The Trouble With Corbyn

Let me start off this article by saying this: I like Jeremy Corbyn. He has solid policies, he’s providing a genuine opposition to the Conservative Party (something no Labour leader has done since the wilderness years before Blair) and, best of all, he’s resolutely refused to engage in the kind of childish name-calling and groin-kick politics that dominate the British political landscape. In a world where MPs in the House of Commons behave with less dignity than a class of five-year-olds, and it has become standard practice to accuse your opponents of being everything from Nazis to Islamofascists to Stalinists due to minor policy differences, Corbyn is a mature, dignified man, quietly presenting the public with fact-based arguments and policies that actually stand up to scrutiny. I’m confident that he will win even the sham of a leadership election that the right wing of the Labour party will allow him to have. I even have a little hope that he might manage to win a general election if it doesn’t happen in the next year or two. But there’s something about Corbyn that makes me less than optimistic on that last score. The politeness and maturity that I – and many others – admire is the very thing that puts Corbyn at a disadvantage. The thing is, it’s difficult to sway people with well-thought-out arguments and logic if they’re not already on vaguely the same side as you. When it comes to bringing people over to your side, brash, emotive arguments and easily-quotable soundbites are much more effective – that’s why the Daily Mail is so much more popular than, say, the Telegraph, despite the fact that they have roughly the same political positions. Corbyn is trying to move us as a nation away from the politics of personality, when politics has always been about personality.

I don't say this often, but maybe we should take a leaf out of Nigel Farage’s book. I mean, look at him: he’s a scrotum-faced, politically incoherent failed abortion of a man with a personality somewhere between the Fat Controller and that weird uncle that’s always one drink away from ranting about the Jews. More importantly, he’s terrible at propaganda. He pretends to be a stereotypical “man of the people” while wearing suits that cost more than I make in a month and having the kind of ridiculously posh voice that you don’t hear anymore outside of newsreel footage from World War Two. Despite the fact that his main political gimmick was being photographed in pubs, he never quite got the hang of looking like he belonged in one. The act of drinking seemed completely alien to him – that’s how bad he was at acting. Maybe he was just used to having his drinks fed to him by gilded castrati. And yet, despite the fact that no one with half a brain could possibly be taken in by him – people were. Smart people. People who actually gave a shit about politics were convinced by the Tommy Wiseau of politicians. Why? Simple: he was loud, confident, unconcerned with good manners or gentlemanly conduct, and he presented himself as an alternative. The fact that he was more of the same, only worse, made no difference – he brought in the protest vote, and now he sits in a parliament he never wanted us to be involved with, collecting a nice big salary. What we need is a left-wing (or, in Corbyn’s case, centre-left) Farage – someone who realises that politics is a fight, not a boxing match, and that if you don't hit below the belt every now and then you’ve got precious little chance of winning. What we need is someone who’s loud, unapologetic, and willing to fuck shit up even at the risk of their career or their success at the polls. Corbyn has to be a firebrand, a Fidel, a John MacLean, PT Barnum with a red flag – someone who can bring over the protest vote with ballyhoo, then keep them on-side with substance. At the moment he’s all steak, no sizzle, which is every bit as bad as the opposite extreme.

Having said that, if you use Corbyn’s alleged “unelectability” as a reason not to vote for him, you’re a fucking idiot, and I hope a seagull shits in your hair.