Theresa May is sitting in the first class carriage of a train. Suddenly, she winds down the window, and throws a ten pound note out of the window. "What on earth did you do that for?" says one of the people in the carriage. "Well" she said "I like to imagine that someone will find that note, and it will make them happy." "Well on that basis, why not throw two five pound notes out, and make two people happy?" "In fact" chips in another man "Why not throw yourself out and make everyone bloody happy?"
[NOTE, incidentally, that this is an example of the Dave Allen Rule -- any joke is funnier if you put the word "bloody" in the punchline. ]
What do you call ten Tories in the sea? A start.
Theresa May is rushing to an important meeting, and runs across the road into the path of a bus. Fortunately, three little boys, on the other side of the road, see what is happening and scream out to the bus to stop, and no harm is done. "I think you may have saved my life" says Mrs May "I would like to give you a reward. What would you like?" "May I have an X-Box" says the first little boy. "Certainly - see this child gets an X-Box and a couple of good games for it." "May I have an I-Pad" says the second little boy. "Certainly - get this lad a top of the range I-Pad....And what would you like?" "I would like a state funeral..." "You are awfully young to be thinking of that kind of thing!" "But when my Dad finds out whose bloody life I saved today..."
I think that Cliff Richard should be buried in Poets Corner. Right now.
The human race just can't get it right, can it? John Lennon -- murdered. J.F.K -- murdered. Martin Luther King -- murdered. Ghandi -- murdered. Jesus Christ -- murdered. Ronald Reagan -- wounded. Dear God -- In the last year, you have taken my favourite comedian, Ronnie Corbet; my favourite conjurer, Paul Daniels; my favourite singer, David Bowie; and my favourite actor, Carrie Fisher. Oh God, I want you to know that my favourite politician is Jeremy Corbyn."
It is not in question that Jim Davison is odious little individual (or at any rate, that he plays one on the stage.) I understand that he sincerely regrets the racist "Chalkie White" material he did during the '70s. However, his "Jeremy Corbyn" remark was clearly a joke, presented as a joke, structured as a joke and indeed following a venerable joke-like formula. (*) He was not expressing a wish that someone would die, much less advocating political assassination.
Comedians have always told jokes about the deaths of politicians and other public figures. If you start down the path of saying "Tory comedian Jim Davidson wishes Jeremy Corbyn DEAD in sick gag"you end up saying "Well, I'm glad YOU think that the deaths of fifteen hundred people are funny, but I don't think YOU'D have found it very funny if YOU'D been in the bar of the Titanic with a Vicar and a Rabbi..."
(*)
Compare: "I've just been reading a fascinating survey of worldwide sexual behaviour. It says that Native Americans have the biggest cocks, but Polish men last longest. By the way, I don't think I caught your name?" "Tonto Pilsudski."
Doctor Octopus, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Sandman, Mysterio, The Vulture
Supporting Cast:
J. Jonah Jameson, Betty Brant, Aunt May, Liz Allan, Flash Thompson
Guest/Cameos:
Thor, Doctor Strange, Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Thing, the Human Torch, Giant Man, the Wasp, Captain America, Iron Man, Prof. X, Marvel Girl, Iceman, the Beast, Cyclops…
Observations:
In England, an “annual” is a hardback album, published at Christmas, with comics, text features, puzzles and games in it. In America, an “annual” is a double or treble sized comic which comes out in the summer: more like what we Brits would call a “holiday special.” Since Spider-Man last encountered them, Electro has been seen criming in Daredevil #2; Sandman escaped from prison and was recaptured by the Human Torch in Strange Tales #115; and Kraven was knocked out by Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #58.
The features section of this issue states that Midtown High School is "3 blocks west" of Peter Parker’s house. Our working assumption has been that Midtown High is Forest Hills High School, on 110th Street. Unfortunately, if you went three block east of Midtown High, you would end up in the lake in Flushing Meadows Park. We either have to move the school, or assume that “three blocks west” is a mistake. The best I can manage is to place the Parker residence somewhere around 19 68th Avenue, where the houses don’t seem to be a bad match for Ditko’s illustration. Peter's walk to school would then be three blocks east and two blocks north. Later continuity gave the address as 20 Ingram Street (a real address, currently occupied by a presumably rather bemused family called, er, Parker); but this is a 30 minute walk from the high school.
