Great Political Ideas Never Carried Through

Whereas most people in the Anarchist movement have lots of bum ideas they actually implement, I always have stacks of what I consider to be great ideas, but never do anything with them.

Seeing the classic picture of George Galloway and Pete Burns from Big Brother recently reminded me of one booze filled idea that sadly never came to fruition.

Think back a few years, and the standard leftie line as soon as a Labour government had its feet under the table was to pitifully whine "We didn't vote for this!" The reality of course was far worse - usually they had voted for "this" and worse, had encouraged others to do so!

A slightly more subtle approach now predominates on the last century left. This is often to vote for Respect, with some Labour lefties still considered acceptable - Ken Livingstone is popular with the London's Guardian reading middle classes so he is considered OK, along with a few old lefties New Labour can't even be bothered to throw out such as Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

As a result, the old Trot staple of "We Didn't Vote For This!" is in real danger of dying out. My plan was to revive it, with a colour poster of Gorgeous George and Mr/Ms Burns and the words "We Didn't Vote For This" written in Bengali.

Plastered all over Brick Lane, I like to think it would have caused a few problems for Galloway and his Trot followers.

Oh well, there's always next time.....

Comments

[Jeffrey Marshall]

Nice idea - posters displaying Burns & Galloway with the
slogan in (*?)Sylletti & English too, I'd suggest: "We didn't vote for this".

Maybe it should appear from time to time in selected spots throughout Bethnal Green & Bow - not just Brick Lane - all the way through to the next election.

Trouble is, everyone knows by now Galloway is a self-serving opportunist, but the party he started - Respect - has its own momentum. And he'll stand down next time anyway in favour of a Bengali who probably won't be quite so tainted by Celebrity Big Brother. Still, it could cause problems...

(*Sylleti is spoken in Brick Lane. Is it a written language, like Bengali?)

[Paul Stott]

Sorry Jeffrey, just realised I never replied to this.

No Sylheti is a spoken dialect only, it is Bengali that is written.

Then again being in the BNP and therefore an 'expert' on all matters racial, I thought you would have known that already!

[Jeffrey Marshall]

Thanks, Paul.

Any comments, by the way, on Ed Hussein's book, The Islamist, as you're reading it at present?

Perhaps you noticed in The East London Advertiser (26/7/07) that members of the Young Muslim Organisation had bombarded Tower Hamlets council officers with angry, abusive & threatening e-mails following comments made about the YMO, & Hussein's book, in East End Life, the council's taxpayer-funded weekly newspaper.

Feeling puzzled that this irritatingly-PC freesheet should have caused offence to anybody (except, of course, white natives), I checked through back issues of EEL to find ... nothing more than a harmless book review.

The review stated, reasonably enough, that being in the YMO had 'set [Hussein] on the path to extremism'.

What was the council's reaction? Did they complain to the police about YMO's threatening behaviour? Did they defend the justice of the review, as they ought to have done?

Not a bit of it. They grovelled in apology, as you would expect. And promised a favourable feature on the YMO in the near future.

This sort of thing used to be called appeasement, & look where that led us.

[Paul Stott]

I thought Husain's book was good, although I am not at all into the spiritual side of religion that he is. That's all guff to me!

I think his view of religion as a personal thing is however one of the ways in which it can be acceptable and can possibly even prosper in a multi-cultural society.
Much of what we have now, from various religions, can only ever lead to conflict, division and the sort of supine grovelling you allege from the local authorities. As a Hackney resident though, I get Hackney Council's junk mail through my letterbox, rather than Tower Hamlets junkmail, so haven't seen any of the articles you refer to.

One thing that also interested me in the book was how just about everyone from the "left" that he encountered in his time as an Islamist was in some sort of position of authority - teacher, College official etc - and people wonder why the "left" is as discredited as it is!