Fabian Society: “We Support Boris Johnson”

I’m afraid this is one of those times where the headline is misleading. Still, it got your attention and maybe a laugh.

The remark was at an event entitled “Is Britain Broken?” between the Bow Group and the Young Fabians. A certain Fabian speaker on the panel made the remark, referring to BoJo’s reference to the idea of a broken society as “piffle”, something he suitably blustered his way out of at this year’s Party Conference.

Unfortunately this was not a particularly enjoyable debate. It quickly descended into partisan recrimination and “yah boo sucks” party politics. This was a shame as some rather good views and opinions got drowned out in a divisive shouting contest about who could paint the most dystopian picture against who could sound the most optimistic. It left you wondering what the point of these joint political events

This was probably due to the choice of title. It led to an argument really over what you emphasise in politics, with the Labour side going off on extended rants about the Conservative Party.

Still, I got to make a light-hearted jab at Hazel Blears over her comments about blogging, sinister and corrosive nihilist that I so evidently am.

At least the drinks afterwards had some decent discussion.

UPDATE: I’ve just been doing some digging regarding one of the speakers. Dr. Stella Creasy, Labour PPC for Walthamstow and (obviously) speaking on the Fabian side was the worst culprit in the partisan attack stakes. Rather than debate the question, she launched into two and a half minutes of Tory-bashing while sneering at anything that anyone else raised that challenged her ideas, as if we were all nuts. Given her rather impressive academic CV, one cannot but think that this was a wasted opportunity. We could have had a really interesting debate on the issues at hand, which she obviously has some knowledge of. It’s not like she couldn’t have even got some side-swipes in while making her point. But instead she opted to go for nothing but blue-bashing. What a waste.