ISSUE NO 6 OCTOBER 2004
BRIGHTON 04: A VISITOR VIEW
Looking at the skeletal wreck of its once inspiriting West Pier, how could this visitor to a wet and windy Brighton not see, in this ruin, images of our Party in these so testing times? I see the Eighties Left’s vision of Democratic Socialist advance battered and smashed by the waves of History, so many good socialists having foolishly quit the Party to float aimlessly like fragments of the pier in a sea of impotence with no prospect of a lifeboat. Do I see here also the shredded and shattered wreckage of our Government’s case for War? Possibly and certainly for some, but the vision of a democratic Iraq and a world beyond terror and despotisms will continue to glow in the deepest darknesses of today. Do I see our Prime Minister, tempest-ravaged and besieged, about to bend and break under the impact? Well, no I do not, much as it would please some, especially the press. Either God made him in his own image or used a stronger iron in the soul. He has remarkable control of the ship but there may be a steering problem and a mutinous crew hiding below the deck. Staring at desolate piers is dangerous; suddenly it becomes my own body image but it soon passes. No, its not my inner dejection projected onto these writhing joints of steel; despite the aching shoulder, the lacerated neck, the scary vertigo from my staircase fall with all its divine connotations, despite all the difficulties with Iraq, the target must be to remain committed to a continuing Labour Government under the present resolute leader unless…