The Guardian in an Editorial (5th November) has argued that Labour’s plans for the economy are long overdue and indeed important for the future of democracy:
The conclusion reads:
Jeremy Corbyn’s attack on the “tax dodgers, dodgy landlords, bad bosses and big polluters” ought not to be dismissed. UK inequality is at a damagingly high level and the system is being rigged in favour of politically connected wealthy interests. Politicians need to realise that it is not just the economy that is at stake if they do not act – they are risking our democracy too.
Its something that has an echo in British history perhaps particularly in the views of William Cobbett
EP Thompson encapsulated the Cobbettian worldview in the Making of the English Working Class. Describing Cobbett’s intervention in the 1806 election for the Westminster seat in the unreformed Parliament, he noted how Cobbett summed up the opponents of the radical candidate:
‘relations of placemen and pensioners’, ‘tax-gatherers, magistrates, policemen and dependent clergy’, ‘play-actors, scene-shifters, candle-snuffers, and persons following.. immoral callings’.
That world eventually began to change as Parliamentary Democracy started itself to be renewed with the 1832 Reform Act. It might be noted however that the passage of the Act was a fine call between reform and a plebeian revolution.
High stakes indeed
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