Labour's Sickening Sentimentality

I seem to remember that Peter Sellers' hapless Inspector Clouseau was the object of a series of increasingly bizarre assassination attempts. Bombs would explode and leave their object largely unharmed. Innocent bystanders were collateral damage. For some reason this thought came to mind during yesterday afternoon's farcical Westminster happenings. I really can't think why.

Labour will not change leader despite the obvious fact that it is in the interest of the party (both in electoral terms and the longer term) to do so. The reason for this is that it shares the sentimentality of its membership: leave the dirty work of political waste disposal to the nasty Tories and the nastier LibDems; we are too nice to do the Brutus thing.

Only it's not nice at all. Sentimentality may not be the worst of vices but it is one of the most insidious simply because it is the most misunderstood. Sentimentality is intrinsically self-regarding: it involves the cultivation of false emotions; false because their object is directed inwardly. The sentimentality of the moralist is an announcement of his own worth and the putative object of his sentiment is no more than a vehicle for that announcement. You hear it everyday in the language of the "outraged" and their pronouncements that such and such a thing is "unacceptable".

That same sentimentality has now infected the Labour Party to the extent that it has become blind both to its own self-interest and the interests of the people it (although not its leader) was elected to serve.