Neil Williams commenting over at the Socialist Unity Blog is right; this is a bit of a nugget of left trainspotting information, if true:
"“Mark Steele [sp] spoke to a packed Green Left fringe on saturday and was very funny and radical, good on how socialist need to rethink strategy, good on climate change and good on the media. He said he had left the SWP which surprised me”. [The exclusive is buried in amongst Derek Wall's post, A Good Conference - Green Party of England and Wales.]
Begs the question, though: will the Harry's Place mob finally admit that the bloke is funny now that he's apparently left the SWP after nearly thirty years of membership? Thought not.
10 comments:
Funny?
Are you on fucking crack now or something.
All those crappy 80s bands you spend an inordinate amount of time listening to must have warped your synapses young man.
On the second point -- of course HP Tossers won't admit to anything ever. They wouldn't even admit to their own shit stinking.
Search the Trainspotter's list for his name, apparently, there was a kerfuffle about his payment of dues back at the end of last year...
It would take a lot more than his leaving the SWP to make Steele funny. A sense of humour and some humility would be a start.
From what I seem to recall from a statement I read a few months ago, Steele's disenchantment with the swuppies seemed to largely revolve around their failure to mobilise the comrades to attend his gigs. What a tosser!
Bill,
I remember the post. Andy N. posted Mark Steel's contribution to the SWP's Internal Bulletin on the Socialist Unity Blog.
I got the impression that the payment of dues kerfuffle was nothing more than a bureaucratic manoeuvre on the part of the leadership because Steel hadn't fallen into line on the Respect/Galloway fallout.
Jim,
TBH, that's not how I remembered it. I thought that Steel was making the perfectly valid point that as he was performing political comedy - and he was a high profile member of the SWP at the time - SWP members should make it a propaganda. opportunity. (Akin to doing a paper sale outside a Ken Loach or Michael Moore film, maybe.)
I'll make the same generous offer to the SPGB when my debut album goes platinum
We have agree to disagree on the whole 'Mark Steel: funny or not' debate. I loved 'It's Not A Runner Bean' and 'Reasons To Be Cheerful', and especially with the latter book, I could identify with a lot of it. I'm sure you'd feel the same if you read it without your AWL hat on.
"I'll make the same generous offer to the SPGB when my debut album goes platinum"
Will that be an album of air guitar solos ;-p
No, I'm putting the Declaration of Principles to music.
My initial inkling is to do the music along the lines of an Arab Strap dirge style, but I'll probably settle on drum and bass.
Got to give the kids what they want.
I'm genuinely surprised, and disappointed, not to see a sensationalist post over at Socialist Unity followed by a long, bitter thread involving everyone denouncing each other as traitors, racists, etc, which reveals all the tedious details of the matter.
Duncan,
Give them time. They're currently denouncing each other over Kosovo.
Mark Steel will have to wait his turn.
http://socialistunity.wordpress.com/
Damn,
I need to switch to wordpress. That is a canny looking blog.
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