Tag: corbynmania

Jeremy Corbyn’s Speech

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By Daniel Margrain

I, like many other Labour supporters, spent yesterday afternoon glued to the telly in eager anticipation of the speech that was to come. I thought Corbyn looked, understandably, somewhat nervous and at times his frequent glances at the auto cue reflected a measure of uncertainty. He’s not the greatest of orator’s in say, the Galloway mold, but paradoxically, therein lies his strength. It’s the man’s humility that is arguably his strongest quality. It’s a quality that cannot be measured in the objective sense but you know it and feel it when you see it. And make no mistake, hundreds of thousands of us do see it.

But alongside that humility comes a level of integrity and steely resoluteness to get stuff done. One senses that here is a man who doesn’t suffer fools, and the media spin machine that plays to their tune, lightly. Underpinning this resolve, which is borne out of decades of principled and committed campaigning on issues that the establishment would rather whitewash away, is a man who is an idealist as much as he is a realist.

The image the media portray of him as a man out of time and place – a kind of naive and reluctant hero for the masses in the style of the Peter Sellers character in the film Being There – cannot be sustained for much longer. Indeed, I suspect that it’s a cliche that’s already run its course. Ultimately it’s his raw humanism and plain speaking that people seem to warm to the most.

I’m convinced that what people want more than ever are these kinds of politician’s. Somebody like George Galloway also has these qualities in abundance but with Corbyn you don’t get the self-centred inflated ego that comes with it. As you’ve by now realized, I’m a huge fan of the bloke and his policies as well as the new direction he intends to take the Party.

As for the speech itself, I thought it was refreshing and inspiring. I thought Corbyn was at his strongest during the middle section when he attacked the Tory government for the scaremongering tactics used against him when he was accused of threatening the economic interests of the public and the security of the country. The following extract from his speech was Corbyn at his most powerful:

The Tories talk about economic and family security being at risk from us the Labour party, or perhaps even more particularly, from me. I say this to them. How dare these people talk about security for families and people in Britain.

Where’s the security for families shuttled around the private rented sector on six month tenancies – with children endlessly having to change schools?  

Where’s the security for those tenants afraid to ask a landlord to fix a dangerous structure in their own homes because they might be evicted because they’ve gone to the local authority to seek the justice they’re entitled to?

Where’s the security for the carers struggling to support older family members as Tory local government cuts destroy social care and take away the help they need?  

Where’s the security for young people starting out on careers knowing they are locked out of any prospect of ever buying their own home by soaring house prices?

Where’s the security for families driven away from their children’s schools, their community and family ties by these welfare cuts?  

Where’s the security for the hundreds of thousands taking on self-employment with uncertain income, no sick pay, no Maternity Pay, no paid leave, no pension now facing the loss of the tax credits that keep them and their families afloat?  

And there’s no security for the 2.8 million households in Britain forced into debt by stagnating wages and the Tory record of the longest fall in living standards since records began.

And that’s the nub of it. Tory economic failure. An economy that works for the few, not for the many….

…It didn’t help our national security that, at the same time I was protesting outside the Iraqi Embassy about Saddam Hussein’s brutality, Tory ministers were secretly conniving with illegal arms sales to his regime.

It didn’t help our national security when we went to war with Iraq in defiance of the United Nations and on a false prospectus.

It didn’t help our national security to endure the loss of hundreds of brave British soldiers in that war while making no proper preparation for what to do after the fall of the regime.

Nor does it help our national security to give such fawning and uncritical support to regimes like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – who abuse their own citizens and repress democratic rights.

This is the spin Ian Dunt of politics.co.uk put on the speech:

Of all the speeches Jeremy Corbyn could have made, this was the most predictable and the most useless. There was no thematic content, no idea unifying what he was saying, no quality in delivery, no attempt to speak to the public outside the hall, no plan for the future and no sign he is prepared to work with the media to communicate his appeal more widely. It was the speech of someone who either doesn’t care or isn’t capable of speaking to anyone outside of his immediate supporters.

This was the common refrain of many within the wider media establishment spectrum. Clearly Dunt and me both witnessed two completely different speeches.

