What on earth is this left-right political stuff? It's not policy, otherwise the Liberals
wouldn't see themselves as left. And why do they get so upset when people disagree with them?
I was always someone trying to make things work. Ideas had to be tested. Facts were sacrosanct. But were they really true? All the time? In every circumstance? Or did they depend on something I hadn't
thought of? I've never been good at
being certain. A little ditherer –
holding back until someone else starts the ball rolling.
However, one thing I did understand was that the 1960s Trade
Unions in Birmingham were heedless of the consequences when they downed-tools in
wild-cat strikes.The father of my friend, Carole,worked night shifts at the
Longbridge car factory and loved to regale us 14 year-old girls with tales of
the goings on at work – playing cards during working hours while saving the
actual work to do during overtime – at time and a third. Meanwhile, I looked around the council house
with all it's luxurious fittings, kitchen equipment and electrical goods. They were supposed to be poor people, with
their cheap council rents. While my Dad,
a Legal Clerk working for the council, was supposed to be better off. But there we were, buying a record player 2nd
hand. No car, no fridge, no washing
machine, and a tiny old TV. Meanwhile,
another car company was going bust, and the Government asked the Longbridge
owners, BMC, to look after them as well.
I didn't for a minute believe Trade Unions were interested in anything
apart from their own members getting the better of everyone else.
By the time I went off to university, I knew I was on the
right of politics. So why, you may ask,
did I choose to go to the most Left-Wing, controversial university in the
land? It was because they had a
Mathematical-Physics course and my English teacher had neglected to teach me
how to pass the English Lit exam, which prevented me from going to Cambridge.
How was I to know my understanding of Jane Eyre was "unusual"? And
that I wasn't supposed to sympathise with Shylock? I loved his speech "Prick me, do I not
bleed". That's how I used to feel
an awful lot of the time.
I was at Sussex University when I had another political
lesson after Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech. One day, I joined a gaggle of girls pouring
over the Sunday paper. I'm the sort of person that notices all the bits of "one
of my constituents said" and "a little old lady told me". As they read from the paper, I was saying
"I've heard tales like that".
Of course, these days I know that gossip is about what people are afraid
of, not what's actually been done. I'm
not sure I knew that then. Nevertheless, I dived in, trying to explain why,
when non-white people moved into the street, it quickley became all non-white.
"It's 'cos people can't stand sleeping on
curry-smelling sheets", I'd venture.
With no washing machines nor dryers everyone's sheets were drying
outside and most of us had never smelt curry before. I knew a lady who said it made her feel sick. Or, "the West Indian lads have parties
all night keeping people awake". Or
"Some of them have never lived in brick houses before and do things like
knocking down a weight-bearing wall" – this had happened to a sweet old
lady down the road from my school. The
result was that I was told I was disgustingly prejudiced. But I knew that I treated people of all
different skin colours exactly the same because I was close friends with Indian
and Jamaican girls. It was how folk behaved, that counted with me. Just as they say about marriages, it's the
little things that make or break.
Whereas the other girls hadn't met any non-whites at
all. Just the one Arab prince at
University that they were warning all our friends against, because he reckoned
only slags wore mini-skirts. So when I
returned after the next vacation, I brought pictures of my friends back to
Sussex and pointed to my best friend, Pauline.
She used to proudly proclaim that she had 12 different nationalities in
her; and looked mainly Indian, with a broad nose. Nobody believed me.
That taught me that prejudiced, ignorant people don't believe
the truth when they hear it. And there's
nothing you can do about it. Which, of course, makes me even more reticent than
I naturally am.
