Incongruity posted by Richard Seymour

New Labour values coming at you. There is something vaguely charming and olde worlde about this style of political commentary from New Labour stalwart Jackie Ashley. Currently rated number one in the Comment is Free charts ("Where Supply Meets Demand"), it is the insider's guide to Gordon Brown's woes. I raise it because everything about it strikes the wrong chord, and it must say something about the mental state of the Brownites and their tame journalists. Collectively, they resemble that commonplace cartoon character who dashes off a cliff's edge and only remains aloft so long as he hasn't realised that there's nothing to support him. Here, in Ashley's treatment, we have the heroic Gordon of Richard Curtis' imagination, the brooding idealist of Girl in a Cafe. Or, in more prosaic terms, the "values-rooted" ex-Chancellor who knows and cares so much about the poverty (and associated diseases) in far-off spots that he has in fact contributed to. That latter point is simply not a consideration in the grimy lagoon from which Brown's valets see the world, any more than they hold him co-responsible for the Iraqi democide. He is beseiged, worried, angry with himself, losing weight, fretting himself sick about the unemployed. Anxiety is cutting the lard off him at a prodigious rate. But the contours of the bold visionary who looked at the Tory's PFI schemes and thought "great idea!" is still there somewhere. Can this romantically heroic Brown finally emerge from his shabby, self-imposed chrysalis and save the day? Can he turn his massive negatives into a little plus with a life-saving conference speech? Will Glenrothes be saved? Will the economic news brighten up a little bit? Oh, the joys of fantasy reformism...

Labels: 'values', brownites, gordon brown, neoliberalism, warmongering