Moving in the folk circles as I do, it probably doesn’t come as a great surprise that my facebook news feed has been dominated lately by enthusiastic support for Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to become leader of the Labour party. Many herald his position as a return to ‘old labour’ values and socialism and a proper left wing alternative to what they see as the current Tory-lite Labour ethos. It would appear though that it is not just the folk world that is backing Jeremy Corbyn. He has emerged as an unlikely favourite in the race with union and grassroots backing and many have been drawn to his straight talking, question answering (rare indeed) and honest approach to politics.
Predictably, this has rather torn the Labour party apart of late. Seemingly the outsider, Corbyn has become the frontrunner in the race and the other three candidates and many other MPs are horrified at the prospect of a genuine left-winger leading the party ostensibly because they are worried about the party’s electoral prospects but rather more likely worried about the job falling to someone outside of the Blairite/Brownite circle. It has to be said as well that their surprise at his success does perhaps rather hint at the complete failure of a majority of politicians (on all sides) to realise just how bored the populace at large is of the robotic and script-heavy MP. Much of Corbyn’s success is actually Continue reading “The Jeremy Corbyn question”
