There's a great piece by David Aaronovitch (a long time supporter of Tony Blair) in the Times on the latest lobby scandal involving Stephen Byers among others and how it mirrors New Labour's terminal decline.
Here's a taste 'In 1995 or 1996 Stephen Byers was introduced to me by a knowledgeable Labour person as a towering figure of the future. So I suppose he was just looming then, his potency down to his acuity and grasp of the new politics. Hard to believe now. The journalistic sting that snared him was absolutely predictable to almost everyone but him. Even Julie Kirkbride saw it coming. But Mr Byers was taken in. When confronted with the evidence he couldn’t deny the “cab rent” metaphor, since it was his own — nor the amount he claimed he would charge lobbyists by the day to advise them. Nor that he had claimed to have influenced decisions in favour of Tesco and National Express.
And ends 'And in so doing, he never noticed the irony in the name of the fictional company he was meeting — Anderson Perry Associates. Perry Anderson has been one of the great intellectuals of the far Left for more than 40 years, and was editor of the New Left Review for a quarter of a century. Mr Byers must once have known this. But, like Labour itself, he has forgotten just a bit too much.
The full article is HERE and it's well worth a readAny source
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