Citizen Corbyn
It’s official. New Labour is dead. Long live Old Labour. Jeremy Corbyn is now the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. Imagine Jacob Rees-Mogg being elected Tory leader. Pretty unimaginable, to be honest, yet Comrade Corbyn’s election win would have seemed just as far-fetched and ludicrous only three months ago. But he’s gone and done it, thanks in no small part to the rule changes that have reduced the voting system to a chaotic cock-up. Rumours that the next task of the Labour NEC will be to organise an ale-themed event at a venue where said beverage is brewed have yet to be confirmed.
Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper were tainted by the legacy of their time in office, and they weren’t even the most inspiring or contentious characters in the last Labour administration; Liz Kendall was an unknown entity and largely remains so despite several appearances on TV promoting her campaign, whereas Mary Creagh rose without a trace so quickly that few can even recall her participation. Not one of them even excited anger or hatred; they were the political equivalents of a Kenny G album from Glenn Hoddle’s CD collection – dull, instantly forgettable, so bland and boring that it was hard to care one way or the other if someone stuck it on a loop or switched it off. A Tory Government with a slim majority took one look at the contenders and pretty much knew it could sleep a little sounder for the next five years.
And then came the leader of the Islington Popular Front – a patronising, token inclusion by 36 Labour MPs to represent the divisive, left wing of a party that has always had the most widespread appeal with a centrist at the helm. Corbyn doesn’t look like Cameron, Clegg or Miliband; he doesn’t speak from the same autocue and go out of his way not to give offence to the Sun or Daily Mail. He’s not a politician for the careerist or the ruthless; he’s a politician for the idealist and the romantic, for those who download ‘Stairway to Heaven’ every December 18 in the belief it will prevent Simon Cowell’s latest call-centre graduate scooping the Christmas No.1. He’s a man who can say the word ‘Socialist’ without coughing, a man who wears the facial hair not of the fashion-conscious hipster but of the old-school Marxist agitator, a man who believes there should be a clear division between his party and the Tories, an advocate of nuclear disarmament and renationalisation of public utilities and the railways, and, for someone who is technically old enough to be David Cameron’s father, a man who has managed to connect to enthusiastic and optimistic youngsters who have projected their own gauche naivety onto him.
With his remarkable victory, Corbyn has delivered a long-overdue bloody nose to the Blairites, and few would consider that unworthy of celebration. The likes of Mandelson, Campbell and even the ex-Vicar of Albion himself had demanded the party faithful reject Corbyn, a move guaranteed to prompt the party faithful to do the opposite; the New Labour grandees still haven’t gauged the degree of contempt in which they are held by members, and that is part of their problem. But where do their heirs go to lick their wounds? Do they plot Caesar’s downfall from the backbenches or do they run into the arms of the depleted Liberals as their Gang of Four ancestors did thirty-five years ago and form a new party? It’s hard to see them fitting into Corbyn’s quaint vision of Labour, which is essentially the Greens in red braces. In a sense, he’s the left’s answer to Nigel Farage. Just as UKIP have tapped into the right-leaning sections of the British public who have become disillusioned with Cameron’s Conservatives, Corbyn has done so for the left, which has been equally marginalised over the past twenty years, to the point where many doubted it still existed. The difference is that Farage leads a minor party with just the solitary honourable member, whilst Corbyn inherits the second largest in Parliament. But what the success of both has exposed is the existence of a deep well of dissatisfaction with the interchangeable Blair photocopies that have come to dominate British politics over the past ten-fifteen years, not to mention the inability of that particular political class to recognise the fact.
It’s hard to imagine Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister, but it was hard to imagine him as leader of the Labour Party when he first put his name forward in June. We are told that stranger things happen at sea (just ask our esteemed landlady), but whether Corbyn’s election signifies electoral suicide or the biggest political divorce since 1981, one cannot deny it has suddenly made politics a little more interesting. Just a shame Billy Bunter received the nod and wink as Deputy Headmaster; but at least it might leave him with less time to pursue his hobby of Tory grave-pissing, certainly if the interminable length of his Oscar-winning speech is anything to go by…
Petunia Winegum
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September 12, 2015 at 12:09 pm -
This has appeared very quickly after the result was announced, Petunia. Do you have alternatives prepared for each possible winner? I would love to see those!
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September 12, 2015 at 12:13 pm -
and answer came there none – possibly because he sunk into a deep depression after writing the one for Andy Burnham…he’s jumping up and down on the hard copy for that one as we speak.
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September 12, 2015 at 12:16 pm -
This has just arrived in my inbox (yes, I am shuddering):
From: Tom Watson
Subject: I’m Labour’s new deputy leaderI feel he should have at least added: “Nah nah nah nah nah”.
