An hilarious tweet this morning from Diane Abbott MP when she says “The UK Labour right are being hoisted on their own petard of one person one vote.” Abbott smugly believes that one person, one vote will work in favour of her preferred candidate Jeremy Corbyn and perhaps it will. UNITE has already declared for Corbyn, the GMB may also. If they get the vote out, maybe Corbyn might actually win the Labour leadership.
We need no reminding where Abbott stands politically. No compromise, political purity only, it’s better to have fought and lost than never to have lost at all, no matter that the electorate as a whole has no appetite for a far left Corbyn leadership, elect him nonetheless. And if you are not of the far left, then you must be of the right. So that’s me told then. In Abbott’s eyes, I must be somewhat akin to Nigel Farage or Nick Griffin on the political scale. Of course, I’m not really on the political right, but then I don’t subscribe to the left wing “principles” of someone like Abbott who sent her child to a private school.
Let us be quite clear about one thing: if Corbyn becomes Labour leader, there will be plenty of winners. David Cameron and the Tory Party will be thrilled to bits, as will the Lib Dems, Ukip and the SNP. The right wing media, meaning every newspaper except the Mirror and Guardian, will rejoice. Every one of the 57 varieties of Trotskyism will be celebrating. Len McCluskey and the dead hand of the trade unionism will be in seventh heaven. And Labour will be on its deathbed.
Abbott is the classic ultra leftie, for whom personally it will not matter a jot if Labour loses the next general election, which it is likely to do whoever the new leader is and 100% certain if it is Corbyn. It is all very well putting before the electorate a hard left manifesto, but what if the British public is not ready for it? I am quite sure it isn’t. As I have said before, the 13 years of Labour generally made this country a better place, but it never made the case for going a step further. I am not talking about full scale nationalisation but a role for the modern state, tackling the issues that the money men cannot address. Labour needs to provide some kind of vision of what it will look like in office and once it is elected, explain the next steps. Equality, a meritocracy, social mobility – straightforward issues which should be non-controversial. It should about wanting people to get on in life and not just those at the top.
Corbyn has spent much of his time as an MP rebelling, voting against party policy, forming close alliances with ultra left organisations. He does not inspire loyalty or unity because his career has been about fighting for purity the socialism he believes in. He does not compromise. Even Tony Benn recognised Labour was a broad church of opinion. I reckon Corbyn would struggle to put together a credible cabinet in his own image if he became leader.
I am not interested in the fact that Corbyn would be ridiculed by the media because I do not believe the public are stupid enough to believe every word they read in the Mail, Sun etc but by the same token you cannot fool the public all the time. They would soon see what Corbyn was all about and Michael Foot would look like a Labour winner by comparison.
Abbott puts her so called principles above winning, as if the only way to change the country is to support a pure Labour candidate. It doesn’t matter who wins to her class because she will still have her safe Commons seat and the income that enables her to buy private education, something denied to right wing riff raff like me, not that I would ever, in any circumstances, buy private education for my children because I don’t agree with it.
If Corbyn becomes leader, I doubt that I would want to vote Labour because it would be a wasted vote. I would have to vote tactically or for an independent, or even stand myself.
