In its ‘Backward glance’ section the New Statesman rather amusingly reprints an article from 1980 by one Anthony Blair, which is an impassioned attack on Jim Prior’s trade union reforms.
There will be some liberals who regard the earlier, union-backing incarnation of Blair with rather more sympathy than they do the union-bashing prime minister who ‘sold out’ to Thatcherism. But not me! Through the 1960s and 1970s trade unions were an essentially destructive force, promoting sectional interests rather than the common good. Whoever was in office in the 1980s would have had to take on the unions if they were to have a hope of governing successfully.
The article is certainly an interesting curiosity. Since Blair was going out of his way to write this kind of nonsense, rather than just keeping his head down and towing the party line, presumably back then he really believed it. Or was he just trying to curry favour within the Labour party?
1 comment:
I have to agree on the unions (then again, that's what they're for... they just managed to con people into thinking they were promoting the 'greater good').
Blair has shifted shape so many times its hard to know what was real and what was currying favour.
He supported Michael Foot and was a member of CND, he opposed ID Cards when there was a draft white paper circulating under John Major... Given all the shifting beliefs and spin surrounding him how can we know what Blair truly believes? All we know is he's abandoned ideology and seems to believe in his own infallibility...
We all change our views and beliefs, but Blair seems to have shifted around too much...
With Cameron we have the opposite problem, we don't know what beliefs he's every professed...
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