WHAT’S LEFT?
How liberals lost their way
By Nick Cohen. Fourth Estate. 406 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978-0-00-722969-7
I was brought up in a family which voted for the old Labour party. Leaning towards the political Left as a boy, I learned that ‘The people’s flag is deepest red and stained with blood the martyrs shed...’.
But somehow, along the way, the martyrs of Socialism got confused with martyrs for Christ and by the time I went up to Sussex University in the 1960s I had become a Christian. Sussex in the 60s was a bastion of the Left. No matter which course you studied, Karl Marx came into it. Students protested against the Vietnam war and my Communist party friend Andy wore his wire-framed glasses and Dr. Zhivago great coat, talked of revolution and could not take the CU seriously. Communism was the future.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …