,
4 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
Re-reading Blair's 1982 Perth lecture for a class. Striking how relevant much of it is today. E.g: "The left is keen on democracy and rightly so. But democracy should not be something the Party has within itself. The Party must have a democratic relationship with the electorate".
Also the warning that "press paranoia can become (as it has for Tony Benn) an immunity from self-criticism".
Also striking how critical Blair was of the Labour Right in 1982: "it has basked so long in the praise of the leader-writers of the Financial Times, The Times & Guardian that it is no longer accustomed to giving them offence. It will find the experience painful, but it is vital".
Blair, 1982: "The left has generated an enormous amount of necessary rethinking in the Party. We were in danger of drifting into being "the natural party of government", but of a society that was unradicalised & unchanged. We had become managers of a conservative country".
