the time is nigh
I’ve sat-on my impending Labour party leader vote for a couple of weeks now, and the time is almost upon us when I must sh*t or get-off the pot so to speak. Latest polls suggest Jeremy Corbyn – the brand-new poster boy of the left, albeit an MP of over 32 years – is well on his way to win by the proverbial country mile, perhaps by such a margin that there won’t even be a need for a second ballot. And, I myself have championed his cause to anyone with little enough to do, but listen to my impassioned pleas. So why the last-minute reticence?
It is important, that’s why. I either vote as the idealistic left-wing teenager I once was, or I bow to the mature, sensible, financially-prudent and wealthy-ish Southern-based middle-aged guy that I’ve become. Apparently, voting Corbyn ‘in’ is suicidal, puerile, demented and downright plain silly. Why, half the registered voters are Tories in any event and they’ll do for us like we can’t ourselves! But Corbyn’s runaway campaign has tapped into real public concerns over austerity, the welfare state & society, whilst seizing the attention of the next-generation voters. It’s also hard to fault his consistency. In his first election leaflet in 1983, when as a Sheffield student the Miners’ strike was in full-flow all around me, Jeremy was railing against cuts, closure and poverty. He wanted to build council houses and opposed nuclear weapons. He still wants to stop Trident, favours jaw-jaw as opposed to war-war, would actively legislate against uncontrolled financial profligacy (which, lest we forget, actually caused the recent global meltdown) and wants to seek-out an alternative to austerity politics
Furthermore, all the other Labour MPs, with the possible exception of poisoned-chalice supporter Diana Abbott, appear appalled by his possible election. Ah, now that might just do it for me, if I can get it straight in my own mind. So, most of the 232 extremely privileged, well-paid Labour Party MPs, all appear to intensely dislike Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing political stance. And over the last couple of weeks I’ve listened to Tony Blair, Peter Mandleson, Alistair Campbell, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham (although I couldn’t make out which side he was actually arguing for) and Tristram Hunt (son of Baron Hunt of Chesterton) – the vast majority Oxbridge educated – warning me of the global apocalypse awaiting to happen if I dared cast my vote for a North London Polytechnic educated labour candidate. Maybe Harry Perkins’ in ‘A Very British Coup’ read it correctly in that the ‘establishment’ forces of the media, big-business and the state would never allow socialism to prevail but it’s going to be nice putting it to the test…
