Complaints in Wonderland

The lead story in the Guardian on the 21st June 2014 – “Labour election anxiety grows” – concerned Labour fronbenchers expressing the risably titled “private fears” that Ed Milliband may not be a winner. One would have thought that Labour would have learnt something from Blair’s first election wins – a united front. Instead, its back to the good old days,when,if they were not shooting themselves in the foot, they were stabbing themselves in the back. The pathetic reality in this age of instant media is that people are not concerened with substance but with ephemera such as photogenic looks or an appealing hair cut – the exception to the rule is of course  Michael Fabricant, whose wig was the remorseless subject of the late Simon Hoggart’s parliamentary reporting. If the present dottyness of evanescence above substance applied to the 1945 general election, it is unlikely that Clem Attlee would have been elected, let alone selected.