Well wait away. You can't always get what you want just because you want it, you know. Bloody little Hitler.
Where did I say he shouldn't be well paid and that his members wouldn't have objected to his lifestyle? My only objection is people living in social housing who could afford to move and free up housing for people who couldn't afford a place of their own. He isn't the only one guilty of that. One bloke who I would have described as a champagne socialist out for himself and who I had total contempt for was Clive Jenkins. The hypocrisy of a lot on the left is sickening, especially those who castigate people who send their kids to fee paying schools and then send their own kids to them making pathetic excuses, like Diane Abbott did, or wangle them into school miles away from their own areas like Blair and others.
What does the phrase "Champagne Socialist" mean? Are you suggesting that if as a Socialist you become successful you should give your money away? You have to give up your home? You can't eat in restaurants? Or is it that once your income has reached a certain level you should turn your back on your values? Can only poor people be against racism? Can only poor people support left wing politics? Can only poor people support the working classes? Do you really believe he should of given up his values as he has become successful in his field? He came from a working class background. Do you believe that if you become successful you are no longer working class? "Champagne Socialist", a phrase used by inadequates to describe successful people who have managed to maintain their principles & values whilst they feel guilty that they have turned their back on their own principles & values for self gain. EDIT: It's quite amusing that other socialists have been similarly criticised for living in moderately sized houses & not "among their own" by members of this very board, yet they label their "Champagne's" as the hypocrites. Very poor.
Blimey, you’ll have the political police on our case: locking threads and getting all anusol. My point is that there are a number of trivial irrelevant snapshots about Crow being dragged out to rubbish him for an agenda. If it was something constructive, well argued and backed up, fair enough. As an aside, the Dianne Abbot case, I agree, is extremely vulgar. But, this hypocrisy you speak of is not exclusive to one political wing.
"Defiant, belligerent, proud. In life, Bob Crow embodied his team Millwall's famous song, "No-one likes us, we don't care". In death, those who once condemned him and who he regarded as his enemies - Tory cabinet ministers, the Mayor of London and, yes, the leader of the Labour Party - have lined up to praise him (though in the case of Ed Miliband not on camera) as a fighter for those he regarded as his people. Crow, in my experience, was simply unmoved by the views of the political and media establishment. This was something I discovered when I first met him many years ago at RMT HQ. Bob turned up before our feature-length interview casually dressed. In fact he was wearing a T-shirt and the skimpiest pair of shorts I've ever seen on a man. After we'd talked about the lovely weather and the focus of my interview I hinted that the time had come for him to get changed to appear on camera. This, he told me, is all I've got. Today, he explained, is the works outing and we're going to the seaside. Having taken off my jacket and tie and instructed the cameraman to film from the waist up the interview began - on Bob's terms. I had prepared by reading newspaper cuttings about a man whom Fleet Street invariably dubbed a "dinosaur" or "the most hated man in Britain". One particular article stood out. Perhaps not surprisingly it was in the Daily Mail. The article claimed that Crow - who had a bust of Lenin in his office - was an unapologetic admirer of the Soviet Union. I put it to Crow that he faced a hostile media and used the quote about the Soviet Union as an example. Oh no, he interrupted. He was an admirer of the Soviet Union - in particular its industrial policies. After listening for a while to this paean of praise for a system which conventional opinion regarded as a costly and bloody failure, I added: "Notwithstanding the millions who were killed for their political beliefs?" After barely a beat, Bob responded: "Yeah, notwithstanding that." It was attitudes like that which won Crow admirers and enemies. So too the fact he celebrated Margaret Thatcher's death, fought Labour leaders for their betrayal of the working class and was ready to threaten to disrupt the Olympics, a Royal Wedding and millions of people's daily lives. However, friend and foe alike know that Bob Crow did all this thanks both to deeply held beliefs and a determination to fight for his members. Few doubt that he was not just one of the best known but also one of the most effective trade union leaders in terms of doing the job he was paid to do: protecting the job security of his members, increasing their pay and improving their conditions. Behind the public displays of aggression was a man, it is widely said, who was willing and capable of striking a deal in private. No-one, of course, likes to speak ill of the dead but there are other reasons why Bob Crow may appear to have been transformed overnight from public enemy number one to a national treasure. This was a man who knew what he thought, knew whose side he was on and knew who the enemy were - in an era when that can be said of a shrinking number of people in public life. (By Nick Robinson, BBC.) A striking collection of clashing and unusual beliefs, not easily pigeon-holed
Quite. An interesting and balanced article. Juxtapose Crow to an apathetic XXXXL turd like Happy Tiger who rubbished Crow because, for several years, he's been told to.
So you would describe a rich investor/trader living in a big house in Buckinghamshire who is against unions and strikes as working class? Someone who started off in a council house and went on to become very wealthy as working class despite breaking his back in an accident when he was 19. With his wealth and views he would be working class and not a rich **** like so many on the left would describe him?
I disagree. You're class is based on how you've grown up. Just because some toffy **** says he values and identifies with the working class it doesn't make him part of their world.
You're right & agreeing with me. A "toff ****" couldn't have the values & principles to be working class. These values are developed as we grow up. A toff would have the values they grew up with. If they turn their back on these values & adopt working class values it doesn't make them working class.. The same as somebody who's working class believing in middle or upper class values doesn't make them a different class. You can still be working class & earn a **** load. If you don't believe in the values you've grown up with, that's fine, but people shouldn't be critical of others who've maintained their belief in their values whilst becoming successful. A toff pretending to be working class is embarrassing for both themselves & for those taken in by the pretence, but not as embarrassing as somebody from the working classes pretending to be a toff. There is a difference between class values & political values.
Sorry for the delay in replying,been busy. In view of the fact that tax from those earning £100,000 or more comes from 411,000 people and tax from those earning less than that comes from 29'859'000 people(of that group 21,450,000 earn between £10,000 and £50,000,and 7,140,000 earn less than £10,000)you can see that the treasury would have much more income to distribute for social housing.Of course that would not be the case,they'd spend most of it on un-winnable wars or trains that run on axminster covered tracks for a smoother ride.But I'm sure they would build a few more houses to show that they're "listening to the people".And of course capitalism requires a huge amount of underpaid workers to be effective anyway. An off the cuff reply to an off the cuff question was all it was.
The Daily Mail had a hatchet job on him in yesterday's paper - it went up on its website shortly before he did one... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2577866/My-145-000-pay-Im-worth-insists-Crow-Militant-union-chief-defends-six-figure-salary-interview.html