The vile Laura Kuenssberg from the BBC claimed, without evidence, that Corbyn will have difficulty getting the middle ground voter on-side, implying that his politics are somehow Marxist as opposed to essentially humanist. Kuenssberg’s assertion went unchallenged. So much for the BBCs alleged impartiality. Her tone in all her commentaries on Corbyn thus far have been condescending at best and outright dishonest at worse. But she is far from being alone on that front.

The mainstream media and the establishment elite cannot handle the idea that Corbyn can be both a campaigner and a leader, or that decision making can be a democratic process emanating from the bottom up. They just can’t seem to get to grips with the rapidly changing nature of British politics in 2015. In that regard, the people of Britain are a country mile ahead of a media that is frankly out of touch and becoming increasingly irrelevant as each day passes.

This also explains why people are turning to alternative and social media sources for their information. I think it was a positive move that Corbyn made when he tasked Watson to work on the social media aspect of his campaign which is, of course, important. But equally, we ought not forget that the majority of people in this country still consume their news through traditional methods.

I believe Corbyn can, and will, capture the centre ground because ultimately he is essentially a humanist at heart and humanism is centrist. But you would never believe that after having analysed the media who continue to portray him as “hard left” although that particular epithet is starting to wane. There is currently a campaign doing the rounds that has almost reached the 100,000 signatures required to ensure that, in the name of parity, pressure is put on the BBC to describe Cameron as “hard right.”

If Corbyn does win over the party and eventually get elected as PM, the turn of events will have an uncanny resemblance to the plot line of the brilliant television drama A Very British Coup. Unlike, Being There, such an eventuality would be akin to a situation in which life imitates art. Let ‘Corbynmania’ continue long into the nights and days ahead.

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

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By Daniel Margrain

The momentous nature of Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide victory should not be underestimated. It has to go down as one of the most sensational and politically earth shattering events in modern British political history – the impacts of which are sending tremors throughout the entire establishment. After the announcement was made that Corbyn had won, it was obvious that the smiles, handshakes and applause of the vast majority of the calculating and opportunistic labour elite were as a fake as Blair’s claim that Saddam was about to attack Britain within 45 minutes.

A pointer to the overwhelming inspiration underlying Corbynism was the fact that no less than 160,000 volunteers who seemingly emerged out of nowhere, were recruited to the cause. The grass roots support that Corbyn engendered – by far the biggest of its kind in history – was almost certainly the catalyst that propelled him to victory. Although the activists were mainly young people, they were by no means exclusively so. In fact the demographic was wide ranging.

Corbyn’s straight talking, lucidity, and unambiguous commitment to a programme of anti-austerity brought many older activists who had felt betrayed by the direction the party had gone under Blair, back into the fold. To put Corbyn’s victory into context, he secured a higher percentage of votes than Blair got in 1994  Even more significant, the 554,272 votes he achieved was more than double Blair’s, and no less than 76 per cent of them actually voted, a higher percentage turnout than Blair received.

This would indicate that Corbynmania is no flash in the pan, but on the contrary, represents a new optimism that things really can be better given the right circumstances. Decades where nothing happens can all of a sudden transform into the possibility where decades happen all within the blink of an eye. Neoliberal ideology, which for many was perceived to have been fixed and immutable has, with the rise of Corbynism ,the potential to be swept away.

The excitement that surrounds Corbyn in 2015, therefore, marks a more significant change within the labour movement than the superficial controversy of ‘third way’ Blairism in 1994. Blair’s subsequent general election victory in 1997 cemented the ideological coming together of the Red-Tory axis that this writer hopes Corbynism will shatter to the dustbin of history. What is certain is that September 12, 2015 will be remembered as the day in British political history that Blairism officially died.

When Corbyn was first nominated, he was seen by his opponents both inside and outside the party as a joke candidate. But an indication of how they are now taking him seriously is the extent to which the mainstream media are unanimously attacking him. The Tories, who apparently voted for him because they thought it would enhance their future electoral prospects, are the ones now claiming he is a danger to national security.

But the more they attack, the greater is his support. Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, Prime Minister David Cameron, Chancellor, Gideon Osborne and MP, Priti Patel have all made exactly the same public statements attacking Corbyn. Clearly, all of them have read the same memo issued from Whitehall. The fear mongering and demonizing propaganda, intended for news bulletin soundbites, is so transparent that it’s comical.

