Monday, August 14, 2006
The Stalinist Cog, and the Terror Briefings. posted by Richard Seymour
Part of the reason for the extravagant 'to do' about an alleged terror plot on the UK is quite probably John Reid's ambition. Some people put his tactics and outlook down to his communist years. Yes, he was at one time a Stalinist, but so were lots of people who have since turned out perfectly normal. Yes, he did have a bevy or two with Radovan Karadzic, but then Richard Holbrooke (who is nothing if not a liberal democrat) shared a pear brandy with Milosevic. Reid's politics are those of an apparatchik, certainly, but this is not a pathological anomaly.By Reid's account, he once believed in communism, but that passed; he also once believed in Santa Claus and outgrew that. He is a big supporter of Labour Friends of Israel, which is perhaps unsurprising since the Serbs took a few lessons from the Israelis. He has been a supporter of New Labour from the beginning, and indeed his early support for the communists could be construed a rightist offensive against the Trots since the British communists were then pursuing their British Road to Socialism (support Labour, kill the Trotsky-fascist hyenas), and he moved very quickly to the Kinnockites shortly thereafter.
The guy has taken the street-fighting skills he built up as an activist and translated them into political success, as have most of his colleagues. He has said that the only thing that is permanent is change and that one's analysis must change accordingly: in his hands, this means that one must be an eternal opportunist, abandoning evidently lightly won intellectual convictions for more rewarding ones at the mere whisper of a ministerial post. He, like his great competitor Brown, would be a more forceful and articulate Blairite than Blair himself.
His regular television appearances these days, Batman to Doug Alexander's Robin, are carefully preparing the paternal projection that is usual with Prime Ministers and Presidents alike. He's going for it, in other words. This terror 'plot' such as it may prove to be, has been milked mercilessly by him for his own future career in New Labour. He's a right-wing bastard and he always has been, but it's never done him any disservice so far.
PS: Ruth Kelly of Opus Dei fame is talking about fighting extremism.