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September 12, 2015 at 12:22 pm -
September 12, 2015 at 4:53 pm -
He is the real threat. He is becoming the acceptable face of left-wing extremism and is a very good self publicist.
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September 12, 2015 at 4:56 pm -
The likelihood of Corbyn winning seemed to grow with each passing day, so I was pretty confident I’d be posting this one; but I did have an alternative version in which Corbyn didn’t make it. I was adding to this post during Bunter’s yawn-inducing speech, with my finger hovering over the red button (even though it’s actually blue).
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September 12, 2015 at 7:39 pm -
The bookies were paying out three weeks ago on Corbyn. I wish I had a ten on when he was 200-1 in June …
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September 12, 2015 at 12:29 pm -
Weren’t we all Corbynista style idealists in our youth?
What is encouraging is that the spoon feeding of socialism by our education system & the BBC doesn’t work. Maybe its human nature, but most of us see the flaws as we become more exposed to human nature.
I was cured in my twenties as I took on more responsibilities in industry which carried with them exposure to the realities of business and competition. Succeed, or you don’t just get the sack, those jobs & that investment are gone- survival itself is based on quality of service & product, competitive costs & being on time.
We have millions of client or state workers. Some good, some bad, some highly paid, many not. It may well be that much of that work should be in the private sector, but somehow there has to be a similar holding to account for performance. Not just fiddled league tables. It can be done; my local hospital has been transformed over the past three years.
But back to Corbyn; the biggest worry to me is that the Tories will seek advantage by stealing his policies.
Just a view comrades, brother & sisters, and the undecided.-
September 12, 2015 at 12:32 pm -
Oops!
‘should be in the public sector’, not ‘in the private sector’.-
September 12, 2015 at 3:12 pm -
He got 250,000 votes. Others have pointed out on other blogs that is likely the amount of support for his poison ideas in this country in total. In his rambling acceptance speech he kicked off by demanding unlimited immigration into the UK. He is a joke.
But it must also not be forgotten that he is also a very evil man. He brazenly supports socialist tyranny and he must never get into power for all our sakes. Ordinarily he has no chance but it seems obvious that economic crisis is not far off.
He cannot ever be allowed to become PM.
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September 12, 2015 at 3:20 pm -
“He cannot ever be allowed to become PM.”
But what if the electorate actually give him a majority?
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September 12, 2015 at 5:15 pm -
“But what if the electorate actually give him a majority?”
Leave the country. If the 20th century has taught us anything, it’s that you get the fuck out of the way when Marxists get power.
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September 12, 2015 at 7:00 pm -
Given a choice between a man who listens to all sides (even if he doesn’t agree with their views) and one who prefers to bomb or imprison the hell out of any opposition he doesn’t like, I know which I’d go for.
Also relevant is the question re whose overseas policies helped create the multiple refugee crises in the first place…
Mr Ecks sees socialism as evil tyranny; I see unrestricted industrial corporate capitalism as the true evil, but each to their own…
At least the electorate now has the possibility of a true CHOICE in politics.-
September 12, 2015 at 7:42 pm -
The system we have now is corporate socialism. It has little to do with a free market beyond a few residual threads of freedom.
Corbyn is scum. Were you foolish enough to vote for him that is the last time you would exercise any choice in your life because the the state and socialism–which has murdered about 200 million human beings so far–would be running things from then on.
Civil war would be a lesser evil.
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September 12, 2015 at 7:51 pm -
Corbyn as Pol Pot? In your dreams, maybe, but in no-one else’s reality.
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September 12, 2015 at 3:23 pm -
It is often said that, if you’re not a socialist when you’re 20, you haven’t got a heart – but if you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you haven’t got a brain.
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September 12, 2015 at 6:42 pm -
…and if you don’t actively despise both of them by the time you’re 50, you deserve all you get.
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September 12, 2015 at 12:53 pm -
Augean stable clearance of all the detritus of “new” Labour begins! Bring shovels!
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September 12, 2015 at 1:07 pm -
A job for BP?
They’ve good experience of removing oil slicks.
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September 12, 2015 at 1:13 pm -
And my take on this was to sing and dance to this very appropriate song…
I remember…doing the time warp!
It’s just a step to the left! Will there be a jump to the right?
Let’s do the time warp again….-
September 12, 2015 at 2:17 pm -
I remember…doing the time warp!
“The Madness would hit and The Void would be calling….”
“In another dimension with voyeuristic intention, well secluded I see all.”
