Wednesday 27 February 2013

All of the People

Saturday 22nd June will see the People's Assembly Against Austerity, at the Central Hall, Westminster, from 9:30am to 5pm. I shall be there if I can be, and you should do the same. Tony Benn. Owen Jones. You know how these things roll.

But the anti-war movement of a decade ago never capitalised on the extent to which it reached deep into Tory Britain with its profoundly conservative message of foreign policy realism. The SWP was allowed to make the running, to exactly as much effect as one might have expected.

None of the right-wing columnists who fiercely opposed the invasion of Iraq was involved in any active way. The anti-war Tory MPs were ignored so completely that their very existence would doubtless still come as a surprise to many, or even to most, of the electorate at large.

Today, the anti-cuts movement has the potential to reach deep into Tory Britain with its profoundly conservative message of using State power in order to protect organic communities against the ravages of unbridled capital.

That potential is more than apparent from the following list. Those on it are all Tories unless otherwise specified. These are the committee members of SPARSE, the network of rural councils fighting the cuts and seriously considering a judicial review of Eric Pickles. It really would be quite a coup if one of them, most obviously Roger Begy, were to be a platform speaker at the People's Assembly:

Cllr Roger Begy- rbegy@rutland.gov.uk (Chairman)
Cllr Milner Whiteman - milner.whiteman@shropshire.gov.uk
Cllr Hilary Carrick - hilary.carrick@cumbria.gov.uk
Cllr Tricia Tull - ttull@chichester.gov.uk
Cllr Robert G Heseltine - cllr.robert.heseltine@northyorks.gov.uk (Independent)
Cllr Lewis Strange - Cllrc.strange@lincolnshire.gov.uk
Cllr Mary Robinson - mary.robinson@eden.gov.uk (Independent)
Cllr Malise Graham - mgraham@melton.gov.uk
Cllr Mark Kirk - mark.kirk@northlincs.gov.uk (Labour)
Cllr Julian German - jgerman@cornwall.gov.uk (Independent)
Cllr Richard Kemp - richard.kemp@babergh.gov.uk (Independent)
Cllr Cecilia Motley - cecilia.motley@shropshire.gov.uk

It says it all that there is no Lib Dem on this list. Not a single, solitary one.

The Eton College George Orwell Society famously sent three delegates to the People's Assembly Against The War. 10 years on, during which Eton has become political news such as it was not in 2003, it would be quite another coup to have their successors at the People's Assembly Against Austerity.

But it would be even more of one if an Eton boy, an 18-year-old voter so that no one could question it, were to speak from that Assembly's platform. Owen may still look as he does. But at 28, he is too old to be the Golden Boy. That comes to us all eventually.

Don't ask, don't get.

At least since Iraq, never has that been truer than in this case.

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