Once again, I despair at Jeremy Corbyn. For the Tories, especially at this time of year, Labour’s hapless leader is the gift that keeps on giving. Despite sending messages to muslims celebrating Eid this year and Hindus celebrating Diwali, Corbyn has nothing to say to everyone else. Is he being deliberately stupid or does he just not care?
Perhaps it is the “overwhelming mandate” he has from Labour Party electorate following his election to the Labour leadership that has persuaded him he needn’t bother this year? I see it as yet another dismal blunder by a man who should never be leader of a formerly serious political party.
So, why does it matter? There is a fast growing underclass in this country. It comprises of people from a wide variety of places in society, but they are both young and old. They are often lonely, isolated and and abandoned by politicians who no longer care. To many, they’re simply forgotten.
There are people living without basics, like hot water and heating. Many of these people are sick and disabled, their benefits slashed and burned by a spiteful Tory government, hanging on for food banks to see them get by over Christmas, going to bed early in order to stay warm. David Cameron is to make his usual speech to the nation, rich with politics, disinformation and rhetoric, appealing to the haves. So why is the man who supposedly speaks up for the have nots? At a Stop The War rally? Dressing up in a Santa Claus outfit to appear on a TV show? Tending to his vegetables in Momentum…er…I mean his allotment? I am not asking him to engage in empty words: I want the leader of the Labour Party to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and to remind us all that we have a horribly divided country and that it needn’t be like that.
I do not begrudge anyone a Happy Christmas. I do not question the excess because I over-indulge myself. And there is nothing in the world – absolutely nothing – more important than your family at Christmas. I know that. There are always imaginary empty tables at our Christmas dinner (I know people who have real empty chairs at Christmas dinner and quite right too) and I value every year as if it is my last. There are many people in our country, in this rich and powerful country, who will be eating ‘value’ tins of food this Christmas, in frozen rooms with no hot water. Why are our leaders not saying anything about this? Why now, of all times, is the leader of her majesty’s opposition, silent?
Perhaps we may yet see Corbyn visiting the Sally Army this Christmas, sharing a mince pie with society’s abandoned people, but he needs to speak to all of of us. I am still paying my Labour Party subscriptions and increasingly wondering why.
This is not the “new politics”. It’s bad politics, do nothing politics and the old politics. Speak up, Jeremy, for the million people still using food banks, the millions of children in poverty, the sick, disabled, old and lonely living in misery and desperation. Don’t leave it to the New Year. Lead for once, man. If you can.
