Nowhere "Left" to Go?

I recently watched a TV series on BBC2, called "The Hour". Set during the 1950s at the time of the Suez Crisis, it used a basic thriller format to ask wider questions about the nature of democracy. Our democracy. But what struck me most in the programme was a small segment in which footage was shown of the Labour politician Aneurin Bevan delivering a speech in Trafalgar Square. The speech was delivered in a voice seldom heard today. It was a voice of disagreement and dissent. It was the voice of the "old" left. And, to me, it was inspiring.
Bevan had the guts, it appeared to me, to actually say what he thought about our involvement in the crisis, a crisis which, as far as I can make out, seems to have parallels with our current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, I think this may be why the programme makers chose this particular moment in history as the subject of their drama- to make us think about what is happening today.
I remember very well the initial outcry amongst the public when we first got involved in Iraq, when many came to London to march in protest against the impending war. Now, it seems, such things have been mostly forgotten, and we appear to be being carried along by a fervent wave of jingoism. Our servicemen and women are regarded, universally, as heroes. But to me, this hides an unpalatable truth about the nature of our entanglements abroad. Bevan himself said, in a speech given in the House of Commons on December 5th, 1956, that "we...conscript our boys and put guns and aeroplanes in their hands and say, 'bomb there'. Really this is so appalling that human language can hardly describe it." He goes on to say that the ministers in charge of handling the crisis "have support in the country", but that they should not "take comfort in that thought", for they had "resorted to epic weapons for squalid and trivial ends." So it is now that such is the support for "our boys", any dissenting voice about our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan can be discredited for being unpatriotic, for not supporting their heroic efforts. I would say, though, that it is quite possible to sympathise with the sacrifices being made by our servicemen and women, but be against the motives of the politicians who sent them to fight in the first place. And Bevan, it seems, articulated this very well all the way back in '56.
Recently, Tony Blair said that the Labour Party should not return to its "old left" values, saying that if they did they would never be re-elected. With the new leader Ed Miliband, the Labour Party may well have veered slightly to the left, although it is hardly a radical shift. But to my mind, towards the "old left" is exactly where the Labour Party should be headed. If there are those out there who would respond, like me, to a voice like that of Bevan's, then I think that it is time it was heard. As we appear to grow evermore towards a political consensus across all the parties, I think the Labour Party has nowhere left to go but further left.
Now, with protests even emerging in New York against the reckless and irresponsible behaviour of the bankers, one senses the beginning of a groundswell of opinion which can only find its voice in a left-wing vision. One yearns for the days, then, of the likes of Aneurin Bevan, a politician of principle and passion, who could be a voice of reason amidst so much madness.