I can't stand John Harris but...

[Mitch]

... he's got it dead-right here.

I was going to post something about this, but the article pretty much describes what's been going on: Labour are running a vile, pseudo-BNP campaign up here for the by-election. And their trashing of the Tory candidate is so childish & pathetic, it'll be completely counter-productive.

I'll probably still be voting for them, but fuck, they're making it hard to stomach...

I mean, I dunno, is this how by-elections are usually fought? I've never been in one before.

[Gangster Octopus]

I can't stand John Harris but...

If you don't want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I can't stand John Harris but...

utterly witless class warfare

That maybe the case as regards this particular Tory, but I reckon a lot more should be made of the real class origins/interests of the Cameron clique running the shadow cabinet in Labour campaigning.

[hobbes]

I can't stand John Harris but...

Good comment on the responses bit.

Labour's candidate's full name is Moyra Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey, she's listed in Burke's Peerage and she's fighting for her mum's seat in parliament (c/o Englandismdotcom).

The Tory candidate comes from a family that made a bit of money mending shoes and cutting keys and spends it fostering deprived children (c/o GoldenAxe).

And Labour are running a campaign saying basically "Don't vote for the posh, out of touch toff".

The real danger of this kind of shit is that people will forget how awful the tories are becuase Labour are trying their damnedest to be worse.

[Wyatt Earp]

I can't stand John Harris but...

New Labour, having discovered that Third Way liberalism loses them the votes of the party's traditional working class supporters, wonders if a dash of fascism will win them back.

You know those debates in the Olden Days in among members and supporters about the extent to which "we" should compromise "our" principles in order to be electable? We seem now to be looking at a party that has no principles and isn't electable either.

[Wyatt Earp]

I can't stand John Harris but...

Harris can be OK on politics, I reckon: it's pop he's crap on.

[Auntie Beryl]

I can't stand John Harris but...

I'm sure there must be a huge gap on the centre left now, one that the Lib Dems aren't sussed enough/are unwilling to take advantage of.

It's not just OTFers who are appalled by both Lab and Con and don't want to vote Lib: I know loads of people in this position.

A comfort is that a lot of the people I know in the above category, who voted Tory in the London elections 'for a change', are already regretting it. But what's next?

[Guest]

I can't stand John Harris but...

I agree that Harris is quite good on politics. His book about who are you going to vote for at the time of the last election was very interesting.
I've read "The Last party" and it is over-long and a little dull. He also overplays the importance of Elastica and Britpop in general.

[E10 Rifle]

I can't stand John Harris but...

That's a decent piece but I'm a bit weary of Harris's politics in general. He's allied himself too closely with the all-talk-no-action chin-stroking careerists of Compass, whose basic ideas are decent and important but who basically think that a few pamphlets and a few words in Gordon Brown's ear from Decent Chaps Like Us is an effective substitute for collective political action, and who are often ludicrously sectarian towards those of us a smidgeon further to the left than they are. Harris himself was and is horribly sneering - and inaccurate - about the John McDonnell campaign and the LRC/Campaign Group contingent.

So while I'm glad the issues raised in this article gets an airing, Harris in general offers no great strategic political insight.

It's probably a bit parochial and petty to raise all this, but I wanted to get it off me chest anyhow.