So you admit that Byron and Aquino have no relevance to the current situation. But the important thing is that they became heroes, you say. And what should a liberal hero have done? Why, he should have clicked his heels and marched off in support of a war masterminded by murderers and kleptocrats.

Never mind that the war has turned out so badly for the Iraqis. Never mind that they perish in greater numbers that they did under Saddam. Never mind that civil society and rule of law, fragile as they were under Saddam, have ceased to exist in Iraq. Never mind that these are consequences of the occupation, either by callous negligence or calculated design. We have to act on principle!

Never mind that respect for the dignity and welfare of all persons is a liberal principle just as much as concern for their liberty. Never mind that, in any event, you can’t stick and gun to somebody’s head and demand they become free. Never mind that Jefferson democracy rarely arises from military occupations occasioned by extensive collateral damage.

The right has its heroes, but they lack art. I rather think they have no shortage of talent. But I imagine its rather difficult for any artist to put a pretty gloss on the massive dung-heap they’ve made of Iraq.

The real heroes of this War are precisely those who opposed it, who suffered for their opposition, who faced the taunts and persecutions of braying idiots such as yourself because they had the vision and foresight to understand that this war was not the way to promote liberal values.

Absolutely scared the shite out of me.

“Dougie Blackstock was a gem though.”

‘L – he follows Ted Grant’s line, allll the time
Dougie, Dougie, Dougie’

Damn, Brownie, I didn’t realise we were meant to choose our opinions on the war based upon who had the coolest gang.

I thought it was meant to be a weighty moral issue or something.

He’s not related to Les Blackstock, I suppose? (British chessplayer, wrote books in the Seventies, rumoured to be on far left).

I liked Lorna as well. You have to have a certain admiration for someone who can claim short-sighted dyslexia as part of her ‘Speaking as a . . ’ credentials.

Dougie Blackstock was a gem though. As the song went . .

Oh Doogie he’s terrific, Doogie he is swell
He gives out all his papers free then buys the beer as well
Just why he’s in the Militant not one of us can tell
For Doogie’s much too nice to be a Millie

If it is wasnae for Doogie, where would the Millies be?
They would have a membership of slightly less than three
They’d be hanging around the conference with just the RCP
(and that is all I remember)

It might well be, but it’s not what I said and not close to it.

Sorry, ejh, but the “no enemies to the left” is just naive. It certainly was frickin’ naive in the 1980s and early 1990s in the Labour Party.

I’m not gonna say anything on Lorna, ‘cos, well, she kipped on my couch once, and one feels a certain camaraderie from that.

Well, I never had any direct conflict with these people as I wasn’t ever really involved in student politics (never been anywhere near NUS Conference and I’m not sure I was ever in the SU offices when I was at Oxford). But as they all got the careers and salaries they were after and don’t seem to regret a thing, it’s not so straightforward to forgive and forget as one might anybody else.

Besides, my point is that while, for all I know, they may have individually combined the talents of Shane Warne, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Leonardo Da Vinci, they were very good at hiding it. Apparatchiks are like that.

Fitzsimons. The Madame Mao thing comes from some evening watching Newsnight when I had a déjà vu moment. Lorna was denouncing away like a good ‘un – I think another interviewee may have suggested that there was some small blemish on Mr Blair’s otherwise spotless record – and I knew I’d seen something like it before. It wasn’t until some time later, though, that I realised it was Mao’s old lady at her trial.

Horrid, horrid person.

I think in some ways that makes it very hard to look at the politics involved. I don’t stand where I used to stand (where I am now, I don’t know – 42 and abroad, I guess) but I still have an instinctive horror of people who pursue their careers by denouncing leftists.

After your time, Conor: Lucy Bailey. Was a full-time NOLSie when Paul Richards was Chair. Was smart, I thought she was a good organizer. It was the dark days of 1992, so the opportunity cost of dropping out of Labour politics didn’t look so bad.

“Personally I’m finding it difficult to reconcile the terms “gifted” and “NOLS”….”

Ah come on Justin, bury your hatchet in the dustbin of history. We’re engaging in nostalgia here, not reliving ol’ unimportant battles over who got the platform to recruit sellers of future fishwrap.

I can remember Dougie Blackstock & Duncan Chapple with some fondness, and thought they were smart people even if I was a bit player on the other side.

“You’re not kidding. Horrendous, Me-driven, haranguing, thuggish personality.”

Well, that’s your view as someone who I suspect was formerly in the newspaper distribution business: I’d have put her as being very sharp, good insight in people, and not afraid of a fight. She was a protege of Simon Buckby, who was someone you didn’t want to cross.

I may be unusual in having smoked joints but never having had a legal cigarette. As I cough for weeks every time I’m ill (“bronchial hyperactivity”, apparently) I’m not sure why I bothered. Or didn’t bother.

Do you realise the damage that such crude directness does to the enigmatic, online identity you’ve spent years cultivating?

If anybody ever works out what this means, could they let me know?

Standards, Justin. Do you realise the damage that such crude directness does to the enigmatic, online identity you’ve spent years cultivating?

I seem to remember a lot more people than these being involved

You’re absolutely correct. I forgot to mention piss-poor non-comedians like Mark Steel and the sundry Muslim Brotherhood mouthpieces.

I would write more, but what is “more”? And if I write more here, then somewhere else there is less. Less, more, more or less. Who put the ram in ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong?

I remembered that, but he wasn’t one of the three people I referred to! Am I missing something?

The loathsome brownie from HP: don’t expect me to ignore the fact that the speaking order at most anti-war rallies read Galloway>Rees>German>Corbyn>Benn

I think somebody needs a lesson in the word “fact”, don’t they? I seem to remember a lot more people than these being involved – though of course the HP method is to say that if people share a platform with somebody HP doesn’t like, then therefore they, too, are damned. So they win either way.

sock puppet: She always was very career-directed

You’re not kidding. Horrendous, Me-driven, haranguing, thuggish personality. Now, I believe, working for Bomb Lebanon for Freedom or some similar organisation.