You can say what you want about the Afghan Taliban, but once they decide to do something they don’t hang about. No sooner was it announced that its leader Mullah Omar had died in a Pakistani hospital, they announced his successor was to be his deputy Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. You should be able to recognise him: he’s the one with the beard.
The only slightly troubling aspect to this story is that the news that Omar had died was only revealed in the last few days. Not only that, he died over two years ago. So didn’t the Taliban actually know he was dead until this week, in which case who did they suppose was giving the orders?
It’s not that far from what’s going on in our Labour Party, the main difference being that it’s not the previous leader who died, it’s the organisation itself. The matter of minutes it took the Taliban leadership to pick their new boss suggests that there is slightly less in the way of democracy involved in the process than we are used to over here, but at least the only people involved in the selection process were fully paid up Taliban members and not political opponents who had stumped up a few Afghani (the local currency) in order to participate.
In contrast, Labour’s election contest seems to be going on forever, certainly long enough for me to grow a respectable beard should I wish to obtain a place in Mr Mansour’s cabinet.
Except that now we really do have a candidate for the Labour leadership who does indeed have a beard. Jeremy Corbyn would be the first prime minister for many years to have a beard (I believe that Margaret Thatcher was the last one) and the odds are that whilst he is as likely to be the next British PM as Akhtar Mohammad Mansour – less likely, in my opinion – you really can begin to see how he is setting the fashion agenda, if not the political one.
Beards are back and those of us who are Labour supporters may all wish to grow ZZ Top type beards in 2020 in order to save ourselves from mockery when our bearded non wonder leads the few remaining Labour MPs to the backbenches.
