Dan Hodges

The Arrogance Of Labour’s Centrists

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Jeremy Corbyn - Labour Leadership Election - Victory Nears

–

Accustomed to getting their way for nearly 20 years, Labour’s centrist MPs are having a hard time adjusting to the fact that they may no longer call the shots or dictate policy

Jeremy Corbyn has not yet been crowned as the new leader of the Labour Party and Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, but already the party’s centrists and Blue Labour types are attempting to dictate the terms of their surrender.

And as the Independent points out, at present it is by no means certain that the centrists – who have known nothing but power and influence for nearly two decades – will accept the result with anything like good grace:

The real question, of course, is whether they will accept the verdict of the party’s membership. The vote may well be closer than anyone expects – with a late showing by Yvette Cooper offering the tantalising prospect of a second surprise to overtake the original shock of the Corbyn surge. But, if he wins, Mr Corbyn will have a mandate to lead his party under the rules the party introduced to increase participation.

It also depends on how far figures such as Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall go to try and reconcile their views with his. They have been more or less clear about what they would like to do, but the more that people such as they, and Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt boycott the Corbyn leadership, the more he will be able to ignore them. It is their duty to serve their party and their leader, and for them to push for their policies from within. To abstain, to run away, to sulk – this is not only not in Labour’s best interests, but would hardly serve to put Labour back on the road to social democracy.

In fact, there are growing indications that a number of Labour frontbenchers may choose to take their ball and go home rather than support the new leader and risk their own future careers by associating themselves with Jeremy Corbyn’s unabashed socialism.

Continue reading →

Why Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Leadership Candidacy Matters

Samuel Hooper9 Comments

Jeremy Corbyn - Labour Leadership - Dan Hodges - Tories4JeremyCorbyn - 1

–

You don’t have to agree with Jeremy Corbyn to welcome his presence in the Labour leadership contest

It is a pity that the inclusion of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership race is pretty much only being discussed in the context of the growing #Tories4Corbyn movement.

CapX explains the phenomena:

Putting Corbyn on the ballot paper does have one unintended consequence, which is amusing the Conservatives greatly. Suddenly, there is great interest from senior Tories in helping Labour to elect Corbyn, because they think, rightly, that it would equal oblivion for Labour and a generation of Tory rule.

There is a practical way Tory voters can help, the Conservatives have realised. For just £3 anyone can sign up as a Labour supporter and a get a vote in the party’s leadership contest. On Twitter, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, has already described getting the chance to help make the completely unelectable Jeremy Corbyn Labour leader as a notable bargain.

This Tories4JeremyCorbyn movement could take off. How long before someone establishes a website and Twitter account explaining how Tory voters can win it for Jeremy?

This is all well and good, but it is also a distraction, the type of fun Westminster parlour games that the political class like to play to entertain themselves, leaving the vast majority of Britons either oblivious or turned off. Meddling in the other side’s leadership election might elicit smirks and chuckles in the Westminster Arms, but it hardly does anything to improve the reputation of a political class seen as totally cut off from the people.

Continue reading →

Only Fellow Muslims Can Cure Islam Of Its Fundamentalist Cancer

Samuel Hooper2 Comments
Christian Life Of Brian Charlie Hebdo Terrorism Islamic Fundamentalism
Clear provocation for a fundamentalist massacre

 

Dan Hodges poses an excellent question in his Telegraph column today: what if the Paris terrorists had been Christian rather than Muslim?

He does this to make a point that should be fairly obvious, but which too many of us continually miss – that were the shoe on the other foot, or rather the other religion, it would be unequivocally expected and demanded of moderate Christianity to root out the fanaticism from within its base, without delay and with no excuses or exceptions.

The fact that we add so many caveats and exceptions when making this demand of moderate Islam is therefore, according to Hodges, prima facie evidence that we currently give leeway and grant concessions to Islam that we would not do for any other faith. In Hodge’s imaginary alternate universe:

Then came another attack. Two Christian gunman walked calmly onto the stage of the O2 arena, and machine-gunned to death John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, as they performed their comeback tour. It was, their killers later revealed in a video-taped message, in revenge for the lampooning of Jesus in “The Life Of Brian”. Witnesses at the O2 claimed that as they ran from the stage, the assailants were heard to shout “We have just killed Monty Python”.

A day after the O2 attack, the BBC Today program sent a reporter to High Wycombe, to gauge the reaction of members of the local Christian community. It was “painful people had to die in this way” one interviewee conceded. But the Monty Python cast should not have mocked Jesus. “I love Jesus,” he said. “More than my mum, more than my dad, more than my children.” It was legitimate to insult individuals or people he added, “but not God, not Jesus. We will not allow that. If they are going to do that, that [the attacks] will happen again and again.”

Continue reading →

The Christmas View From Your Window

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

SPS Christmas 2015 View From Your Window Harlow Essex v2

 

In his Christmas Day column, Dan Hodges invites us to look out of our nearest window and tell him what we see. He isn’t doing this out of voyeuristic curiosity, of course, but rather to make a point:

We see what we choose to see when we look outside. And at the moment, when we look out the window, we are choosing to see a world that scares us. Collectively. As a country. As a people.

This was the year that we become an agoraphobic nation. The year that the trembling upper lip officially replaced the stiff upper lip. The year that fear became our constant companion; paranoia our trusted friend.

Hodges goes on to argue that on a whole range of fronts – terrorism, immigration, Ebola, Evil Corporations, Westminster Elites, paedophile grooming gangs and crazy, swivel-eyed Ukippers – the British people are retreating in the face of difficulty, burying our heads in the sand and failing to confront pressing problems or take positive steps to secure our future. And he is right, up to a certain point – numerous difficult issues have swirled around us during the hectic political year of 2014, and yet we have made precious little progress in dealing with any of them.

Continue reading →

We Can’t Have An Honest Discussion About Immigration Unless We Actually Listen To Each Other

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Immigration Debate UKIP Cover Ears Dan Hodges Samuel Hooper SPS

 

It has become fashionable of late to say that it’s high time  we had a frank, open and honest discussion about immigration.

Never mind that this empty platitude is primarily uttered by the same demagogues who owe their political or media careers to either whipping up excessive fears on the subject, or  sweeping it under the rug while smearing dissenters with the toxic charge of racism; that particular irony, though amusing, is beside the point. Zealots on both sides have come to realise that there is political capital to be made in positioning oneself as the straight-talking voice of reason, and pulling off that particular deception in the eyes of the voters requires going on the record saying how terribly important it is that we talk honestly about immigration.

Even casual followers of the news cycle will notice that the most strident calls for this long-awaited symposium on immigration funnily enough happen to coincide with each advance in the polls made by UKIP, or with every time that Nigel Farage contrives to leave the legacy party leaders looking impotent, or worse still, in active collusion with one another. This has led to accusations of cynicism – they’re only calling for a discussion about immigration now because UKIP are breathing down their necks, comes the predictable refrain. But in fact we have been holding a reasonably thorough and robust conversation about immigration for some time now – or, to be more precise, we have all been talking a lot about the subject. Where we have consistently fallen short, though, is the listening part, without which a truly meaningful conversation can never take place.

Continue reading →