And so, having finally seen off the stern foe that was my dissertation, and having with it brought my time as a literature postgrad to an end, I am back and ready to begin once again usefully contributing to society.
By which I of course mean frittering the days away half-heartedly searching for jobs, catching up on reading for pleasure, preparing myself psychically for the horror of 'LIz Truss's Britain' – and responding, at last, to the latest comments here.
Therefore:
And on that note, all caught up.
Excellent to have you back.
The election was a surprise, it all seemed so low stakes and industrial marxist jargon that l I thought the turnout would drop due to voter narcolepsy. Then again I am making the fatal mistake of thinking there is any connection between what the electorate did (or did not) and what gets announced as the result of the election.
There was always going to be heightened interest, I think, after Bevan's death. If he'd lived a bit longer, turnout probably would have been lower as the outcome would have been pretty certain. But with him gone everything (ok, maybe not everything…) was to play for.
I wonder if Iain Macleod will ever tie of being the tame opposition, allowed to run a paper within strict limits but perpetually ignored, especially when his analysis is correct. Must get frustrating after a while.
Oh yes, he will. Quite soon in fact.
The background on Lewis chapter was a nice reminder on both him and the history of the Commonwealth, it certainly set him up well as politician with ideas (maybe not good ones, but at least ideas) and enough skill in the dark arts to implement them. But it appears the power has gone to his head and his patience has deserted him, had he compromised a bit and taken the small wins he'd not be in minority by the end.
That's a very good assessment of the situation. Arguably took on too much, too fast – and in doing so tethered himself to some fairly rash courses of action. But definitely a man of ideas, and his anti-Mosley credentials are impeccable (better than Bevan's for sure) so he'll probably be able to salvage a decent post-premiership career as a rehabilitated elder statesman.
Disappointed that the bloke introducing this didn't at any point say "Nice", I kept expecting him to.
This exact gag is a running joke between my flatmate and me, who both watch that clip an awful lot.
The Abse-Hughes report was a travesty but not in the way I expected. Kicking British Coal and ignoring the local mistakes was all but inevitable, too many people would get upset at the truth for that to be published. But the authors completely ignoring their brief and going off one about an entirely unrelated subject was a surprise. That said I do hope their ideas come to pass, I am an enthusiastic supporter of Wales getting more power and autonomy because it is always funny to see people get exactly what they want and then have to deal with the awful consequences. Even better when they can never admit their mistakes and have to pretend they are happy with the new arrangement, all while desperately wishing things were back as they were.
FWIW, I think the two lead authors probably have too much integrity
not to have covered the actual, local events somewhere in the report. You and I will, I think, always disagree on just how much those events lessen the share of the blame to be apportioned to the corporation, but we need not go back over that. The salient point as concerns Jenkins' write-up is, I think, that as we have discussed previously there is a narrative forming, and that is what he's writing about rather than the disaster itself.
As for your rosy, optimistic view of Welsh autonomy – I would expect nothing less.
Public Service Broadcasting did a great job setting this to music -
That track is where I first learned of the film's existence, as it happens.
Disappointingly it appears no-one involved in that promotional film or the wider campaign was ever prosecuted, because surely knowingly tempting young people into horrific jobs in a doomed industry has to be some sort of offence? A complete recruitment freeze at British Coal in the mid-70s would have solved so many later problems as well as forcing people to confront what was coming earlier.
Quite.
The kidnap subplot was a surprise, though the chapter did a great job of explaining where it had come from, all the anti-English hatred being spouted and stirred up was always going to lead to that sort of nastiness and worse. I confidently predict nothing will happen about this and there will be no concert or cultural outpouring aimed at opposing such views.
I'm glad it came across as a surprise, so thanks for the vote of encouragement. On the point of 'anti-English hatred', I should emphasise that that really isn't what we're dealing with here at the moment, so unless someone wants to organise a free festival in favour of the benevolence of British Coal, or (perhaps more likely) the positives of centralism, then I dare say no we won't be seeing anything like Common Beat yet.
And so I reach Allaun’s speech and a point that looks a lot like the middle of the end for Lewis, the beginning of his end being his refusal to compromise on 28-day cool off period, his year is coming to an end (unless that book title from Jenkins is deliberately misleading?) In any event it was a good speech though it's invocation of Douglas Jay does raise the fundamental questions that Lewis at least got close to engaging with, even if the rest of the Commonwealth are studiously ignoring. Who does know best? Will workers really engage with a modernisation that would increase productivity but cost jobs? What happens when there is a difference between the best interests of the workers and the people? These are not easy questions, especially when you have ruled out both the free market solution and the central state planning option, so I do hope they get a bit of an airing once Lewis has been booted out.
Thank you for your praise of the speech. It was a sticky ending once I realised I'd set myself up to write a somewhat memorable bit of parliamentary oratory, so glad to know it had something of the desired effect.
You are of course right that the questions raised are both difficult and not going away. Answering them will be the coming years' argument.
I'm breaking the silence I thought I would hold until I caught up to cry outrage at the death of what might have been our (Minnesota's) chance to break our seemingly unbreakable curse of also-rans (a persistence across timelines, apparently
).
Welcome,
@Ix:Risor ! Very glad to have you on board, and thanks for taking the time to catch up.
If it were up to me, I'd have taken Gene any day. But
@99KingHigh has other plans for the states' salvation.
Aside from that, I'd like to take a moment to express my admiration of this work. The world crafted here has done an excellent job of bringing me through the ups-and-downs of revolutionary fervor, decline, and reform, as well as giving me no small amount of trepidation about TTL's future. I'll perhaps return to comment further once I have fully caught up.
Thank you! I'll look forward to hearing any more thoughts you may have after reaching the present.
.png){kind=avatar}