Page 4: Flash Thompson tells Peter “you asked for it” and Peter replies “Now, there’s an imperishable bit of clever dialogue”… a rare occasion when Peter Parker allows himself to wisecrack in Spider-Man’s voice.
Page 7:“And so, it takes the once mighty Spider-Man almost an hour to make a journey which a short time earlier he would have completed in less than 3 minutes.” The building which Spider-Man is hanging off when he loses his powers is on Madison Ave (p12), some ten miles from Queens. Spider-Man is doing pretty well to cover that distance in a hour: it would probably take most people a couple of hours to walk. On the other hand, if he can really swing from Queens to Manhattan in three minutes, he must be travelling at something 200 miles per hour. (There is also the question of how he walked along the roof tops from Forest Hills to Manhattan, and indeed, what his web is attached to on the top of page 5!)
Page 9:“Perhaps you should stay home today dear? It may be a touch of virus” Last time Spider-Man fought Doctor Octopus, an unspecified “virus” turned out to be the one thing that could remove his Spider-Powers.
Page 13: The Human Torch uses firey skywriting to send a message to Spider-Man; a reference back to their first meeting when the message was “Spider-Man: Let’s Work Together”. All we can see of this message is “Spi.. Co.. F4”… perhaps “Spider-Man - Come to F4’s headquarters”?
Page 20: “You can’t leave yet, Gunga Din” In Kipling’s poem, Gunga Din is a punjabi Indian, so it’s an odd name to apply to Kraven, a white African. Gunga Din is a noble figure (”you’re a better man than I am…”) where Spider-Man seems to despise Kraven more than some of his other foes.
“You never give up, do you?? I’ll bet you’re still wearin’ a Vote for Dewey button”
Thomas Dewey was an unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, losing to Roosevelt in 1944 and Truman in 1948. He was also Governor of New York until 1954. The Chicago Tribune famously called the 1948 election result incorrectly, resulting in photos of Truman holding a newspaper with a “Dewey Elected” headline: this may be why he’s connected with absurd persistence. If Peter Parker was born in 1949, this wisecrack is roughly equivalent to one of today’s 17 year old crime fighters saying “I bet you’re still wearing a Vote for Bob Dole button”. We have stopped pretending that the voice of Spider-Man is anything other than the voice of Stan Lee.
Page 22:“Rots of ruck” Facetious, borderline racist, cod-Asian pronunciation of "lots of luck". It may have been used as a shibboleth to identify Japanese combatants during the World War II. It was also the name of a popular tune and a brand of candy.
Page 25:“Nice try, Mysterio. But did you forget that my Spider-sense enables me to find any enemy within reach, even I can’t see him.” Probably not: but he apparently has forgotten that he has a sonar device which blocks out our hero’s Spider-sense.
Page 26:“What in Sam Hill happened to Spider-Man?”. J.J.J is not above swearing in front of his staff (usually printed as "%*!#&&" or some such). But when he is alone in his room, he is not quite able to bring himself to say "hell".
“I’ve waited a long time for this moment!” Indeed, Sandman has not been seen for more than twelve issues.
Page 33:"You know your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is always available for weddings, barmitzvahs, and all sorts of fun things”… Confirmation, if confirmation were needed, of Peter Parker’s heritage: someone with a Christian background would have said "weddings, Christenings..."
Page 35: “Now I’ve got you, you meddlesome juvenile”. Doc Ock knows that Spider-Man is young; he knows that he has some connection with Betty Brant; he knows that Betty is dating Peter Parker and that May is Peter’s Aunt… but he can’t quite manage to put two and two together. (It’s odd to accuse Spider-Man of meddling when you’ve gone to so much trouble to arrange this confrontation.)
Page 36:“Boy! What a movie serial this would make!! A new cliffhanger every minute!!” Stan Lee can’t resist lamp-shading his sources. Movie serials were long gone when Peter Parker was growing up (the 50s were the first golden age of TV) so once again this is Stan Lee's voice, not Peters.
Page 39: “Spider-Man! Oh thank heavens!!” It’s only five issues since Betty Brant asserted that she couldn’t bear to ever see Spider-Man again.
Page 40: “All shook up!” Elvis recorded a song of that title in 1957, so this is hardly a new piece of slang — if anything, Peter is being a little bit old-fashioned.
