Splintered Sunrise

Just a brief stopgap post today, flagging up things that should be in my pending tray but are having to wait behind the flurry of local news. I may or may not get back to them later, but here are some useful links in the meantime.

Courtesy of the estimable Louis Proyect, we have a critique of the Euston Manifesto by Paul Flewers of New Interventions. Obviously there is a huge amount that could be said about the Decent Left, but Paul deals with Euston much more calmly and concisely than I could manage.

Like I suspect most of its readers, I read the Weekly Worker for the gossip, not the political analysis. When they try to write for themselves, the Conrad Party of Great Britain can often be a bit ropy – this steaming pile of Matgamnite horseshit is a case in point. But I was impressed by this very good piece by Anne McShane, on Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs and how the SWP have taken it up as an excuse for their retreat into rightist puritanism.

Finally, this argument on the British left blogs about whether socialists should be in the Labour Party. The latest round can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. And probably a few other places that I haven’t happened across.

I don’t intend to make a habit of bigging up the Daily Mail, but I think readers may well enjoy this excellent article by Geoffrey Wheatcroft on Blair’s faith-based premiership. On this evidence, I would guess that Geoffrey’s forthcoming book, Yo Blair!, will be quite the read, and certainly a lot more fun than Nick Cohen’s What’s Left? Of which you can read much informed comment over at Aaro Watch.

Many thanks to the White Queen for helping to plug a bit of a gap. I promise, the O’Loan report is coming soon.

I read in this morning’s papers that Mr Tony Blair has arranged an honorary knighthood for his great friend, musician and egomaniac Bono. This is supposed to be in recognition of Bono’s courageous struggles against global poverty and injustice.

Ahem. That would be the same Bono who hectors the Irish populace on how their country should be run, while refusing to pay taxes in Ireland? The Bono who paid a small fortune in legal fees to retrieve a pair of trousers, and who famously booked an adjoining seat on a plane journey so his hat could travel in comfort?

I realise I’m on thin ice here – U2 fans are notoriously humourless, especially on the subject of their main man’s pretensions to stand for something. But Bono seems like an intelligent bloke – does he not realise the gap between his words and actions just makes him look a teeny bit absurd? Or, like many celebrities, is he surrounded by people who can’t say no to him?

But it is at least fitting that this honour has been bestowed by another very very silly man, Mr Tony. The prime minister is just back from his tour promoting democracy in the Middle East, where he supported the Fatah putsch in Palestine, glad-handed tribal Gulf sheikhs and Egypt’s grisly president-for-life, and offered his backing to the coalition of Maronite Phalangists and Islamic obscurantists who have run Lebanon since the phoney “Cedar Revolution”. In the midst of all this, he called on “moderates” in the region (presumably those people he had been issuing endorsements to) to ally against the, er, elected government of Iran.

Yup, these two jokers certainly deserve each other’s company.