Harry’s Place

Boris Johnson’s views on Jamie Oliver and ‘pushing pies through school railings’ have a very conspicuous RCP hue to them. No wonder Simon Heffer and Bruce Anderson ganged up on him before the election to denounce him as a libertarian but not a Tory.

The whole Liverpool victim mentality thing could have come straight from the hard drive of column templates by Mick Hume or Claire Fox as well.

While young Emily won’t get a Munira level appointment, is some form of policy officer or press officer post too hard to imagine? She’s already passed the job interview with that CiF post alone.

Anyhow, a bank of non-Sloane totty for the new mayor to install in his municipal harem on the Thames all the same.

But Heffer wrote the offending piece about Liverpool and then generously kept his head down while Boris took all the flack for him.

(The article is even more remarkable in that it was the only time Heffer has ever been right about anything).

Surely you can’t be suggesting that spiked articles are produced by plugging in the keyword du jour into a pro forma template?

Well, they seem more organised than the Libertarian Alliance - all those 1980s FCS-ers are all over the place (unless that’s some other masterplan…)

G.Monboit and Nick cohen , wrote about these people a few years ago…both wrote good articles on them

I’ve not seen a spiked! editorial on the Hillsborough disaster that I recall, but I could pretty much write one myself…

Risk aversion… killjoys… over-reaction… Taylor Report… health and safety Nazis…

http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2007/01/nick-cohen-vs-institute-of-ideas.html

http://www.newstatesman.com/200208120009

Two nick cohen articles on these people…both good articles…

One of the Libertarian Alliance bods - possibly Sean Gabb - ended up as some sort of lobbyist for Sudan.

Yes but how lazy are you, linking to a Google search results page!

Shows you how many pieces she has written for Spiked…

One of the Libertarian Alliance bods - possibly Sean Gabb - ended up as some sort of lobbyist for Sudan.

Two in fact: Gabb and David Hoile - and Hoile reportedly recently took Yvonne Ridley and Lord Ahmed on a tour of Khartoum and Darfur.

Claire Fox spoke at the Libertarian Conference a couple of years ago.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7943745592773591318

Stumped the buggers by all accounts.
They were obviously expecting some weak solution of faux-libertarianism and commie theorising, but she towed their party line, more or less.

Given that the RCP’s basic principle is to adopt the opposite position to the rest of the left, it makes perfect sense for them to like the Tories.

Mick Hume is a Manchester United season ticket holder and even writes a column for one of their fanzines, so Boris’s scouse-baiting would sit well with at least one RCPer. I don’t know who Frank Furedi supports though.

lobbyist for Sudan *vomits*

The spiked! crowd are very pro-development over the environment (ie. building on the green built, more skyscrapers etc.), which is not only at odds with Boris’ own pronouncements but the entire agenda of his new planning adviser Sir Simon ‘homes for votes’ Milton. Should be make for some interesting meetings at city hall.

Roomed elephant - this is quite interesting. Although one can see the (weird, nasty and entirely mad) appeal of Boris to “RCP-ism” in some ways, in other ways their development agenda is closer to Ken and the Labour Party nationally in terms of building on greenfield land and opposing nimby-ism. And of course, BoJo himself is pro-intervention (one of the very few ok things about him to my mind, even if you really don’t get the impression he takes than view because he wants to spread global human rights…), whilst they are emphatically opposed, to the extent of denying genocide. What a profoundly odd couple.

Yes, the Sudan lobbysit was Sean Gabb - he was emplyed to do this by the real pro-Sudan lobbyist/theri main PR man in London, David Hoile, formerly a leading light in the Federation of Conservative Students. He preveiously ran the Mozambique Institute, a front for Renamo, the apatheid era Mozambique rebel group backed by South Africa.

I wonder whether the RCP’s love affair with Boris will become as hot a subject as Ken’s relationship with Socialist Action.

Erm, at Harry’s Place, or in the wider world?

(Having failed to notice anyone but anyone outwith this Place uttering even a syllable on either of these topics, regardless of their stance on the mayoral election)

David T - are you even remotely interested in the truth? You insist on writing about the RCP in the present tense even though it was disbanded more than a decade ago. Or do you think that was merely a tactical deception?

Then you write this: “Entryism into Tory/centre Right groups seems to be the next stage of the project.” Where’s the evidence? Munira Mirza worked for Policy Exchange and a couple of other LM types wrote stuff for it. Isn’t it rather more likely that Munira’s appointment to Team Boris is connected to the fact that his transition team is headed by Nick Boles who was Munira’s boss at Policy Exchange and may have developed a high opinion of her abilities? Or perhaps he’s being mind-controlled by Frank Furedi too.