The Tories got this tactic from the Republican Party in America who repeat the same propaganda over and over again hoping that some of it sticks which it invariably does. Of course, the media play their part by uncritically reporting it. An example was the way Fox News repeated the lie that President Obama was a Muslim who was born outside of America.

The phrase repeated in the UK media is that “hard-left” Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to the security of our country, economy and every UK family. In the interest of consistency, why don’t the media who describe security-risk, Corbyn as “hard-left”, apply the euphemism “hard-right” to Cameron whose illegal wars greatly increase the risk of domestic terrorist activity? Gove said:

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory is a deadly serious demand from her majesty’s opposition that we put the future of this country in the hands of the MP for Islington North…There can be no room for doubt or ambiguity about what Jeremy Corbyn would do if he formed the next government. He would pose a direct threat to the security of our country, the security of our economy and the security of every family…. He would weaken our defenses and make Britain less safe. By choosing Jeremy Corbyn over his rivals, the party have now endorsed deserting our allies like Norway. He proposes leaving the NATO alliance just as the growing threat from Islamist extremists requires international solidarity.

Or to put it another way, Corbyn wants Britain to stop trailing after America to launch another war that got us into this mess in the first place. Gove continues:

“Corbyn would also reduce our armed forces further unilaterally, scrapping our nuclear deterrent whilst terrorists and state sponsors of terror seek to develop nuclear weapons of their own.”

Just think about that for a moment. In the unlikely event that terrorists get hold of a nuclear weapon, they are not going to put it on the back of a rocket and send it from where they are living because they will be easily detectable from space and consequently we would be able to respond in kind. Terrorists are insane but they are not stupid.

What they are more likely to do is Fed Ex some kind of small device in the hope that it would be undetectable which, therefore, totally mitigates against the effectiveness of a state like Britain to be able to use nuclear weapons as a targeted response.

Gove then goes on to criticise Corbyn for his apparent economic incompetency by suggesting that his policy of printing money would be inflationary, overlooking the fact that his own government flooded the bankers with money. The stated aim was that the banks would lend the money back to us with interest so that they would make more profit. But the bankers went one better than that by using the money to buy shares in their own companies thereby increasing the value of those shares and hence the amount of bonuses they were able to award themselves. Conversely, Corbyn’s stated aim is to give the money to the people as a means of generating growth.

Gove then misquotes Corbyn as saying that the death of Osama Bin Laden was a tragedy. But what Gove failed to mention, was that Corbyn was not describing the death as a tragedy, but the fact that Bin Laden wasn’t put on trial, imprisoned and therefore punished for longer.

10 reasons NOT to vote for Jeremy Corbyn to be leader of the Labour party

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Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn (Pic: Garry Knight)

Newspaper columnist Cyril Waugh-Monger has warned repeatedly about the ‘dangers’ of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader.

THE BIG political story in the UK this summer is undoubtedly ‘Corbynmania’. How a 66-year-old antiwar activist and socialist has gone from being the rank 200-1 outsider in the Labour leadership contest election to be the red-hot favorite.

Jeremy Corbyn, a modest, unassuming man who wears an open necked shirt and slacks instead of the usual politician’s suit and tie, has really proved a big hit with the public, who have grown tired of slick politicians who are always ‘on message’, and who don’t seem at all sincere in what they’re saying. Large crowds have turned out to hear Corbyn speak: last week he had to give his speech from the top of a fire engine as an election rally spilled out into the street.

Not everyone though has welcomed Corbyn’s advance. One man who has made repeated warnings about the ‘dangers’ of Jeremy Corbyn is Cyril Waugh-Monger, a ‘Very Important’ newspaper columnist for the NeoCon Daily, a patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and the author of ‘Why the Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea’, as well as ‘The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria’.

Below are Mr Waugh-Monger’s ten commandments to Labour members to not, under any circumstances, vote for Jeremy Corbyn. Remember, we need to take what he has to say very seriously – as, after all, he did reveal to us that Iraq possessed WMDs [Weapons of Mass Destruction] in 2003.

1. Jeremy Corbyn wants to ‘stop the war’.

Jeremy Corbyn opposed the bombing of Yugoslavia. He opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. He was against the invasion of Iraq. He was against bombing Libya and also voted against military action in Syria.

I ask you – is this the sort of man who is fit to be in charge of one of Britain’s leading parties?

