A further extract from Joe Ashton's 1977 novel Grass Roots. This is a Labour voter berating his MP, shortly after hearing that the steel-plant where he works is to be closed, and that the Labour government isn't going to save it:
'This country, us, the working people, have had enough of you lot down there! Don't you know this country is bleeding to death? You bastards do anything for the Irish. They can blow Belfast to pieces and flatten it to the ground, and you will pay our taxes to rebuild it again. You do anything for the sodding French to keep their farmers rich in the Common Market. You lean over backwards to keep those bloody Scotchmen happy and give them all the oil. And if it is West Indians and Pakistanis, then they can come here and live on the dole for ever. But when it comes to your own English working-class flesh and blood, then we can be thrown on the scrap-heap and you'll let us go bankrupt.'
Showing posts with label Joe Ashton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Ashton. Show all posts
Monday, 14 July 2014
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
The rot sets in...
An extract from Grass Roots, a novel by Labour MP Joe Ashton, published in 1977:
'And who speaks for you at Westminster? Do you know how many of the MPs ever helped to build a ship, to make a motor car, to put up a school, to weave cloth, to cut wood, to forge steel, to generate electricity, to dig coal, or run a railway or hospital? I'll tell you. About ten per cent of them. Do you know that many of them have never even sat on a local council? Do you know that of all the MPs in Parliament the number under the age of forty-five who have ever done manual work can be counted on the fingers of one hand?
'And the reason is that politics has become a career. It's become a step-ladder. A pat of progress from the debating chamber of the students' union at Oxford to the dispatch box and the front bench in the House of Commons. And it has meant that MPs have become tame, placid, docile sheep. Frightened to speak up. Never having the guts to stand up and be counted because if they do then it will affect their career prospects.'
'And who speaks for you at Westminster? Do you know how many of the MPs ever helped to build a ship, to make a motor car, to put up a school, to weave cloth, to cut wood, to forge steel, to generate electricity, to dig coal, or run a railway or hospital? I'll tell you. About ten per cent of them. Do you know that many of them have never even sat on a local council? Do you know that of all the MPs in Parliament the number under the age of forty-five who have ever done manual work can be counted on the fingers of one hand?
'And the reason is that politics has become a career. It's become a step-ladder. A pat of progress from the debating chamber of the students' union at Oxford to the dispatch box and the front bench in the House of Commons. And it has meant that MPs have become tame, placid, docile sheep. Frightened to speak up. Never having the guts to stand up and be counted because if they do then it will affect their career prospects.'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
