Blogging Language and Criticism

In the comments on the recent Ed Balls post (below), Modernity asks "Why is it that ex-Trots in the Labour Party seem to dance around criticising the LP leadership? If I read you, Dave Osler or even [Andy] Newman, instead of saying the LP leadership are right-wing shite and utterly useless politically, instead of that I find understatement, careful wording and opaque criticism."

I can only speak for myself. And I don't accept this is the case.

Since joining Labour almost a year ago and thereby ending my association with Trotskyist politics (though I haven't regarded myself a Trot from long since before joining the Socialist Party), I've penned 18 pieces looking at some aspect or another of Labour's leadership. In the few months since Ed's election as Labour leader I think seven blog posts could be described as commentary on his leadership (that doesn't count guest posts like this). One - the most recent - might utilise understatement, but previous reflections on Ed Miliband certainly do not. This and this critically analyse the position of the Labour party leadership in relation to the contradictions emodied by the organisation as a whole. This piece criticises Ed on workers' struggles ("on further commitments he's proving more slippery than an eel dipped in KY jelly"), and here and here criticises Ed for his appointment of Alan Johnson and the subsequent evolution of their economic "alternative" to the Tories' sole preoccupation with deficit reduction.

True, they fall well short of explicitly calling out the Labour leadership as "right-wing shite and utterly useless politically", but then again, so are this blog's many critical posts about the Tories and LibDems.

As far as I'm concerned what's written here is part of a political project. My arguments are an effort to persuade readers of the merits of my positions. They are not, like many a Trotskyist denunciation of Labour and trade union leaderships, exercises in revolutionary identity politics. They're an attempt to grasp hold of the political situation to see what can be done to push things in a socialist direction. The language used and the form adopted by critique are conditioned and disciplined by these concerns. And it should go without saying that when you're pitching these arguments to left and labour movement audiences there's no need to extraneously drop in the fruity stuff when it's obvious your default position is critical.