BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART 679

In the first ever STaN early in January 2014, I referred to Peter Hain's forthcoming book "The Future of Labour and Britain". Well - here's a reminder it will be published on 1 May 2014.

We all know Mr Hain is a prolific writer. I scrolled through some of his earlier efforts on Amazon this week. There are some interesting titles among them, some of which may even be previous incarnations of this latest book:

Reviving the Labour Party, July 1980 - pamphlet 12pp

What's Left, The Future of Labour, 1993 - pamphlet 44pp

Ayes to the Left: Future for Socialism, Aug 1995 - book 224pp

The Future Party, 2004 - 56pp, co-written with Ian McCartney

And now to come:

The Future of Labour and Britain, May 2014 - book 250pp

Talk about reinventing the future! I am curious as to whether Peter Hain has traced his family tree as far back as Nostradamus, that other well known predictor of things to come.

In fairness to Mr Hain though he's not the only one to have jumped on the bandwagon of Labour's future. Type in "Labour Party future" as a booksearch on Amazon and you do get 679 results (on the day I did it - it might have changed by now - Denis Macshane hasn't published a book this year yet).  

There's an interesting one called "A Future Fair for All", published in 2010. Do you remember it? Nor me. In fact it's the Labour Party manifesto, credited to Gordon Brown no less. I was rather taken with the cover of it, which took my interest rather more than what would have been inside. I've been trying to work out if the family are looking at a new dawn, which is probably what the designer had in mind, or alternatively the sun going down. Being the eternal pessimist, I prefer the latter interpretation. I find it rather appropriate considering the mess they left the country in.

Returning to the matter of the cover, I don't see it as a representation of the world I live in and definitely not a world I shall ever see in a future UK. There are no animals grazing the fields which suggests we are in an arable countryside, but that can't be right because the fields are too small and there are still trees growing in the hedgerows. Indeed - there are still hedgerows! There are no powerlines, pylons or wind turbines anywhere in the panorama, there's not a car in sight, no new housing springing up in this greenfield landscape at all. The family apparently consists of a man and a woman and two children. Do such families still exist in this Brave New World because I thought such family units were a throwback to the fifties and sixties? It's typical advertising "froth", a not even clever attempt at selling us a lie - yet again.

Another surprise in the list of 679 was one called "The Future of Welsh Labour" written by someone called Carwyn Jones in 2004. I bet that one was a really interesting read and it wouldn't take long at just 41 pages. The cover as shown on Amazon looked uninspiring and unimaginative though, a reflection I thought of the Party in Wales itself.

Then I checked more closely and it stated that cover was illustrative only - so I did some more research online and found the same book being pushed by the Institute of Welsh Affairs at the price of £0.01. And guess what - it had the proper cover illustrated, but it was still equally uninspiring and unimaginative. Just a photo of a younger looking Carwyn Jones on it.

It wasn't helped by the fact that he was wearing what might have been an old school or college tie - I put mine on a Guy Fawkes, many, many years ago. I'm always a bit suspicious of a grown man who wears his old school ties. I have visions of such people living in a house where there'll be a photograph prominently displayed of them in a cap and gown and a rolled up degree certificate. Wearing old school ties is a pretentious, middle class habit that no man who is really comfortable in his skin should dream of doing. If people want to wear such things, keep them for your college reunions when you can all get together and reminisce about what a wonderful time you all supposedly had, and then score points bragging about what you've achieved since. It's not for me.

So no glorious sunrise or sunset to look forward to in this book of Carwyn's. I guess that's what we in Wales have got to look forward to ad infinitum. Nothing spectacular for us to ever get excited about. It's like a cold, wet Monday morning driving to work - but replaying every hour, every day of your life. I've got a lovely photograph in the house they could have used. It's a landscape photo I took myself as I really like natural shots. It's of a green field up in Ystradfellte with a donkey in it, and the donkey is accompanied by a large flock of sheep. The donkey looks - well, just like a donkey always looks - plodding, well-fed, nonchalant, almost bored. Every time I've seen him he comes over the same - kind of solid, dependable, but completely predictable. Just keep feeding him carrots and he does what a donkey does - next to nothing. The sheep are all congregated in one part of the shot, presumably waiting for one of them or the donkey to do something different, when they'll all likely follow - as sheep do. My photo would have made for a far more interesting cover - and I wouldn't even have charged them for it!

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