” With a bit of mind flip , you’re into the time slip and nothing will ever be the same. You’re spaced out on sensation like you’re under sedation…”
Yep seems pretty damn apt to me. I await Labour Party HQ firing up the
QuattroRoneo Vickers mimeograph ….-
September 12, 2015 at 2:57 pm -
My point exactly BD – it’s a bit uncanny….
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September 12, 2015 at 1:16 pm -
“The Labour Party” – a satirical new comedy, starring Jeremy Corbyn as “Neil Kinnock” and Tom ‘Billy Bunter’ Watson as Roy Hattersley
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September 12, 2015 at 1:27 pm -
The Tom & Jerry Show jokes have already started. That’s all folks!
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September 12, 2015 at 1:54 pm -
I chortle at the fact that those who wrote the rules, naively expecting a money-grabbing flood of cheapo subs at £3/toss didn’t have the wherewithal to consider the Laws of Unintended Consequences.
I suspect more Tories than Labourites voted for Corbyn.
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September 12, 2015 at 2:30 pm -
Actually the breakdown of the voting, both within and the new, external £3 votes, shows broadly the same pattern. So whilst some Tories undoubtedly voted for JC, most of his support was from within Labour (just not from the dying breed of “New” Labourites).
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September 12, 2015 at 2:46 pm -
No, this is real. It’s a real, walking talking Lazarus resurrection of 1970-style socialism. It is, of course, an private discussion for the right-on in the JCR but it will now be played out for the further entertainment of those who watched it the first time around. The Labour party is a triumph of the internal. Has anyone been watching the BBC this morning? They don’t know whether to wet themselves or slit their throats. The psychiatrists bills in N London are going to go through the roof, and that’s not even counting the nasty flats being built down Fiona Bruce’s garden.
“Tom and Jerry”, eh? They are taking the mickey already. But Jeremy just knows that he is right. All that is standing in his way is that the people are inconveniently wrong – again. Or rather, still. And they’re bringing Wolfie back too. How will we tell the difference? Or maybe that was a really good joke. If it was, well done but you can’t beat this for dark humour.
Meanwhile 2020 is in the bag and the Tories are now trying to work out how to win the General Election of 2025 when Owen Jones will be Labour leader. Who is getting the popcorn?
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September 12, 2015 at 3:34 pm -
We have the small matters of resolving our relationship with the EU and an unprecedented migrant crisis to deal with first. Plus whatever other Events arise – as they surely will.
I don’t particularly like Labour governments, but I’m not sure that a Conservative one-party state is ideal for the country either. Interesting times.
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September 12, 2015 at 3:02 pm -
Teatotal veggie. Keen on Hamas and Hezbollah. Fond of Putin, wants out of NATO. Excellent stuff.
I would suggest he firmly alienated a large portion of his working class English constituency with his acceptance speech with his love for all migrants great and small – which whether you agree with as decent or not, is largely hated by the working class and bourgeoisie (posted like a Corbyn there).
I don’t like fanatics. Dangerous people. They get people killed in unexpected ways in the pursuit of Utopia.
Just my view
G the M -
September 12, 2015 at 3:22 pm -
Reading today’s Telegraph (the paper one, not the website, which takes forever to load even the shortest report) I see that Robert Lindsay is in talks with a production company to revive Citizen Smith. No decisions made yet apparently, but the Telegraph suggests ‘Senior Citizen Smith’ as a working title.
Seems apposite.
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September 12, 2015 at 5:01 pm -
September 12, 2015 at 5:43 pm -
If you are using Firefox look out for the little book icon on the right of the address box. Clicking that gives a ‘reader’ version that gets to the ‘meat’ and cuts out all the baggage that slows down (all?) the ‘media’ sites nowadays.
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September 12, 2015 at 3:38 pm -
But on the positive side, Corbyn was historically a vocal opponent of the EU. If we assume that ‘they’ don’t get to him and he stays as loyal to his principles as he always claims, then the forthcoming EU Refendum could take on a significantly different flavour. We could see the ‘official’ Labour Party vociferously supporting the OUT cause along with UKIP, while the rump of the ‘Continuity Blair Party’ campaigns for IN with some greasy-pole-climbing Tories and the Lib-Dem residue.
This may finally prove that ‘left’ and ‘right’ are indeed false labels in politics, suggesting they are the two terminal points of a horizintal line – in fact, it’s more like a horse-shoe shape, with the ‘far left’ bending round, almost touching the ‘far right’ in the form of UKIP etc.
(Apologies if the concept of Jeremy Corbyn bending round to touch Nigel Farage has provoked any indelicate images amongst the more sensitive readers).-
September 12, 2015 at 4:31 pm -
If he turns out to be a useful idiot in EU matters so much the better. He is still an evil man.