“Do you realize we missed the Beverly Hillbillies” The Beverley Hillbillies was at this point the highest rated TV show in the US. Season 2 ended in June 1964 and Season 3 began in the September of the same year, so when Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 came out lots of Americans, like Aunt May, would have been eagerly anticipating its return.
Appendix: Spider-Man Comics Weekly
The myriad cameos, and the brace of topical references provided more than usually problematic for the UK reprint:
Page 3: When Thor whooshes past, Spider-Man’s “either he’s on his way to a meeting of the Avengers or he’s late for his barber…” becomes “Either he’s on his way to a Carpenters convention...” — presumably a reference to singer Richard Carpenters long(ish) hair, but possibly simply to Thor’s hammer.
Page 4: The whole scene with Doctor Strange is redrawn so it is the Thing who walks past the school when Thompson tries to punch Parker. (”That’s the second time he’s almost clobbered me.”)
Page 10: The whole scene of Giant Man and the Wasp arresting the hoods is redrawn and replaced with one involving Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Girl (meaning that Sue uncharacteristically blames Reed for not paying him back for their phone calls).
Page 12: Reed Richards calls up Major Talbot (from the Hulk) rather than Captain America.
Page 13: The X-Men panel is removed altogether, panel 2 is moved to the left, and a new frame is added with Spider-Man saying “This is it Parker. No superpowers to back you up. You’ve got to do it all by yourself. I can’t kid myself. This could be my last battle.” Page 17: The Stark Electrical Building becomes the Decker Electrical building; Spider-Man is approached by a night-watchman, not Iron Man.
Page 20: “Vote for Dewey button” becomes “Beatles Forever button.” (NOTE: We don’t call them buttons in the UK.) Oddly, “Why don’t you see a barber” becomes “Why don’t you see a veterinary surgeon”? This is the last page of SMCW # 9.
Page 21: This is first page of SMCW #10. The “psychosomatic” explanation for loss of powers is replaced with a brief summary of the the previous issue. ("Boy what a workout! First Electro attacks me, then Kraven the Hunter shows up! I'm one tired Spider-Man...") Page 22/23: Mysterio’s robot X-Men are just robots: “Cyclops is blasting my web” becomes “The guy with the visor is blasting my web”; “the Cyclops robot’s power beam” becomes “that blasted robot’s power beam.” Page 40: “Missed the Beverly Hillbillies” becomes “Missed the re-run of Love Story”. continues....
Andrew Rilstone is a writer and critic from Bristol, England. This essay forms part of his critical study of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man comic book.
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Amazing Spider-Man was written and drawn by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and is copyright Marvel Comics. All quotes and illustrations are use for the purpose of criticism under the principle of fair dealing and fair use, and remain the property of the copywriter holder.
People who believe what I believe sometimes get called Trotskyites. I used to say that I didn't really know what Trotskyite meant, but I think I have worked it out.
Let’s not put it any more strongly than that. I was disturbed by it. I found it disturbing.
Andy Burnham is a Labour Politician. He wanted to be leader of the Labour Party, but we Trotskyites stopped him. He is probably, understandably, still a bit cross with us over that.
Last June there was a Referendum. Every one in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was allowed to vote, except the ones who weren’t. A third of us said that Britain should withdraw from Europe; a third of us said that it shouldn’t; and a third said they didn’t care either way. As a result of this overwhelming vote, we have decided to spend the next 10 years arguing about the definition of “withdraw”.
During the referendum, the position of the Labour Party was that although the E.U is in some ways a flawed organization, Britain should remain a member and work to improve it. Since the referendum, the position of the Labour Party has been that since withdrawal is now inevitable we should concentrate on finding a definition of “withdraw” that doesn’t involve crashing the country’s economy. Free trade — access to the single market — is regarded as the Biggie.
Andy Burnham takes a different view. He thinks that the Biggie is not free trade, but Immigrants. The party leadership thinks that we should maintain free trade with Europe, even if that means continuing to allow other Europeans to live and work in the UK. Burnham thinks that we should abolish the right of other Europeans to live and work in the UK, even if that means that we can no longer have free trade.
He has, of course, a perfect right to his opinion. What bothered me was the way in which he chose to make his case. I put it no stronger than that. It bothered me. Here are some of things which bothered me about it.
1: “We need a plan to bring this divided country back together again.”
