Putin's Useful Centrist Idiots
The Owen Jones Podcast
Owen Jones
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
People on the left are often denounced as Putin's 'useful idiots'. But while the left is nowhere near power, the likes of Tony Blair played crucial roles in legitimising Putin and - long after leaving No. 10 - even advocated an alliance with him. He's been rehabilitated in the Labour party, his acolytes run Keir Starmer's operation - and yet people nowhere near power, who have never advocated an alliance with Putin, are castigated with far more vitriol. What does that tell us about power in Britain?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Putin's useful idiots. |
| 0:02.4 | You hear this term bandied around quite a lot, |
| 0:04.2 | normally against the left, |
| 0:06.6 | it's part of a long tradition of de-legitimizing |
| 0:09.6 | and essentially just smearing, let's be honest, |
| 0:11.7 | the left is those who hate their own country, |
| 0:14.3 | they're unpatriotic, |
| 0:16.4 | they're stooges of foreign powers, |
| 0:18.2 | they're fifth columnists, they're the enemy within, |
| 0:20.5 | because they dissent from the ruling elites of the time, |
| 0:24.2 | because they scrutinize and challenge power. |
| 0:27.8 | Actually, in reality, |
| 0:28.9 | there's been remarkable, |
| 0:30.7 | I would say, consensus across the left, |
| 0:32.8 | in opposition to Putin's brutal |
| 0:36.2 | and heinous invasion of Ukraine, |
| 0:39.2 | there may be differences on this or that detail, |
| 0:41.9 | there are those, obviously, |
| 0:43.5 | well, all of this should be worried, |
| 0:44.6 | but about the prospect of an escalation, |
| 0:47.0 | which leads to the nuclear annihilation of human civilization, |
| 0:50.3 | which I think, on balance is best avoided, |
... |
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