Tony Blair & the old Battersea Chartists of the 1880s
Tony Blair has been making another of his rare but regular political interventions. This time to remind us of his 30 year mission to involve the private sector in the NHS
As Dylan noted, there is no success like failure, but failure is no success at all.
The phenomenon of the perpetually reappearing ex-leader is not unique to Labour. A whole chauffeur driven car full of ex-Tory leaders is available for comment.
However there is also a place in labour history for historical hangovers.
Some of the Chartists of the 1840s were still to be found active in a revived socialist politics in the 1880s. They were primarily followers of the Chartist Bronterre O’Brien who believed that currency reform was central to a fairer society.
W S Sanders in his book Early Socialist Days, recalled branch life in the Battersea branch of Britain’s first Marxist organisation the Social Democratic Federation in the 1880s. The demands of the People’s Charter of 1838, suitably tweaked, were very much part of the SDF’s politics. The O’Brienite currency theory much less so.
Sanders notes that the old Chartists were seen as survivors from another age, listened to with interest by some, with frustration by others, but ultimately an anachronism.
Blair in 2023 is heading to the same place. Hopefully the track record of winning elections is not.
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