Reply #20: I don't know

[Joe Chi Minh]

if it would be possible for anyone to actually like him, but I remember being encouraged by his, well.. as it transpired... unconscionable posturing, as a left-wing firebrand!

At the time, he used a kind of androgenously high voice-register, presumably to seem unthreatening. As he climbed the greasy pole to achieve his ambition, he was apparently a master at upsetting as few of his parliamentary colleagues as possible.

However, the neocons/new Tories hated him, because they knew him for a smarter version of themselves. And of course as he stole more and more of their psychopathic policies, they just lost it completely - together with any chance of getting back into power. Even now Howard and his the neocons don't seem to have grasped that, for the far-right, to tell the most outrageous lies is not optional, it is absolutely indispensible. Thatcher knew it, Major knew it, Blair knows it, but post Major, they've completely lost the plot.

The only Socialist MP of unyielding integrity ws a Kiwi called Gould. Once he was really convinced of Blair's game - and it was quite early - he chose to return to NZ. And he was a high-flyer then, who could have risen higher still very quicky, had he been prepared to sell his soul.