The vulgar nastiness of the new Left doesn’t surprise me
t has become a familiar sight. A moving mass of people chanting and holding banners aloft heaves into view. Before I even look at the placards, I know they scream slogans as inane as they are intellectually bankrupt – “end inequality”, “end racism”, “end austerity now”. A nasty churning feeling twists in my stomach.
And before I even get close enough to hear their words, so often delivered in the repetitive yells of those intent on smashing things up, I know I’m not going to like those either. I pick up the pace and walk past, as fast as possible, delivering a withering glare if I feel courageous enough.
Can you blame me? I’m sorry: I like civilised speech, well-articulated arguments, and controlled tempers. Shows of snarky, aggressive obscenity make me cringe and wince in equal measure. Yet, since Jeremy Corbyn seized control of Labour, this voluble nastiness has oozed throughout the new Left, into Westminster, and out onto our streets.
As the scandals currently engulfing the Labour Party make perfectly clear, the culture of the Corbynised Left is – to put it simply – both rude and vulgar. Corbynites prefer to channel their planet-sized anger into swearing and taunts, rather than reasoned debates.
In pledging to tear the bad old world apart – to fight to the death for “equality”, “rights” and “solidarity” (have any words ever been stripped of meaning more thoroughly than these?) – they are taking common decency and manners down, too. Manners are elitist, after all.
So I felt zero surprise at the comments made by Labour MPs Jared O’Mara and Clive Lewis. Both men have been outed in the past couple of weeks as having used vile gutter slang that has been roundly deemed offensive and sexist.
O’Mara, who was elected five months ago to replace Nick Clegg as the MP for Sheffield Hallam, was suspended by the party last week after it emerged he wrote disgusting language on a music website years ago. Reviewing a gig by Arctic Monkeys, O’Mara thought he was being clever when he riffed on one of
Itheir lyrics, describing teenage girls in the audience as “sexy little slags”. Elsewhere, it was revealed, O’Mara had written that gay men were “fudge packers” who “drive Marmite up the motorway” and that fat women “don’t deserve respect”, while a former date came forward to claim that he had called her an “ugly b----” after they met up in March this year.
Horrid? Yes. Surprising? Hardly. Traditionally, O’Mara’s would not have been the language of an MP, future or present, but Corbyn’s rise has given those on the Left with thuggish instincts an open field. And a party that embraces thuggish impulses will behave thuggishly. It’s hardly rocket science.
O’Mara’s disgrace followed that of Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, earlier this month, who was filmed telling an audience member at a party conference fringe event, to “get on your knees, b----”. This was his idea of a joke – and I can see why. After all, for all its lip service to gender equality, this is a party that sees manners – the very notion of civility – as Right-wing.
All this reminds me of a scene a few months ago, just before the general election. I was heading into my local Waitrose and paused to see what the Labour and Conservative campaigners were offering outside. The latter table was being manned by two quiet, polite people, offering to talk through their party’s promises. It was hard to hear them, though, as the Labour activists kept shouting and breaking into chants. Suddenly, a young man zoomed up and screamed at the top of his lungs, spittle flying from his mouth: ‘F------ Tory scum! You kill people! Your cuts are murder!’ Then, having aired his sentiments in the accepted mode of his party, he strode into the supermarket, where I caught him buying some lavender and Earl Grey shortbread, and sashimi (Corbynites have to eat, too, I suppose).
What a shame this all is. The old Left – wrong-headed though it so often was, particularly at its Communist end – was at least rhetorically gifted, with articulate leaders. Many of the obscenityfringed slogans now played on repeat by Corbyn activists are based on old Left ideas that were once novel.
The truth is, it would probably have been quite good fun debating with the old guard while drinking fizz at their dinner parties. The idea of passing so much as a single meal peopled by new Labour activists makes me shudder. Who knows if they even lay the table? A Momentum dinner party is probably pizza, beer and lots – lots – of yelling and swearing. Yuck.
There is much to like about Meghan Markle: her friendly, open beauty, the sense of fresh air she evokes and, of course, that Harry had a straightforward, everyman’s crush on her for two years after seeing her on the telly as Rachel Zane in Suits.
To add to the excitement, we’ve now discovered Meghan has roots going back to a Yorkshire coal mining community. A Channel4 documentary has traced her great great grandmother, Martha Sykes, back to England. Apparently, Martha left for America aged one with her parents Thomas and Mary.
When the family got to the USA, it was more coal-mining and a tough old life, especially when breadwinner Thomas died shortly after of heart failure.
The journey from 19thcentury Yorkshire coal mine to potential Queen’s granddaughterin-law is a true Cinderella romance. Of course, the Duchess of Cambridge also has roots in mining stock; seems the Windsor princes like a girl with some grit as well as glamour.
For all its lip service to gender equality, this is a party that sees manners and civility as Right-wing