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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?

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