Matt T

Money and mouths

For us Decentologists, the new Decent project, the "£100/$200 club", announced on the pages of Decentiya, is a Godsend. The main benefit of joining is that you get your name listed in a roll of honour, and it allows us to see the current runners and riders.

Aside from that the fact that figures such as Aaronovitch and Lloyd, Cohen and T, have all agreed to splash out £100 pounds in order to keep the magazine afloat is inspiring. I have long noted that given the importance Decents attach to these projects - the Euston Manifesto was 'vitally important' to the future of the left, and apparently the existence of Decentiya 'secures the futures of hard-headed internationalism' the fact that so few seemed willing to expend any of their income in keeping it going was strange. For example you still can't sign the Euston Manifesto directly (as you once could until it was overtaken by spam), I believe for a lack of resources in designing a robust website.

Compare and contrast the Taxpayer's Alliance website. The obvious explanation is that the TA is funded by rich or well-off men (one assumes). But many of the leading Eustonites fit that category. Anthony Julius was Princess Diana's solicitor, and The Guardian claimed as long ago as 1999 he was earning £250/hour. Even if he has had no earnings increase since then (which is unlikely) that means he is one of the highest earning people in the country, and that he could pay for improvements to the Euston website in less than one working day. To focus on Julius might be unfair - he does allow Eustonite projects to use his offices, I believe, so perhaps there are donations behind the scenes we do not know about. In general though it seems people are keen on these things until it costs the slightest amount of money.

ps But perhaps not Nick Cohen! From the Standard: "In another sign of tension the NUJ is acting on behalf of [New Statesman] former columnist Nick Cohen (he also writes for the Standard) who alleges that his pay was cut by the [New] Statesman without him being told."

Labels: Decent Left

posted by Matthew @ 3/03/2008 09:31:00 PM Comments: 6