Something to ponder over

We now have a Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer who not only expressed great sympathy and admiration for the IRA, on which he was called out by Nigel Dodds, DUP MP for Belfast North yesterday after the slightly idiotic attempt by the new Leader of the Opposition to turn PMQs into a phone-in, but he has expressed the view that he loathes capitalism and spends his time fomenting opposition to it and planning to destroy it.

So, I think it is time to look at a description of what that entails. But, first, Mr Dodds [you have to scroll down to read the different contributions]:

The plaques at the entrance door to this Chamber in memory of Airey Neave, Robert Bradford, Ian Gow and Sir Anthony Berry—serving Members of this House who were murdered by terrorists as they stood up for democracy and the British way of life—are a reminder of the savagery and brutality of terrorism, as are the gravestones and the headstones in Northern Ireland and right across this land. The Opposition Leader has appointed a shadow Chancellor who believes that terrorists should be honoured for their bravery. Will the Prime Minister join all of us, from all parts of this House, in denouncing that sentiment and standing with us on behalf of the innocent victims and for the bravery of our armed forces who stood against the terrorists?

Honourable Members and the Prime Minister, I am glad to say, did join him but as I did not watch PMQs I do not know whether the Labour Front Bench did. Still, as they say, never forget.

On to that hatred of capitalism. I happen to be reading a recent biography of Stalin (yes, yes, I know, a masochist of the first order) by Oleg Khlevniuk, translated by Nora Seligman Favora and published earlier this year by Yale University Press.

In his introductory chapter, Khlevniuk writes:

Underpinning Stalin's worldview was an extreme anti-capitalism. His hostility towards this system was unequivocal, and he rejected even the limited concessions that Lenin made in instituting the New Economic Plan (NEP). Stalin grudgingly allowed a few capitalist economic vehicles within the Soviet system, such as money, limited market relations, and personal properly.

After millions had died during the famine of 1932 - 1933, he agreed to allow peasants limited freedom to produce and sell outside the collective and state farm system. But to the end he believed that the concessions that had been forced on him by hard circumstances would soon be reversed and the socialist economy would be transformed into a money-free powerhouse where people would work as ordered by the state and receive in exchange the natural goods that the state decided they needed.

That, ladies and gentlemen, readers of this blog is what a man who is vehemently anti-capitalist really believes and wants to achieve.