Post-Something
6th July 2011, 03:30
Just found this fantastic letter from 1994, from Jack Straw to the Independent. Pretty funny if you ask me, thought I'd share..
Not a Trot
Dear Comrade Editor: In his report on President Arafat's funeral ceremony in Cairo (13 November), Robert Fisk uttered such a malicious libel against me that I am certain that even the late George Carman QC would have taken my case without fee.
Mr Fisk called me an "old Trot". There is a very long list of old Trots who really were Trots who will be as outraged as me by this calumny. (These types can usually now be found in the City, appearing on quiz shows or ranting in certain national newspapers.)
Whatever other frailties I may have (many), I have been consistent in my opposition to Trotskyism and the false consciousness it engenders. (I was first taught to spot a Trot at 50 yards in 1965 by Mr Bert Ramelson, Yorkshire industrial organiser of the Communist Party.)
Yours fraternally,
JACK STRAW
Foreign Secretary
House of Commons
PS. Further reading. Isaac Deutscher: Trotsky (3 vols). Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, V I Lenin 1919 (a prescient warning about Trotskyist adventurism).
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/bbc-fights-for-the-arts-celebrity-help-for-starving-people-and-others-533363.html
Not a Trot
Dear Comrade Editor: In his report on President Arafat's funeral ceremony in Cairo (13 November), Robert Fisk uttered such a malicious libel against me that I am certain that even the late George Carman QC would have taken my case without fee.
Mr Fisk called me an "old Trot". There is a very long list of old Trots who really were Trots who will be as outraged as me by this calumny. (These types can usually now be found in the City, appearing on quiz shows or ranting in certain national newspapers.)
Whatever other frailties I may have (many), I have been consistent in my opposition to Trotskyism and the false consciousness it engenders. (I was first taught to spot a Trot at 50 yards in 1965 by Mr Bert Ramelson, Yorkshire industrial organiser of the Communist Party.)
Yours fraternally,
JACK STRAW
Foreign Secretary
House of Commons
PS. Further reading. Isaac Deutscher: Trotsky (3 vols). Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, V I Lenin 1919 (a prescient warning about Trotskyist adventurism).
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/bbc-fights-for-the-arts-celebrity-help-for-starving-people-and-others-533363.html