Tristram Hunt

Diary – 22 September 2016

‘Are you here to seek political asylum?’ asked a clever young student after my lecture at the National University of Singapore. It has certainly not been a great start to the political year: the Boundary Commission abolished my constituency and Jeremy Corbyn’s office declared me a ‘non-person’ by placing me on a list of 13 undesirable MPs deemed to have insulted the Dear Leader. In many ways, Singapore felt a good place to be. Here the role of the Workers’ party is not really to challenge the ruling People’s Action party for power: they play the part of perpetual opposition. Which is eerily close to where Labour is heading.

The ‘Liverpool of the East’ was the colonial nickname for Singapore — partly for its shipping economy, but also for its Edwardian waterfront architecture. The real, true Liverpool is the setting for next week’s Labour party conference. Trepidation surrounds this year’s gathering — what with memories of Derek Hatton and the Militant Tendency reignited, with local parties in Wallasey and Riverside being infiltrated by far-left activists, and with Unite’s Burg Hohenwerfen-like regional headquarters overlooking it all. But it is a mistake to think of Liverpool’s politics in such narrow terms — this was also a city of Orange Order Toryism for large parts of the 20th century. I am looking forward to an outbreak of pluralism.

In the happy old days of Blairite hegemony, the Tribune rally provided the dissent and dark humour (not least from the much-missed Tony Banks). Now, under Corbyn, it is the Sunday evening Progress rally where the capitalist running dogs — that is, moderate Labour MPs — gather to offer a different perspective. If the event is not dispersed as an ‘illegal gathering’ by the National Executive Committee, we will dig deep into our dissenting tradition, for we centrists are now embarking on our own pilgrim’s progress (or Long March).

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