I know Munira, and your sub-Chandleresque detective work is actually a huge insult to a thoroughly decent, intellectually engaged and ultimately independent-minded woman. By implying (hell, by openly stating) that she’s the tool of some extremist conspiracy you are doing an injury to her - and to the truth.

Perhaps that doesn’t give you pause for thought.

From today’s Private Eye (1210 p. 14):

After eight years of being secretly run by the secretive Trots of Socialist Action, post-Livingstone London has fallen under the control of an even more sinister sect: the Tories of Westminster city council, who revere the memory of their disgraced ex-leader, Dame Shirley Porter.

Boris Johnson has effectively handed over City Hall to the control of three senior Westminster Tory councillors…

More to the point, does this mean that all of those who vigorously undermined Ken Livingstone and sought to unseat him, by fair means or foul, will now apologise and do the decent thing, which is to say retire from political debate?

Bartholomew, if that’s true, that’s far far worse. Lady Porter The Thief and Liar and Gerrymanderer is quite possibly the most despicable local politician that London has known.

Far far worse than any of the “weird and nasty” remnants that the successors of the RCP could hope to throw up

(and, hey, as a Londoner born and bred, I LIKE “weird and nasty”)

Bring back Ken, I say.

Ven

The Social Affairs Unit has noticed it too. As has Bob Pitt!

Insider

Don’t get me wrong. I like Munira. There are also many things on which I agree with the RCP. The RCP were basically the first people to spot that identity politics was an utter dead end, which is why Munira is an excellent choice of advisor to fight the facile sectarianism that was fostered by Ken over the past 8 years. I really hope she’ll succeed, and I am likely to be writing articles supporting specific things that she is doing. Basically, I’m a fan.

I also admire the RCP’s strategy. I think they’ve been very clever.

What I don’t like about the RCP (apart, of course, from their attachment to Westphalian notions of sovereignty, and their nutsy Srebrenica denial) is:

- Their cultishness. People I know who have dealings with the RCP have not had happy experiences with them. They’re very controlling.

- The uniformity of their views. You KNOW what an RCP article will say before you’ve read it. It is so predictable.

- Their tendency to be shocking for the sake of it (”Let’s have more whaling!” “Hurrah for child porn!” “Let’s inject acid into the eyes of little puppy dogs!”). This is absolutely great if you’re providing fodder for blogs or middlebrow mags like the Speccie - but you CAN’T behave like this if you’re trying to run a sensible mass appeal political party.

I also don’t think that the RCP are nearly as clever as they think they are. Possibly, because they’re essentiallly a cult, and not a collection of libertarian free thinkers. And possibly because Furedi is quite fun, but not one of the great philosophers of our age.

But… don’t give me this whole “the RCP was disbanded more than a decade ago” crap. It merely changed form. The RCP is shorthand for the group of people, with a common set of ideas, behind the myriad RCP related front groups. If it helps, we can call them “The Group Formerly Known As The RCP” (”TGFKATRCP”).

she’s the tool of some extremist conspiracy

I don’t think the RCP are extremist.

Silly in some ways, but not extremist at all.

In other news, your new mayor has axed “The Londoner” and will use the monies saved to plant some 10,000 trees in poorer areas of town.

RCP and the Furedi cult are the British Equivalent of the US Libertarian party, complete with their conspiracy theories, laissez faire foreign policy, and hostility to environmentalism.

In the sense that Furedi is a Ron Paul figure, the Tories are the natural home for the RCPers; let us hope that they bring the same shame upon the Conservative party as Paul and his rabid followers brought upon the Repiblicans.

There’s a good comment by an ex-RCP-er at the Social Affairs Uni blog:

The RCP does not believe that capitalism is in its progressive stage. Rather they believe that it is moribund wanting overthrowing at the earliest opportunity.

Nevertheless they acknowledge, as Marx always did, that capitalism is still capable of rounds of accumulation and development that do in practice mitigate some of the system’s more negative, or barbaric, aspects, but only because it can implement its more hard-edged solutions without much challenge.

Today’s ruling class, in their view, is living on borrowed time. The ruling class is morally, politically, ideologically bankrupt. It even lacks self-confidence, self-belief in its own system and rule. It survives only because there is no opposition.

