My son’s new role: Labour witchfinder general
|
Version 0 of 1. My middle son received an email from the local Labour party, regarding the scrutiny of new membership applications. It’s not about his application – he joined six months ago, and appears to be considered something of a senior figure in the party – but about those of two boys in his year at school. One, the party suspects, is actually a Conservative supporter, and therefore faces expulsion “under clause 2.I.4.B of the Labour party rules”. The other, well, they’re just suspicious. Could my son please confirm that his classmate is a secret Tory, or provide assurances that his other classmate is as Labour as he claims? Let us put aside for a moment the fact that everyone concerned in this micro-witchhunt is 17 (I’ve got a feeling the sender of the email isn’t long out of school himself) – an age when your track record as a supporter of anything is liable to be brief or non-existent, and precisely the time of your life when you might experience a genuine change of heart. And let’s forget about the muddy nature of loyalty and how it might colour any answer to that email. Instead, let’s look on the bright side: by encouraging students to rat on one another, Labour has found a way of making politics relevant to young people again. Imagine being backed against the common room wall, lifted up by your tie and asked: “Did you snake me out to the acting vice-chair of the constituency membership committee?” (I am assured by another son that this is the appropriate language to use in such a situation, although he does have a habit of winding me up about this sort of thing.) Suddenly school politics and party politics are one and the same. For the record my son is friends with both students (he instantly forwarded the email to them) and says their support for Labour is genuine. He reckons the Labour party’s doubts are founded on an essay written by one of the boys before the election, explaining why he would vote Conservative if only he were old enough, which appears somewhere on the school’s website. According to my son – a witness – both the subject and the stance of this essay were assignments: no one in the classroom put their hand up when the pro-Tory line was offered. Diplomacy up in smoke On our recent holiday in Greece, my wife and I were dispatched to the nearest village for supplies. One is given to understand that tourists spending money – particularly cash – are not just helpful, but vital in the current economic climate. At the same time, when loading up a supermarket trolley with wine, I wished I knew enough Greek to explain that there were nine adults in our party. The last item on our list was a packet of small cigars favoured by one of those adults. The kiosk by the petrol station didn’t have any. Even the tobacconist on the square seemed to carry only cigarettes. The man behind the counter shook his head grimly when my wife asked him. “No cigars,” he said. “Too expensive for Greeks.” “Not for me!” said my wife, holding up her hands. She was trying to explain the cigars were for someone else, that she was running an errand, but it didn’t come out right. From the tobacconist’s expression it was clear that he understood her to mean that when it came to sourcing her favourite cigars, money was no object. Her flustered attempts to correct this impression were not convincing. “He thinks that we are fat cats,” she said as we walked back to the car. “No, he thinks you are a fat cat,” I said. “I kept quiet.” |