I agree. The referendum really only told us what everyone already knew: the country is split down the middle over the question of Europe. (So, by coincidence, are the Conservative party and the Labour party.) We need a way of going forward that the 37% of secessionists and the 35% of anti-secessionists would be equally happy with or — as is usually the case with compromises — which the 37% and 35% would be equally annoyed by. The 28% will be equally indifferent whatever happens.
2: “We can all debate what the referendum vote meant beyond the decision to leave the EU. Above all, I am clear it was a majority vote for an end to the current system of free movement.”
It is a strange world where you have a referendum, and wait until after the votes are counted to decide what the referendum means. Like going off to hunt a snark and realizing that you have no idea at all what a snark is. The Prime Minister (who campaigned for us to Stay but now wants us to Go) says that “Brexit means Brexit”, which I think means that the snark was a boojum all along.
The ballot paper I ticked looked like this:
Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?
Remain a member of the European Union
Leave the European Union
I think that most of the people who ticked the “leave” box assumed that they were voting to tear up all the agreements which have been made over the last 40 years and wind the clock back to where the country was before it joined the Common Market. In status quo res erant ante anno MCMLXXII as it were. I think this is what a Texan would assume he was doing if he ever found himself ticking a box which said “leave the United States”. But everyone agrees that whatever “leave” means, it definitely doesn’t mean that. So we are left in the charming position where politicians can pick any position they like and claim a massive (37/35) popular mandate for it.
Andy Burnham “is clear” that the vote to secede from Europe was, in fact, a vote against European immigration. I am happy that he is clear, although I don't know what constitutional status his clarity has. But I don't think that being clear and being right are necessarily the same.
It is clear to me that some of those who voted to leave did so because they had been promised that the £350,000,000 a week we currently spend on EU membership would be spent on public health instead. This turned out to be a lie — the figure is nothing like £350,000,000 and there is no chance of it all being spent on the health service. But it is one of those lies that was so bold and so barefaced that one feels reticent about even mentioning it. “Oh, yes, I know we lied about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; isn’t it cute the way you funny little Trots keep going on about it.”
It is clear to me that some of those who voted "leave" did so because they were sick of only being allowed to buy straight bananas and being forbidden from buying eggs in six packs. These were also lies, but they were lies on a level with the one told to the famous emperor about his famous cloak: the kind which becomes true if you believe it hard enough. Boris Johnson appeared to have some self-imposed cognitive dissonance that genuinely made him think that he hadn't seen any half-dozen boxes of eggs since 1972. It's very much the same kind of trick which allows a man to look at a huge Christmas tree in the town square and say "Of course, you and allowed to put up huge Christmas trees in the town square any more."
And it is very clear to me that some of the people who voted “leave” did so because of a deep, religious belief in something called “sovereignty”. They didn’t necessarily have any problem with any specific “European” law, but they objected on spiritual grounds to people in Belgium having a say about what happens in England. Since June some of these people have been entertaining fantasies about abolishing metric measurements, restoring pre-decimal currency, playing God Save the Queen on the wireless and getting the Queen a smart new boat to play with. (Some people have told me that the people who voted "leave" did so because they were jolly cross about everything in the world and nothing in particular and thought that a leave vote would jolly give politicians a kick up the backside, so it's my fault for not listening. I am not very clear about that one at all.)
It seems that the dirty campaign fought by some of the secessionists is deemed to affect the result retrospectively. It is true that fascist politicians stuck up posters depicting scary brown-skinned people flooding across our borders; this makes it clear to center left politicians that a vote to leave the EU was really a vote against scary brown people.
But even if it were clear that the 37% voted against immigration, wouldn’t it be equally clear that the 35% voted in favour of it? And wouldn’t it follow that if your objective were “to bring the divided country back together” you would be looking for a compromise position which the 37% who are nativists and the 35% who are multiculturalists would be equally happy with (or equally irritated by)?
3: “For at least a decade, Labour activists have been hearing concerns on doorsteps about free movement and immigration.”
British parliamentary constituencies are sufficiently small that MPs get to meet a significant number of the people who voted for them face to face. This the only argument in favour of our voting system: it forces MPs to campaign at a local level, which gives voters a direct line to the center of government. If Mrs Miggins tells her MP that she is concerned about the state of paving stones on Stapleton Road, there is a chance that her MP might pass her concerns on to the Prime Minister — or, at any rate, the Minister With Responsibility for Paving Stones.
