@ In our last long period of opposition in the 1980s the Labour Party fell into a trap created by our opponents. We allowed Mrs Thatcher to use the success of the institutions we had created - comprehensive education, the wider welfare state, the expansion of universities – and harness that success against our politics. The sense was created that people who wanted to get on would have to leave the Labour Party behind. This is blethers George ... Jim Murphy was in South Africa and Anas Sarwar was still in his pram during the 1980s surely? The interesting sociological feature of Scotland, too, was that there was opposition to Thatcher and support for the miners across the whole of Scottish society - it was Kinnock who refused to back the miners and the anti-poll tax campaign led by STUC and Tommy Sheridan - and had it not been for The Greenham Women Britain would have had cruise missiles deployed near Aldermaston as well as Trident on The Clyde and submarines snagging nets in Girvan ... I remember the 1980s as I was there and I remember being interviewed by The Face whose correspondent Marek Kohn wrote a definitive piece on middle class Yuppies in Scotland who were opposed to Thatcher in contrast to the trend Jim Murphy is describing which post-GLC was only ever a part of the scene in London even .... ?
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 05:40:44 +0000
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