In what could be a parody of core Labour support, the Indie interview ten people who used their first votes for Labour in 1997.
The ten are - press officer (actually PR), solicitor, teacher, lawyer, "urban regeneration consultant", company director (in PR), marketing "consultant", PR "consultant" (his firm do work for the Government), artist, freelance designer. They all appear to have been either at university, in their last year of school before university, or in a gap year before university. Half would still vote Labour, three don't know, one Lib Dem, one Green.
Three PRs and a marketer, two lawyers. The People's Party sure does appeal to the horny handed sons of toil. No wonder Labour want half the population to take a degree.
They're all 28, 29, 30, 31. None have children. None are married.
What bothered them ?
Law and order has upset two - not absence thereof, but Blair's 'move to the right'. One of them inevitably is the solicitor. Iraq - three. Impossibility of buying a house - two. Peter Vardy (a wealthy Christian) sponsoring academies - one. The target/initiative driven teaching culture - one - the teacher. Civil liberties - one.
People like these are pretty much Labour's core demographic nowadays. Someone who'd been in a timewarp for the last twenty-five years might have looked for Labour first-time voters among those who left school at sixteen. The Indie knew better.
One touching little postscript - the teacher, who sounds like a decent chap, gives us this vignette.
I come from a fairly hard working-class background ... although we talk now about the "spirit of the times", a lot of my friends didn't actually vote. They were concentrating on the next football match. I'd always felt a bit of an outsider among them, and was looking for a more cosmopolitan lifestyle. I suppose that's what attracted me to New Labour, too.
In John Braine's late 50s period piece 'Room At The Top', the visit to the Conservative Club with Susan's father is like a rite of middle-class passage for the ambitious working class antihero Joe Lampton. Forty years on, the Labour Party is the choice for a young Welshman seeking a "more cosmopolitan lifestyle".
Well, Of Course We Will, Emma…
19 hours ago
9 comments:
Aspirational because they live off government spending and do not see the private sector as a source of stable income.
So many groups today earn their crust from training budgets, consultancy fees, diversity consulting, PR (HMG is the largest advertiser in Britain)- especially in LOndon and the Home Counties.
So many so-called "private" businesses are dependent on government largesse
Perhaps the extent of the Independent's investigative reporting consists popping into the wine bar around the corner. Much preferable to consorting with the hoi poloi.
Voyager, they dare to describe the Australian ALP's leader's wife as an 'entrepreneur':-
" Mr Rudd's wife is the founder of Ingeus, a company that runs job placement programs for the Federal Government worth $58 million a year and churns global revenue worth more than $170 million.
Ingeus employs 800 people in Australia and 500 overseas and has been the third-largest provider of contract labor to the Government."
Cozy.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21616929-661,00.html
www.ingeus.com
'The Ingeus Group of Companies measures, drives and celebrates our success on our ability to assist people from dependence to independence. Our success stems from the success of those we help.'
No it doesn't you lying illiterate bint, it 'stems' from having a direct line to the Treasury!
She plans to continue this if her husband becomes PM.
When the state ran coal, rail, steel & shipbuilding etc at least actual goods & services were produced.
Now we have a totally artificial situation where people are paid far more than train drivers ever were to produce services that only the govt wants.
Oliver Cromwell's birthday today....I wish he's come back !
Interesting choice of subjects. Surely the Indie could've found at least a couple non-'knowledge worker' types, even with the condition that they had to support NL!
I like VOYAGER'S comment on Cromwell, even though I don't understand it.
Cromwell was long portrayed by the Left as a proto freedom-fighter, the small Englishman who, pushed beyond endurance, took up arms like a small inexperienced David against the mighty Goliath of Charles I's repressive state, discovered unsuspected military talents, and was able later to thank the LORD, who had helped him to overthrow the mighty Dagon...Hilaire Belloc claimed that Cromwell was in fact one of the richest men in England, with a fortune based on the plunder amassed by his relation Thomas Cromwell.
Like Tony today, he acted in a dictatorial way, though posing as a democrat (the indictment against Charles was drawn up in the name of "the people of England" and did what he could to limit the amusements and relaxations available to the population - the organ from King's College, Cambridge was taken down and set up at Hampton Court for Oliver's private delectation.
He seems also to have practised an early form of political correctness: his protege Milton argued for the TOTAL freedom of the press, except, of course, for Roman Catholics, and shopkeepers who refused to OPEN their shops on Christmas Day were terrorised by his troopers. Early versions of Billy Bragg flourished then, too.
Cromwell, perhaps a Malmsey socialist rather than a champagne one - merely because bubbly hadn't been invented then - would have been the LAST person to sort out the abuses/corruptions/unfairnesses/ineptitudes, whatever, complained of in this posting!
I dont know what to think about Cromwell any more. My head hurts.
Another strike against him is his behavior in Ireland. Though I read recently that stories of massacres etc may have been greatly exagerrated. Nothing like a grievance industry!
I dont know what to think about Cromwell any more. My head hurts.
Another strike against him is his behavior in Ireland. Though I read recently that stories of massacres etc may have been greatly exagerrated. Nothing like a grievance industry!
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