David Lammy and the power of self-deprecation

It's the throwaway remarks that often reveal larger truths.  Delivering a lecture to celebrate City, University of London's 125th anniversary, Tottenham's MP David Lammy opened with a couple of self-deprecating remarks concerning a photograph taken some twenty years ago, where he appears alongside the current President of City.  Although Sir Paul Curran had not changed at all, Lammy remarked upon on how, in the photograph, he looked like (I paraphrase slightly) 'a dashing Denzel Washington' as opposed to now where he has developed the look of a 'tubby Forest Whitaker'.  

On the bus home, passing through Islington, I couldn't help but compare my MP to Jeremy Corbyn.  Had I ever heard or seen the leader of the Labour Party do self-deprecation?  By the time the bus had turned right at The Salisbury Hotel on Green Lanes and began to edge gently into Tottenham, I had given up.  A motto of mine is 'never trust someone who has no sense of their own ridiculousness'.  And by this rule, I cannot trust Corbyn.   

My M.P. - David Lammy; Labour, maybe no longer my party

Of course, the lecture had much more to it than gentle self-ribbing.  Eloquent, passionate, and charming, Lammy talked on the subject of 'How universities can bring a divided society back together'.  And although that particular question wasn't answered in any affirmative way – indeed, I'm not quite sure that Higher Education can do that, certainly in the volatile short-term – his remarks on his personal educational journey, from humble beginnings in a Tottenham primary school, all the way to the heady environs of Harvard, were incredibly inspiring.  His comments on 'white privilege' were apposite, as was his flagging up of the current Brexit dilemma in the Labour Party, illustrated, he said, by a visit to fellow MP Lisa Nandy's constituency of Wigan.  Wigan, my hometown, voted 64% to leave, whilst Haringey, which is where I live now, voted 76% to remain.  And it was also welcome to hear Lammy lament on the loss of polytechnics in the early 1990s, and how this has impacted upon a real downturn in vocational and practical skills.  His lecture ended with a huge round of applause.  Yes, he was preaching to the converted, as one of my lecture buddies remarked, but you truly got the impression that if there had been sceptics in the audience, they might well have been won over.

Probably not! 

Does this matter?  Massively.  In the recent Euro elections I voted other than Labour for the first time in my life.  Lammy's lecture reminded me why the Labour Party is my home, though, and why, despite the current leadership - the undeniable antisemitism (Lammy didn't shy away from this and flagged it up) and the toxic misogyny (look at the way that the ghastly Len McCluskey jabs his finger at this Sky journalist) - there is still decency, progression and hope in the Labour Party.  I have threatened to vote other than Labour at the next General Election.  And whilst I am waiting to see if there are other options, one that will stop Boris Johnson and his terrifying race to the totalitarian bottom, David Lammy is making it incredibly difficult to put an 'X' in a box other than the one next to his name.