I'll keep the red flag flying here

 “He has no heart who is not a socialist at twenty. He has no head who is still one at thirty”. That’s a phrase that may have been coined by Churchill, Shaw, Disraeli, or Bismarck. I heard it first from my English teacher in secondary school. Mr. White insisted that we attribute any quotes in our essays to their original source. As he made no mention of a source, I assumed he was the originator of these profound words, and he shot up in my estimation.

It was back in the sunlit uplands of 1982. The Human League were number one in the charts, the hunger strikes had just fizzled out, kicking off thirteen more years of misery just up the road from where I was living.

Down south, we were in the middle of three general elections in eighteen months. I was developing an interest in politics and was seduced by the rhetoric of the emerging left-wing parties whose growth suggested that Ireland might finally be growing up. For years before that I had looked at British and European elections and marveled at the balance between left and right in their politics. Back in Ireland, we were haunted by the ghosts of the 1923 Civil War. Two center right parties came out of this conflict and have ruled Ireland ever since, conning the people that they are fundamentally different to each other.

I was hopeful that this cycle would be broken in 1982 and took the opportunity to pen an article in the school magazine to this affect. Mr. White, who was a card-carrying member of one of those right-wing parties, was editor of the magazine. He graciously let my article through without amendment, apart from the above quote scribbled in the margin. I’m now fifty eight, well past the age of thirty when I was supposed to swivel into a right wing zealot. And I think of that scribbled quote every time I search for the most left-wing candidate on a ballot paper.

When I could first vote in 1983, my choice was the Worker’s Party. They were an unapologetic Marxist group with completely sensible policies, but who would have shit themselves if they had ever been put in a position to implement them. Luckily, this was never a possibility and I could bask in the smugness of voting for the correct party and then complaining about the parties that actually had to govern.

I moved to London when I twenty two and immersed myself in the fight against Thatcher. In 1992, I became part of an incongruously named group called “Accountants for a Labour victory”. I worked in the head office of an Insurance Company. Our premises were in a small town to the South of London. As a result, we didn’t attract the posh end of the Accountancy profession, who all seemed to work in City institutions run by their uncles. The twenty or so Accountants in our office had all come up through the public education system and the English ones at least had all gone to “brown brick” universities that had sprung up in the sixties. Over chats in the canteen and pub we learned that most of them planned to vote Labour and a couple of us even went so far as to hand out leaflets.

We met up on the evening of the election for a victory party, but by 11pm it was clear that our efforts where in vain. Britain was condemned to another five years of Tory rule, by which stage I was back in Ireland looking at Tony Blairs ascendancy with admiration.

By this stage, I had become more pragmatic, as had most of my old comrades in the Worker’s Party. They had shut up shop and joined the middle of the road Labour party. I followed them, as it seemed the most logical root to election success.  Unfortunately, when I did, Labour joined the government as a junior coalition partner and surrendered all their principles for a few tawdry bobbles of office.

I spent seven years in Australia and couldn’t vote as I wasn’t a citizen. Ironically, I got this title just as I was a leaving and under the mandatory voting rules in that country, I’ve had to vote in every Australian election since. I was in Australia in 2007 when Kevin Rudd won and at the ripe old age of forty two, I found myself living under a Labour government for the first time, although sadly not a left wing one.

New Zealand allows me to vote, although in fairness they have never bothered to check if I’m entitled to. Most of my time here has been spent under the benign leadership of Jacinda Ardern. She’s not exactly a radical left winger either but was a decent skin at least.

But I have to admit, I never voted for her. The Green party in New Zealand are much more left wing than Labour. They want wealth redistribution, a policy that used to be a given in Labour parties around the world, but is somehow never spoken about today. The Greens are also concerned about that other small matter. Saving the planet from its imminent climate catastrophe.

We had an election here recently and sadly my vote was in vain. The country is lurching to the right and we face at least three years of tax cuts for the rich and climate change denial.

But I’m proud to still carry the red flag. If anything, I would say I’m even more radical now that when I was in my twenties, despite being financially comfortable and knowing that the right would benefit me more financially. I’m not sure what happened to Mr. White. I guess he’s retired now and living off a pension funded by the tax paid by the working men he despised. I will keep dreaming of a Socialist paradise while doing nothing to achieve it apart from a tick on a ballot paper every three years.