BY JAMES TOWNSEND
With Obama a month away from handing over the White House, with Labour in the UK looking unelectable, with EU socialists still in shock about Brexit and France looking like it’s heading into Thatcherite hands under François Fillon next year, the Progressives (the stolen word variety) look like a spent force.
As a student of history I know that the great watersheds in politics are documented by those in or near to the core. However it’s the secondary and tertiary sources – in particular the animadversions of the public – which often demarcate periods in history and herald seismic shifts in power.
One such public source was revealed this week, I believe, by a letter writer to the Financial Times, called Keith Craig.
Keith’s letter is laid out below:
“At best dubious, at worst delusional”… the navel-gazing has already begun in earnest.
Is this 1979 all over again? It would seem the “rude and licentious electorates” are banking on it. As the world is in quite a mess. And something must be done about it.
The era of Blair, Obama, Hollande, Merkel, Renzi and Juncker is one we will look back on as one that started hopefully, ended abruptly and – against a backcloth of economic crisis, terrorism, restrictive political correctness and mass migration – sent socialist and progressive ideas into a tailspin from which, like Hilary Clinton, they will perhaps never recover.
Thank you, Mr Craig.
You summed things up beautifully.
James Townsend is a Guest Writer for Country Squire Magazine
How ironic, Trump on the moral, national security and political high ground, whatever next, Nigel Farage, Secretary Of State? Currently, I am researching the life and times of a Victorian soldier, a sergeant born and raised in nearby Durham. He confronted Chartists on the streets of Newcastle, unrest in Ireland, fought in The First Opium War in China, then to India and Afghanistan and somehow survived unscathed to serve in the Durham Militia. I do not call myself an “historian”, but there does seem to be a lot of parallels with the life of a soldier since WW2. As to the lives of ordinary people, the so called “JAMS” and political shenanigans and characters, methinks Dickens and Trollope did a pretty good job of chronicling those. “Progressive” interesting term, back in the 1840’s a certain prominent Mr Chadwick was regarded as a “progressive”, and believe it or not he supported State control of the then rapidly developing railway system, Mr Corbyn et al take note!
Progressives still have power bases. You look at the London Mayoralty. Likely Manchester Mayoralty. There are still Progressives in power across Holland, and Belgium and Scandinavian countries. There is still quite a bit of work to be done yet to dislodge them permanently.
The progressives are not departing gracefully in the US because they know what is round the corner. Do they think Trump is just going to let their crimes pass? He’ll light them up like a Christmas tree. Including some of Obama’s people in the security services who right now are showing themselves to be very, very scared indeed.
profiteering by the “professional classes” seems like a personal dig. At bankers?
Yes, if all the progressives were like Keith then the world would be better off. Unfortunately they are not and cannot just accept defeat and move on.