They dissolved the RCP because:

1. The labels Communist/communism were totally discredited and were beyond repair in their life times because of a) Stalinism b) the defeat of Leninism and the Bolsheviks, reinforced by determined capitalist repression, destroyed all trace of the ideological independence of the world’s working classes.

2. The RCP (Frank Furedi) recognized that before you could run an effective political party you needed to reconstruct a marxist tradition, which is based on a methodology rather than on labels, with a revolutionary way of seeing things, more than anything else.

3. They decided they could be more effective as a loose-knit group influencing debate than as a political party obeying pre-revolutionary style discipline that had seen them pissing in the wind joining picket lines and entering into elections (they got 38 votes standing against Peter Tatchell in Bermondsey, which was less than the Raving Loonies ever got in any election I would bet - in that election they got 97 votes).

It is the RCPs and Frank Furedi’s belief that their ability to function as a loose-knit group outside of the grip of rigid party discipline was a sign of their ideological strength as much as it was a recognition of the task ahead and the failures of the RCP to be a real political party.

4. They do not believe that capitalism will destroy itself, they reckon it all depends on them and their vanguard. Once they think they have laid the basis for the vanguard they will get back to organising the revolution for real as a political party, for sure.

The Social Affairs Unit has noticed it too. As has Bob Pitt!

David T, you’re at your most hilarious when you’re doing an impression of Adrian Mole, don’t you know?!

John P, good riddance to “The Londoner” for sure - However, diamond geezer (diamondgeezer.blogspot.com) has done a bit of debunking of the tree-planting thing, though. It’s really not that impressive…

Another comment from the Social Affairs Unit blog (my, there’s a lot of weird convergences going on these days):

“Is Munira Mirza not also the girlfried of Dougie Smith - cheif speechwriter fro David Cameron and formerly a favourite target of the tabloids.? Dougie Smith was the organiser of Fever parties - orgies for paying couples.”

If this is true then Fleet Street’s finest (sic) won’t have to wait long before some juicy scandal emerges from city ‘orl.

Can we have the ICA back from the spiked! weirdos, please? They’ve had their day, move on, please.

Re the SAU comment, do you think they are still really revolutionaries? It seems to me that that is likely to be merely convenient posturing, surely.

“David T, you’re at your most hilarious when you’re doing an impression of Adrian Mole, don’t you know?!”

Yes, but in a really rather good way. What DT does sometimes is to serve up small morcels of things that are of interest to the more train-spotterish of us, but who would probably not come across them otherwise (well, I never would, anyway). Where else would I get to read about Boris and the RCP?! It is a public service!

The problem with “orgies for paying couples”, is that the sort of people who go won’t necessarily be the sort of people you’d actually want to have sex with. Admittedly, I’ve only ever been to gay clubs where this sort of thing goes on, and I don’t find men that attractive, so perhaps I’m judging the quality of talent unfairly. But the ones offering themselves up were significantly of the balding flabby variety. I’d expect that similar rules would apply to hetero payorgies.

Oh, it wasn’t a (negative) criticism, just an observation…

At least he doesn’t present us with his poetry…

“But the ones offering themselves up were significantly of the balding flabby variety.”

Bringing it back to self-styled “polymorphous pervert” Boris Johnson, the above description sounds very much like Andrew Gilligan.

I think we should be told etc.

“Dougie Smith was the organiser of Fever parties”

Hahahahaha!!!! Surely not? You would hope that the slick Cameroon machine would have picked something like that up?! So, Cameron’s chief speech writer was an organiser of swinging parties who is going out with an RCP entryist who in turn is now advising Boris? That’s too brilliant for words if true. Sweet.

Thanks Ben.

I do acknowledge that this is nerd-central stuff, of course. It only becomes an issue if - as with the Socialist Action lot - they lead their politician into weird’n'nastydom.

Re the SAU comment, do you think they are still really revolutionaries? It seems to me that that is likely to be merely convenient posturing, surely.

No, I’m sure they’re not in practice. I mean, in theory, I’m sure they believe all this stuff still. They’re basically vanguardists. But in practice, that means they will spend all their time and energy on their own little projects: setting up front orgs, running their debating clubs, pushing their journalists and policy wonks, and so on. The idea behind it might be to hasten the revolution. But the expenditure of energy on all these day to day projects will be immense.

