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Probably
like many of you, I have been watching the Labour Party leadership race with
keen interest. Now, although I am NOT a Labour supporter and think of myself as
being right-wing, I do find myself being drawn to Jeremy Corbyn.
I know
you'll probably find that strange and hard to understand given that he is my
political polar opposite. However, what I admire and respect about him is the
fact that he is not trying to go for the centre-ground. He is not cut from the
modern political cloth of being all spin and no substance; party before country
and self before party. He actually (from what I can see from all that I've
heard and read) has those old fashioned, now deeply hated by modern
politicians, things called principles and a strong set of beliefs. Rather than
trying to gain power at any cost by appealing to the middle ground; he has
firmly set out his stall and drawn clear lines. He doesn't flip flop from one
focus group to the next or make a stunning number of U-turns (Andy Burnham is
your man for that.) He simply says this is me, these are my policies, these are
the things I believe in. If you like what you hear vote for me, if not don't.
That's
another thing; the guy actually has clear, radical policies. Granted, this is
where I part company from him because as much as I wish his policies would
work, they are simply not practical. I love his ideas about renationalising
services and utilities, about re-industrialising the north by opening up the
pits and steel works and factories (oh how I wish that idea could be achieved).
Unfortunately, these ideas have been costed at around 100 billion pounds. No
way on earth can we afford that. Also, given that the EU has made nationalising
utilities all but illegal, it simply can't be done while we remain locked in the
EU. He may be a radical and open to the idea of a referendum on the EU, but I
think (God forbid) if he ever did become PM that kind of democracy, which is
still the antithesis of Labour and its belief in big state control, would be
quickly snuffed out. In short, I admire Mr Corbyn's honesty and his principles.
However, I think his ideas and policies - though well intentioned - are totally
bonkers and not in the least achievable. I have written before about why
socialism can't ever work so I'm not going to go into that here. However, all I
will say is that Corbyn's brand of socialism would scare away the wealth
creators with his level of taxes and the amount of borrowing that would need to
be done would basically kill this country.
The other
aspect that I have enjoyed throughout this leadership contest has been the
likes of Blair and Mandleson et al, trying their damndest to throw Corbyn off
track. As my friend Rach pointed out to me today. These idiots don't get the
fact that the more they intervene the more likely people are to vote for Corbyn.
She is absolutely spot on. Actually she should be writing her own blog, which
would be amazing and brilliant to read, but oh well :) However, back to topic.
The issue there is that the ex heavy weights of the New Labour project just cannot
comprehend why their brand of politics is now so toxic to people. Although, I
suspect that this is largely because they never gave a rat's ass for the people
to begin with. To them what mattered most was gaining power by any means
possible and holding onto it. You see that's the problem with centre-ground
politics. It hides behind seemingly noble sayings like trying to be a broad
church, a politics for everyone, where every view is important and everybody
can feel they have a stake in society. In reality this is pure spin, style over
substance and completely hollow and empty. Being stuck in the centre is the
best method there is to enable a party to dupe people into voting for them, but
it doesn't give you any room to move so that you can take radical policy
decisions to REALLY sort out the country. Basically Blair's 'third way'
politics was just there for political elites to feather their own nests and
screw the British people. In addition, as Blair et al have pointed out (perhaps
fairly) if people vote Jeremy for Leader of Labour, it is highly unlikely that
Labour will get elected. However, what is the point of having a Labour party as
we had for 13 years, in power who are Tory-lite and are only interested in
looking after the elites? There is none. I would much rather have a principled,
honest and true working class Labour party, out of power and in perpetual
opposition than have them sell their principles and values just to win power.
After 13 years of Labour and 5 years of the 'heir to Blair', Cameron, people
are understandably excited by a fresh kind of politics (although not fresh to
anyone who is 35 and older). A politics of clear direction and seeming honesty.
Dare I say a politics of substance over spin?
The other
thing to keep in mind with every attack that is launched on Jeremy from the
likes of Blair et al. If they are trying to attack you, you must be doing
something right.
In addition,
the other leadership contenders are all firmly shackled (to varying degrees) to
the New Labour project and so can't and don't offer anything new. As far as I
can tell, other than a few watered down versions of Corbyn's ideas the others
have no policies for what they would do as leader. Again, people are waking up
to this and they don't want wishy-washy, vague, spin, focus group led
politicians. I firmly believe that the other candidates have been caught
totally unprepared for the phenomena that is sweeping through the traditional
Labour supporters of this country. The voting public are gradually realising
what a meaningless, vacuous empty shell centre-ground politics is and they
(quite rightly and reasonably) want a Labour party that stands up for the
working class and goes back to being true to its historical principles.
Interestingly, what this reaction from traditional Labour supporters has also
highlighted is just how undemocratic the New Labour project actually was. It
has turned the spotlight firmly on its vile singular goal of gaining power at
any cost and holding onto it. Again, this is evident because of the Labour
elites being horrified that the voting public look set to put in a leader who
is not one of the club and who has a totally different ethos to politics than
they do. Sorry, but that is democracy. It's about power being given to the mass
rather than a small group of elites and the elites within Labour are shitting
themselves. Personally, that gives me a tremendous amount of pleasure. I had to
laugh when one such elite seriously suggested that even if Corbyn wins the
leadership race, he should be instantly removed, hahahaha. In a nutshell, that
neatly encompasses exactly how New Labour viewed the British people and why
these disgusting, slimy bastards should be hounded out and thrown into a shit
pit. This is yet another reason why I hope Jeremy wins, because if he does I
believe he will kick out the scum who brought about New Labour and actually go
some way towards setting right some of the horrible things they did to this
country whilst in power.
For those
several reasons alone, I wish Jeremy Corbyn well and I hope he wins the
election to become leader of Labour.
