Fine piece. Hobsbawm was just another lying leftie........but one of those who was intellectual, articulate and urbane, and therefore possessed of credibility ........nothwithstanding the bourgeois nature of his tastes and how he generally lived. "Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, while thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine, that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field." As alluded to, this quote encapsulates entirely the decades long struggle of the viciously emotional and unprincipled leftist 'revolutionaries' against honourable, reserved, conservative Britons who don't realise the nature of the fight - or probably even that they are in one? For the Left it really is a visceral power struggle, one that they would sell their grand-mothers to win. The danger is, that since the 1970s they have learnt to mask the nature of their beast, have rejected their fractious ways and now appear wholly 'reasonable' like Ed Miliband and all the other metropolitan power-hungry poseurs. They claim monopolies on fairness, kindness and caring for the planet; they claim to reject the inherent injustices in the establishment, but really only seek to establish their own establishment......one that cares not a jot for the individual. We are living through dangerous times........Cameron's incompetence will let Miliband through the gate - and 5-10yrs of him, will lead to the abattoir for the 'great cattle' beneath the oak tree. The only hope lies in that the intemperate and greedy Left will probably shoot themselves in the head as usual.