HE WEARS EYEWEAR |
Perhaps not an Obama moment, quite - but close.
The most left-leaning Labour MP (arguably) - a 500-1 shot - has just been elected Leader of the Labour Party - despite being vigorously opposed by most of the media, all leading Labour big beasts (Blair, Brown, etc) and the Tories. And he won by a first-vote landslide of nearly 60% of over 400,000 voters (a huge number) - due to his brilliant grassroots campaigning, evident no-nonsense integrity, and lurch (in labour terms) back to solid socialist ground (leaving NATO, cancelling Trident, etc).
Britain has - perhaps for the first time since the 1980s, if not earlier - a bona fide strong oppositional figure who represents exactly what the Conservatives do not - an alternative to rampant capitalism and industrial-militarism. Anti-austerity, pron-nationalisation of industries and railways, in some European capitals he would be considered normal.
In the UK, where the middle ground has slowly moved rightwards since the 1990s, Jeremy Corbyn's views - decently and passionately and intelligently proclaimed - are seen by many as a direct threat.
Indeed, the Government's Defence Secretary has today declared that Corbyn is a "threat to national security" - hardly a democratic reaction to an election of a legitimate party leader in a decomacracy, who has been a sitting MP for 30 years. What next, drone strikes against the Labour HQ?
Corbyn's views may be a threat to Tory certainties, but we are on dangerous ground when a government considers their own ideology to be the only safe and viable one.
Corbyn represents that unusual oxymoron of a clean break with the past that is also a return to it.
Eyewear is thrilled to be publishing a book about him, soon.
I voted for him. I met him once. I admire and like him. I don't always agree with him (on NATO, on not fighting in Syria against IS).
Now we all wish him well. All of us who want a fairer and more compassionate Britain. Here's many years of JC.
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