Two of my friends – whom I shall refer to as school-chum and college-chum – were prominent members of the club. College-chum, who came from a genuinely working-class background and was on the right-wing of the Labour Party, was a former president of the club. (He is now a Tory councillor in Kent.) School-chum – whose family had been working-class two generations back, but now lived in a large house in Walton-on-Thames - wanted to be president (actually, he wanted to be prime minister, but we all have to start somewhere). Naturally, being impeccably middle class, he was moving inexorably leftwards, forever on the look-out for fresh victim groups to patronise. But because he was far too impatient to establish himself with the Labour Club's far-left clique, he latched onto right-wing college-chum, who became his mentor and campaign manager – despite the fact they agreed on very little politically.
There was a Tory government in power at the time (well, Toryish – Ted Heath was in charge), but you wouldn’t have known it from the discussions that took place at CULC meetings, which, as far as I remember, mainly concerned the terrible sufferings of gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, miners and council-flat tenants (so no change there, then). Apart from posturing compassionately, the main business of club members seemed to be to destroy the career prospects of fellow members.
School-chum was duly elected president, but the campaign was so vicious and the tactics so questionale that the Guardian wrote an article about it and the Labour Party launched yet another investigation into the club’s activities, which resulted in a change of name to distance itself from the bad old days. I remember school-chum sitting on the dais in the meeting room after his victory had been announced, staring into space as members shouted angrily in his direction and at each other, and it began to dawn on him that he’d actually done his career no good by winning. Because of the mini-scandal surrounding the election, school-chum never became a Labour MP (although his brother – a far duller person – eventually did: there's a moral in there somewhere). Realising he hadn’t exactly booked himself a one-way ticket to future high office, he subsequently tried another avenue, standing for president of the Cambridge Student Union, a far bigger deal.
Tiring of my friend’s vaulting ambition and his cynicism - he had never previously displayed the slightest interest in the union – I actively canvassed on behalf of his main Tory competitor. Partly, this was because he had callously turned his back on college-chum – the very person who had got him elected as Labour club president, and who was, besides, a lovely chap. After deservedly losing the Cambridge Union election, school-chum waited a few months before informing me that I too was no longer his pal. He then abandoned student politics in favour of bagging a spectacularly impressive law degree: he was always going to succeed at something - it just turned out not to be politics.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, after I’d listened to Ms Jowell snarling about Damian McBride, I went online and looked up the Cambridge University Labour Club on Wikipedia – and sure enough, there, on a list of notable alumni, was Damian McBride’s name (alongside Diane Abbott's!). I should have known, really.
In the forty years since I enjoyed my brief brush with those insanely ambitious Labour wannabes, I have been continually amazed by how many socialists who preach compassion, tolerance and forgiveness seem to be almost entirely motivated by hatred and spite, overwhelmingly directed at those who essentially share their political views. I’ve just finished Anthony Beevor’s masterful The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, which reinforces the impression one got from reading Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia that the hatred that the socialists, social democrats, anarchists, Trotskyists and communists on the Republican side felt towards their Nationalist enemies was as nothing compared to the insane animosity they felt towards each other. Not that different from the Cambridge University Labour Club in the early ‘70s – or the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Apart from the sacrifice, the suffering and the killing, of course.
Off-topic, sorry, but fascinating insight from Iain Dale into the business of publishing political memoirs and their serialisation in the newspapers.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC showed a video of Iain Dale duffing up some idiotic left-wing protester in Brighton this morning. The banner-carrying twit was trying to insert himself into a Damian McBride interview and Dale, acting for the publisher, decided to take direct action. Good man! (Of course, he may just have been upset that the leftie had mistakenly inserted an apostrophe before the "s" in "Nukes".)
DeleteOh, hang on - the grammatically incorrect rendering of "Nukes" was on the placard attached the protester's dog, and we all know that dogs are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to grammar.
DeleteI knew well and liked enormously your school chum. I remember vividly our first meeting at age 13. He was one of the most charismatic individuals I have ever met. The friendship lasted two years. I had been prepared to overlook his excuse for the Berlin Wall - to keep the capitalists from flocking into the East German socialist paradise. He was clearly parrotting a Keep Left editorial and I knew that no person of his intelligence could believe the line he was Trotting out. His feeble but passionate justification for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was our falling out point. He was unashamedly pro, in that 'ends justifies the means' way that is always the fall back of the frightened middle class left wing when it knows it is out of its depth. It eventually came to blows on the rugby field. For all his trumpeted egalitarianism, he was a bit of a snob. The house in Walton was actually in less fashionable Hersham but he wouldn't have it. His accent altered according to the company he was with. He bragged about his women. He name dropped. But for all that, he was a remarkable character and intellectually and morally as fitted as his near contemporary Blair for the job they both sought.
ReplyDeleteThe Blair analogy is good. I suppose the fact we're still discussing him after all these years is proof that he was an extremely compelling character. And I suspect that my subsequent interest in politics is partly a result of trying to figure out how anyone that intelligent could possibly hold such ridiculous views.
DeleteGeorge Wigg. I sometimes wonder what he got up to? Perhaps post-war labour prime ministers really had an atavistic desire for a Lavrentiy Beria at their side. Well, they are all fans of Uncle Joe at the end of the day [not Attlee, of course. He was an army officer and a cricket fanatic and therefore beyond criticism].
ReplyDeleteOn the BBC4 Programme "Something Understood" the scientist Michael Farraday was cited: "There is nothing so frightening as those who know they right." Perhaps that is why socialists are so vindictive and intolerant? Just a thought.
Agreed - there was definitely something sinister ablout Wigg - the main liaison between Harold Wilson and the security services. Mind you, he was widely disliked and feared by Labour MPs, so he can't been all bad.
DeleteTypo alert. In previous comment, it should be "...who know they are right."
ReplyDeleteAnyway, McBride. I have been waiting for it. On R4 this morning, a lady politician said "I think Gordon simply turned a blind eye."
I guess if you have a blind eye, you should definitely use it. Mind you, Brown doesn't seem to have made any use of his one good eye between 1997 and 2010. I often wonder why he and Ed Balls aren't in prison.
DeleteMatthew Parris, 21 September 2013, The Spectator, 'Coalition with Labour would suffocate the Liberal Democrats':
ReplyDeleteHarold Wilson may have oversimplified when he said that Labour was a crusade or it was nothing, but he touched on something true. The intensity with which Labour politicians hate each other bears witness to the sacred nature of their cause.
Maybe he is/Harold Wilson was right.
His point is that, unlike the fundamentalists on the other side, the attitude of Conservatives in government is:
... these men are taking a pop at it. They do have ideals of course, they do care, they do love their country and they do have aims they hope to achieve; but if it all goes tits-up (a phrase they use often) they’ll walk away. There are other things in their lives. This isn’t all they ever wanted. They can give and take; they’re allergic to entrenched positions; they tend not to take things personally; they can deal with the Devil himself, if they must.