"I think there is a romanticised view that Trimdon Working Men's Club in the Prime Minister's constituency - solid working-class, patriotic - is the backbone of the Labour Party. They overlook the fact that a lot of Labour voters in the teeming cities are irreverent and radical. Labour succeeds when it brings together that respectable working class with what I call the radical urban perverts."
What does he mean by perverts? "Well, that's just the way your newspaper and others characterised my administration at the GLC all those years ago. You know, I still find people saying to me: 'You're gay aren't you?' which is what they were claiming about me." So is he homosexual? "I'm not going to talk about it now, either. The point is that, 20 years ago, it was a damaging accusation: now it's almost an essential accessory for Cabinet membership!"
Ken Livingstone in 2000.
Beazley was out of touch with many of the "modern" issues beguiling Labor.
At a state conference in 1970, with an agenda that included legalising abortion, allowing gay couples to adopt children and abolishing censorship, he let rip with his most famous denunciation:
"When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now all I see are the dregs of the middle class. And what I want to know is when you middle class perverts are going to stop using the Labor Party as a spiritual spitoon."
Obituary notice of Kim Beazley Senior, ex-Minister and Australian Labor party MP.
What is it about Aussie Labo(u)r ? Here's ex-party leader Mark Latham :
For those who cannot buy themselves away from social problems, questions of legality and decency are all-important. If the public sector does not foster responsibility and reward effort then the life-chances of working class people will be diminished. These values are well known to people in my electorate. This is why they strongly oppose illegal migration.
People from a poor background may not be asset-rich but they are rich in the dignity of observing the law. In Green Valley, where I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, people who acted irresponsibly and illegally were known as "no-hopers." Many of our traditional supporters are worried that Labor is now on the side of the no-hopers, rather than the responsible working class.
