That's fine. But it's kind of illustrative about what I'm saying. I grew up in a mining village, staunchly socialist, not from any understadning of socialism which I thought, in my naivety was a benign, humanitarian movement. And who wouldn't be for that?

But I've since learnt the socialists used the miners for a wider political aim. That to the left, we have to be wary of totalitarianism, and to the right, facism - whcih are basically the same things just reached by different ideologies.

I have taken a step away from party politics but not politics as such. Old manifestos and teleological ideologies do not serve us well in the modern age, where we face many unique challenges and threats.

I'm a humanitarian most of all, and if that means I have to 'betray' my roots and test some new ground so be it.

You probably won't read it, but this is pretty close to what I'm talking about www.henryjacksonsociety.org/

We will have to disagree MT. As with previous discussions, I can't buy into your description of this as a minimal shift to the right.

I wonder whether I'd characterize the liberalism to which you refer as liberalism at all, but rather as a specific form of conservatism which has been historically, erm, conflicted about its own identity; in order to bridge the gap between self-image and reality, it clings to the language of liberalism to describe itself to itself; the meanings which that language attempts to signify, however, are essentially conservative.

I don't think I believe that its possible to section off 'defence and national identity' from the whole. These values form the core of a politics.

You are right. But a slight shift to the right (still left of centre) gives you an important new perspective - much needed in these rapidly changing times. That is the phenomenon in so called neo-conservatism, it's not Tory in the least. It is progressive 'liberal' (have to be gareful as these terms have different nuance in the US) values with a conservative slant to defence and national identity. It's a corrective to the post-modern project of nullifying western identiity as all bad and imperialist. Its happened because of a very specific threats that face us.

We are very much protected from the violence in the world here, we forget that we have deadly enemies, and not just in the abstract. Like issues of immigration;It is essential that liberals grasp the pros and the cons of immigration. It's not a betrayal of liberal values. Relegating these issues to the sidelines as a 'far right' issue will only mean the middle ground is not explored. . Nature abhors a vaccum and if patriotic liberals don't fill it right wing extreamints will.

(thinks hard about what bat and monkey are discussing. Realises that that last sentence looks like a line from the Jungle Book. Gives up attempt to be intelligent).

It's true that there are things that could be worse

Just pointing out that one can exhort a group to be progressive and self-critical in order to refine its position and respond to changing contexts.

Or one can demand that a group is progressive and self-critical, in order to effect a fundamental shift to the right (or indeed left, but less frequently I think).

It's always interesting to watch how interest groups 'claim' language and use it to set the terms of the debate, and ultimately to make their own position appear to be the Common Sense one.

lol Onebat. Like there could be nothing worse than a bit of national conservatism/protectionism in an otherwise liberal system that has been decimated by cultural reletivism.

I think I defined what I meant by progressive. Nothing trecherous about self analysis and criticism. Kind of based on the scientofic meathod. Nothing tretcheous about that kind of progressive - or is there?

Re the web chats, if many people have serious issues they want to address with someone, why not get 'together' beforehand, form a lobby, define your focus, choose your questions and then choose a rep to ask them. Otherwise the person gets inundated by a baying mob.

But that double standard, if it exists, isn't between print journalism and blogging, is it? Because blogging doesn't just mean chatting on the internet. A blogger who was abusive in that way would just be a really rubbish blogger. No one would read that person for political info or interpretation.

(Though if a blogger were cleverly and entertainingly abusive they might be read in the same way as a newspaper cartoon is viewed by the newspaper's readers. Steve Bell, for example, is incredibly abusive in the way he depicts politicians. To that extent abuse is legitimate.)

I do think that sustained demolition attacks of public people on MN are embarrassing and unhelpful, though. And perhaps there ought to be a distinction between just fooling around in Chat and participating in a more responsible convo in a 'livechat'. That's one reason why the livechats ought to be renamed -- what term would generate the proper moral seriousness? -- Mumsnet Commission of Inquiry?

I dunno. I don't think any slebs have subjected MN to a sustained, bitchy, personal attack over entirely trivial matters, but we sure have done it to some of them (Scherezade Goldsmith is the case that always makes me wince). It doesn't serve any purpose, and it's thoroughly unpleasant. And it makes us look like a bunch of tits - even those of us who didn't participate.

On a wider point - people do say libellous stuff on here about slebs. I'm constantly reading things that make me think, 'Can you say that?' You couldn't say these things in a paper. So in that sense, the journos are right to be pissed off at the double standard.

That is a good point -- it only becomes anonymous, in that sense, when its contents are taken out and reproduced in a paper. Where MNers don't have right of reply as she has here.

i have started a thread

but YES, lupus, i thought that was a bullshit point. her name goes out to her constituency, for which she is paid handsomely, the lucky besom.

we read, form an opinion, and comment on here, on our community, our consituency. if i were to suddenly say that she is a cock sucking whore (i wouldn't, i'm sure she's very nice indeed) then i'd have fifty of you wrestling me to the ground AND i'd have made myself look like a cruel twat in front of my own community. my posts are not anonymous, in fact they're less so because this is a smaller community than her daily mail readership. i know most of you, most of you know me. this is not an anonymous forum.