I am sure that some of the people who MPs meet do have "concerns" about immigration; and I am sure that some of those concerns are sensible. "When I am not standing on the doorstep talking to you, I am a school teacher," a concerned person might say "and I am concerned that we have had 37 children from immigrant families join our school this year. I am concerned because some of them do not speak English and none of their parents do. I am also concerned because some of them have been brought up to think that it is dirty to get changed for P.E and have no idea what Christmas is." And the MP might go away and talk to the Minister for Education, and come up a solution — a specialist ESOL teacher in the school, interpreters for parents evenings, a trained mediator to deal with cultural differences about decency and modesty and religious festivals. And that would pretty much deal with all the sensible concerns. Hooray for democracy! But I do hope that my MP would only pay attention to sensible concerns. If I am concerned about foxes in the dustbins, I hope my MP might do something about it. If I am concerned about alligators in the sewers, not so much. If I am concerned about old people tripping over paving stones, my MP should probably pay attention to me. If I am concerned about immigrants coming out at the dead of night and tripping up old ladies, he probably shouldn't.
4: “There will be those who argue that any changes [to immigration] we make must be minimal so as to maximize access to the single market. They may well be right, and it could be that this is where the national interest lies. But the test will be whether the changes to free movement meet public concerns.”
Pause, for a moment, and take that in.
Some people think that we should allow, or mostly allow, European immigration to continue in return for us being allowed to continue to trade with Europe. Some people think it is worth losing our free trade agreements with Europe in order to stop European immigrants coming here. Andy Burnham thinks that it doesn’t matter who is right and who is wrong. What matters is meeting public concerns whether or not those concerns are sensible.
Extremists tend to think that there is right and there is wrong; there is a black, and there is white; and there is nothing — nothing — in between,
[Insert Diagram]
Moderates, on the other hand, think that there is black and there is white but there are also at least fifty shades of grey ranging from “slightly less right” to “almost completely wrong”. There’s also a pretty big “we don’t know” space in the middle.
[Insert diagram]
Extremists can’t compromise (even in the face of Armageddon) but moderates compromise all the time. If I agree to do something which I think is a bit wrong, and you agree to do something which you think is a bit wrong, then we’ll be doing something that we both think is at least a bit right, which is better than doing nothing at all. (Probably.)
Andy Burnham proposes a new model.
[Insert diagram]
On one side is “right” and “wrong” (with gradations and don’t knows and the need for compromise taken for granted.) But on the other side is “public concerns” and “what the people on the doorstep say”. The latter always overrides the former. What matters is not what is right but what the man on the doorstep thinks is right.Vox populum super limen vox deus if I might put it like that.
This is what post-truth politics looks like. It doesn’t look like Donald Trump denying climate change and inventing millions of fraudulent votes. It doesn’t even look like the Sun doctoring an image to make it look like the leader of the opposition was dancing a jig on the cenotaph. It looks like a sensible, liberal politician saying “they may well be right…but…”
The person on the doorstep is not stupid. But he is ignorant. So am I. So are you. So is everybody.
I, for example, am almost entirely ignorant about Science. I don’t have a head for figures or logic or the patience to do something over and over again and make detailed notes of tiny changes. I have some general sense that Schrodinger had a cat that was in two states at once, and that this illustrates that there is something in Quantum Physics (some kind of particle, I suppose) which can be in two states at once, and that this has something to do with why my I-Phone works, but that's honestly the best I can do. I could read a book, if I wanted to, but I can’t really be bothered. On the other hand, I can be bothered to work my way through text books that tell me, for example, roughly what page historians are on with regard to The Historical Jesus and laugh (ha!) when biologists say that everyone now agrees he’s a myth. Because that stuff does interest me. And it goes without saying that I have to send for a plumber to fix the simplest dripping tap or leaky washing machine. Why on earth would you ask me about physics or football or plumbling when there are people out there who know about this stuff? Experts, if you will.
O.K: knowledge isn't everything. Facts aren't everything. Evidence isn't everything. Many of our strongest beliefs come down to sentiment and aesthetics. It is often a good idea (and a powerful rhetorical tool) to admit this. It’s not a great idea to claim that history proves that tyrants are never defeated by armies if the real reason you don't like war is that your Uncle Ben was killed in the Falklands. I myself am very reluctant to allow evidence to intrude into any argument about capital punishment. Actually I think the evidence is mostly on my side, but that's a fortunate coincidence; I'd be on the same side even if the evidence were mostly against me. There is no point in talking about whether your state has a higher murder rate than my state and how many innocent people your country executed last year and whether "deterrent" even means anything. The only reason I am against the death penalty is because I am emotionally and aesthetically against ritually asphyxiating helpless prisoners (irrespective of what they have probably done). To argue otherwise is to argue fraudulently.
