The Nye and Owen Show

The greatest of thinkers stand on the shoulders of giants. Owen Smith, it is fair to say, is not a great political thinker. Still, he tells us that he is standing on the shoulder of one the labour movement's giants. Debating with Jeremy Corbyn on television he said:

I want to be a force for good in the world. Therefore, you need to achieve power. Nye Bevan, my great hero, said it’s all about achieving and exercising power. I’ve devoted my life to that.

(Stolen from Left Foot Forward)

I'm a little confused about this, I must confess. Is the Nye Bevan being spoken about here the same Nye Bevan who said this?

The Right Wing of the Labour Party would rather see it fall into perpetual decline rather than abide by its democratic decisions.

What about this, given that people have been expelled from the Labour Party recently for saying far less barbed things?

That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. 

Then there's this, a Bevan quote favoured by today's self-professed moderates, but in actual fact a neat statement of a basic of historical materialism:

Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.

Let's face it, Nye Bevan would have been expelled from today's Labour Party. Because the Compliance Unit would know all too well who would be getting his vote.