I mean, was Socialist Action ever a revolutionary organisation? No, not at all. They were hired hands, who ran City Hall. In their hearts, it was about building a progressive alliance which would first smash the evil Board of Deputies, and then go on to change the world. But in reality, it was about running a bureaucracy. It was a job.

Ven, I was just trying to shove him in the firing line ahead of my own demonstrable political geekery… ;) I’m sure a poetry corner would be a valuable addition to the site. It could encourage a radical synthesis of culture and politics. That’s where it’s all at. I didn’t realise there was an E J Thribb side as well as an Adrian Mole one.

That looks like quite a reasonably sensible plan to me (although I think capitalism is still progressive).

I remember when only the RCP—or rather, Furedi—were emphasising a “back to basics” approach on humanism and the left’s rich Enlightenment heritage, and only they took a “fundamentalist” position on free speech and were in favour of poverty-reducing globalisation. They also attacked the anti-human implications of greenism (while steering clear of the science, though). Those are the bits I liked about them, and they are now relatively mainstream positions—which just goes to show that there is more than one form of entryism, you might say.

The other bits—eg their romantic/ dogmatic/ ahistorical fetishisation of the system of capitalist system of nation states (”anti-imperialism”), or their democratic-centralist approach of off-massage free-thinking and spontaneity—I think have been covered here often enough.

It just goes to show that we live in an eclectic age, the age of pick-’n'-mix politics.

It is funny you should mention a poetry corner. We’re not having one of those… but… well, you’ll have to wait and see!

“off-massage free-thinking and spontaneity”

Your mind, while writing that, was not yet done with orgies, I suspect.

Boris Johnson does not need ‘the Londoner’ because he has the Evening Standard to provide his spin on things.

Although it has not received the attention it deserves, Ken Livingstone had actually started a campaign a few years ago to plant 1 million trees in London by 2012. He had already got to around 400,000 apparently. The idea that Boris is suddenly a big tree hugger compared to Ken is just a lie. 10,000 trees is pathetic comapred to what Ken was giving us.

Also: this story reminds me of the recent history of the Communist Party of Great Britain (as opposed to the CP Marxist-Leninist etc). It renamed itself the Democratic Left and set-up its own think-tank the ‘New Politics Network’, which seems pretty harmless and advocates electoral reform (oooo revolutionary!). Some of its members ended up wonking around at other think-tanks, such as the Social Market Foundation if I recall correctly.

What is it with these former commies ending up working in the world of think-tanks?

Yeah. but all of Boris’s (very few) trees will be London Planes!

And most of them will get killed by the added pollution from not charging higher congestion charge to gas-guzzlers.

The man is a fradu

It’s funny that this post doesn’t mention Spiked at all, and HP always mentions Spiked when they write about RCP/LM/IoI/Spiked, etc etc. Is that because you don’t want readers to actually look at Spiked, where in the past week Boris’s regime has been labelled “profoundly illiberal and intolerant”? Spiked says that “post-Ken, petty authoritarianism and distrust of the London masses is still rife in City Hall”. It describes Boris as a “political coward” who “clearly has no firm, long-standing connection with the words or ideas that fly from his gob”. It argues that “Boris’s emergence, after only a couple of days, as a killjoy, authoritarian mayor shows how flimsy is the Tory right’s love of liberty, and how reactionary - in the true meaning of that word - is their anti-nanny statism”.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5143

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5090/

So Boris is profoundly illiberal, intolerant, authoritarian, killjoy, cowardly and reactionary! Hmmm, doesn’t sound like a love affair to me. Did you neglect to mention Spiked cos it didn’t fit with your neat little conspiracy theory?

Trots are supposed to be irrelevant, but they seem to be popping up all over the place, and right in the centres of power. They were linked to the neocons, and to Ken, and now to Boris. Food for conspiracy theorists, surely ?

As for the RCP and their well-worn contrarian views about GM food, Bosnia etc. - they’re becoming an institution.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,564039,00.html

David Hoile - from “Hang Nelson Mandela” to

“Ahmed and (Yvonne) Ridley were stewarded around Khartoum and Darfur by David Hoile

Hahaha! It was a sticker, not a t-shirt!

I remember him well.
Even more right field was Marc Henri Glendening.
I wonder how their views on child porn have changed.

John P, good riddance to “The Londoner” for sure - However, diamond geezer (diamondgeezer.blogspot.com) has done a bit of debunking of the tree-planting thing, though. It’s really not that impressive…

Venichka, my room-mate and I have just found a great new flat into which we’ll be moving July 1st. The selling point? It has ONE LARGE TREE right in front.

