You wouldn't know it from his detractors, but Nick Cohen was and remains one of the Blair government's strongest critics. He was one of the first to draw attention to the Hinduja deals and Enron. He made his name by exposing the hypocrisy and emptiness of New Labour at a time when the class of opinion-formers was saying that Blair was the greatest thing to happen to politics since the Factory Act.
Hostile reviewers of What's Left rarely bother to take on Cohen's arguments. Instead they level one of two accusations. The first is that Cohen is using a few esoteric examples of far-left idiocy to slander the liberal mainstream. The second is that Cohen has grown old and sold out, and that this book is a sacrificial offering to his new paymasters.
Yet the principles inherent in What's Left run throughout his political writing. Pretty Straight Guys, an attack on Blairism, confused some of Cohen's natural supporters with this account of the February 2003 anti-war demo:
"An anomalous figure stood alone in the crowd. Sama Hadad was a refugee from Iraq and was demonstrating against the demonstrators. 'Everyone here is wrong,' she told [Tony] Benn. 'Everyone here has a moral and humanitarian duty to call for the removal of Saddam Hussein and to create a just and democratic Iraq... Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dying.'
Hostile reviewers of What's Left rarely bother to take on Cohen's arguments. Instead they level one of two accusations. The first is that Cohen is using a few esoteric examples of far-left idiocy to slander the liberal mainstream. The second is that Cohen has grown old and sold out, and that this book is a sacrificial offering to his new paymasters.
Yet the principles inherent in What's Left run throughout his political writing. Pretty Straight Guys, an attack on Blairism, confused some of Cohen's natural supporters with this account of the February 2003 anti-war demo:
"An anomalous figure stood alone in the crowd. Sama Hadad was a refugee from Iraq and was demonstrating against the demonstrators. 'Everyone here is wrong,' she told [Tony] Benn. 'Everyone here has a moral and humanitarian duty to call for the removal of Saddam Hussein and to create a just and democratic Iraq... Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dying.'
"'I know,' interrupted Benn. 'Because of sanctions.'
"'No, not because of sanctions, because of Saddam,' she cried."
This book is not about vilifying the anti-war movement - indeed, the Stop the War coalition are discussed only briefly in this book. Instead Cohen charts a monstrous separation: the betrayal by the Left of the people that they claimed to speak for. Many Iraqis were well aware of the Bush government's motivations, but still saw the invasion as their last and best chance to get rid of Saddam. In March 2003 a thousand Iraqi exiles demonstrated outside Parliament in support of an invasion. Their voices just weren't heard.
Cohen's argument is that people are now so opposed to George Bush and 'imperialism' that they will now embrace, physically in some cases, anything and anyone they judge to >>
"'No, not because of sanctions, because of Saddam,' she cried."
This book is not about vilifying the anti-war movement - indeed, the Stop the War coalition are discussed only briefly in this book. Instead Cohen charts a monstrous separation: the betrayal by the Left of the people that they claimed to speak for. Many Iraqis were well aware of the Bush government's motivations, but still saw the invasion as their last and best chance to get rid of Saddam. In March 2003 a thousand Iraqi exiles demonstrated outside Parliament in support of an invasion. Their voices just weren't heard.
Cohen's argument is that people are now so opposed to George Bush and 'imperialism' that they will now embrace, physically in some cases, anything and anyone they judge to >>
