Sea Change

What happens exactly when a divided and dysfunctional government goes head to head with a divided and dysfunctional opposition?  It’s not a question we’ve really ever had to confront in modern British political history.  The last time a government was as discredited and shambolic as the Tories are today, it was in the early 1990s. John Major was battling a bunch of Eurosceptics he colourfully chose to describe as ‘bastards’ (one of whom, incidentally, was a former army lieutenant and all-round pain-in-the-rear-end called Iain Duncan Smith). The UK crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and John Major pottered aimlessly for a few years initiating groundbreaking policy initiatives such as the Cones Hotline. By this time, Neil Kinnock was gone. He had been replaced by the competent John Smith, who in turn was replaced by the irrepressible Tony Blair. Major’s card had been marked. With every passing month Labour looked more and more like a government in waiting. ...

The phrase ‘strange bedfellows’ doesn’t really do justice to the oddballs lining up to support the call for the UK to leave the EU. The eccentric and earnestly intellectual Justice Secretary Michael Gove teams up with Iain Duncan Smith – the self-styled ‘Quiet Man’ who had to be toppled as Tory leader some years ago in quite a noisy coup. They find themselves in the same camp as maverick Labour parliamentarian Kate Hoey, UKIP’s Nigel Farage and George Galloway, the former MP for Celebrity Big Brother. If Boris de Pfeffel Johnson breaks his silence and say that he’s joining them, it would seem entirely fitting. The outgoing London Mayor would be the celebrity icing on the fruitcake. Under normal circumstances, you’d have to bet that the campaign to ‘remain’ had a pretty good chance against this mob. Surely common sense will prevail and the public will rally around the mainstream politicians of all political parties who understand the importance of our involvement with the E...

What exactly is it that makes a Corbynista tick? It’s a question I’ve been pondering in recent months, while trying to enter into some kind of debate on social media with the avowed fans of Labour’s leftwing leader. For those of us who remember the political turmoil of the 1980s, it is perhaps too easy to dismiss Corbyn’s followers as being stuck in a timewarp. With all the talk of nationalisation, unilateral nuclear disarmament and even the ownership of the Falklands, are we dealing with renegades who are simply refighting the lost battles of a bygone era? I’ve challenged myself to be a little more open-minded. After all, we’re told that Corbyn has inspired a new generation of activists. If you’re 19 or 20 today, you would have been born around the time of Tony Blair’s first election victory.  Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council and the Trotskyist take-over of Liverpool would seem as much a part of the history books as the Korean War appears to me. It’s hard to k...

With every passing month, Jeremy Corbyn’s position at the top of the Labour Party is becoming further entrenched. His minders promise a purge of dissenters early in 2016 and they propose ‘consultations’ on policy which will not just be restricted to long-standing members, but will also involve anyone who has paid a few quid and signed up on a whim to support Corbyn’s far-left platform.  Many of these newbies follow their leader with a religious fervour and are impervious to rational argument. They openly dismiss the concrete polling evidence that shows JC’s elevation to be an unmitigated disaster. I even had a discussion with one fan recently in which he seriously argued I should ignore the polls and look instead at how quickly Corbyn merchandise was selling online. There are many Labour moderates who caution against precipitous action. Why mount a coup d’état which is more than likely to fail?  Wouldn’t it be better to bide our time and let the Corbynistas see the er...

Amid the turmoil in the Labour Party, it seems rather appropriate that this year’s John Lewis Christmas commercial features a confused old man who lives on another planet. If you’ve seen the ad, you’ll know that the gentleman in question is rather out of touch with what’s happening on Earth, although he still hopes to retain some kind of connection with the people who inhabit the place. On the TV, there’s a happy ending. For Jeremy Corbyn, there most certainly won’t be. The issue is not so much what happens to the MP for Islington North and his sidekick, Chairman Mao. They are destined for political oblivion – perhaps sooner than many people originally imagined. The real question is whether they will manage to destroy the Labour Party in the meantime. There will undoubtedly be some kind of attempt at a coup in 2016. Some MPs are already opening calling for Corbyn’s resignation just two months after he was elected, so the pressure is only going to become more and more intense. ...

All the calls for unity after Corbyn’s election victory are completely understandable. It is a truism that divided parties can’t win elections.  The trouble is that united parties with the wrong policies and the wrong leader can’t win elections either. Unity under Corbyn is a complete charade, particularly within the Parliamentary Labour Party. While the Labour church is notoriously broad, it’s difficult to imagine Presbyterian elders being particularly happy when told the new members of the congregation have chosen to follow the Pope. Pull together, they’re told. We’re all Christians, after all. Here’s a controversial thought. Might it be that disunity and division are exactly what Labour needs right now? Let’s cast our minds back to the early 1980s. The left, with its figurehead of Tony Benn, was in the ascendancy in the Labour Party. A conference in January 1981 endorsed the policies of withdrawal from the European Economic Community and unilateral nuclear disarmam...

As Labour approaches a landmark in its 100-year history with the prospect of veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn winning the forthcoming leadership election, it's time to examine and explode some of the myths that have grown up around his campaign.  MYTH ONE: CORBYN REPRESENTS SOMETHING NEW To anyone under 30, it must probably seem as if Corbyn is saying something new and radical. After all, his particular brand of leftist rhetoric died a death with Labour’s fourth consecutive election defeat in 1992.  If you’re from the ‘millennial’ generation, it may seem as if Corbyn has emerged from nowhere in puff of smoke, a little like the anti-austerity movement Podemos in Spain. But those of us involved actively in British politics back in the 1980s can confirm that Corbyn was saying all the same things back then. He’s a 45rpm vinyl single, stuck in a groove.  As John Rentoul elegantly put it in a recent article, the Islington North MP has been ‘consistent to a fault ...