Tristram Hunt:
Perhaps an unfair comparison, but it does highlight two criticisms. The first is the lack of particularity: for a thesis so rightly concerned with the intimacies of national identity, this is a broad-brushed work of political science that seeks to impose the policy solutions of Canada and Australia on Britain. In particular, it fails to deal with the issue of welfare and identity in the context of mass migration – the question of migrant need versus indigenous contribution, of diversity versus solidarity.
Assertion one: Canada and Australia have nothing to tell us about immigration.
Assertion two: Migrants are, in general, “needy”.
Assertion three: “Indigenous” people are, in general, “contributors”.
Fuck off.
Haven’t read the review but two side-things strike me, as an American: Tristram Hunt is a very British name; and he is an MP. How many American members of Congress would bother to take the time to review a book? I would suggest the answer is quite close to: zero. Of course, as this piece may suggest by analogy, that may not be a v. great loss.
He’s a historian who became a Labour MP, and power corrupted him with astonishing rapidity. Within a month of joining the Commons he wrote a newspaper column in which he insinuated that Nick Clegg had joined the coalition because he was in a gay relationship with the prime minister.