I imagine that many of the people on the doorstep know as little about economics as I do about Schrodinger’s cat, or washing machines, or, come to that, economics. I imagine many of them are concerned about immigration at an emotional, gut level. I imagine they aesthetically and sentimentally dislike hearing languages that they do not understand in the doctor’s waiting room. I imagine they sentimentally and aesthetically dislike shops selling food they don’t recognize on the high street. I imagine they sentimentally and aesthetically dislike it when people with a different word for God start saying their prayers in what used to be a cinema. I imagine they have a sentimental and aesthetic hankering for the days when nearly everyone they met looked the same as him and there were hardly any black or brown people in his part of town.
Call this racism or nativism or perfectly understandable old-fogeyism. You don’t have to be old to be an old fogey. Call it alt-right or call it "genuine concerns". It's a faith position, a gut feeling, an intuition. Don't mistake it for an argument.
As has been noted, Tony Blair thought that a state of mind he called “sincerity” (“just happening to believe”) was sufficient basis to start a war. David Cameron thought that a fairly technical question about voting reform depended on ineffable emotional feelings that could not be put into words. Michael Gove say that he doesn’t care about the opinions of experts — or, rather more subtly, that he doesn’t think that the populum super limen do. And Jacob Rees-Mogg has said, literally and in so many words that great political and economic questions could as well be settled by consulting horoscopes or the entrails of chickens as by consulting people who know about politics and economics. Not that Jacob Rees-Mogg actually consults the entrails of chickens to decide on economic questions. At least, I assume he doesn't. Presumably he just follows his gut instinct; does the first thing which comes into his head. Or at least, the first thing which comes into the head of the person on the doorstep.
I suppose most of us voted in the referendum according to our hearts, rather than according to our heads. But the starting point of this discussion is that while the heads are more or less unanimous — leaving the European single market would be an act of reckless insanity — the hearts are deeply divided. 37% of our hearts hankered for mono-racial, mono-cultural, olde fashionede Englande; 34% of our hearts had an idealistic belief that there is only one race, the human race, and that countries made up of different kinds of people were nicer and more interesting places to live than countries where every one was the same. 37% of us want a land with a wall around it and 34% of us have a faith in our fellow man, as the bard said.
What happened to seeking a unity between those two positions? “The people on the doorstep” doesn’t just mean “people”, does it? Any more than “the real America” just means “Americans”? It means the people on the doorstep as opposed to the people anywhere else — in cafes or universities or at political meanings? And I am not on the doorstep. There I times when I sincerely doubt that I am person. I am one of the 35%. I am a metropolitian elite, an expert, a luvvie, a moaner, a Trot, a Guardianista. I am also a member of a trade union, and we learned this week that the Prime Minister does not regard members of trade unions as people.
My shaky knowledge of science isn’t written into my genes. I picked it up somewhere; very possibly from Star Trek. The opinions of the people on the doorstep didn’t drop out of the sky, either. They picked them up from somewhere. Very possibly from a newspaper. And I sometimes suspect that some of the newspapers have a political agenda. I sometimes think that they are deliberately trying to create the impression that there are floods and hoards of terrifying immigrants who want to steal your job, take down your Union Jack, ban your Christmas tree and force you eat straight bananas and 5-packs of eggs. I sometimes think that this reflects what their editor sincerely believes in his heart, or more likely, what would be in the owner's economic interests.
If we are going to make it a general rule that the opinions of the people on the doorstep are automatically right, then you might just as will cut out the middle-man and ask the two or three zillionaires who own the press directly. Which is what you might expect a Tory to believe; but rather a surprising position for a Labour man.
Vox populi super limen vox domini de ephemerides if you absolutely insist.
*
I know, of course, what my Labour friends will say about this. They will say “It is the person on the doorstep (right or wrong) who votes in elections; if you want to win an election you have to meet their concerns (right or wrong); there is no point in a political party existing if it can’t win elections.”
So I think that is what Trotskyite must mean. The opposite of that.
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