Comrade Blair

It has long been noticed that many of the key figures in NuLabour have, ironically enough, far left backgrounds. Alan Milburn once ran a Trotskyite bookshop called Rays of Hope (or Haze of Dope). The authoritarian David Blunkett was once head of the nuclear free zone that was the “People’s Republic of South Yorkshire” (mind you some of his policies as Home Secretary were pseudo Stalinist). And now it has been revealed that “Dear Leader” Blair was once part of the Labour Left.

As this article shows, he praised Tony Benn and advocated the ongoing leadership of Michael Foot. But perhaps most surprising in his letter to Foot is this assertion:

“I would indicate firmly that you believe the party needs radical, socialist policies; that the scale of the problems we face as a nation in 1982 means a different approach to previous years"

Riiiiigggghhht, good to see Tone has stuck to those principles. I mean, the invasion of Iraq, the relentless brown nosing of a far right US President, the attempted privatisation of both the Health Service and the Education system, ID cards and the attempts to stifle free speech with the Religious Hatred Bill are all classic socialist policies. As long as you are defining socialist as “somewhere to the right of Margaret Thatcher".

I guess you could say this proves the old adage that people move to the right as they get older. Personally I reckon that this proves that Blair is a hypocritical arsehole with no ideological beliefs at all who will drop his pants and embrace any policy that might make him popular, either with the party leadership or the public as a whole.