THERE has long been an infantile character to left wing politics in Liverpool.
It is one of the things that continues to damage the city’s image.
We can all remember Derek Hatton’s face twisted with venom and hatred, addressing the rabble from the balcony of the Town Hall.
That set the tone for an attitude which prevails today. Whenever I see people demonstrating in Liverpool I sense they are trying to behave like rebellious teenagers, sticking two fingers up to the rest of Britain and the world.

The attitude of revolting lefties and wet liberals alike in this city is akin to that of Millwall fans… “We are Scousers, nobody loves us but we don’t care.�
There is an unattractive dollop of self-pity and martyrdom complex about it. Why can’t these people grow up and get over themselves?
I sighed when I noticed that people old enough to know better had dug into their dressing up boxes so they could pose as Guantanamo Bay prisoners in orange jumpsuits and with bags over their heads.
This grotesque pantomime occurred just outside the Philharmonic Hall. Pathetic.
And why the bags on their heads? Surely the protesters weren’t THAT ugly? Then again …
They were demonstrating against the impending visit to the city by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
The rent-a-mob would like everyone to believe she is a war criminal.
An idiotic resolution to that effect was passed at the weekend by the dinosaurs of the North West TUC annual conference. The resolution said: “She has their (Iraqis’) blood on her hands.� As I say, infantile.
Political life has matured enormously in Britain in recent decades but in Liverpool there are still lots of Dave Sparts and Millie Tants wanting to make a spectacle of themselves and embarrass the whole city in the process.
That is exactly what happened with this latest protest by trade unionists and the Merseyside Stop the War Coalition.
Let us not pretend that Condoleezza Rice will be at all bothered by naïve protests made by political pygmies.
But all the same the Merseyside Stop The War Coalition should be ashamed of itself.
It has not only insulted a great woman, but it has also made the city of Liverpool once again look peevish, juvenile and obsessed with emotional knee-jerk gesture politics.
I trust Ms Rice will make it to Liverpool and be given a warm welcome by those genuine, hospitable and media-savvy Scousers who are simply too intelligent to go on dumb-assed demonstrations.
The campaigners have a right, of course, to protest against US and British involvement in the conflict in Iraq.
They have the right because this is still a free country, largely thanks to those who fought in 1939-45 War.
But let’s remember that before the US, British and other coalition forces liberated Iraq three years ago, any Iraqi attempting a protest like the one staged by idiots in Liverpool the other day would have been fed into a giant shredder by the hateful regime of Saddam Hussein.
So while Liverpool’s gobby radicals have a right to protest, I have a right to point out the error of their ways.
I also have the right to mount a sort of counter-demonstration with my words.
I’d like to start by pointing out a great paradoxical truth which history proves … that if you want to achieve true peace, justice and freedom, you almost always have to go to war for it.
So what members of the Merseyside Stop the War Coalition are actually saying is that they don’t think peace, justice and freedom are worth the fight. Well, bully for them. Give each of them a white feather.
Condoleezza Rice, President Bush and Tony Blair think otherwise. So do I. So do millions of people who rightly take the view that when your country’s armed forces are committed in a foreign field for a just cause, then you should rally round and support them.
To do otherwise is to give comfort to the enemies of freedom and tolerance. It is to be “the enemy within�.
As I say, the anti-war protesters have the right in a free country to parade around, and in fancy dress costumes if they like.
But that doesn’t mean that what they are doing is big, or clever. Their actions certainly have little to do with building peace in the world.
Condoleezza Rice was probably too busy to notice the coarse protests about her planned visit to Liverpool.
But they will have been noticed by other serious-minded people and they will cement in the minds of those people once again that Liverpool politics is immature and not to be taken seriously.

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