If Corbyn – heaven forbid – had been British Prime Minister in 2003 he would not have committed British troops to the invasion of Iraq. Just imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t invaded Iraq! Well, I’ll tell you what would have happened – the Middle East would now be a haven for terrorist groups which would be targeting British tourists on beaches when they go on their summer holidays. The whole Middle East would now be in turmoil. We’d be facing a refugee crisis with people fleeing all the countries that we hadn’t destabilized.

2. Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous leftist.

Just look at the sort of policies this man supports. He wants to re-nationalize the railways which have the highest fares in Europe.

He wants to scrap university tuition fees which consign students to a lifetime of debt. He would like to make housing affordable for ordinary people.

He wants an economy to suit the needs of the majority and not the 1%.

He wants to keep the Sunday trading laws as they are and not introduce 24/7 shopping. He is opposed to illegal wars which kill hundreds of thousands of people and he does not want to bring back fox-hunting. Quite clearly the man is some kind of left-wing nutcase.

3. Jeremy Corbyn has been critical of the US and Israel.

Outrageously, Corbyn has criticized US foreign policy and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. He seems to think that the US and Israel have to abide by international law – and should be held accountable for their actions. The man is quite obviously a communist and as such should be barred not only from standing for Labour leader, but banned from the Labour Party too.

Jeremy Corbyn: Why He’s Got Britain’s Anti-Democratic Democrats Worried

4. Jeremy Corbyn has extremist links.

Not only is Corbyn a dangerous radical himself, he also associates with dangerous extremists. He once spoke at a meeting where one of the other speakers had once shared a platform with a speaker who had once shared a platform with a speaker who had once shared a platform with a speaker who had once praised Joseph Stalin – proving undeniably that Corbyn is a Stalinist.

Also on Twitter, Corbyn once retweeted a person who had once retweeted another person who had once retweeted another person who had retweeted a tweet from someone who I don’t approve of – proving once again Corby’s extremism.

5. Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable.

Jeremy Corbyn wants to do things which the majority of the British public wants, such as re-nationalize the railways and keep Britain out of Middle East wars. This makes him unelectable because politicians are only electable if they want to do things the public doesn’t want.

At the last election, Labour lost heavily to the anti-austerity SNP in Scotland and also lost lots of votes to the anti-austerity Greens. So it’s obvious that to get these votes back, Labour needs a leader who supports austerity, and not someone who opposes it, like Corbyn.

I’m a very wealthy right-wing, pro-austerity warmonger, but believe me, I only want the best for Labour – which is to be a right-wing pro-austerity, pro-war party – barely distinguishable from the Tories.

Having two main parties who have identical views on the main issues is what democracy is all about. If Corbyn wins then Labour would be very different from the Conservatives, which would obviously be very bad for democracy as it would give the electorate a real choice.

6. Jeremy Corbyn wants to take us back to the 1970s.

In the 1970s the gap between the rich and poor was at its lowest in the UK’s history. Living standards for ordinary people were rising all the time and large sections of the economy were in public ownership. The banks did not run the country and the taxation system was steeply progressive.

Corbyn wants to take us back to these times! Think how disastrous that would be for rich people like me who would have to pay much higher rates of tax which would be redistributed to horrible working class-type people and people on middle incomes. The 1% would really suffer and the most talented people – like myself – and my neocon friends, would leave the country. That’s what lies in store for us if Corbyn succeeds!

7. Jeremy Corbyn would leave Britain defenseless and open to invasion.

Corbyn has promised to scrap Trident.

If Trident was scrapped there’s no doubt that the Russians, Iranians, Syrians and Hezbollah would launch a full scale invasion of Britain within 45 minutes.

Britain would be carved up between the ‘Axis of Evil’, with the Russians taking England, the Iranians Scotland and the Syrians, Wales (and Hezbollah in charge of Northern Ireland).

Just imagine, Aberystywyth under the control of the evil dictator Bashar al-Assad. Russian troops patroling the streets of Godalming. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard marching in Sauchiehall Street. A nightmare scenario indeed, but all this would be the reality if Corbyn gets his way. The very future of our country is at stake.

8. Jeremy Corbyn once welcomed an article by John Pilger.

In 2004, Jeremy Corbyn was one of 25 MPs who signed an Early Day Motion which welcomed a Pilger article on Kosovo.

