Preview: The 20 Worst British Lefties of 2003
There is a great post over at Right Wing News on the 20 Most Annoying Liberals in the United States for 2003. I thought this country really needed an equivalent, so I am now working on the 20 Worst British Lefties of 2003. The full list and reasons will come soon, but in the meantime, here is a preview of five of those names.
EDIT: Originally I planned to come up with only 10 Worst Lefties, with the names below being #6 to #10 in that list. But when I put my thinking cap on, I realised I could list twenty. That full list, in which the five names below all appear, will be posted soon.
David Blunkett
Throughout 2003, and stretching before that, the Home Secretary has talked tough and promised to act tough on our asylum system. Some of his statements were common sense, others more than a little unpleasant. But he signally failed to sort out rates of migration to these islands, which have peaked after being consistently low for a quarter-century. For every tough word, there has been another liberal policy, another amnesty for bogus asylum seekers which will encourage more to come to benefit from the next amnesty. With rates of migration to Britain now predicted to be at two million over the next decade, with all the evidence being that people want anything but a new wave of mass immigration, one can only imagine the harm that will be done to race relations because of this government's failure. This all mouth and no trousers approach climaxed in the government's disgusting announcement last month that it would take into care the children of bogus asylum seekers who refused to leave Britain after they had been rejected. In his cynicism Blunkett fails to realise that it isn't cruelty or vindictiveness people want: it's fairness. Let us hope that in 2004 the Home Secretary can learn to keep his mouth shut and will get to work on delivering it.
Greg Dyke
When the Royal Navy banned the BBC from being watched on deck, the anti-war bias being so bad, the response of this big-name Labour donor turned BBC Director General was not to investigate why his organisation's editorial line was so indistinguishable from the Guardian's, but to go to the United States to denounce the consequences of broadcasting freedom and genuine competition there.
The BBC topped off this outrage by producing a four part series glorifying the evil Cambridge Four, traitors who abused their positions at the heart of the British establishment to pass on military secrets to Joseph Stalin, ensuring the deaths of hundreds of British intelligence agents and thousands of brave resistance fighters in Eastern Europe.
Polly Toynbee
Besides describing the NHS as the most efficient health system in the world, welcoming every measure that makes Britain worse, calling for Blair to implement PR to "exclude the right from power for ever", Toynbee has spent 2003 above all demanding free universal child care for the under fives. Her horror at the idea of young kids being raised by their own parents was summed up in her call - sounding like something right out of Brave New World - for the state to be the best parent any child can have. Perhaps the leading representative of truly useless and reactionary politics in Britain, Polly's answer to every problem is more government, but she can't even match her determined defence of the mega-state with a commitment to basic democratic ideals.
Clare Short
'Resign: Will she, won't she?' the press raged, as Miss Short restated again and again her absolute opposition to a war on Iraq without UN endorsement. I mentioned BBC bias above, and Clare Short in the first quarter of this year was the perfect example of the subtle but permanent effect of this. "The conscience of the Labour Party" was the phrase we heard from them again and again and again, as if this closed-minded leftist who in Cabinet regularly compared the Ulster Unionists to Mosley's British Union of Fascists was Jimminy Cricket to Tony Blair. Just imagine someone like John Redwood being described as the conscience of the Conservative Party. It wouldn't happen.
So when Blair didn't listen to his 'conscience', what did this conscience do? Nothing. After all her promises, after everything she said, Clare Short stayed in the cabinet as war was waged, her career ending (hopefully for good) with a futile resignation weeks later.
Gary Younge
Gary Younge began 2003 as the Guardian's new Washington correspondent, and soon returned to the same old pitch - race, race and race everywhere. In his world, if Gary Younge's shelf falls off the wall, it's because of racism. If a black woman makes a spelling mistake, it's because of racism. If it rains on a Thursday, it's because of racism. Of course, I exaggerate. Or do I? This is a man who condemned the British Army for having so few ethnic minorities among its ranks while condemning the US Army for having so many ethnic minorities among its ranks fighting wars in which they supposedly did not believe. Gary Younge exists to serve the modern left's need to feel ever more liberal guilt, a job he serves perfectly, which is infinitely more than can be said for his performance as a journalist and columnist. Well, you made it to #6 this year, Gary, but as Jackie has said, "it ain't because you is black. It's because you is crap".
