The Daily Mail has a golden nugget of a story today. Jon Trickett, shadow Cabinet Office minister and "personal friend" to Ed Miliband, has described rising unemployment and inflation as "an orgasmic wet dream" for the left.
At a Leeds Civic Hall meeting, Trickett said: "We’re living through amazing times. For anyone who’s on the left – perhaps with some Marxist training, perhaps not – it’s like an orgasmic wet dream.
"Think about it: capitalism in crisis again; unemployment’s on the rise and so is inflation. Our rulers are attacking the public sector. They’re cutting public sector pensions. Wages are on hold or even falling."
The video has since been removed from YouTube, and Trickett said that the comments were taken out of context. He claims he was simply arguing that Labour should not take victory as a given in tough times.
I spoke to Trickett for a recent issue of TP. He told me that Ed Miliband has asked him to look into broadening the type of person getting involved in Labour politics.
"I’m Yorkshire through and through," he said. "We have a feeling of what it was like to grow up as kids, go to the local school, go to the local hospitals. Our families are all there. So you have a natural feeling that you’ve grown out of the soil of the area.
"You also want the best possible people, from Oxford or Cambridge, with the best possible minds, joining the PLP and the Labour Party. But you don’t want one group to be so dominant that another one’s voice isn’t heard.
"And we’re getting to a point where the brilliant minds, the ones with the brilliant, sparkling careers, are becoming dominant to the extent that the other voice is not being heard as much. That’s a big issue for us.
"Now you could say, arguably, it’s not an impediment to getting into power, but it does seem to me if a party in power is to renew itself and to not lose touch, then it needs to make sure that it’s replenished from the grassroots, as well as the brilliant minds."
Unfortunately, I suspect his latest comments may not be viewed brilliantly by the party's 'brilliant minds'.
Comments
Dave Reeson / April 03 2012 11:41am
Red Ed's 'personal friend' is certainly no friend of the unemployed and low earners. Thank goodness these left wing loonies are almost extinct!
Samar / May 29 2012 12:54pm
Hang on a minute, Bob.First, can I aussme that Crudass is of the compass group? If so, then I'm sure that the Campaign group are laughing their socks off at him and what he is saying.The Campaign group have been saying this all along and actually challenged the party to choose in the Leadership ballot.Compass saw best in the Deputy(?). Governments lose elections'. True, but how and why?Only once in history has a workable' party lost and election to a workable' opposition. (Ted Heath 1970.)Major lost because he was economically incompetenmt and his party was total sleaze and lost the confidence in the people.Blair won because he was considered clean and bright with an economic plan.Cameron and Osborne fall short in every one of those departments.No chance is Gordon Brown's party full of sleaze. Not even party funding is sleaze.No chance did Brown get it wrong over the last decade for the economy. In fact, he got it more or less right throughout.A turn away from the last ten years may be desirable but it is very unpredictable in the longer run. We have been where Crudass wants to take us, but we lost on every occassion.Every indicator that I have is that Labour have been successful and the electorate appreciate that, BUT..those same people FEEL pressurised on a number of fronts.Council Tax being the biggest burden to potential personal family wealth.The successes of Education are beginning to prosper (all of my children are about to become graduates-thank you Tony) and all of our new hospitals will be open soon with a NHS that is about to become awash with a surplus of money (a crime but it is