Sea Change

If there’s one thing that all extremists have in common, it’s the pretence – or perhaps delusion – that they are not , in fact, extremists. I’m sure vehement Trump fanatics see themselves as part of the great American tradition, rather than members of a movement that is completely alien to that tradition and which threatens to destroy the Republic’s democracy. Likewise, supporters of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn often like to paint themselves as part of mainstream European social democracy. Nothing the Dear Leader proposes would be out of keeping with the policies pursued on the continent or in Scandinavia, they opine. (We’ll leave aside the fact that they’ll also tell you social democracy is dead. Consistency and intellectual coherence have never been Jezuit hallmarks.) They’ll point to the relatively moderate manifesto of 2017, which was cobbled together as a compromise in a fortnight, and pretend that this represents the essence and extent of their guru’s political a...

Corbyn’s Alternative MacTaggart Lecture in Edinburgh was probably the first example of the Labour Leader setting his own agenda after weeks dominated by the anti-semitism furore. While the row with the Jewish community shows no sign of abating – and new footage emerges of Corbyn making extremely dubious remarks at a London conference five years ago – his media proposals were indeed eye-catching enough to deserve some scrutiny. He started with a direct attack on mainstream news. ‘While we produce some fantastic drama, entertainment, documentaries and films,’ Corbyn argued, ‘when it comes to news and current affairs, so vital for a democratic society, our media is failing.’ His evidence for this sweeping statement? That people, when questioned in surveys, say they don’t trust the media. Of course, a fair degree of scepticism is entirely healthy when looking at journalistic output. The British tabloid press doesn’t have the greatest of reputations and proprietors clearly...

I thought Guardian columnist Marina Hyde was brave to bring up the siege of Waco. Her recent piece on the similarities in mawkish sentiment between supporters of far-right activist Tommy Robinson and the followers of Jeremy Corbyn was provocative enough. But to allude to the Branch Davidians and David Koresh was, I felt, probably asking for a little trouble online. When federal agents surrounded Mount Carmel back in 1993, it led to a bloodbath in which dozens of people died. The crackpot sect had amassed a frightening arsenal of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and fought with fanaticism. Even if we see the Corbyn movement as being cultlike in its behaviour and worship of its leader, I think we can rule out a Texan-style denouement. Jez, after all, is a man of peace, as we are repeatedly reminded by his supporters. But there is a serious question about how all this craziness will end. The Twitterstorm this week - running with the hashtag #WeAreCorbyn - provoked a frenzy...

The hard left is on the back foot over the anti-semitism row gripping the Labour Party. The Pete Willsman tape was too much even for some of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters – particularly the younger inner circle that act as his minders and semi-official cheerleaders on social media.   These high-profile vloggers, bloggers and blaggers, who’ve bizarrely chosen to hitch a ride to the festival in Jez’s clapped-out Trabant, understand how poisonous the anti-semitism issue is for their movement and want some sort of closure. They also don’t share the weird obsession of the traditional British left with Israel and are almost certainly frustrated by old-timers who seemingly can’t leave it alone. They face two problems though. The first is that Corbyn’s most vociferous supporters in the wider online world – the trolls, misfits and cranks who populate Facebook forums and Twitter – are virulently anti-Israeli and, in a frightening number of cases, anti-semitic too. While it’s p...