Were Boris’ adminstration to plant 10,000 of ‘em, that’d make 10,000 Londoners quite happy.

And most of them will get killed by the added pollution from not charging higher congestion charge to gas-guzzlers.

Charge more for gas-guzzlers and your ridership on an already overstressed public transport will balloon to such an extent that using it will become an act of utter masochism!

Spiked actually invites people with opposing views to them to post articles on their website. I wonder how many times HP have done this. Your opinions are even more uniform than the spiked contributers.

Your silly attempts to smear them actually makes me more interested in them. I would probably join the RCP if it was still running today.

I aimed for a revolution. I settled for a career in the media instead.

Clare Fox’s favourite word is “patronising”.

Is it a good idea to pour plutonium into the reservoir?

Let people make the choice, it’s patronising to put up signs warning them that this water is hazardous.

She also thinks that jihadism and the religion of Islam are not related, and that suicide bombers are the deprived, excluded etc.

When are you going to put on a preview button?

Spiked is not in favour of any government. An article about a Tory saying “he’s boring, he is not as libertarian as we kinda hoped he would be, how disappointing” is hardly a hatchet job!

I can see the RCP standing in the wings, urging Boris to let rip, speak his mind, throw convention to the wings.

Not that bad an idea!

It took me a long time to tell Clare Fox apart from Clare Short whenever I would hear the former on the radio.

Given that CF is, in her way, quite smart, whereas CS is just a deluded loon, that doesn’t reflect well on the Institute of Id(ea)s

Spiked actually invites people with opposing views to them to post articles on their website. I wonder how many times HP have done this. Your opinions are even more uniform than the spiked contributers.

Oooh! We have an RCP-er!!! Possibly two of them.

We have an open comments policy here as you well know. But we’d kind of resist an RCP takeover, you know. I’ve had a couple of friends running magazines and political projects who have had the full-on RCP “we can help you meet your objectives” treatment… and haven’t enjoyed it at all.

Hmm. Seems like Dave T has a bit of a gripe with the ‘Spikers’ (let’s drop the RCP tag shall we?) Did one of their pretty female members turn him down for a date or something? Only joking, but look, if people want to inject a bit of controversy and fresh ideas into political ‘debate’ as it is, then bring it on.

Marc Glendenning’s a curious beast. A mate of Paul ‘Guido Fawkes’ Staines since the 1980s, he was Campaign Director of the Democracy Movement (a UKIP front) the last I heard. He also writes articles for the Morning Star on long dead Soho writers like Patrick Hamilton.

Bring back the Londoner:

You’re referring to Nina Temple, who was the last General Secretary of the CPGB (the real 1920 one) and is now a functionary of the Sainsbury’s sponsored Social Market Foundation. Harry Pollitt must be spinning in his grave. She set up Democratic Left after the Eurocommunist turn in 1991 (as did most official CPs throughout Europe apart from the PCF/PCI, Ireland’s is now part of their Labour Party), which mutated into the New Politics Network when it decided to cuddle up to the Greens and Lib Dems as part of one big happy family of FPTP losers out.

Considering this post started out discussing this Young Turks like Munira and Emily, the comments section has now mutated into a ‘where are they now’ of the far left and right. Fitting given the RCP thread though.

(to the designer Marxists who’ve just joined us - you were never Revolutionary, never Communist and aside from 1987 not much of a Party either)

I wonder how their views on child porn have changed.

Gabb recently got into a bit a bother with UKIP over the subject:

The day before yesterday, I published an article about my attendance at the rally of the United Kingdom Independence Party in Exeter… I was called this morning and told that my article has caused such outrage within UKIP that my invitation to speak at the rally to be held in Morcambe on the 29th of this month has been withdrawn.

… If anyone in UKIP claims that I am in favour of sex with children, he needs to be stupid or malevolent.

I turn to child pornography. If someone produces or commissions indecent pictures of a child, he is guilty of sexual assault or is an accessory to sexual assault. If someone merely buys such pictures, without having directly commissioned them, it is arguable that he too should be treated as an accessory - in the same way as it is illegal knowingly to buy stolen goods…I do not believe, however, that mere possession of such pictures should be an offence. In general, I believe that people should be free to have anything they like on their own property.

Glendening and Hoile’s slogan used to be “Hang Nelson Mandela, Smash the NHS” often shouted sober as well.
How Hoile got involved with the Janjaweed and Yvonne Ridley simultaneously beggars belief.

