Puritans and Cavaliers

I cannot say I am particularly upset at the departure of Alan Johnson from the political stage, not being overly impressed by his appointment as shadow chancellor and even less so by his actual performance. I suppose that I ought to be more concerned since he is one of a dying breed, the working class Labour MP, a breed indeed becoming almost as rare as the working class Tory MP.

Loosely speaking, speaking loosely an extremely pleasurable vice like smoking or swearing, there are two broad strands in British culture, the cavalier and the puritan, working class Labour MP’s having an unfortunate tendency to fall into the latter category. This puritan streak has a long history on the left and leads to such intolerant legislation as the smoking ban and whose proponents tend to see civil liberties as the sole concern of woolly Hampstead liberals out of touch with something called ‘the real world.’ There are of course extremely honourable exceptions, the most notable being Anuerin Bevan whose greatest crime in the eyes of many Tories was his love of champagne and the good life and his desire to bring these indisputably good things within the reach of all.

As well as being exceptionally intelligent and something of a political bruiser Ed Balls is I suspect something of a cavalier and it is this that warms me to him. He will provide the much needed counterweight to Cameron and Osborne and is more than capable of giving the latter a long overdue roughing up and rarely has a politician needed a good intellectual going over as much as Mr Osborne. I look forward to the spectacle.

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