THE ST PAUL'S PROTEST
The farcical way in which the Church of England has responded to the ‘anti-capitalism’ camp outside Saint Paul’s has provided me with hours of amusement, this is the plot of a great comic novel, you could choose your favourite writer, I would plump for ‘plum,’ P G Woodhouse, ‘Psmith and the Archbishop’ perhaps, or then again going downmarket a Carry On film, Carry on Choristers?
However perhaps the most dismal aspect of the whole affair has been the quality of the spokesperson put up by the protesters. Ideologically incoherent and politically inarticulate they present an extraordinarily dispiriting portrait of the quality of contemporary protest, certainly when set against their forebears of 1968. Their dispute with capitalism seems to boil down to a desire to see it become more humane and responsible and their ideological stance a distrust of all politics. How do you respond to this other than with a sigh and ‘yes but………………..’
Still better I suppose than nothing and the Tories have made a serious tactical error in sneering at them, since they seem to have hit a chord with popular sentiment. So as I say, it is a start.
However perhaps the most dismal aspect of the whole affair has been the quality of the spokesperson put up by the protesters. Ideologically incoherent and politically inarticulate they present an extraordinarily dispiriting portrait of the quality of contemporary protest, certainly when set against their forebears of 1968. Their dispute with capitalism seems to boil down to a desire to see it become more humane and responsible and their ideological stance a distrust of all politics. How do you respond to this other than with a sigh and ‘yes but………………..’
Still better I suppose than nothing and the Tories have made a serious tactical error in sneering at them, since they seem to have hit a chord with popular sentiment. So as I say, it is a start.