When I got to voting age, I thought about the issues and
what may or may not work. By this time,
we'd had Harold Wilson and his Labour Party in office for a while with Trade
Unions joining him at Number 10 for sandwiches and tea. Still disliking Trade Unions, and being deeply
unimpressed by the Labour Government, I didn't have a choice of who to vote for. There was no point in voting for the Liberals
with their tiny share of the vote. I did want my vote to count. Everytime I looked at issues, I thought the
Labour plans were more likely to make matters worse than better. There were also quite a lot of unpleasant, agressive,
shouty, Trade Unionists in the Labour Party whom I was suspicious of. At University I'd gleaned that Left politics
were based on Marxism, Maoism or Trotsky. And that they have a weird idea of
human nature - you'd never think we were the result of an evolutionary battle;
for example, evolutionists postulate that altruism is an emergent trait from
the time when humans lived in families and tribes. And is not something that
members intentionally set out to do.
I prefer freedom and individuality – as far as
possible. That's probably because I
don't fit into standard models (and nor did Jane Eyre – although Oxford's
Literature guru, F.R.Leavis, couldn't see that).
Why do so many people on the Left talk of "Progressive
Policies"? What are they
progressing to? They never tell us. They seem to be assuming that either you
know, or you won't want to go there. They're not open and honest.
They've also been very clever at making it seem that only
the Left care, and only Conservative are oppressive autocrats. Yet, I always
keep in mind that Hitler started as a Socialist, and probably died one,
too. Stalin was on the Left. As was the
Russia we had a Cold War with. And also
China and Pol Pot in Cambodia. Lots of nasty, repressive governments there –
nothing to be proud of. Thinking of
modern socialist governments, I note that Chavez in oil-rich Venuzuela
bequeathed a bitterly divided people in a bankrupt country.
Yet there are many people who think "I care, so I have
to vote on the Left". Some of them
even believe every caring, thinking person would vote Left. Which just has me gob-smacked. Why are expensive, sub-standard,
government-run institutions worth having?
However, I've often had problems with their individual
attitudes. I remember going for a few
days walking with Holiday Fellowship where I was dragooned into joining their
evening games – despite having settled myself down with a book, sipping a gin &
tonic. After I'd won the 1st
2 games, they started calling me names to my face. They'd wanted to give themselves a nice warm
feeling of inclusiveness, without actually doing it!
I didn't learn from this, of course. Ever hopeful, I went to Minorca with Ramblers
Holidays. On the very first walk, a
retired GP struck up a conversation about politics and exclaimed "Why
don't you think for yourself instead of copying your parents?" The
patronising little man knew nothing of me, except that I was a woman in her 30s
holidaying alone. His assumptions are astounding!
The papers are full of similar incidents in public
life. For example, two items from
today's paper, 4th December 2015, the day after MPs voted to bomb
ISIL positions in Syria:-
·
Firstly, a letter from several charity CEOs
saying "The British military must minimise civilian casualties and set the
standard for investigating any that are caused by British action." What are they talking about? Haven't they
noticed this has been British policy for many years? In fact, the forces have recently completed
yet another bout of learning lessons from previous wars. These CEOs should
concentrate on improving their own activities instead of wasting charity money
on grandstanding their caring credentials; with the side-effect of running down
their own country. After all, huge
amounts of money have been spent on Africa with almost nothing to show for
it. Anyway, we, the public, don't
believe in their kindness and generosity because they earn far more money than
they need.
·
Secondly, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Leader, pacifist
who's anything but peaceful. He prompts
his followers to bully, intimidate and threaten fellow Labour MPs who disagree
with him; instead of being open and honest by changing Party policy. But then, he's incapable of doing hard work
the way that Tony Blair did, in recinding Clause 4 on nationalising industry.
Jeremy's underhand and deceitful.
It seems that those on the left have rigid values, and don't
understand that everything is contingent and understood by, and through, past
centuries of history; that people can't
just be dragooned into someone-else's order; nor treated like performing puppets.
Meanwhile, the rest of us try to consider what works with
the population we have, in the world as it is.
I've come to believe that human systems such as family, economics
and government, follow the same sort of complex system behaviour that the climate
does – chaotic, deterministic and unpredictable. You can make large changes which
appear not to change the outcome; and also immeasurably small changes which
produce abrupt shifts.
So, nothing is certain in this life; except that humans will
continually try to make it so; and will be aggressive towards anyone who
challenges their ideologies.
That's Life!!!
