Meanwhile, Socialist Unity - the most widely-read leftwing blog in Britain - recently carried a post by Derek Wall, illustrated by a graphic that slowly morphs a New Labour rose into a well-known Nazi symbol. This is a man who, as leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, presumably wants to be regarded as serious politician. I don’t think that he has bolstered his case by his choice of illustration.
Where to begin? Well, first of all, I am a Labour Party member, along with several thousand other socialists. We do not appreciate everything this Labour government does; much of it we oppose outright.But when people start equating the party we have chosen to join with the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartie, we naturally take not a little bit of umbridge.
You can almost forgive such idiocy on the party of Shanahan and Littlejohn, but Wall should know better. Next thing you know, you’ll be seeing lefties wearing stickers equating the Star of David with the swastika on anti-war demos.
As I have pointed out before, sadly for lazy hacks, not everything can always equal fascism:
In the 1980s, sections of the British left branded Thatcherism as ‘creeping fascism’. Today, there are US websites making the same point about the Bush administration.
Meanwhile, cheap-shot populist shock jocks and newspaper columnist drone on about ‘feminazis’ and ‘health and safety fascists’ …
And we all know there is only one possible response to fascism, don’t we? Extirpate it. Eradicate it, annihilate it, uproot it. Destroy it before it destroys you.
I mean, you’ve got to watch those bloody union health and safety reps …They start by demanding that management keeps the fire escapes clear of boxes, and before you know it, they’re establishing a chain of death camps all the way across Poland.
Tabloid opinion slots, like the blogosphere, come under the general rubric of ‘all good knockabout stuff‘. I’m hardly going to break down in tears on this one, even though there were members of my family who suffered rather greater indignities on account of Hitlerism than having a town hall jobsworth take a photograph of them.
But to somehow equate spot fines for littering with Auschwitz, or to identify New Labour with the perpetrators of the Final Solution, is at the very least a clear marker that whatever follows need not be taken in the slightest bit seriously.
Posted at 12:11, 2 September 2008
Comments (16)
Dave. I couldn't agree with you more.
Myself and others have posted repeatedly and politely asking Derek Wall to remove this appalling 'cartoon' His only response was 'its just a cartoon'.
I hold no brief for the Labour Party, I vote Green or Respect myself, but this appalling attachment of a swastika and a Mussolini quote to the Labour Party badge is both shallow and reckless from a leading member of the Green Left in the Green Party who often takes a place on platforms on left, including Labour Left, events.
Quite why he so tenaciously refused to change the cartoon he chose to illustrate a fairly uncontroversial posting goodness only knows but in this instance Derek Wall has done neither himself nor his politics any favours.
Mark P
Agreed - New Labour are not Nazis. The slow but sure rise of the British Nazi Party under New Labour during its 11 years in office remains however an indication and an indictment of just how shit they have been in power...
Still, maybe we should all still join New Labour PLC anyway and hope for the best eh Dave?
Well its not the first time Derek has decided to take a pop at the Labour Party and its members :
http://stroppyblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/derek-wall-how-to-win-friends-and.html
"The ordinary Labour Party member, concerned, opposed to Blair, wanting peace...ultimately you have each taken a gun and shot a child in Iraq. Are you going to stop the killing? Love to see you all sat in the road with the rest of us opposing the arms trade...but I guess I will have to wait a long time to see you put your weapons away and stop the killing. "
Of course LP members are never seen on anti war demos , too busy wiping the blood off our hands, probably using a small kitten as a cloth.
Without doubt Derek's choice of graphic was a serious error of judgement but as the owner of two cats I demand that Stroppy wipes the blood from her hands with something other than kittens.
Derek Wall - self-proclaimed radical socialist - works at a private 6th form college, a Kensignton crammer called Duff Miller College.
Perhaps before labelling every Labour Party member a Nazi and a baby murderer he should engage his brain and appreciate the nuances of politics.
Undoubtedly he has a very nuanced explanation as to how he can combine his left-wing ideals with his job in private education.
Dirty hypocrite.
"owner of two cats I demand that Stroppy wipes the blood from her hands with something other than kittens."
Puppies:-)
"as the owner of two cats "
oh and Liam, you never really 'own ' a cat , not if mine are anything to go by:-)
Of course the Labour Party isn't Nazi. It's worse: it's a Marxist cesspool. No matter how bad Hitler was, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were worse than him. The only thing that stands between England and complete and utter anhilation in the hands of godless commies is David Cameron, God bless him.
It is worth saying that Derek had editorial control of his own posts on Socialist Unity blog.
I don't agree with the use of this cartoon, but it is his judgement call.
ha ha !
My bad typing again.
Derek still HAS editorial control of his own posts on Socialist Unity blog.
Nothing should be infered by my saying "had editorial control " except that i am a bad typist. Nothing has changed.
All us lefties have had our Dave Spart moments. It is churlish to deny them to others not so fortunate. Who can deny Derek Hall the pleasures of a brief leftist childhood, before he gets kicked off the Green Party leadership in the coming days.
"The slow but sure rise of the British Nazi Party under New Labour during its 11 years in office remains however an indication and an indictment of just how shit they have been in power..."
Luckily the proles now have a REAL alternative in the Socialist Alli.... sorry... Respe... sorry... Left Li....sorry Left Alternative!
It was an offensive cartoon. It was a bad mistake.
RE: 'Spread it far' - I don't think it really matters that he works at a private sixth form crammer college. Sometimes, when you are in the business of having to sell your labour, you have to go where the work is. This is just as true for teachers/lecturers as for anyone else (perhaps moreso in FE/HE education where work is being relentlessly casualised so that more and more people are simply moving from one short term contract to another short term contract if they're lucky enough to find one). Why single out Derek? In fact, as students now have to fund their own higher education perhaps we should single out all lecturers and academics for scorn?
In fact, why not go further? Perhaps we should name and shame socialists who work for private companies (why just private colleges?). I once worked in a call centre (until they sacked me), helping to make money for a credit card protection company owned by a very wealthy family. Like the other workers there I was obviously a functionary of the bourgeoisie and I should be ashamed of myself.
Even the mildest of social democrats who favours a mixed economy and private ownership of business will surely acknowledge that private education spits in the face of any notion of social justice. I'm sure you can appreciate that. Derek should be singled out because he likes to think he is a man of radical left-wing principles. You cannot combine those principles with working in a private school. Either moderate/compromise the principles or get a new job. Also, his immature choice of cartoon reinforces the sense that this bloke is a top twerp and needs to be exposed as such.
ed's right let's lay off
after all, Derek Wall works at a Crammer which helps dim witted middle class kids get into Oxford and Cambridge, its not like he's preserving or perpetuating the class system in Britain?
Hmm, that's is, until you remember that public schools comprise only some 7% of pupil numbers
yet they represent about 50% of admission to Oxbridge universities, the bastions of the British class system and the chosen training ground for the ruling classes, that puts a slightly different perspective on matters :)
"When people start equating the party we have chosen to join with the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartie, we naturally take not a little bit of umbridge."
So what you're saying is you all take umbrage at this equation ...