The Dinner Party

On the Observer blog, David Aaronovitch describes the narrow and condescending narrative "the British intelligentsia collectively creates, reproduces and conforms to":

As reported or argued in articles, reviews, interviews or diaries, this story includes the following necessary elements: Labour would have won in 1997 anyway without Tony Blair; Labour are now pretty much the same as the Tories, that’s why there is so much apathy; Blair has no social vision, he just wants power for its own sake; new Labour is in hock to America for strange psychological reasons to do with power and weaponry; Labour wishes to privatise the public services; Labour hasn’t achieved anything of any note; Labour represents a unique threat to our ancient liberties; Blair is a pious, lying hypocritical warmonger; he is trying to scare us unnecessarily; there is no such thing as a terrorist threat – or if there is such a thing, then it’s no worse than when the IRA was active, or if it is worse, then it’s the consequence of Western arrogance and globalisation.

This orthodoxy, I would argue, has become – in its own etiolated way – as stifling as anything imposed on the faithful by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. There are people who never meet people who think anything other than the things I’ve listed above, yet their influence on debate in this country is out of all proportion either to their numbers or their political understanding. Inactive themselves, they spread hopelessness and cynicism and help pave the way for a return of the right, a return that many of them would – unconsciously perhaps – welcome.

(via Harry's Place)