Controversial Glasman opens new windows for debate

Published: August 4, 2011
EDITOR'S COMMENT

THE views of Lord Glasman, a growing cult figure for some Labour Party members, has been misrepresented, according to a revealing article in the current edition of the New Statesman.

It is in some ways an odd article by Lord Glasman, who lectures at the Metropolitan University.

Almost, in parts, a mea culpa.

Here he sets out to clear up the misunderstandings, he says, that arose mainly from a recent interview with a journalist.

In the barrage of criticism that blew across the political landscape accusing the peer of arguing for more stringent immigration controls and for better representation of the views of the white working class, ignored or distorted by the political establishment, Lord Glasman’s support among Labour Party members seemed to wilt.

But in the New Statesman he argues he has been misunderstood, though this was, he admits, entirely his own fault. And for this he is willing to take his punishment on the chin.

It is difficult not to sympathise with some of Lord Glasman’s ideas.

He is very much in the mould of the early founders of the Labour Party at the turn of the last century, more a Fabian, than an outright political radical out for revolution.

He accuses New Labour of turning its back on the working class.

He is not against immigration per se, but stresses that the hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans allowed into the country was of a damaging scale.

Whereas France and Germany tightly controlled their levels of immigration.

He saw this – as did many others – as a back-door way of producing cheap labour and helping to keep wages down.

He blames Tony Blair’s wild love affair with globalisation which lifted all financial controls from banks and overseas investors, thus creating the seed-bed of the economic slump Britain is still reeling from.

He does not support or in any way sympathise with the extreme right English Defence League, he stressed.

Many of his views seem worthy of debate.

It is understood that many members of the Labour Party in Camden are attracted to his views.

While he praises Ed Miliband for his handling of the Murdoch affair, he argues, among other things, for a “renewed local press funded by local banks and owned by local people”.

We have been advocating that for a long time.

We can only be pleased that Lord Glasman is also giving it a bit of a push.