Skip to main content

No Corbyns allowed.


As the labour leadership contest winds (thankfully) towards its conclusion, it is reasonably safe to say that you’d have had long odds on a Corbyn win at the start (They were 200-1 to be precise, fact fans). I mention the odds as some bookies have already started paying out. The Cooper and Burnham camps are privately conceding defeat. The Kendall camp freely admits they never had a cat in hell’s chance in the first place, and Jez glides serenely on. All of which begs the question, if this is goignto be such a landslide, if this is overwhelmingly the voice of the labour membership, why is it as disastrous as all the commentariat make out?

You have to go a long way to find a pro-Corbyn media voice (with the exception of Owen Jones). Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I don’t count myself a Corbynista. I like quite a lot of what he has to say, but I find a lot infuriatingly vague. That said, I certainly don’t endorse the witch-hunt, even the usually rational Andrew Rawnsley, over in the Observer, is launching apocalyptic hatchet-jobs. Furthermore it seems to me that prophecies of doom have a nasty habit of becoming self-fulfilling, a Corbyn leadership would be hobbled from the start by all the sniping and trash talk which preceded it, and therefore would lack effectiveness as energies were expended on getting the party into line. I’m reminded of the dog days of the Major regime, where the tories expended so much energy fighting each other they had none left to fight an election.

But I am curious about the unanimity of disapproval, it seems massively counterintuitive when set against the projected scale of the win. It speaks to a disconnect between the media and the voting classes. In this light, the political commentary seems almost peevish, how dare you vote for this man, when we keep telling you what a disaster he’d be? Mutterings about the three pound registration fee seem churlish. The Labour party should be amazed with its success in interesting people, getting the numbers signing up. You complain for years about people not engaging with the process, then, when they do, they’re not engaging properly.

All of this leads me to believe that a Corbyn leadership will, if nothing else, be vastly entertaining. The sheer number of noses being put out of joint, the sourness of the grapes, the blanket media anti-Corbyn agenda; all of these force you to ask why? What exactly is everyone so worried about? Well, okay, Blair’s worried he’s going to be indicted for war crimes, but beyond that, lots of people have voted for this man. Why, precisely, is that a disaster? Isn’t the voting kind of the whole point?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The last day of the county season

 Look, I never claimed to be cool. As a a cliched middle aged male, I have a number of interests which, if not exactly niche, are perhaps not freighted with glamour. Not exactly ones to set the heart racing. I yearn not for wakeboarding, my cocaine with minor celebrities days are well and truly behind me, you are unlikely to catch me writing graffiti under a motorway bridge. I do cycle, but only as a way of getting from point A to point B, you are unlikely, you will be relieved to hear, to see me purchasing lycra and or/doing triathlons. I like going for a nice walk. I'm fond of a good book. I have a deep attachment to county cricket. Yes, that's right, county, not even the international stuff which briefly captures the nation's fleeting attention once in a blue moon. County cricket. Somerset CCC to be precise, though I'll watch / listen to any of it. The unpopular part of an unpopular sport. Well, that's the public perception, the much maligned two men and a dog. N...
Post a Comment
Read more

D-Day Dos and Don'ts for Dunces

Oh Rishi. Lad.  You have, by now, almost certainly become aware of the Prime Minister(for the time being)'s latest gaffe, as he returned home early from D-Day commemoration events in France, in order to "concentrate on an interview" which, as it turns out was already pre-recorded. There's been a fair bit of outrage, the word "disrespectful" is being bandied about a lot.  The word I'd use is "stupid". It is often said of the Brits that we have no religion but that the NHS is the closest thing we have to one. This, I think, is incorrect, because the fetishisation of WWII is to my mind, far closer to being our object of national veneration.  I understand why, last time we were relevant, fairly straightforwardly evil oppo, quite nice to be the good guys for a change, I absolutely get why the British public worship at the altar of a conflict which, I note, was a very long time ago. I think it's a bit daft, personally, but I understand it. So you...
Post a Comment
Read more

The three most tedious food debates on the internet.

 I very much only have myself to blame. One of the less heralded aspects of running a business is that one is, regrettably, obliged to maintain a social media presence, it's just expected. And, if I have to do it, I'm going to do it very much in my own voice, as I don't tend to have time to stop and think when I'm bunging something on Insta. It seems to have worked okay so far. But, as a man better versed on the online world than he would prefer, I should have known better than to stick up a picture of our bread rolls, fresh out of the oven. In my defence, I did preface said picture by saying "one of the most tedious debates on the internet is what these are called...". Doubtless you've seen the argument somewhere, it's one of the workaday tropes that shithouse FB pages use to drive engagement. Need a few thousand clicks to raise the profile of your godawful local radio station/page about how everything was better in the past/shelter for confused cats?...
Post a Comment
Read more