Monday 4 October 2021
The Vermin Club
Kit Kowol has a piece in The Critic about political name calling in relation to Angela Rayner referring to Tories as 'scum'. He suggests 'rhetorical appropriation' is the right way to deal with it. Entertaining and worth reading.
Name calling in politics. Get it right, and in just a few words you can create a pithy line that permanently defines your opponent. The term “guilty men” to describe those who supported appeasement, for example, was one that haunted Conservative politicians for decades. Get an insult wrong, however, and you can look dangerously out of touch, especially when the insult refers to voters — think of Hillary Clinton’s reference to “deplorables”...
Labour Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevan, described the Tory party as being “lower than vermin”. Like Rayner’s, Bevan’s words were aimed more at shaping his image within his own party than communicating with the country. Known for enjoying the hospitality of wealthy Conservative socialites, most famously the newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, Beavan made his “vermin” comment during a speech describing the poor health that he and his friends experienced in his native South Wales. As a result, Bevan claimed, “no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction” could eradicate from his heart “the deep burning hatred for the Tory party that inflicted those experiences on me”. While the speech and the furore surrounding it certainly helped secure Bevan’s reputation as a working-class warrior — you can even buy t-shirts with Bevan’s words emblazoned on them — it also induced an equally strong reaction on the Right in the form of the creation of the Vermin Club.
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3 comments:
I think the article has it right when it points out that this type of rhetoric plays well with young studenty types who have an idealised sense of how northern working class people conduct themselves. But overall, Rayner's political career doesn't have a lot going for it. Has anyone ever heard her saying anything sensible? Costed policy proposals? Soundbites and a tough barmaid persona are not really leadership material.
"Soundbites and a tough barmaid persona are not really leadership material.".... unless you are competing against some crusty old curmudgeon or a knighted millionaire civil servant?
But I rather suspect Sir Ikea has pulled off the most stealthy of relaunches for the New New Labour party. Time will tell but it will probably be the General Election after the next before his relaunch is effective - and there is plenty of room for the Conservatives to raise their own game.
Sam - "Has anyone ever heard her saying anything sensible?" I haven't, but does anyone really listen or do they merely plug into an emotional feed? She seems to know what she is doing in that sense.
DJ - Sir Keir doesn't seem to have a ruthless Blair type political machine behind him to push a New New Labour agenda. He'll do well to survive a general election failure, but who knows? As Harold said, a week is a long time in politics.
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