This evening on Radio 4 will be broadcast a programme I intend to miss. One David Aaronovitch is going to tell us what happened to the generation of '68, "the cream of his generation". Well he was 13 years old at the time and I was 29, so I may not be counted among the cream. According to this expert (translation: "know-all, mamzer") "most have become part of the establishment they rallied against". Most? Of all those tens of thousands? Here's one who became part of New Labour's underclass, and I imagine there are more like me than the sell-outs Aaronovitch "networks" and schmoozes with, and who he thinks are representative of the soixante-huitards.
The left has always been used by the greasy pole climbers, particularly the Labour Party ("left" being used very loosely here). "Shits that passed in the night", to borrow Albert Meltzer's phrase. I think of people like Prescott who posed as militants and waited to be bought off. People like Blair (once of CND) who joined the Labour Party when others were deserting it in droves, knowing how easy it would be to rise to the top and take it over, aided by the middle class Nomenklatura, Mandelson and his Machiavellian kind.
The first time I saw Aaronovitch he was fronting a TV book programme. He impressed me (adversely) by throwing a book he didn't like across the studio. An attention grabbing gimmick and a despicable act. I've loathed the man ever since. He speaks of himself as if he is a socialist, probably meaning that he votes Labour. This, he believes confers some validity on his constant criticism of anyone (so many) to the left of himself. He is a jackal in sheep's clothing, and he'll always find work at the BBC, along with Michael Gove, Bernard Ingham, Anne Leslie and Melanie Phillips.