The Boyd Done Good

national | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Tuesday March 23, 2004 11:23 by Janus

Gruding admiration for Boyd Barrett on Q&A last night.

I would not admit to being Boyd Barrett's biggest fan but I also slag off the SWP a lot so it seems only fair to give credit where credit is due because I thought he did extremely well on Questions and Answers last night in the face of an audience, both in studio and watching, who seemed to be strongly supportive of the war.

Now there are other threads to debate the SWP takeover of the IAWM and why it's a bad thing, and I've contributed to them, but like him or not (I don't), like his party or not (Don't like them either), agree with his politics or not (No way) it was good to see an articulate anti-war spokesperson last night. He handled soomoe aggressive questions from the audience extremely well and made FF TD Sean Fleming look like an eejit. Admittedly, not a difficult thing to do.

Something I've noticed is that because so many of the anti-war people are ordinary punters, it can sometimes be easy enough for hostile interviewers or other pundits to make our boys and girls look a little foolish. Most of the articulate anti-war people are members of one political party or another (I know Boyd Barrett is a member of a political party ut it's an irrelevant one) so for most people, here was an ordinary, non-mad looking chap articulating the anti-war position in a firm and well thought out way.

The bit where he handled the guy who claimed that 'everyone' believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ws especially pleasing to this Roman God of the New Year.