It certainly wasn't the official line: Margaret Thatcher repeatedly called Nelson Mandela a terrorist (see David Cameron's apology and Tory former minister Tebbit's rejection of that apology here) and supported the South African regime mostly because it was militantly anti-communist. Oh, and she didn't like black people either. Young Conservatives used to wear t-shirts reading 'Hang Nelson Mandela'.
They'll be back in government in May. Just saying.
4 comments:
I used to love that song when I was a kid. I still know all the words.
Since then I've met quite a few nice South Africans, and have come to realise that the political environment of the time was actually quite complex, and that the idea that all white South Africans are racist bastards doesn't actually hold true.
And talking of knee-jerks, Vole, you are going to have to try much harder if you're trying to persuade people not to vote Tory. So the Tories were racist bastards in the 80s? Really? All of them? And by projection they're all still unreconstructed racists?
And the Labour party have been sweetness and light over the last twelve years of course. Let's not mention the Hinduja & Ecclestone affairs, the cash-for-honours, cash-for-amendments and the Smeargate scandals; the lies and fabrications that led to the illegal invasion of Iraq, & for the forced abandonment of the BAE corruption probe; for outsourcing torture and for Tony Blair's friendship with George W. Bush; for all the misguided actions that brought suicide bombers to this island; for 48 days detention & for daring to have Opposition MPs arrested for doing their jobs; for the abject stupidity of claiming they'd ended Boom & Bust; for MP's Expenses & Snouts in the Trough; for John Charles de Meneses & the Police State they created; for failing to reform the Lords properly & for filling it full of unelected stooges; for trying to rig the first Welsh Assembly Leadership elections and for failing to live up to their own principles and betraying everyone who voted for them.
I realise I've probably missed out a few of the good things they did.
Adam - the point of satire is that it's crude and unfair.
That list of appalling things New Labour did: I agree with your objections to all of them. What unites them is that they're all Tory things, which is my problem with New Labour.
You say they failed to live up to their own principles and betrayed everyone who voted for them. I disagree. The only principles they had were to a) achieve power and b) import Conservative values into the party, especially on economic matters (which as a good Marxist, I see as the base of all culture). They weren't even secretive about this. The appeal was, I seem to remember, 'we're not tired and corrupt but we're all good capitalists now, so it's safe for Tories to vote for us'.
You should know this only too well - as a former Conservative Students activist who became a Blairite! I, on the other hand, always distrusted him.
Do I think the Tories have changed? Not really. I think they're rock-ribbed monetarists who still feel that wealth is a marker of virtue and that self-interest is an acceptable way to run a society. I have absolutely no doubt that they'll institute a government which abandons the poor. I also think they'll destroy relations with the EU, which under this government was a comparatively progressive force.
I still think that a Labour minority government will be better than a Tory government, despite all the appalling things Labour has done.
Oh yes, I don't think that all white South Africans were evil - I'm quite well-versed in the politics of the day, and I'm more sophisticated than to think that each South African was a conscious and active racist.
That said, the only South African at my school burned his flag on the day Mandela was released.
I was never an activist, more an in-activist...
Your analysis of Labour's rise to power in '97 is spot on though. It does sometimes seem to be the case that the UK is inherently right-wing, and certainly all the main parties have coalesced into the Centre in recent years. That said I think the UK would have voted for any coherent alternative to the Tories back then, such was the state of anger at the corruption, self-interest and sleaze of the Tories. I can see history repeating itself as voters turn to anyone but Gordon...
I think there may be a few upsets this year.
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