How outrageous! To think, a man is standing for the leadership of one of Britain’s major parties who once welcomed an article by John Pilger!

No one who has ever cited John Pilger with approval – let alone signed a motion supporting him – should be allowed to stand for high public office in Britain. The freedom to hold and express views and opinions in a democracy should only apply to opinions and views that myself and fellow elite neocons approve of! And we most certainly do not approve of John Pilger!

9. Jeremy Corbyn opposes austerity.

Austerity is working brilliantly at the moment.

It’s provided a great excuse for the government to flog off remaining state assets at below their true market value to ‘the right people’ in the City. The welfare payments of lower-class people who have far too many children are being cut. Libraries and local authority services are being closed. Yet, guess what? The bearded one opposes all of this. He says that “austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity.”

He wants to protect public services and libraries from cuts – and instead wants to crackdown on tax evasion and increase taxes on the very wealthy! I ask you – is this the sort of man we want leading Labour – or worse still, the country?

And finally, but most importantly, the tenth commandment:

10. Jeremy Corbyn is very popular.

…And if he succeeds – which seems very likely – it’s game over for me and my little clique of elite warmongers. We won’t get our wars and we’ll have to pay more taxes and it’ll be all perfectly horrible! So, don’t vote for Jeremy Corbyn, because although he’ll be very good news for you – his success will be terrible for us!

Source: Sott.net

That joke isn’t funny anymore: from Tories4Corbyn to a Very British Coup

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corbyn2

One day, someone like the Glasgow Media Group, will do an analysis of this leadership election and how the attitude of the right-wing press has changed towards Jeremy Corbyn. It will be fascinating. 

Stage 1: Laughter

It seems like an age ago when it was all jolly larks and #Tories4Corbyn. Smugly and patronisingly, they laughed into their sleeves, safe in the knowledge that Corbyn even being on the ballot would show that the loony left (guffaw) was very much alive and kicking and the Labour Party at large hadn’t changed. By not having changed, of course, they mean not accepting all the tenets of the disgustingly unequal and brutal society that their chums in the city had created. That self-satisfied superiority complex, which seemingly couldn’t be shifted, had been aided and abetted by the Labour Party in Parliament, filled with New Labourites who did just that – who had “changed” and had accepted the rules of the club.

Stage 2: Confusion

Then came the period of incredulity, as the madness of “Corbynmania” seemed to be sweeping the country. What on earth was going on, they wondered? Hadn’t this stuff – like collective values, solidarity, compassion – been left behind in the 80s where it belonged? Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall they understood: they too played by the rules. The deal was, they would let us keep the fundamentals of the Thatcherite settlement in place as long as they could play with the ball occasionally. The “fun” being had at the Labour Party’s expense became a little less sure footed. #Tories4Corbyn faded and turned into “Shock! Horror! Look what the oiks are up to!” They actually believe this crap? Rent controls? Public ownership? Democracy in our education system? Whatever next? Fake indignation and incredulity ruled, but now with a frown.

Stage 3: Anger

Latterly, the terms of reference have turned around completely. As arrogant bullies do, no public acknowledgement of this volte face was to be allowed. But to anyone who has been paying attention, it’s obvious that things have shifted dramatically as the election campaign has gone on and Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign has gathered real momentum, not just in the Labour heartlands, but in the Tories’ own backyards. The chuckles have been swallowed back and been replaced with anger. What the hell? As the movement around Jeremy Corbyn has become a “thing”, evidenced by the enormous crowds turning up all over the country and the rapturous welcome that Corbynite policies were receiving, things have taken a nasty turn. Quietly at first, but then gathering momentum, the word was put out that “this has to be stopped”. As that lad from Manchester once said:

“That joke isn’t funny anymore. It’s too close to home and it’s too near the bone.”

At the time of writing, this latest phenomenon has morphed into an almost a pathological obsession for many in the right wing press. Whereas previously, the writings on Corbyn positively oozed condescension, now you can smell the fear and a strange lack of confidence. It’s starting to resemble something out of a Very British Coup, but every smear story, every outright lie and every petty, personalised attack on Corbyn, his family, or his army of supporters betrays how petrified they are at the thought that, for the first time in three decades, they might actually face a real opposition to their project – not just to this detail, or that policy, but to their whole individualist, consumer-orientated, callous ideology.

Thanks to Ben Sellers