Some Guardian columnists have a habit of seeing "Blairite" conspiracies afoot in the Labour Party, even though no such faction exists. Of course, there are MPs who worked for Tony Blair and who broadly agree on outlook, but they're so disparate and unorganised that to speak of them of as Blairites makes no sense anymore, if it ever did. But creating an imaginary malign faction is useful for some on the left (maybe a Protocol of the Elders of Blair will turn up during the post-election fistfights). Last week John Harris tore into an anonymous Labour minister who suggested the soon-to-be-unveiled manifesto is likely to be too "Old Labour":
(This attitude) smacks of the deluded arrogance of the political sect, and a mindset that has long since pulled away from the real world and become consumed with the dried-up stuff of faction-fighting.
Hurrah, I thought as I read this, and well said. The factionalist stuff is silly. Oh wait, there's another sentence coming:
Moreover, it encapsulates the Blairite pathology that gripped the government from around 2001 onwards...
Ah. So this factionalist talk is nonsense - and it's all the fault of the Blairites. Good to get that cleared up.
Comments