Hell Freezes over yet again

The Sunday Times reports today that two left-wingers, Claire Short and Tony Benn, have both expressed agreement with aspects of Conservative policy.

Short accepted an invitation to speak to Conservative frontbenchers about how to improve the effectiveness of Foreign aid. She told the Sunday Times

“The Conservatives have committed to keeping up the budget and keeping up the commitment on poverty and keeping a separate department, so I am pleased about that.”

Benn admitted that

“There are issues I find myself in agreement with some of the Tories on, particularly on civil liberties. All this security state stuff is very, very worrying. Libertarians like David Davis, a right-wing Conservative, resigned over the government’s 42-day detention law and I went to speak for him.”

He said he also agreed with the Conservatives over the Lisbon treaty.


BTW, I had an email from the National Union of Students in response to my previous "Hell Freezes Over" post, pointing out that this was not the first time this year that they had issued a press release agreeing with David Cameron about something. They included a link to a statement supporting a Conservative suggestion that students could be given favourable terms for accelerated repayment of their student loans and the improved cash flow which resulted used to fund 10,000 extra University places.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Tony Benn has always been anti-EU.

And Europe is an issue that has always been an issue that has cut across party lines.

Maybe you'd better read up on your political history...
1:08 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Europe is indeed an issue on which political disagreements do not always run along normal party lines: so, to a much lesser extent, is civil liberties.

Nevertheless, I think that for veteran left-wingers such at Tony Benn and Claire Short to find issues of agreement with the Conservatives on three different issues is interesting enough to be worth comment, as an indication that politics is more complicated than is sometimes supposed.

And if you do not realise that it is unusual enough to merit comment, perhaps it is you that need to look up on your political history.
7:22 pm
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