Alan Johnson's Weekly Column Richard Gott and the Biodegrading Sixties Left

The Sixties left is biodegrading. Richard Gott has a Basil Fawlty article in the Guardian. He doesn’t mention Iraq. Apparently Guardian readers should vote Lib Dem, Respect, or even Tory (I kid you not) because Blair is Neville Chamberlain, George Bush is Hitler and Saddam and Talabani are, ah, well, don’t ask that, dear reader. The Sixties left doesn't do complexity you see. Also ignored by Gott are the removal of Saddam, the end of the Baath, the return of the refugees, the joy of the Kurds, the religious freedoms now enjoyed by the Shia, the creation of a UN-backed political process, the 8 million voters in the January elections, a fantastic display of ‘purple power’, the rebirth of trade unionism and the labour movement, the rise of new democratic political parties, a relatively free press, the reflooding of the Marshlands, the return of the Marsh Arabs, the opening up of the mass graves and the beginning of a truth and justice process. It’s quite a list.

The really disturbing thing about the Guardian these days is it criticises Bush not as LFIQ does, repeatedly, for what he has done wrong, but incoherently, almost hysterically, ignoring the democratic progress in Iraq. This is a left that thinks Iraq is a 'wedge issue' that can be made to 'give Blair a bloody nose'. Iraq is mood music to accompany venting against Bush. This is a left that can't work out how to criticise America and support the Iraq democrats at the same time.

In an important sense it cant really be thought of as a political left anymore. It is an incoherent anti-American protest left. The sixties left has biodegraded. Excluded from power so completely it can't think politically ('troops out now!), in hock to a romanticism that was understandable back then (I guess, I was playing with my Johnny Seven at the time) but has run rancid now ('victory to the resistance!'), the Ali-Pilger-Gott left has biodegraded. And as Norman Geras points out this is a debacle, we have yet to take the full measure of. We better had do, and quick, for that left dominates the airwaves, the radio waves, and the commentariat and we need to reclaim them. (AJ)