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September 12, 2015 at 4:54 pm -
I for one congratulate him, not as i agree with anything he says mind, but you have to respect the man for at least having some views beleifs and principles of his own, the fact he’s pissed all over Lucifer Bliar and Meddlesome entitles him to a pint of whatever he drinks should i ever run into the chap.
Looking forward to PM’s question time, Cameron hasn’t had someone opposite ask the wrong questions yet…or rather as good old Eric would have put it, ask the right questions but not necessarily in the right order.
Who cares whether he gets an election majority, the country’s bollocksed anyway, even the Wizard of Oz couldn’t undo what’s been done, it’s all over bar the shouting.
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September 12, 2015 at 4:56 pm -
Strewth me typos are getting worse..NURSE..beliefs you fool…and when i say election i mean general election and Corbyn as PM, nothing could be worse than cardboard cut out Dave.
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September 12, 2015 at 6:11 pm -
Yeah well Hitler was not a phony either.
If Camoron’s PR clowns told him that wearing a transparent codpiece would increase his popularity, he would do so.
If PR fools had told Adolf that his mustache was not popular with the female demographic and he should shave it off they would have been in the Gestapo cellars within a half hour.
Sincerity is over-rated.
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September 12, 2015 at 5:01 pm -
Tom Watson ‘shudder’.
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September 12, 2015 at 6:21 pm -
…and from a ruined stone cottage far away somewhere in the top leftest most cornerest part of Wales atop a lonely mountain peak comes the cackling of an insane old man dressed in rags, his once red hair white with age, the liver spots on his hands a cartographer’s dream, as he clutches his transistor radio to his ear….”See now Boyo…see you Boyo…I tolds ’em…I tolds ’em *insert gibberish or ‘Welsh’ as it is commonly known* Hee heee muaahhhhahhhh…see you Boyo…Dai the Cameron is doooOOOOOOOOmmmed…BoyoooOOOOOooo”
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September 12, 2015 at 6:29 pm -
Ah, but Kinnochio’s told so many porkies over the years that his nose now prevents him from leaving the cottage.
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September 12, 2015 at 6:29 pm -
and somewhere in the East, sitting outside the village pub eyeing the legs of spinsters as they cycle past to Sext, another elderly gent sits smirking to himself as he listens to SKY News interrupting the cricket on the widescreen drifting out of the open saloon door and scribbles a note in his notebook: “Ask Norma; celebratory Curry tonight?”
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September 12, 2015 at 6:30 pm -
Norma AND Edwina at the same time? That would be a mojor event!
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September 12, 2015 at 6:51 pm -
The 1970’s student revolutionaries finally gain power, nothing surprises me these days.
This man will now be getting security briefings which will no doubt be relayed to Hamas and Hezbollah perhaps even DAESH.
Glad to see liebour self-destruct, but at what terrible cost?
Camoron and Corbyn, the “best” that yUK can produce.
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September 12, 2015 at 7:37 pm -
Somewhere deep in the bowels Lab HQ a lonely scribe works on a rewording of The Red Flag in time for tovaritch JC’s investiture….
“The people’s fag was drippy Ed. He who left our party dead”
There aren’t many words that rhyme with Corbyn…..’Sin’, ‘bin’ ‘tin…pot’
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September 12, 2015 at 7:39 pm -
Later the same day, comes this to my inbox:
From: Jeremy Corbyn
Subject: It’s an honour to serve you… and in it tells me:
” I want to use your talents to make us stronger, and I want to represent you.
So, help me be your representative. When I stand at the despatch box for Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, I want to be your voice.
What do you want to ask David Cameron? Tell me now and I will put your questions to him in parliament. My questions will be your questions.
Here’s my question for David Cameron”
The last bit was on a red button which takes me to a webpage where I can submit my question. It may be a bit gimmicky, but at least he’s trying to engage with people rather than telling them what to think. (My question to David Cameron would be far too flippant and rude so I’m not bothering… until I can construct a concise question that has a chance of making a short list.)
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September 12, 2015 at 7:44 pm -
I know many on here won’t have much sympathy with Corbyn but I think everyone should be delighted because finally we are back to POLITICS in Britain, with different groups offering different visions rather than the managerialism of the last twenty years where the electorate simply get the chance to pick from among slightly different personalities who will run things in pretty much the same manner with minor variations.
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September 12, 2015 at 8:09 pm -
I’d agree with that but for the feeling that Corbyn is still fighting the intellectual battles of thirty years ago. We need a proper political debate about today’s problems, not revisiting old arguments.
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