The SAU comment suggests that they in what Hizb ut-Tahir would describe as the first phase of trying to influence the thought of a society, without organising openly.

In fact, the RCP/HT analogy has quite a bit going for it, although without the jihadism, obviously.

less jihadism,more drugs and porn.

Paul Staines (who’s up for sentencing ,a href=”http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/pandora/pandora-dave-gets-shirty-over-order-to-undress-818060.html”>tomorrow, as it happens) has written about the “Hang Mandela” years with some repentance:

I never wore a “Hang Mandela” badge but I hung out with people who did. Why? What did we gain from doing so? Did we make ourselves more popular by calling for the death of a man who was fighting injustice by the only means available to him?

Weirdly enough, the SAU blog brings it all back to the Federation of Conservative Students and Harry Phibbs, whose scribblings caused Norman Tebbitt to pull the plug on the organisation (years after the ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ stuff).

In addition to writing for the SAU blog, Phibbs works for the Evening Standard (aka Boris’s ‘The Londoner’).

Bartholomew,

Drink driving offence, eh? Up in court? Obviously yet another example of this risk-averse society and it’s hysterical over-reaction to the consequences of libertarian behaviour. Thin end of the wedge, if you ask me.

I did think of putting the RCP/HuT analogy into the piece but thought it would dilute the post.

There are similarities. They’re both cultish organisations, and they both like to do debates, and to legitimise themselves by insinuating themselves onto platforms with politically mainstream figures.

But the RCP are all about revitalising an anti-statist libertarianism, and a belief in human agency. The HuT are about the absolute opposite. They also make no secret of their vision of the final perfect society. The RCP, by contrast, are either really actually libertarians, or they’re actually in favour of, as they used to say, laying the groundwork for an intellectual climate in which it is actually possible to restart the debate about class politics again. They think they’re so far away from that point, that they no longer talk about Marxism.

HuT would never be so insecure.

Ironically, HuT are more passionate, committed, and open about their politics than are the RCP. Yet, the absence of precisely that passion in contemporary politics is exactly what the RCP bemoans.

In true libertarian fashion it seems Paul Staines was driving without insurance.

Your silly attempts to smear them actually makes me more interested in them. I would probably join the RCP if it was still running today.

Tagnuzlsx, I don’t think whether or not you joined was 100% your own decision. From my very brief experience you had to agree to pay them a tithe. After a while of that, and some desultory attempts at selling Living Marxism to a totally uninterested public, you might get invited to join. But since the cult’s demise, I couldn’t say for sure.

The problem with the RCP, is that they’re too silly, too predictable, and too cultish.

I’d prefer genuine Tory liberals to ersatz ones.

I note that few commentators have remarked on Munira Mirza’s sheer lack of experience to be ‘Director of Policy, Arts and Culture’ of a city of 8m people.

A cursory glance of her CV reveals her to have graduated the year before the GLA was established, completed a masters degree recently and being on a traineeship at the Tate immediately prior to her appointment.

As questionable as the worldview of the Socialist Action claque was, they had at least accrued a grounding in the workings of London government before their appointments (and at least we knew their salaries).

Yet all we’ve had so far from the “accountable” Boris is a few press releases and some over-inflated CVs (eg. Kulveer Ranger).

Of course, the Iain Dale blogosphere line is that any scrutiny of this is sour grapes as its punctured some orthodoxy about the ethnic minorities voting Labour as a matter of course.

It seems to me that we’ve swapped one unaccountable claque of weirdos surrounding the mayor for another. Still, the man in the pub knew the difference between Ken n’ Boris, eh?

Whatever happened to appointments on merit in public service?

I just have this horrid feeling that it will all end in tears for the Tories. I shouldn’t really care about this. They are Tories, after all. But it would be a pity if the liberal Tories ended up tarnished over this, and ceded ground to the trad Tory moral majoritarian lot.

Alternatively, Munira will be her own person, and do her own thing: to the chagrin of the RCP leadership.

Let’s see.

But the RCP are all about revitalising an anti-statist libertarianism, and a belief in human agency.

mmmmmmm

No, that’s what they’re genuinely for (although admittedly they do it in a really boring and obvious way, and possibly because they think they’ll then be well placed to be the vanguard of the coming revolution).

But, give them credit for that.

OK David, perhaps you could help us out here by squaring the following two comments:

1) “There seems to have been some confusion. I don’t think tha