Judging by the horrified reaction McDonnell’s comments unleashed, you’d think he had ridden into BBC studios on a Soviet tank If these histrionics are anything to go by, the respectable position must be that Marx’s ideas are outdated and dangerous, and that we should all carry on as though they never existed.įirst, that’s not really what happened. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to clutch your privately owned pearls, for the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has had the audacity to acknowledge – live on TV, no less – that there is a lot to learn from Karl Marx.

Guardian journalists have this irritating habit of espousing fashionable views while adopting a bet-my-radicalism-shocks-you tone.Ī recent example is this Guardian article, by Ellie Mae O’Hagan, on Marx and McDonnell: If Daffyd were a real person, he would probably write for the Guardian. But he has to work hard to sustain this delusion, because everyone he meets is either indifferent, supportive or gay themselves. So he convinces himself that everybody is shocked and horrified about the fact that he is gay. Daffyd loves the role of the outsider, who bravely defies society’s stifling conventions. Daffyd Thomas, one of the most memorable characters in the ‘Little Britain’ series, is ‘the only gay in the village’.

Das Kapital by Karl Marx