Tony Benn = Henry Scoop Jackson
Oliver Kamm loyally makes a brave defence of the left-wingness of Nick Cohen, saying of Tony Benn:Note that this thoughtful and original sentiment comes from a politician who urged in the 1960s and 1970s a fundamental shift in the balance of wealth away from working people and their families, in the form of a huge taxpayer subsidy to rich people travelling by Concorde
This solves a puzzle. For obviously there is another politician of that era who will forever be linked with wasting taxpayers' money on a supersonic aircraft, repeatedly voting for funding for it, and against attempts to stop that funding, and minimising very real environmental concerns about it.
Of course I realise that the comparison of 'Scoop' with Tony Benn is quite unfair. Concorde flew successfully for 30 years, whereas 'Scoop's version didn't get off the ground. But it explains what Oliver meant when last week, he said of the late Senator:
His ... interventionist views on economic policy – he believed Nixon’s wage and price controls were too weak – would put him around the position of Tony Benn in today’s political debates.
He must have meant Scoop was too right wing.
Labels: Henry Jackson Society
posted by Matthew @ 10/01/2007 08:53:00 PM
Comments: 4
