“Oh no, he’s off again, slagging off poor Jeremy Corbyn!”
Dead right I am. Haven’t you seen his woeful response to the prime minister’s statements this afternoon?
David Cameron made a statement of two parts, one referring to the current refugee crisis in Europe and the other about the resignation of Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith. Corbyn responded by thanking the PM for advance notice of half of the statement, presumably the refugee crisis, but not the other bit. And this is where things went terribly wrong.
Even his best friends will acknowledge that Corbyn is a crap public speaker. In my experience, many politicians are crap public speakers so it doesn’t always matter but manage to make up for it by the content they employed. Today, Corbyn managed to combine a dreadful speech not just by its content, but rather the lack of content. He didn’t even mention the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith.
Yes, that’s right: the leader of her majesty’s opposition failed to mention the resignation of a senior member of the government following last week’s budget. Duncan Smith, you may recall – because Corbyn didn’t – quit the government because he didn’t agree with the proposed cuts to PIP which aren’t going to happen anymore. He even questioned George Osborne’s oft-parroted cliche “we are all in this together”. It was an astonishing full frontal attack on the chancellor and by extension the prime minister, two politicians who are definitely in this together. And who did Jeremy Corbyn turn into? Tony Blair? Tony Benn? Robin Cook? No, Corbyn turned into Ronny Rosenthal. Faced with the most open of open goals, Corbyn sliced the ball onto the crossbar.
Instead, Corbyn ranted on about George Osborne, calling on him to resign. I’d like to say it was all very entertaining, but it wasn’t. I kept thinking, he’s going to mention IDS in a minute, isn’t he? This was a political earthquake but Corbyn must have slept through it.
As ever, it’s not just Corbyn’s politics I have an issue with and it’s not just his dubious friends: it’s his competence, it’s whether he is up to the job of leader of the opposition, never mind PM. He can’t think on his feet, he isn’t forensic and today he allowed the PM to get off the hook. Quite simply, not good enough, I’m afraid. His scripted response to last week’s budget was, I’m afraid, a one-off and today he returned to his lack of form.
I had little faith in Corbyn before today and now I have none. He may well be a decent man of high principles but a party leader and potential PM he ain’t. Time to go, Jezza, before it’s too late.
